Once again the left will rummage through the budgets of the local
authorities and talk about the sense of deprivation that is causing
unrest in Acre. And once again the right will present statistics about
the involvement of Israeli Arabs in terror attacks and warn against the
nationalist feelings that cause them to rebel. The left will demand that
money be poured on the flames in Acre, before the fire spreads to other
mixed cities. The right will demand that the instigators from Acre
receive harsher treatment, as an example to the residents of Jaffa. As
always, both camps are making their lives too easy.
{josquote}But no money in the world will turn an Arab/Palestinian public, be it Muslim, Christian or secular, into an organic part of a country that
defines itself, based on the nationality of the majority, as a Jewish
state.{/josquote}
You don’t have to be a professor of sociology to understand that the
chronic discrimination against Israel’s Arab citizens when it comes to
services, infrastructure, education and employment does not contribute
to reconciliation between them and the Jewish majority. But the first
intifada, which erupted in the territories at the end of 1987, exposed
the limitations of the carrot and stick method. Israel learned the hard
way that neither the dramatic decline in infant mortality nor the
considerable improvement in living standards, compared to the situation
that prevailed there during the period of Jordanian rule, turned the
Palestinians into lovers of Zion.
The substantial increase in support for Hamas in East Jerusalem is a
testament to the limited, if not negligible, influence of freedom of
movement and other advantages, such as National Insurance Institute
allowances, that the residents of East Jerusalem enjoy. The systematic
assassination of Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the mass
arrests of the movement’s activists and the closing of its charitable
institutions have increased its attraction, primarily among the younger
generation. The case of Jerusalem shows, however, that land annexation
and formal control over a population – including a tough policy
incorporating the separation fence, administrative detention and
immigration restrictions – are not a recipe for security, not to mention
coexistence. After all, there have been 104 detainees held on suspicion
of terror involvement up to the end of September, compared to 37 in all
of 2007.
The battle cries of Effi Eitam and his friends on the extreme right, in
which they are railing against Israeli Arabs in the wake of the riots in
Acre, will not calm the atmosphere in the city; they will only turn
those who foment strife into the heroes of the hour. Nor will the left’s
cries of woe regarding the shortchanging of the Arab minority prevent
the next outburst, although a more just division of national resources
would not hurt relations between the majority and the minority. A fairer
attitude to master plans for construction in the Arab communities could
somewhat alleviate the alienation between the Israeli establishment and
the younger generation, which is the main victim of the shortage of land
for building. But no money in the world will turn an Arab/Palestinian
public, be it Muslim, Christian or secular, into an organic part of a
country that defines itself, based on the nationality of the majority,
as a Jewish state.
Excluding Israel’s Arab citizens from the country’s identity and
national symbols – and turning them into a “demographic problem” – spurs
them to search for their identity in other places. Their national
affiliation, along with the blurring of the Green Line, creeping
annexation and the close social and family ties to the Palestinians
living on the other side of the border, have turned all the territory
between the Acre coast and the banks of the Jordan River into a “mixed”
country. As far as Israel’s Arab citizens are concerned, the Greater
Land of Israel/Palestine has already become a binational and
semi-democratic entity. A survey conducted in 1976 found that 45 percent
of Israeli Arabs included a Palestinian component in their
self-definition. But between 1985 and 1999, that percentage reached
almost two-thirds of those polled. Many reject the label “Israeli Arabs”
and demand to be called Palestinians.
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the disappointment with the Oslo
Accords and the second intifada just exacerbated this tension. They
intensified the identification of Israeli Arabs with the residents of
the territories and strengthened chauvinistic trends, mainly among the
younger generation. The members of the Or Commission investigating the
events of October 2000 noted this does not mean that the entire Arab
population supports all the Palestinian means of struggle, and said the
vast majority consistently favors the peace process. But at the same
time, the majority identifies completely with the desire to establish a
Palestinian state and sees Israeli policy as the main obstacle to its
realization.
The important and neglected Or Commission report cited the painful
statement by MK Abdelaziz Zoubi (Labor-Mapam Alignment): “My country is
in a state of war with my people.” As long as their country is in a
state of war with their people, one ember on Yom Kippur is enough to
start a conflagration. No NII allowance or administrative detention will
extinguish it.
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