lsrael's Arabs: praying for change
As well as claiming the lives of over 1,000 Palestinian civilians, the war in Gaza has exposed deep fissures within Israeli society too. Adam LeBor reports on how the bloodshed has further radicalised IsraeI’s Arabs (currently around 20 per cent of the country’s population). But the last thing they want is to become part of a Palestinian state, he says; instead, many of their leaders are calling for Israel to cease being a Jewish state, and become a “state for all citizens”—with a new name, anthem and flag.
Arab Israelis, however, are just one of many “tribes” causing problems in the increasingly divided and dysfunctional state of Israel, writes John Lloyd. He hears from the country’s leading thinkers about how the threats from within Israel pose a greater threat to its existence than those from outside. Bernard Avishai also picks up on this theme, arguing that Israelis and Palestinians are more at war with themselves than each other. If President Obama is to make any difference in the middle east, Avishai argues, he must understand and exploit the divisions between the hardline and more moderate camps on both sides, and force them to work together. Israel’s leaders, he adds, must be forced into a “panic” that American support is no longer unconditional, but contingent on certain behaviour, like reigning in West Bank settlers.
Meanwhile, Tony Lerman, former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, heralds the long-awaited birth of J Street—a new, liberal American Jewish lobby. In particular, he notes J Street’s strong criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza as both a bold and a risky move. In electing Obama, though, the American public—Jewish or otherwise—have suggested their growing fatigue with Israel’s wars. And, Lerman notes, it’s about time they had a lobby to support them.
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I work for the American Bible Society and we’re working to get aid into Gaza. http://Gaza.AmericanBIble.org/ We’re hoping to get medical supplies and food through the borders. My heart is with the innocent affected by this conflict.
Most of the deaths in Gaza were fighters, Mary, not civilians – in fact 75 percent were males between the ages of 15 and 40, whereas this age accounts for just 25 percent of the general population.
The Arab population has undoubtedly been radicalised,but so has the Muslim population of Europe. The bottom line is, as Adam Lebor says, for all their posturing (the ’state of all its citizens’ is a euphemism, let’s be frank, for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state) Arabs would never move to a Palestinian state. Lebor also makes the common mistake of lumping all Arabs together as one monolith, whereas there are Christians, Druze, clans loyal to Israel who serve in the army, clans disloyal, Bedouins, Circassians, etc. It’s also worth pointing out that Arabs vote for Zionist parties too. The Likud has at least one Arab MK.
Yes, John Lloyd, it often seems that Israel is about to implode but it was ever thus. What do you expect when Jews from 80 countries are assembled in a tiny country? Many of the faultlines are magnified by Israel’s noisy democracy, and when push comes to shove and the country goes to war as in Gaza, a remarkable solidarity resurges. Bernard Avishai manages to neglect to mention the 50 percent of Jews in Israel expelled from Arab countries, who vote solidly rightwing and whose grievances are only now being addressed. But to read Avishai’ article you would have thought they were invisible.
As for Tony Lerman, he was a loose cannon when he worked at JPR and nothing much has changed. Jstreet has always been a fringe lobby group and has made a serious error of judgement not to support the Gaza war in the face of massive public backing in Israel. By so doing it has only marginalised itself further.
Israelis are where S.Africans were in the Eighties. There is a window for them to deal from a position of strength before the situation starts to go out of control – fifteen years before it becomes obvious and twenty-five before Israel slips into the sea, unless the basis of Israel’s existence changes from force plus US backing to a political and social reconciliation with the Palestinians.
For a country to be a “state of all its citizens” is the sine qua non of democracy. Without that particular quality there is no democracy. So it is odd indeed for the author to dismiss the very essence of every established notion of democracy as “unrealistic and counterproductive.” But this is Israel, of course, the sine qua non of exceptionalism, to international laws, treaties, and even its own so-called values – its peculiar democracy is even an exception to democracy. Israel, the ultimate in restricted country clubs, Jews only this time, please. The Palestinians groomed the grass, cleaned the pools, and cleared the tables. Now, not even that. They’ve disappointed their overlords and have been replaced by Filipinos. An entire people suddenly redundant in their own land. Israeli-Palestinians have far fewer rights than LeBor allows. The ethnic cleansing continues, they are harassed in Jewish areas and in their own, continually referred to as the “demographic threat” and treated as such, their representatives in the Knesset, in open session, are regularly threatened with death by their Jewish counterparts. All this, with its ominous overtones, is the inevitable path of a state founded on ethnic nationalism. No state based on such has ever escaped the cruelty of its own logic without first abandoning those first premises. Ultimately, there is only one realistic path for Israel and that is to – finally – become a “state of all its citizens.” Then, and only then, will it become a democracy worthy of the name.
Grif
Where is your evidence that Israeli Arabs are being ‘ethnically cleansed’, threatened with death and harassment? Last time I looked, 81 percent of Israeli Arabs said that they wanted their children to stay in Israel.They must be masochists.
It is odd that you have a problem with ‘ethnic nationalism’ for the Jewish people, but probably have no such qualms when it comes to England being the nation state of the English, or Japan for the Japanese.
I’m sure that you wouldn’t for a moment question Arab ethnic nationalism. The problem there is that 22 Arab states are excluding everyone but Arab Muslims. I should remind you that 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries. Now that’s real ethnic cleansing.
I agree with Parig that Israel probably has a window of opportunity; but you can bet on a very wide range of contingencies nowadays, and I find my self nervously wondring when a set of odds on the date of the collapse of Israel will appear on my screen.
Davka,
Try reading the Israeli press for a start, then peruse the Israeli human rights groups web sites, as well as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN. In both the Galilee and the Negev Israeli-Arabs are being forced off their land in a process Israel refers to as “Judaisation.” In Jerusalem the same is occurring. For Pete’s sake, it is regularly reported on in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, and Ynet. As for the rest of Israel, it still remains true that no Palestinian community in Israel has been allowed to expand beyond its 1949 boundaries, despite the nearly 10 fold increase in the Arab-Israeli population since that time. Nor has any new Arab-Israeli community been allowed since 1949. This forces inbuilding and overcrowding in Palestinian areas, and as building permits are rarely ever given to Palestinians it also means living with the knowledge that your home may be destroyed at any moment – literally. In addition, hundreds of Palestinian villages are officially “unrecognized” by Israel, no matter that many predate the founding of the state. For those villages this means no water, no sewage, no electricity, no garbage pickup, and it means living under the constant threat of demolition. All this and more Israel does to make Palestinian lives as miserable as possible, in an effort to force them out of their own country. The great Israeli fetish is the “demographic threat” posed by Palestinian-Israelis. Expulsion or “transfer” as they like to call ethnic cleansing is regularly discussed as a solution.
You second point is entirely specious. England is composed of Jews, Christians (of all stripes), Muslims, Hindus and God knows what else. It is not a nation where one ethnicity or one religion reigns supreme. Note that Israel is never described as a nation of and for all Israelis. No it is a nation for Jews, which is only a segment of all Israelis. Great Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, etc., are true democracies with full and equal citizenship for all, i.e. “states of all their citizens.” Israel shudders at the very phrase.
I question all ethnic and religious nationalisms, but I would suggest you do your homework. There are not 22 Arab states excluding all but Arab Muslims. This is an absurd and patently false claim. Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, just for a start, all contain non-Arab, non-Muslim populations, and have for centuries. No more accurate is your claim of 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries. A few Arab countries did indeed expel their Jews, but the large majority of Arab-Jews who migrated to Israel did so at the behest of Israel and for the benefits promised them by Israel. Israel wanted Jews in Israel, as many as possible, and would do (and did, in Iraq for example) just about anything to get them there.
Do your homework, read something beside the latest AJC or AIPAC bulletin. There are plenty of fine Israeli historians doing fine work deconstructing the Israeli national mythology. In fact here is a link to a Haaretz article that speaks directly to the problem: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060061.html
I would be very sceptical of the claims of HRW, Amnesty International,the UN etc. They are politically- motivated, biased organisations who have no credibility. Would you go to Greenpeace for a neutral account of global warming?
As for the poor, downtrodden Israeli Arabs, it’s obvious that you have never been to Israel and seen the opulent villas in many an Arab town. This story certainly gives the lie that Arab towns have been prohibited from expanding:
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3660380,00.html
As for inferior municipal services in the Arab sector, while the average percentage of residents in the Jewish sector who pay their property taxes per town approximates 80%, in the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm, for example, 72.9% do not pay property taxes. Even owners of the many large, luxury homes proliferating in Arab towns may pay negligible property taxes. Arab municipalities themselves fail to collect taxes and provide services for their residents. You can’t entirely blame Israel for that.
How can you claim that the Arabs in Israel are being ethically cleansed when their numbers have gone up from 160,000 to a million? And if things were so bad, why aren’t they leaving? A survey of residents of Umm el-Fahm published in the Israeli Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab in the summer of 2000 asked whether they would like to include their city in a potential Palestinian state.The question elicited resounding opposition from 83% of respondents. Among those opposed, 54% cited as explanation for their position the desire to continue living under democratic rule, and the fact that they enjoy a good standard of living.
As for the ethnic cleansing of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries, my family has first-hand experience of being hounded out from an Arab country by violence and state-sanctioned persecution which you are in no position to deny. Educate yourself at http://www.justiceforjews.com and http://www.jewishrefugees.blogspot.com.
And don’t stop there. Consider the plight of other minorities such as the Kurds, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Yazidis in Iraq, the Berbers in N Africa and the Copts in Egypt, all of whom have been seriously depleted because they do not fit into the Arab-Muslim mould.
If you question all ethnic and religious nationalisms then you should call for the dismantling of all states, starting with Britain and all the artifical Arab, Asian and African states created by European colonialism.
You misunderstand the nature of the Jews. They are a people, not just a religion in the sense that Christians are, they are also an ethnicity with a particular history. As such they have every right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
land. I would be very sceptical of the claims of HRW, Amnesty International,the UN etc. They are politically- motivated, biased organisations who have no credibility. Would you go to Greenpeace for a neutral account of global warming?
As for the poor, downtrodden Israeli Arabs, it’s obvious that you have never been to Israel and seen the opulent villas in many an Arab town. This story certainly gives the lie that Arab towns have been prohibited from expanding:
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3660380,00.html
As for inferior municipal services in the Arab sector, while the average percentage of residents in the Jewish sector who pay their property taxes per town approximates 80%, in the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm, for example, 72.9% do not pay property taxes. Even owners of the many large, luxury homes proliferating in Arab towns may pay negligible property taxes. Arab municipalities themselves fail to collect taxes and provide services for their residents. You can’t entirely blame Israel for that.
How can you claim that the Arabs in Israel are being ethnically cleansed when their numbers have gone up from 160,000 to a million? And if things were so bad, why aren’t they leaving? A survey of residents of Umm el-Fahm published in the Israeli Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab in the summer of 2000 asked whether they would like to include their city in a potential Palestinian state.The question elicited resounding opposition from 83% of respondents. Among those opposed, 54% cited as explanation for their position the desire to continue living under democratic rule, and the fact that they enjoy a good standard of living.
As for the ethnic cleansing of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries, my family has first-hand experience of being hounded out from an Arab country by violence and state-sanctioned persecution which you are in no position to deny. Educate yourself at http://www.justiceforjews.com and http://www.jewishrefugees.blogspot.com.
And don’t stop there. Consider the plight of other minorities such as the Kurds, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Yazidis in Iraq, the Berbers in N Africa and the Copts in Egypt, all of whom have been seriously depleted because they do not fit into the Arab-Muslim mould.
If you question all ethnic and religious nationalisms then you should call for the dismantling of all states, starting with Britain and all the artificial Arab, Asian and African states created by European colonialism.
You misunderstand the nature of the Jews. They are a people, not just a religion in the sense that Christians are, they are also an ethnicity with a particular history. As such they have every right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Davka,
To claim the groups mentioned have “no credibility” is to display your own ignorance and bigotry. And as for your strange comment on Greenpeace – if by now you still doubt the veracity of global warming then it is small wonder you are a still a zionist.
You clearly also have trouble reading, not only what I wrote, but what you link. I spoke of “unrecognized villages” without services, not villas in other Arab towns, nor does the presence of a nice house owned by an Arab contradict what I said. The link you supplied speaks of yet another initiative to build more Arab housing. One of many such announcements made over the years, none of which have come to fruition. If this one does then it will the first such housing built in 50 years.
Many Arab areas that are recognized also have terrible services – travel to East Jerusalem and look around. And it has nothing to do with whether they pay their taxes or not. They never got the services in the first place, yet Israel demands taxes to pay for nonexistent services, then jokers like you turn around and claim, “Well, if they’d only pay taxes!” What a cruel joke.
Why should Arabs want to leave or want to be driven into Palestine? It’s their homeland! Blacks in South Africa did not want to be driven out of South Africa either. To you I suppose that is proof that life was just fine with them and they weren’t being ethnically cleansed into bantustans and townships. And yes their numbers have increased and that is why Israel harasses them at every turn. Israel can’t load them onto trains en masse and ship them out (that ploy went out with you know who) so they utilize a Kafkaesque web of bizarre laws that are applied to Arabs only concerning housing, land use and condemnation, permits, etc, to drive them into cantons and hopefully out of the country altogether. Look at what Israel is doing to the Bedouins in the Negev and Galilee.
So now you are claiming all 850,000 are relations? I said there were expulsions but not 850,000 of them. The fact remains that the majority did not leave at the point of a gun. A fact Israel cannot claim for its brutal cleansing in 48 and 67.
First you claim there are no non-Arab non-Muslim populations in 22 Arab countries, now you admit they exist but are beleaguered. Yet, the first group you mention, the Kurds of Iraq, are are at present living better than the Arabs of Iraq.
The Assyrians, Mandaeans and Yazidis are not being attacked by the government. There happens to be a war going on there. Have you’ve noticed? The Copts of Egypt are being attacked by extremist Islamic groups that want to overthrow the gov’t and install sharia. The Berbers of North Africa by all accounts are doing pretty well. But frankly even if they weren’t, Israel’s shameful behavior still stands and is not excused by others equally poor behavior.
Your ignorance of the meaning of “ethnic and religious nationalism” is appalling. Britain is no way or manner an ethnically or religiously nationalistic state. It is the exact opposite, as are all Western democracies (which Israel claims to be, but is not).
Your last point is the great absurdity that launched the deaths of many thousands. I could convert to Judaism tomorrow and suddenly become one of the “people”?! Then I could join the rest of my tribe in my homeland of Israel, of which I would have no connection to whatsoever, and lord it over the Palestinians who have lived there since time immemorial? Yes, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel – a very small continuous presence, one dwarfed by the continuous non-Jewish population over the same time. By what astonishing feat of arrogance does one claim a land after a nearly complete absence and yes, abandonment, of the land for 2,000 years? The very notion is insane.
As for Jews being a people and a religion, this is another convenience. Do you do transfer bloodlines in the process of conversion? Aside from common religious rites, there is very little in common culture between various groups of Jews. No more than Italian Catholics have in common with Irish Catholics, which is damn little. Aside from rites, eastern European Jews share little in common culture with western European Jews – not food, not language, not dress. In fact the only thing they did share was the bigotry of the Nazis and the cattle cars, neither of which make a common culture. Nor do either of these groups have anything in common with the Jews of India, Africa, or Iran. The Jews of the USA are now largely those of Eastern Europe. When they first began arriving the majority of Jews in the US were German Jews, who were appalled by this “rabble” as they were referred to at the time. They made it clear that German Jews had no connection at all with them. In fact, the bigotry of one Jewish group against another is well established in Israel. Ironically, it is in the US where Jews have more freedom than in Israel. American Jews are far more free to express their religion and what differing culture they wish in any form they wish than are the Jews of Israel. That is because ethic and religious nationalism has been rejected and the USA is state of all its citizens, which Israel finds an abhorrent notion, which is why it richly deserves all the criticism it receives.
I see that you know everything there is to know about minority rights in the Middle East, Grif, as well as Jewish identity and Israel. Almost everything you write is wrong so I won’t bother to contradict you. All I can say is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I would like to say only this: Grif, you are fantastic!
Davka,
Since you fit the bill so well I leave you with this quote from the Haaretz article linked above in my second post.
[Ghassan, thanks for the support. I appreciate it]
“A pioneering research study dealing with Israeli Jews’ memory of the conflict with the Arabs, from its inception to the present, came into the world together with the war in Gaza. The sweeping support for Operation Cast Lead confirmed the main diagnosis that arises from the study, conducted by Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world’s leading political psychologists, and Rafi Nets-Zehngut, a doctoral student: Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering. The fighting in Gaza dashed the little hope Bar-Tal had left – that this public would exchange the drums of war for the cooing of doves.
“Most of the nation retains a simplistic collective memory of the conflict, a black-and-white memory that portrays us in a very positive light and the Arabs in a very negative one,” says the professor from Tel Aviv University.”
– “Is an Israeli Jewish sense of victimization perpetuating the conflict with Palestinians?” Haaretz,http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060061.html
Grif
It is interesting that you accept Palestinian self defention as self explanatory. But Jewish self definition is obviously wrong.