In a speech to United States Congress in 2011, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated that,“Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.” Still, he refers to Israel as the “Jewish Homeland.” In this case, who does the state really stand for? The Jewish people or the Israeli People? An ethnic-religious minority or post-WWII constructed nationality?
According to the former Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations, democratic rights includes, “Access to power and its exercise in accordance with the rule of law Access to power and its exercise in accordance with the rule of law.” To say that equal access to power is available to every citizen of Israel is a controversial claim.
Mohammad Darawshe, a self-proclaimed Palestinian citizen of Israel and a leading specialist on Jewish-Arab relations and the co-executive director of the Abraham fund, which seeks to foster coexistence and equality among Jews and Arabs in Israel, said in a lecture on Arab citizens of Israel in 2011, that “one definition of Israel being both democratic and Jewish—is that at any given moment, being Jewish trumps being democratic.” He argues that Jews from anywhere in the world can come to Israel and will be treated and considered more Israeli than an Arab who had lived in Israel for his entire life.
On the other hand, a former government official who worked under the Prime Minister for many years, responded to this claim by stating that “the main task of Israel is to not divide between the two but to work on being both Jewish and Democratic.”
While the state of Israel was founded as a Jewish state, the term “Israeli people” encompasses more than just Jews. In fact, according to the Census Bureau of Statistics on Israel, in 2009, Arabs made up about a fifth of the Israeli population. Of this fifth, roughly 70% are Muslim, 8% are Christian, and 7% are Drews. According to this former official, the government recognizes this issue and has made multiple attempts to make sure there is no real distinction in reality between the Israeli and Jewish citizens.
However a counterargument can be conceived by the fact that, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Arab population is underrepresented in the Knesset (the name for the Israeli Parliament), making up about only 11%. And, although there are Arab representatives, many Arabs still claim that their voices get drowned out. Addressing this issue, the former government official said, “It’s both a function with how the government represents them and how they feel represented in government,” referring to it as a “chicken and egg syndrome.”
There is a sentiment within the Jewish population that Arabs are underrepresented in the Knesset because they do not take advantage of their democratic freedoms. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, in 2009, “only 53.4% of Arab citizens of Israel voted for the Prime Minister, which is under the typical societal voter turnout rates.” The highest Arab turnout rate occurred over fifty years ago and has been declining ever since, dropping down to as low as 18% in 2001. Karin Tamar Schafferman, a research assistant for the Israel Democracy Institute’s website, commented that “while the question used to be who will the Arab citizens of Israel vote for, the question today is whether or not they will vote at all.”
Lack of voter turnout for the Arab population has serious implications. However, according to Peter Geffen, founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School and the Director and Founder of KIVUNIM: New Directions, The Institute of Experiential Learning for Israel and World Jewish Communities Studies, both very influential institutions in co-existence education, it is not an issue about the election: “even if every Arab voted, they’re a minority and won’t have enough power.” For Geffen, the main issue is what the courts should do and are doing to eliminate discrimination. For instance, Geffen gave this example:
“When [a group of Moroccan Arabs] met with Israeli Arabs who were complaining about discrimination, one very interesting lawyer talked with them about how he went to the university of Haifa to get a engineering and couldn’t get a job after trying for a year, and went back to law school to see if he could get some work…There are plenty of jobs here but not plenty of engineering jobs for Arabs”
The Israeli government has created programs to try to reconcile issues, such as employment discrimination and the voter drop out rate, but only some have been effective or actually implemented. “I know at least when I was in government starting in 2005 and even in this government under Netanyahu,” said the former government official, “I have noticed some inefficiencies and gaps with how the government handles the minority and Arab population.” Still, successful attempts have been made such as the Chok Tal, a law proposing that all religious minorities participate in Israeli army or civil service, which will help integrate them into Israeli society. This is because in Israel, military or civil service is a way for citizens to give back to their society, sets them up with more job opportunities in the future, and helps stimulate political participation and activism. Still, he believes more efforts like the Chok Tal can be implemented and enforced.
That being said, improvements will not be made without more participation on behalf of the Arab citizens and the Israeli government. The former official communicated: “It’s not that they don’t have the desire it’s that you need political mobilization.” Political mobilization, he claims, is what the Arab Israeli’s lack. Yet, it is not completely their fault—there is much work that the government can and should do to help. And, according to Geffen, “It’s in the process of changing now, you change it by access to higher education, better jobs, economic development, services to families and of course by human contact.”
As Darawshe put it, in an interview with Krista Tippet in 2011, “We’re [the Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel] home and we’re in our homeland. I think that my biggest challenge is how to help Israel become and act as my country also, not just as my homeland, and I think that Israel needs to mature, and that’s what I’m trying to do every day.” So where does Israel go from here? Despite the struggles that he and his fellow community face regularly, he also sees a bright future for Israel.
True representation is a difficult task. As the former government official stated: “The minute one defines a minority…you’re already separating.” A true democratic state has to struggle to find a balance between protecting a minority’s heritage and culture, while also integrating them as full citizens of the state. In this sense, equal rights and representation may never be fully possible—but at least, within Israel, it is not being undiscussed.
