The fascinating discussion Andrew posted on Zionism last week (like he says – long, but well worth the time) spurred me to finally post something I have been meaning to post for months now. An apology, of sorts. Like so many who write just about anything about Israel and Palestine, I have spent the last months dividing the people of the region into various groups. That is, in some ways, the essence of this conflict: the division of people. And it is also the essence of why people often misunderstand the conflict, because the ways we divide the people in the region often over-generalize, oversimplify or altogether overlook. The Israeli Arabs, who represent approximately 20% of Israel’s population, are perhaps the singularly most overlooked. They are, as Andrew gets at in his discussion with Jonathan Edelstein, one of the other sides of the impact of Zionism. And having interned for one of the preeminent legal organizations in the Israeli Arab community, I know this, and should know better than to fall into the same traps of dividing the conflict into neater sides than actually exist. Last week’s Ha’aretz featured two pieces that gave me a chance both to alleviate my guilt and to showcase the peculiar complexities and difficulties this community faces.
First, if you are unfamiliar with the basics about the Israeli Arabs and their complex history and sociology, I suggest a few resources. As far as I know (and I will be happy to be corrected), the Israeli Jewish writer/novelist David Grossman’s Sleeping on a Wire is perhaps the best non-fiction portrait of the community. Maybe because it takes an “outsider,” i.e. an Israeli Jew, to be able to be distanced and look around at all sides of the community, or maybe because he is just a great writer, this book is the best starting point. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (the organization I interned for), also has informative historical background on its site, as well as details on all of its cases, which help present an overview of the kinds of civil rights and legal issues the community faces – from road signs in Arabic to education rights to unrecognized villages to and national building plans. They also have links to a wide array of other Israeli Arab organizations.
Once you have a bit of the history and background in place, I would turn to Sayed Kashua. His debut book Dancing Arabs received a fair amount of attention is a tremendous read — part novel, part autobiography – and portrays in its characters an incredible range of emotion and depth.
Kashua has moved from the success of Dancing Arabs to a weekly column in the Haaretz Friday Magazine, in the “Moreover” section. I look forward to these columns more than just about anything else I read all week. Because Kashua does not write essays or commentaries on the conflict, or even just on the Israeli Arab community. He writes about life – his life, the life of his family and the lives of the Israelis, mainly Israeli Jews, that he encounters. And how insane their lives are, what the impact of life in such a place is like, how average and yet completely extraordinary life in Israel is at the same time.
His column in the Magazine two Fridays ago struck a nerve with me as a sports fan. The column starts off talking about the fact that he has had terrible toe pain since his wedding because he got married in shoes that were too small, but that were the right price. But he won’t go to the doctor because he doesn’t want the doctor talking about it behind his back. So instead of the doctor he goes to the barber, at his wife’s insistence. But he doesn’t want to do that either, because the barber’s favorite soccer/football team had lost – and when the team lost, the barber was too distracted and upset to give good haircuts.
This struck me on a number of levels – because I have not gotten a new pair of dress shoes in 8 years and the soles have all but worn away; because my wife always has to insist that I get my haircut, often weeks after I should have; and because I never do anything quite as well the day after a favorite team loses as the day after a big win. But more than anything, I saw in it a picture of Israeli Arab life that’s rarely seen – as “normal” people living anywhere. Families bickering, men cutting corners on basic shopping and grooming, then getting way too overwrought about sports. It reminds us of the notion that peace will really come when this – the everyday, the mundane — is most of what underlies our understandings of the other.
It also shows that there may be a future for ethical Zionism, that Israel can be a place where non-Jews can live and still have their lives ruled by soccer/football as much as anything else. Israel is not that place now for Israeli Arabs, for Palestinians, not even for Jews. But like the Israeli Jewish writer David Grossman can get at the Israeli Arab community in a unique way, so too can the Israeli Arab writer Kashua gets at the Israeli Jewish reality in a new way as well, and shows us what normal could some day be.
Then, amidst Kashua’s vision of “normalcy,” we read Tom Segev’s piece about the harsh and painful reality of the Ka’adan family. In 2000, the Supreme Court issued an opinion that made headlines by holding that the Ka’adans, an Israeli Arab family, could move to a new community called Katzir. This community, however, was established on land the Jewish Agency obtained from the government for the purpose of building a new community. When the Ka’adans applied to live in Katzir, they were told that homes on Jewish Agency land were only for Jews.
The Ka’adans challenged, and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, stating that the Jewish Agency could not receive land to establish discriminatory communities. (The Association for Civil Rights in Israel handled the case—the initial press release when the decision came down is here; ACRI has issued further releases as the case has gone on). The opinion cited to Brown v. Board of Education on principles of equality and was hailed as a watershed moment in Israeli judicial, and Israeli Arab, history.
And much like the 50 years since Brown in the United States has not seen the realization of that equality, neither has Ka’adan seen an end to housing discrimination in Israel. But at least the school systems eventually desegregated (at least for awhile) in the United States. The Ka’adans themselves are still waiting to get in to Katzir. Since their “victory,” the State of Israel continues both to challenge the decision in court, as well as to use a variety of chicanery with the housing contract and other bureaucratic hurdles that the Ka’adans had to clear. All designed to frustrate the Supreme Court’s opinion and maintain segregation and inequality.
So there it is – the essence of the Israeli Arab struggle. To achieve normalcy in a country, their country, that was essentially created to exclude them, still does at many turns, and tries to at many more. Where their fellow citizens consider them to be the “enemy” within, and the enemy without is, well, also basically them. “Them” in origin, in family, but, for most, not in their 2005 reality. And then, of course, there are many in the Palestinian Territories who also see the Israeli Arabs, maybe not as the enemy, but as much Israeli as Arab.
The Israeli Arabs were altogether ignored by Oslo and for most of the post-Oslo peace process. As I said at the outset, this can be seen in how little attention is paid to them today, how much (in)sensitivity there is even to their basic existence, let alone the complexity of their reality. Hopefully, I for one can at least do a better job in the future of recognizing that existence. And together we can all engage more with their future, as it is directly tied to the future of Zionism.
The Impossibility of Jewish Democracy
I read Brad’s essay with great interest, especially given his time with Adalah. Both Brad and Andrew’s commentary on this issue have been thoughtful and profound. I must weigh in against the belief that it is possible to develop an ethical zionism or a “Jewish” state that finds a place for the Palestinian minority. Something much more profound must occur: abandoning the very concept of a Jewish State. I also don’t think it is wise to compare the Kadaan decision with Brown for so many reasons, not the least of which wass the great weakness and inherent rascism of Brown I and II. Even still, the legal structure in Israel does not even allow for the theoretical structrual changes in institutional racism for which Brown and its progeny were heralded, wrongly, I think. Because in the US, the Courts are both more independent and have a document–the Constitution-that Israel does not. Also, the legal structure of Israel is designed to discriminate against the Palestinian minority and the social planning of the government is designed to force the Arab citizenship to abandon their limited land in Israel.
Nonetheless, I would urge readers to take a look at Susan Nathan’s “The Other Side of Israel” that is a thoughtful reportage of her time living in a Palestinian village in Israel. She carefullly summarizes the institutional barriers that are part of Israel’s design.
But, thank you both for your writing in an area that I am continuing to study and trying to find ways to promote more generally. This is a story that is simply not told.
Howard B. Lenow
Wayland, MA 01778
Ethical Zionism
Howard - thanks so much. It’s good to hear from you. I pretty much agree that there’s no future for a program of ethical action in a state whose fundamental policies are discriminatory, unless it is to change those policies. Perhaps the most ethical end-point of Zionism would be to evolve beyond the notion of a Jewish state - as presently constituted, anyhow.
I can accept Bernard Avishi’s formulation of a state that is Jewish in its origins - one whose founding principles and forms of government derive from Jewish law - whose primary language is Hebrew - a state that retains Judaism at its roots as the U.S. retains Christianity.
But I cannot accept the justice of a state that formally or institutionally denies equal rights to any minority. Israel’s leaders consider its survival to be fundamentally dependent on ensuring Jewish dominance. That makes it an ethnocracy rather than a democracy - despite the fact that many Israelis believe personally in the ideal of democracy and wish to see their state reflect it.
I know you have spent time in Arab villages and have many contacts there. I’d welcome any additional experiences or thoughts you’d like to share.
BTW, Susan Nathan’s book is available here, for any readers who wish to purchase it.
Andrew Schamess
Howard, thanks for your
Howard, thanks for your comment. First, I agree with you on Brown. I did not mean at all to suggest that Brown and Kaadan should be compared by us, nor comment on whether Brown itself should be lauded or not. Rather, I was simply referencing the fact that this was a comparison made by the Supreme Court of Israel, that it thought the Kaadan decision might have the weight and public impact of Brown, as well as that they had not managed to live up to even the minimal actual impact that Brown has had on public education or racism overall in the United States.
As for abandoning the concept of a Jewish State, I am of two minds here. The first is that, while a bi-national state may indeed present fewer issues, Israel as the Jewish State is what exists, and we must work to make it one that can indeed not only find a place for its Palestinian minority, but where that minority has full rights and as much of a part of the State as it desires. I do not believe this is theoretically impossible, but even if it is practically, that should not be a barrier to the work.
Martin Buber has always been my guide here, and I post a few paragraphs below from what I could find on-line from him. But I urge everyone to read more of his works on Israel and Zionism. His main point was that cultural and ethical Zionism required building a state that lived up not to the political movement’s ideas of what to do with the land, but the divine connection between the land and the Jewish people. That a return to the Holy Land meant honoring the divine tradition. Which in turn meant respect and equal treatment for all non-Jewish citizens.
Which is what led me to intern with Adalah and remain committed to their work until today, and the work of many other organizations doing work on Israeli Arab rights. You can find a good list at the New Israel Fund’s website. I encourage everyone to donate to NIF on behalf of these organizations.
Perhaps, though, as Andrew has convincingly argued, this type of Israel is not possible today. But I have to believe it is, because I am also not yet convinced that a bi-national, secular state would work either, or really present fewer issues. And perhaps I am outting myself as a non-visionary, but it’s easier for me to imagine and work toward the respecting of rights and place of the Israeli Arab minority in today’s Israel than the contours of a bi-national state.
Finally, another idea worth debating. In law school, I wrote a long paper about Israeli Arab education, and the idea of a state providing education to a group who it has essentially excluded from the national definition. After all, one of the goals of education is to inculcate students with what it means to be a citizen of the country that is educating them. But in Israel, meaning as a citizen is derived from being Jewish, specifically excluding Israeli Arabs.
So what to do? Interestingly, for their part, there is little move toward integrating schools, which are currently predominantly segregated. The princple of “separate but equal” underlies at least some of the work of Israeli Arab advocates on education. Does that concept perhaps work in Israel? Those who would respond immediately and say “No, this is the problem with a Jewish state,” I wonder what you make of the fact that there is relatively little call for societal integration, on either side.
Here are some words from Buber — not the best he has on the subject, but it’s what I could find on-line:
Brad Brooks-Rubin
The Arabs in Israel
Although it is a bit dated, I think _The Arabs in Israel_ by Sabri Jiryas is probably the best history of the period 1948 to 1966.
J. Otto Pohl
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/