>>>> part 2:

 Report: Israeli Palestinians
and the Middle East Peace Process

Other activities include summer camps for pre-college youths.

One called "Continuation Without Borders" brings together some 200 eleven to fifteen year old boys and girls from Israel and the West Bank. Its objective is develop Palestinian consciousness through exchanging visits among relatives in neighboring countries, visiting refugee camps, sites of destroyed villages, and the study of Palestinian history. Groups within the summer camps are organized with names of refugee camps and destroyed villages. One summer camp is devoted to teaching some 400 kindergarten and elementary students computer skills - each camper works for several hours a day on a computer. A university based camp for pre-college youth, twelve to sixteen years old, is devoted to science and technology. For ten days fifty of them attend courses at Haifa University and the Haifa Technical University (Technion) in preparation for college in a kind of Outward Bound program.
Jaffar is also active in Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Palestinian Equality in Israel, one of the several organizations devoted to attaining equal rights for the minority. Mossawa, affiliated with Shatil founded by the New Israel Fund, attempts to end discriminatory legislation, to amend unfair existing legislation, and to introduce new laws furthering equality. It prepares legal briefs and draft legislation for distribution among Knesset members. Legislative work includes efforts to repeal land laws unfavorable to Arab villages; Mossawa also seeks to include Arab villages in government designated priority regions that receive extra budgetary allocations for development. During the Rabin era some Arab villages were included in these priority areas receiving additional funds for education and housing but this assistance has been cut since Netanyahu became prime minister.
Jaffar observes that all too often budget allocations for education or social welfare are tied to political manipulations and determined by Israeli party politics. Some Zionist parties attempt to influence Arab voters through grants to communities and appointment of Arabs to low level official offices. Mafdal, the National Religious Party, which has frequently controlled the Ministry of Education often received Arab votes because the party oversaw appointment of teachers, principals and school inspectors. In the 1996 election Shas, the party of orthodox Sephardim, received nearly enough Arab votes for one Knesset seat because its control of the Ministry of Interior placed it in a position to influence housing allocations and to overlook illegal construction.
Jaffar observes that Palestinian frustration in dealing with the Israeli authorities takes diverse forms. Some react with strengthened self confidence and increased political and/or social activism; others withdraw totally from politics and community politics, seeking to advance their own personal interests. One indication of this frustration is the increasing emigration of the country's Christian Arabs. So many young Christian Arab men have left Haifa, he asserts, that over a third of the city's Christian women under the age of 35 have been unable to find husbands.

Arab Education and Culture

One of the key NGOs in Palestinian efforts to raise standards and to achieve equal status with the Jewish community is the Follow Up Committee on Arab Education headed by Dr. Hala Hazzan. The Committee has compiled data on the status of Arab education and devised a program to improve it
Arab and Jewish education in Israel is segregated into separate systems according to the 1953 state education law that emphasizes "the values of Jewish culture ...love of the homeland and loyalty to the state and the Jewish people ...striving for a society built on freedom, equality, tolerance, mutual assistance and love of mankind."
In line with these objectives the current Likud government's guidelines state that: "Education will be grounded in the eternal values of the Jewish tradition, Zionist and Jewish consciousness and universal values...the Bible, the Hebrew language, and history are the foundation stones of our national identity..." There is no mention of the interests of the Arab community in these pronouncements. Although the education law states that in non-Jewish educational institutions curriculum will be adapted to special conditions, no Arab body is involved in decision making for Arab school curriculum. Arab students spend more time studying the Torah than Christian, Muslim, or Druse religious texts; they are examined on Judaism in matriculation exams. Zionist literature is assigned reading, not Arab Palestinian classics. Study of Hebrew is compulsory in Arab elementary schools although Jewish students are not required to study Arabic. Attempts to achieve a more equitable balance reflecting the modern history and culture of the Arab people have been rejected when presented to the Knesset. The recommendations of both government and non-government commissions established to examine the problems of Arab education have been largely ignored.
There is great disparity in the resources allocated to the Arab and Jewish education systems. Arab schools have far fewer facilities, higher drop-out rates, more crowded class rooms, and little access to special services and quality programs. In 1996 when the education ministry established an "Educational Values Bureau" to promote Zionist and religious values, only 1 percent of the Bureau's budget was allocated to Arab schools.
Overcrowded Arab schools are the norm; inferior buildings and insufficient facilities are common. There is a shortage of classrooms and rooms for counselors and nurses, a lack of gymnasiums, libraries, and laboratories. There are no government funded pre-schools in Arab towns and villages; where they exist they are in private homes.
One consequence of these disparities is that in 1996 only 23 percent of Arab students passed the Bagrut examination required for entrance to university, compared to 45 percent of Jewish students. Among Beduin students from the Negev only 5.9 percent succeeded. The lower level of preparation for higher education results in the relatively small percent of Arab students in Israeli universities (5.3 percent Arab; 94.7 percent Jewish in 1992-93).
Closely related to problems resulting from disparities in Arab and Jewish education are issues related to differences between Arab and Jewish culture largely derived from Israel's identity as a Jewish state. While the vast majority of Jews accept Israel's Zionist foundation, to most Arabs Zionism is an alien if not a hostile ideology. Although Palestinian Arabs are the country's indigenous population, Zionist ideology imported from Europe has become hegemonic and dominates. The institutions, official holidays, symbols, and heroes are Zionist-Jewish, to the almost total exclusion of Arab-Palestinian cultural symbols and icons.
Of what significance to me is the blue and white flag of Israel, asks Hala Hazzan's sister, Nabila Espanioli. The flag, a combination of Jewish religious and Zionist nationalist symbols was the banner of the First Zionist Congress in 1898. It was inspired by the Jewish prayer shawl and the symbolic shield of David. The state emblem, inspired by Jewish religious history, is a candelabra of the ancient Jewish temple. All public institutions, including Arab schools and local councils must raise the flag and imprint the symbol on official documents. Arab citizens have no recognized official national symbols, but are required to pay homage to those of the state.
Official state holidays include all Jewish religious holy days such as Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year), Yom Kippur (day of atonement) and Passover. The only other official state holiday is Israel's Independence Day. Unofficial celebrations commemorate events such as the "reunification" of Jerusalem. However Muslims, Christians and Druse may chose the day of rest in their work place. No provision is made for other than Jewish religious holidays, thus often classes are held and exams given on days that might include Christmas, Easter, or Ramadan.
Although Arabic is one of Israel's two official languages (English is widely used and has become accepted as the country's second language) Arabic is marginalized. Laws are enacted, regulations passed, and court decisions given only in Hebrew, usually without Arabic translation. While the courts have upheld the use of Arabic in the name of free speech, they have not ruled on its status as one of the official languages. The 1952 Citizenship Law requires a candidate for Israeli citizenship to have "some knowledge of Hebrew," but no recognition is given to Arabic. The Israeli Bar Association requires lawyers to have knowledge of Hebrew, but it does not recognize Arabic. Most road signs in Israel are posted in Hebrew and English; only in heavily populated Arab regions do they include Arabic. A case to remedy this oversight is now pending before the Supreme Court.
Although one in five Israeli citizens is Arab, few Jewish citizens select study of Arabic as a second language. A recent survey of 386 Jewish Israelis found that the group overwhelmingly perceived the Arabic language as "unimportant and not valuable." Only two of those surveyed expressed a desire to learn Arabic, and then as a third rather than a second language.
Little attention is given to Arab culture and history on Israeli radio and TV, thus most children, Arab and Jewish, fail to absorb through the media a positive image of the minority's role in developing the country's identity. All these factors - the lack of attention to Arab culture and history in the education system, the secondary role of Arabic as an official language, and the near omission of positive aspects of minority life in the media - create a negative impression among Jewish youth and ambivalence or confusion about their identity among young Arabs.

Training Palestinian Social Scientists

The Galilee Center for Social Research headed by Dr. Khalil Rinawi was established in 1988 to apply critical research and scholarship in surveys of issues affecting Israel's Arab minority. A principal objective is to train a cadre, even a community of Israeli Arab scholars to confront these issues with scientific objectivity and to seek ways of coping with the minority's problems. All too often, Dr. Rinawi maintains, the community has depended on research conducted by Jewish scholars or Palestinians trained by them. The minority would be better served if these issues were perceived through Arab eyes rather than through the lenses of Israeli (i.e. Jewish) professors. Dr. Rinawi believes that studies of the minority by Arabs tutored by Jewish professors often reflects "paternalism and cultural hegemony." Among the country's Jewish academicians only Professors Ilan Pappe and Shlomo Sharansky are free from cultural bias and paternalism, Rinawi asserts. Nevertheless the Galilee Center has undertaken several joint projects with the Haifa and Hebrew Universities. Dr. Rinawi even teaches a course at Bar Ilan, the university run by orthodox Jews.
The Center's projects include applied research on education in collaboration with the Ministry of Education; together they have attempted to develop a new curriculum for Israel's Arab schools. One phase of the project was to produce a history of the Arab-Jewish conflict for Arab schools. After much discussion and many arguments, a compromise was reached to present both Arab and Jewish views of the conflict in a single textbook. Another project was to develop a three volume series dealing with the state and citizenship in the Middle East emphasizing the status of democracy in Palestine and Israel. To-date these projects have developed in joint committees but have yet to be approved by ministry officials.
Rinawi observes that since Oslo officials in the Ministry of Education have a new attitude. During the previous forty five years mention of Palestine or Arab nationalism was banned. However since 1992-3 the government seems to have recognized the existence of the Palestinians and their history as valid subjects for discussion in the country's Arab school system.
An unrealized goal of the Center is to establish an Arab university in Israel, a project suggested for years but that the government has until now rejected. A step in this direction is establishment of a two year institution where Dr. Rinawi is dean, Mar Elias College in the town of Iblin. When asked, why not a bi-national university rather than an Arab one, Rinawi stated that before such an approach his community must establish its own credibility as a point of departure toward bi-nationalism. In the present situation the Arab community is much weaker and unprepared to achieve a symmetrical relationship with the Jewish majority. Until this asymmetry is remedied, bi-nationalism would be inappropriate.
Dr. Rinawi maintains that the peace process has marginalized Israeli Arabs and to-date has been irrelevant to their needs. While politically he favors the peace process, analytically he perceives a situation in which Israel, after giving up Gaza and parts of the West Bank, will say to the Palestinians, now you have your own state and we have ours which must remain purely Jewish; Palestinians must chose between living under apartheid or leaving.

Local Government

The Galilee Center also has examined the problems of some 140 Arab government units including local and regional councils and eight municipalities. Elections, held every five years, are often bitterly fought among diverse Palestinian political movements, hamulas and family factions; results at the local level do not necessarily reflect or correspond to results in national elections but may indicate the future course of Arab political trends. Significant trends now include the Islamic Movement, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (largely Rakkah), and Azmi Bishara's nationalist faction which calls for social and cultural autonomy. Many in his constituency, like Bishara himself, are former members of Rakkah, Ibna Balad (Sons of the Village) or individual activists.
Local elections and governments are supervised by the Ministry of Interior which Rinawi asserts, seeks to "domesticate" the minority. The councils and municipalities are responsible for sanitation, education, local administration and other local affairs. Police functions are the responsibility of the central rather then the local authorities. Village level elections often reflect internal tensions among hamulas and at times between Muslims and Christians, on occasion erupting in violence. A recent example was a dispute in Turan where fighting broke out between Muslims and Christians when one group accused the other of betraying the national interest by selling land to Jews. One result of these tensions according to Rinawi, has been realization by Christians of their weakness vis-a-vis the community and increased emigration, frequently to North America.
A negative trend is a counter nationalist emphasis expressed through individualism which Rinawi terms "privatism;" members of the community look inward - toward the family, the hamula, or their religious group rather than to the national unit. Since Oslo, he asserts, many Israeli Arabs have become disillusioned at their lack of participation in the process and have withdrawn to individualism. Two opposing trends are evident - increasing separation and segregation of Palestinians versus attempts to "Americanize," a trend Rinawi calls 'McDonaldization."
Local councils have three principal sources of funding - a direct fixed allocation from the Ministry of Interior, an indirect or development budget, and assistance from NGOs. In fixed budgets there is a ratio of 3 to 1 favoring Jewish local governments. The ratio in development funding is six or seven to one. Jewish local governments also receive large amounts of funding from sources not available to Palestinians, through the Jewish Agency, Project Renewal and the like. Jewish towns are often supported by the government which locates new factories or business establishments within their jurisdiction.
Land confiscation and resulting shortages are a major source of conflict between Arab villages and neighboring Jewish settlements. Tensions have been created when land taken from the villages is turned over to Jewish neighbors. These disputes are reflected in the great differences between development plans for Jewish and Arab communities that give primary consideration to Jewish needs with Arab requirements receiving secondary, if any consideration. When Arab city planners reserve space to provide much needed housing and the necessary infrastructure, government officials often veto their plans. Arab plans for village development are frequently rejected for "security reasons;" one charge is that Palestinian acquisition of hill tops presents a threat. In one instance a plan to use village lands for housing was rejected because government planners projected use of the area for a national park that the villagers suspected would later be used for Jewish housing.
The problems of Shfar'am, one of the largest Arab towns in Israel, are typical. In the last half century its population has more than doubled, to over 30,000. Although relatively small, Shfar'am is a center of several recently formed NGOs and political groups. The headquarters of the Committee of Palestinian Local Councils, Mayors, and Knesset members is located there. When AFSC workers became acquainted with the town 50 years ago, it was a traditional agricultural village lacking medical, social welfare and water facilities. Today it is a bustling commercial center with paved streets, small industries and a modern town hall.
The Mayor, Ibrahim Nimr Hussein, also known as Abu Hattem, was first elected as an independent in 1969 and has remained in office ever since. His election resulted from upheaval caused by dissatisfaction with municipal conditions - sewage, water supply, etc. A series of articles in Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz , by Atallah Mansour brought attention to conditions and led to construction of a sewer system.
As so many other Arab towns, Shfar'am is far from self sufficient today. Few farmers remain; only about 15 percent live from agriculture. Most of the 140,000 dunams the locals once owned have been expropriated leaving only 25,000 dunams. Now the town is totally dependent on the Jewish economy. Most inhabitants are employed in the diverse Jewish industries in the neighboring Krayot, the industrial outposts of Haifa.
One of the Krayot, Kriyat Ata, a town of approximately the same size as Shfar'am is its nearest Jewish neighbor. The two share some services such as the large water purification system. Both receive funds from the Ministry of Interior with a ratio of two to one in favor of Kiriyat Ata. In addition to operating funds from the ministry, both towns receive special allocations for development projects including roads, school improvement, and other municipal works. Under the current government Shfar'am receives only half as much assistance as allocated during the Rabin era. The financial situation of Shfar'am, like that of 43 of the 58 Arab local governments, is perilous - many have been unable to pay their municipal employees' salaries for several months because of budget shortages. A major difference between many of the Arab and Jewish towns is that the latter have a much larger tax base and thus are able to raise funds locally whereas in a town like Shfar'am 40 percent of the inhabitants have inadequate resources and therefore do not pay taxes. A large percentage of Arab inhabitants are exempt from taxes or can make only minimal payments because of low incomes, senior citizen exemptions, or large families thus the tax base in Arab towns is considerably less than in Jewish towns of equal size. Sami Gerasi's 1972 village survey showed that Jewish local governments received up to twenty times the assistance received by Arab municipalities of the same size. That disparity has been reduced, according to Mayor Hussein, so that the ratio is now only about two to one.
When asked why he believed these disparities exist, the mayor replied: "Because we are Arabs and they are Jews!" He is pessimistic about achieving equality, even if there is a peace settlement. Although Israel's Arabs understand both sides in the conflict, they have neither been invited nor permitted to play a role in the peace process.
Before the 1993 Oslo agreement, Mayor Hussein was invited by the PLO to visit its headquarters in Tunis arriving during the 1991 Madrid negotiations. He explained to Arafat, Kadumi, and other PLO officials that the time was appropriate to push for a peace settlement because, he believed, the Rabin government would be receptive. However, he warned Arafat, the Palestinians could not expect to realize all their demands. At the time the government included Meretz, and was also supported by Arab Knesset members. With the present government, Nimr Hussein feels there is little if any possibility of achieving a settlement.

Women Activists

A cadre of dynamic women is playing an increasingly important role in the new thinking of the younger generation of Israeli Arab leaders. At least half a dozen of the NGOs affiliated with Ittijah focus on the rights and the problems of families, and many women are leaders in groups working on other community problems. Aida Suleiman, director and a founder of Women Against Violence, was a student activist at Haifa University where she studied psychology and Arab literature.
As one of the first activities, Women Against Violence established a hot line for women in trouble to seek help. Callers can now receive assistance and/or advice on dealing with family violence, how to obtain a divorce, and similar problems. Information about the organization is available through posters and leaflets distributed at prominent places in towns and villages. The organization also sponsors lectures on what is referred to as "family issues," a euphemism for marital discord, wife battering, psychological counseling, and legal referrals. It runs the Arab community's only battered women's shelter and a half-way home.
The group also lobbies for woman's rights through the courts and via Knesset legislation. A recent project urges the Knesset to pass legislation granting Muslim women access to the civil courts in family cases that until now have been the exclusive jurisdiction of the Islamic religious courts.
Suleiman observed that in many issues related to the status of women there is an unofficial alliance between the Islamic movement and Shas, the party of orthodox Sephardi Jews. She, as many others, believes that the government takes a "hands-off" position on social issues related to the Palestinian community. They charge that Israeli police seldom if ever intervene in Arab family disputes; that they fail to arrest drug dealers as long as they keep their activity within the Palestinian community. Observers point out that Akko has become one of the country's main centers for drug dealing but that the government has so far failed to take action against the culprits.
Another woman activist, Suhad Assad, director of Nazareth's Family Peace Center, observes that one of the chief causes of family violence has been trauma experienced as the community is transformed from a traditional Middle Eastern to a modern Western society. Family violence, she maintains, is not unrelated to the land problem; housing shortages responsible for crowded living conditions often create increased tension.
The idealized image of the extended family living harmoniously in a single large household is often misleading. These conditions frequently result in inter-generational squabbles, a struggle for hegemony, and a breakdown of the traditional patriarchal family mores. Suhad Assad vision of the effects of a peace settlement is truly optimistic: with peace, she asserts, economic conditions will improve and more funds will be available for child services, education and improved housing. "If peace comes, everyone will have their rights." Today's unstable environment, she maintains, is responsible for the crisis of values in the younger generation, victims of economic and cultural disorder.

Israel's Identity Crisis

The crisis of values is exacerbated by the continuing ambiguity about the status of Israel's Arab citizens and their role in a Jewish or Zionist state. Although one in five citizens is Arab, few Israeli Jews are aware of what the lives of their non-Jewish fellow citizens are like or empathize with the problems and dilemmas confronting them. Conversations with new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, now the largest single ethnic group in the country, reveal that few had any acquaintance with the Palestinian minority. Some commented that "our Arabs" [Israelis] are different that those across the borders, but even with "ours" one can't be too careful! Ironically, often it seems that new immigrants regard the indigenous Arab population as intruders in the Jewish homeland. So far the minority's organized attempts to be treated with dignity and to achieve equality in social and economic opportunities are often perceived by the majority as a threat to the Jewish state and to the security of its Jewish citizens. These perceptions were evident in a recent press report that aroused apprehension in the Arab community. It alleged that an official report regarded Israeli Arabs as a "potential security threat." The allegation was supposed to have emerged from a series of meetings by security officials and "experts" on Israeli Arab affairs. Although the government denied the existence of these recommendations, their appearance in the press was a manifestation of the tensions between the government and its Arab minority. According to Israeli informed sources, some security officials have warned of growing disaffection within the Israeli Arab community and advised the government of the necessity to implement laws that promise equal treatment of all citizens.
Mutual distrust is reinforced by the government's perception of the Palestinian majority in Galilee as a threat to the state's security and the continuing policies of "Judaizing" the region. Tensions between the government and the Arab minority were intensified during the 1970s by the first Land Day demonstration that erupted in violence and the "Koenig document," a series of proposals by the Northern District Commissioner at the time calling for greater control of and restrictions on the Arab minority. The proposals were never approved as official policy, but many were unofficially accepted. The "Judaization" process gathered momentum after 1975 with expropriation of additional thousands of dunams turned over to dozens of new Jewish settlements and demolition of illegal Arab housing outside the zones approved for construction.
Among the few efforts to diminish these tensions is the work of Shemesh, The Organization for Jewish-Arab Friendship and Coexistence in the Galilee. The program began when Arabs in Shaab established contact with Jewish settlers in newly established Shorashim. According to Harry Rhodes, one of the founders of Shemesh, when the settlers arrived, villagers from Shaab crossed the valley separating the two settlements to welcome the new Jewish arrivals. The initial fear each had of the other was dissipated as they began to cooperate in a variety of projects including a camp for Jewish and Arab youth. This year Shemesh initiated a Jewish-Arab Bilingual Regional school beginning with a first grade class that included 32 children from the Jewish Misgav region and from Arab Sachnin and Shaab. The school is expected to progress by adding one class per year. Now the school is situated on the Misgav campus, but in the long run it plans to have its own site on neutral ground between Jewish and Arab settlements.
The Wolfson Jewish-Arab Neighborhood Association and the Sir Charles Clore Jewish-Arab Community Center are efforts to bridge the gap between Jews and Arabs in Akko, one of Israel's three or four mixed towns. The neighborhood association was established after the municipality moved some Arabs from the Old City to the Wolfson housing block in new Akko. A major objective was to overcome the stigma that "mixed" neighborhoods were undesirable. The Jewish-Arab Community Center adjoins Wolfson but provides social action and cultural programs for all residents of Akko. To-date both efforts have been successful although intrinsic problems remain like those created by Arab and Jewish children educated in entirely different school systems.
Experiments like those in Akko and Shorashim-Shaab are still peripheral. Most Jewish and Arab communities are largely self contained with few social contacts between them. Among Arabs there is growing preference for building autonomous institutions rather than cooperating with like-minded Jewish agencies, a tendency reinforced by a new Palestinian consciousness. And in the Jewish community the emphasis is on strengthening Israel's Jewish identity and its Zionist character, a trend that overlooks the fact that a fifth of the population is neither Jewish nor Zionist. Even a group like Peace Now has no Arabs among its prominent members, because, one of its leaders explained, Peace Now is a Zionist organization.
In spite of the government's declarations that official education and media aim at preserving and developing the country's multi-culture character, this objective seems to be irreconcilable with the initial and consistently practiced determination to build a state for the Jews and Jews alone. Full integration of Israel's Arab-Palestinian minority cannot be expected while the national ethos is exclusively Jewish and Zionist. However it is reasonable to support efforts, peripheral as they are, that seek to build coalitions between Jews and Arabs striving for social and economic betterment, groups like those in Akko and Shorashim-Shaab.

Don & Maya Peretz
October 1998

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