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TEL AVIV NOTES - "Israel and Its Arab Citizens - Taking Stock"
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Editor: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman October 16, 2007
Israel and its Arab Citizens – Taking Stock
Elie Rekhess
Seven years have now passed since the harsh
confrontations between Arab Israelis and the
country’s security forces which came to be known
as the “October 2000 Events”. During the riots
in support of the Palestinian intifada in the
West Bank and Gaza, 13 Arab civilians, 12 of them
citizens of Israel, were killed by Israeli
police. The uprising in the Galilee and Triangle
regions was extremely traumatic for the Israeli
body politic, spawning a State Commission of
Inquiry which analyzed Jewish-Arab relations in
Israel in an unprecedented fashion and prescribed
a gamut of remedies for the abyss which had
opened up between the two communities.
What, if anything, has happened during the last
12 months? One can discern no real change in
government policy towards Arab Israeli
society. To be sure, a number of developments
are noteworthy. For example, for the first time
ever, an Arab was made a full-fledged government
minister, with a regular portfolio. In addition,
numerous meetings and discussions were held,
promises were made, intentions formulated and
declarations were issued: In February 2007, the
Prime Minister’s Office was said to be planning
to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the
establishment of a new Arab city; in March,
proposed legislation was floated which included
Arab communities in a revised map of national
priority areas; in April, the government decided
to build 3,150 new school classrooms in the Arab
sector; in May, the Ministerial Committee for the
non-Jewish sector decided on a 95 million shekel
budget increase for Arab culture, and in that
same month, the Prime Minister declared that “I
won’t cover up the fact that in Israel, there is
discrimination against Arabs;” in July, the
government established an authority to address
the needs of the Negev Bedouin communities.
Nonetheless, little was done in the way of
implementation. The gaps between Jewish and Arab
societies remain yawning, for which the
government is partially responsible (Arab society
is not wholly without blame either). The bottom
line, in any event, is that the conclusions and
recommendations of the 2003 Or Commission remain conspicuously unimplemented.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel are not
static. They are being buffeted by powerful
forces, some emanating from internal developments
within Israeli society, and some from external
ones related to the Israeli-Palestinian
arena. Generally speaking, in the seven years
since October 2000, tension between Jews and
Arabs has risen steadily. Mutual alienation,
distancing from one, feelings of fear,
apprehension and lack of trust have deepened, a
fact expressed in numerous public opinion
polls. For example, the “Israel Democracy Index
Survey, 2007”, conducted by the Israeli Institute
for Democracy, shows that the public believes
that the worst fissure in Israeli society is that
between Jews and Arabs. 54% of the Arabs polled
felt that it was “impossible to trust the Jewish
majority.” Against the background of the
Palestinian intifada and the “October events”, a
substantial proportion of the Jewish public views
the Arabs as a hostile minority and “fifth column” linked to the enemy.
The Lebanon War, and the identification of a
portion of the Arab public with Hizballah
contributed to this deepening mutual lack of
trust (Smooha, Coexistence Index, 2006): 68% of
Jews fear that Arab Israelis would initiate an
intifada; 64 % of Jews believe that Arabs
endanger the security of the state because of
their high birth rates; 73% of Jews believe that
the majority of the Arabs will be more loyal to a
Palestinian state than to the State of Israel.
The worsening environment of Arab-Jewish
relations also found expression in polarizing
stereotypes, which were increasingly racist in
character. Hence, 51% of the Arabs polled by the
2007 Democracy Index believed that Jews were
racist. Indeed, anti-Arab racist expressions
emanating from the Jewish sector were widespread,
beginning with soccer playing fields and
stadiums, where they were directed at Arab
players and fans, and continuing with the Yad
Le’Achim organization’s call not to rent
apartments to Arabs. Other polling data
confirmed the picture: 75% of Jews oppose living
in the same apartment buildings as Arabs (Racism
Index Survey, 2006); moreover, 55% of Jews
surmise that Arabs do not have the ability to
reach the same level of cultural development as
the Jews (Democracy Index Survey, 2007), and 37%
of them view Arab culture as inferior (Racism Index Survey, 2006).
These positions are translated into a growing
tendency to support what are perceived as
“quick-fix” solutions, e.g: transfer – 50%
(Racism Index Survey, 2006); nullifying Arab
Israeli citizens’ right to vote – 42% (Racism
Index Survey, 2006); and supporting the notion
that the government should encourage Arab
emigration – 55% (Democracy Index Survey, 2007).
These worrisome positions were not developing in
a vacuum. The Lebanon War, as mentioned above,
played its part. An especially important factor
contributing to the widening of the fissure
during the last year was the publication of the
series of documents entitled “The Future Vision
of the Palestinians in Israel.” These documents
constitute a watershed in the history of
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. They are
foundational in nature, rejecting the paradigm of
Jewish-Arab relations which the State formulated
in 1948. To be sure, significant portions of the
“Vision” documents, which call for the abolishing
of discrimination and the establishment of
genuine equality in Israel are acceptable to a
large portion of the Jewish public. However,
most disturbing to Jewish ears were the parts
referring to the national question, which
constitute a wholesale adoption of the
Palestinian narrative that rejects the legitimacy
of the Zionist movement, and the Jewish character
of the state of Israeli, i.e., its
self-definition as “Jewish and democratic.” The
“Vision” documents tendered various alternative
models for the State: consociational democracy, a
bi-national state, or a democratic bilingual
state. With the first wave of reactions having
now passed, there is a need to closely study
these documents. There is a vital need to
formulate a response to the challenge which has
been posed, perhaps in the form of a specifically Israeli Jewish reply.
Concurrently, in light of these developments, it
should be clear that ongoing governmental neglect
of the Arab sector’s socio-economic needs only
deepens feelings of frustration and discontent,
perhaps even preparing the ground for future outbursts of violence.
TEL AVIV NOTES is published with the support of the V. Sorell Foundation
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