Weekly Update - December 15, 2006

Focus on: The meaning of equality in a Jewish state

The last several weeks have been filled with developments of great import in the Israel-Palestine arena, and the Middle East generally:  The publication of the report of the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group"; the Holocaust denial conference held in Iran; escalating internecine conflict in Gaza and the West Bank; and two key rulings by Israel's High Court of Justice regarding the so-called "Intifada Law" and Israel's policy of "targetted killings".

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that flying under the radar and generating relatively little media attention have been two documents with profound significance for the future of Israeli society.  Last week, the Mossawa Center: The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel published a position paper demanding that Israel's proposed constitution, "provide Arab citizens with full and equal rights" (full report currently available only in Hebrew ).  A similar document, "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel", was published by the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel.

Of course, "full and equal rights" is not a tremendously dramatic phrase.  Indeed, Israel's own Declaration of Independence promised Israel's Arabs "full and equal citizenship".  But what was radical and far-reaching about the Mossawa and National Committee documents was that their definition of "full and equal" went well beyond the sphere of individual civil or human rights (e.g., equal opportunity, equal protection under the law), and also beyond the realm of equal community rights (e.g., the provision of equal governmental subsidies to Jewish and Arab localities and municipalities).  For the documents' definition of "full and equal" extends to the question of national rights, and thus poses a challenge to some of the fundamental precepts of classic Zionism.

The foundational claim of the Mossawa and National Committee documents is that Palestinian Arabs have as much a national right to Israel within the Green Line as the Jews do (and perhaps an even greater right).  Arising from this claim are the following practical demands: 

• Israel must be defined as the state of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples
• There must be an end to preferential Jewish immigration - the abolition of the Law of Return
• The Israeli flag and national anthem must be changed in order to reflect the identity of the country's Arab citizens
• Israel's Arab population should have autonomy in matters of education and culture
• All laws that give Jews preferential land and housing rights must be abolished

The reaction of Israel's liberal intelligentsia, such as Haaretz columnist, Avirama Golan, has been a consistent rejection of the anti-Zionist thrust of these demands.  Nonetheless, for most columnists of the center-left, the new Arab manifestos have not been a cause for alarm, either.  

Golan notes that she is, "impressed by the fact that the uprising is [being] expressed on the conceptual-verbal level and not on the physical" one, while Uzi Benziman and journalist-turned-politician-turned journalist, Tommy Lapid, believe that a solution can be found without resorting to a binational system.  Benziman believes it is enough to, "minimize the area in which the Zionist character of the state is expressed, and maximize the area of equal rights required by Israel's democratic character".  While defending the ideal of political Zionism ("if we relinquish the very essence of Israel as a Jewish state, then there is no point in living here"), Lapid suggests that Jewish Israelis, "listen to the Arab voice and be attentive to their just needs so that the temptation to use violence does not overcome their respect for the law".

Of course, many right-wing Israelis see the recent Arab position papers as further proof of what they have been telling Israeli "do-gooders" ("y'fei nefesh", or "good souls") for years: Israel's Arab citizens are an enemy from within.  Jerusalem Post columnist, Sarah Honig , typifies this attitude.  Arguing that the "politically-correct etiquette" of Israel's liberal circles causes it to ignore the many "ominous signals", Honig's rejoinder to the likes of Golan, Benziman and Lapid is as follows: "The illusory premise that Israeli Arabs are essentially loyal citizens whose only peeve is a variety of socioeconomic grievances assumes that a little appeasement, cash outlays and solicitous ego massages will satisfy them."

Of course, it is easy to reject the ravings of those who see every Palestinian Arab as an implacable enemy.  But, after it is stripped of its hysterical tone, Honig's central argument must be addressed:  Will Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens be placated by improved socio-economic status, greater cultural self-expression, the abolition of discriminatory laws, and more equal involvement in the country's governing institutions and civil service?  Or will the sore of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel continue to fester against the background of the Arab demand for recognition as an equally entitled national grouping?  Put in other terms, is Jewish-Arab tension in Israel a function of social, cultural, legal and economic conditions; or is it an ethnic or national conflict? 

Left-wing Israeli writer, Tom Segev, recently offered a rather pessimistic response to just that question.  Reporting on a Jewish-Arab working group which sought to compose a 'charter' for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel, Segev noted that the group disbanded in disagreement: "The Jews demanded that the Arabs recognize that Israel is a Jewish state, and the Arabs refused, because if Israel does not define itself as the state of all its citizens it will not be a true democracy and will perpetuate discrimination against the Arabs. The group broke up, charterless."  (See, as well, Ralph Seliger's posting on this topic in the Meretz USA blog.) 

One of the sadder consequences of the recent manifestos is the strong possibility that they will drive a wedge between Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and those segments of the Israeli Jewish public who support greater equality.  In a column entitled, "This Means War" , Haaretz journalist Avraham Tal summarizes a potentially pervasive sentiment:  

"The result [of the new documents] will be a deepening of the rift and a heightening of the hostility between Jews and Arabs in Israel. The leadership and the liberal Jewish public accept Israeli Arabs as citizens with equal rights, with the exception of certain areas that touch on Israel's essence as a Jewish state (such as the Law of Return and the Law of Citizenship)."  But, writes Tal, in light of Israeli Arab support for a binational state, " It's no wonder ...that Israeli readiness to undo the discriminations of the past is not that strong."

The Meretz USA Israel Symposium (December 1-8) has just returned from Israel, where it explored the status and identity of Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens.  It seems that this fact-finding seminar could not have come at a more interesting or complex time, and we look forward to providing you with a summary of the trip in the near future.