In the aftermath of Israel’s assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Arabs are continuing their struggle against discrimination and for equal rights inside Israel.
Israel has no constitution, but its “basic laws” say it is a “Jewish and democratic” state with equality for all its citizens. The fight of some 1.4 million Palestinian citizens of Israel against discrimination is at the heart of the battle for political democracy and secularization in the region. The discriminatory practices they face cannot be ended without a fundamental change in the structure of the Israeli state.
During the founding of the state of Israel, most of the 859,000 Arabs residing there were driven into exile to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries. But some 133,000 remained within Israel’s borders even after its formation in 1948.
Today their descendants face discrimination in jobs, housing, and education; restrictions on language and democratic rights; and unequal access to government services.
Another 3.9 million Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under the rule of the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli Arabs make up 20 percent of Israel’s 7.1 million people, but own only 3 percent of its land. Some 25 percent of all school-age children in Israel are Arab. Even with a sharply declining birthrate, it won’t be long before one-third of Israel’s citizens are Arab.
While most Israeli Arabs live in all-Arab towns and villages, there are “mixed towns”—including Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle, and Lod—that are as much as 30 percent Palestinian. Carmiel, Nahariya, and Upper Nazareth, once considered “exclusively Jewish,” now have a growing Arab population. Resisting second-class status The refusal of Israeli Arabs to accept second-class citizenship is reflected in the existence of at least a dozen centers, political parties, and organizations that challenge anti-Arab discrimination. Some of these groups include Jewish-Israelis.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, currently has 48 active cases before Israeli courts and municipal planning committees, including 32 before the Supreme Court.
The cases brought by Adalah—which include fighting for the right of Arab citizens to live in Jewish neighborhoods, preventing the ongoing confiscation of land owned by Arabs, advocating improved conditions for Palestinian political prisoners, and challenging unequal government assistance—shed light on the reality faced by Palestinians inside Israel today.
Palestinian residents of Akbara, the only Palestinian Arab neighborhood in Safad in northern Israel, won a recent victory in their years-long fight for government services. Their original villages were destroyed during the 1948 war and they were relocated to Akbara by Israeli military order.
According to Adalah, “After a long battle, Israel was eventually compelled to grant recognition to the village and then joined it to Safad in 1982.” But the village still lacked many services. It is the only neighborhood in Safad that is not connected to the sewage system and waste water routinely floods the streets.
In January, after Akbara residents filed suit, the Safad government finally took bids and agreed to connect the sewage system by July. ‘Social unsuitability’ Israeli Arabs face a myriad of obstacles when they try to live in Jewish neighborhoods. With the help of Adalah, Fatina and Ahmed Zubeidat, a Palestinian couple, are challenging an “admissions committee,” which told them that their request to live in Rakefet in Western Galilee was rejected because of their “social unsuitability.” Because the admissions committees often exclude not just Arab families but gays, single parents, unmarried people, and Oriental Jews, the Zubeidats have won broader support. Among the groups backing the Adalah petition are the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, made up of Jews from Arab countries, and the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.
On January 6 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to respond to Adalah’s petition. Ban on Arabic book imports Palestinians have also stood up to attempts to restrict their democratic and cultural rights.
At the end of January, Adalah submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court demanding that Kull Shay, the largest supplier of Arabic-language books in Israel, be permitted to import books published in Syria and Lebanon. Kull Shay has been importing books, with the consent of the government censor, for 30 years.
In August 2008 the government, citing a British mandate law from 1939, told Kull Shay that it could no longer import books published in an “enemy state” even if imported via another country. According to Adalah, 80 percent of Arabic-language books sold in Israel are published in Syria and Lebanon, including translations of Harry Potter, Pinocchio, Shakespeare, and Gabriel García Marquez, and Israeli writers Amos Oz, Yoram Kaniuk, and Eshkol Nevo.
The Adalah petition included letters protesting the ban from the general director of the Israel National Library, the director of Haifa University Library, and the presidents of Oranim Academic and Beit-Berl colleges.
Taking advantage of their legal rights as citizens in Israel, Israeli Arabs have mostly backed three Arab-based parties that have members of parliament in the Israeli Knesset:
Balad (National Democratic Assembly), which was formed in 1996, calls for “genuine and full democracy” in Israel and the elimination of all forms of discrimination.
The United Arab List, a coalition of Islamic and nationalist groups, calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), which was founded by the Communist Party, projects itself as a Jewish-Arab party, but draws support mostly from Arabs.
Three of the main capitalist parties in Israel, Likud, Kadima, and the Labor Party, also have Arab candidates in the February 10 election. The rightist Yisrael Beteinu has no Arab candidates.
Among the demands raised by various Israeli Arab organizations is repealing the “Law of Return,” which grants citizenship to Jews around the world who move to Israel; changing the basic laws to say that Israel is a homeland for Jews and Arabs, and putting Arabic on an equal footing with Hebrew.
Tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs protested during the Israeli assault on Gaza. More than 700 were arrested in the course of the demonstrations. Others were brought to police stations and warned to “stay within the law,” according to BBC News.
Ameer Makhoul, executive director of Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-Based Associations) who organized some of the protests, was one of those taken in for questioning and accused of supporting Hamas.
“They cannot tell me how to behave,” Makhoul told BBC. “I am not an immigrant. I didn’t come to Israel—Israel came to me.”
BY SETH GALINSKY
The Militant
Related articles:Anti-Arab party makes gains
http://samotalis.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment