JERUSALEM, March 6 (UPI) -- It seemed as if a veil that blurred the schism between Israel's Jews and the country's Arab minority was lifted.
An organization that represents the Arabs, the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel, jolted the Jews by publishing a paper called, "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel."
Essentially the Arab argument is: We are the indigenous residents. You are colonizers who occupied us and under the guise of so-called democracy discriminate against us. Change this state's character!
The Jewish response was sometimes: Forget it. This is the Jews' national homeland. As citizens, you deserve equal rights, but you identify with our enemies. Your paper is a declaration of war, and if you want it, you'll get it!
It was the first time Israeli-Arabs made such a move. Thirty-eight Arab intellectuals representing "all the streams of thought in the Arab community in Israel," drafted the paper, according to a member of that group, Asa'ad Ghanem, of Haifa University's School of Political Science.
They set the tone right at the start. "We are ...an integral part of the Palestinian people and the Arab and Muslim...nation," they said.
Following the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948, "We were forced to become citizens of Israel. This has transformed us into a minority living in our own homeland."
It was a "Nakba," a tragedy, and since then the Arabs have been suffering from extremely discriminatory policies. Their lands have been expropriated, homes demolished, budgets favored the Jews, and the state has "abused and killed its own citizens," the document said.
Ghanem said in a debate in bitterlemons-dialogue.org that they support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, Israel should acknowledge "responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba."
Relations between the 5.4 million Jews and 1.4 million Israeli-Arabs should not be based on liberal democratic principles but on a "Consensual democratic system." That means, "An extended coalition between the elites of the two groups ...mutual right to veto and self administration of exclusive issues."
Israel has now "a tyranny of the majority," Ghanem said.
"The Palestinian Arabs in Israel ....should be given the chance to create its (their) own national institutions," the document added.
The Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords and establishment of a Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza made Israeli-Arabs realize they are bound to remain in the State of Israel, suggested Elie Rekhess, a Tel Aviv University expert on Israeli-Arab relations. That is why they sought to "reconceptualize their status as a national minority within the state," he told United Press International.
However, their demands irked Israelis.
This document challenges Israel's very essence, stressed Prof. Uzi Arad, Director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
The Jews are not going to change their state's character and, "If this requires a struggle - there will be a struggle," he warned last week at a symposium at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. Israelis saw no reason to apologize for the 1948 war. The Arabs initiated it to crush the nascent Jewish state and prevent implementation of the 1947 UN plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. They started the war, and they lost.
In bitterlemons-dialogue.org, Ghanem complained of "at least 18 laws that discriminate against Arabs in Israel."
The most significant one is the Law of Return that grants every Jew the right to come to Israel and automatically become its citizen. The Arabs sought automatic citizenship to anyone who marries an Israeli. That would be a way to increase their numbers and the Jews rejected the idea.
The Palestinians will have a state -- in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- and Israel should be a Jewish state. It should fulfill the Jews' right to self-determination and ensure a Jewish majority, they insisted.
Israel is there to provide shelter to any persecuted Jew who needs it, argued former Defense Minister Moshe Arens. The Jews will not agree to change that.
Even Denmark, the Netherlands, the United States and other countries do not grant automatic citizenship to their nationals' spouses, noted the former head of the National Security Council, Giora Eiland.
Rekhess suggested the document reflected also Arab "frustration and disappointment" over the government's inability to resolve growing socio-economic gaps between the two communities.
Only 5 percent of the development budget goes to Arabs who account for 20 percent of the population, said Ja'afar Farah who heads the Mossawa Center. A state commission of inquiry in 2003 found discrimination regarding land issues, government budgets, employment, social, cultural, educational and religious issues, recalled a member of that committee, Prof. Shimon Shamir.
However, the document's confrontational attitude seemed to build Jewish resistance to the Arab demands. The Arabs provide only three percent of the taxes Israel collects, noted Eiland. Arab families are poor because they have many children and few women work, he suggested.
There is discrimination -- in duties -- former Defense Minister Moshe Arens noted. A Jew who turns 18 or 19 is drafted into the army for three years and risks his life while an Israeli Arab can study, work, and make money, he added.
Most liberal-minded Israelis would not object to recognize the Arabs as a national minority, grant them equal rights and representation, said Prof. Asher Susser who heads Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
"I see no problem with Arab control over the Arab educational system, unless ...Arab children are taught (that).... 'Israel is a colonial settler enterprise and a racist entity'. In that case we're back to a confrontationalist framework," he said.
The 38 intellectual who drafted the paper do not have mass support, Rekhess observed. Arab political parties haven't reacted and there is no consensus behind it. However, the document does reflect the views of the Israeli-Arabs' political-intellectual elite, he confirmed.
"If (Jewish-Arab) relations continue to deteriorate, this could become a platform that will unite the masses," Rekhess added.
