Israel's Arab problem hits home

Tensions are rising between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens -- and could affect the chances for peace, or wider war, in the Middle East.

By Gregory Levey

Read more: Palestine, Israel, Jerusalem, West Bank, Islam, Jews, Arab, Opinion, Muslim

Jan. 29, 2007 | One evening in Jerusalem last February, after working late in the prime minister's office, I went outside and hailed a taxi. When I got in, I noticed that the driver, an Arab, was gripping the wheel tightly and his movements seemed labored. As we pulled into traffic, he slumped back in his seat, sighing.

"Hard day?" I asked clumsily in Hebrew, with a thick American accent.

He began to answer, but then -- apparently registering my poor excuse for the language -- asked, "Are you Jewish?"

"No," I lied, curious about what he had been about to say.

He was an Arab citizen of Israel from the town of Lod, in the country's center. He was not Jewish -- but of the two of us he was the one who spoke Hebrew fluently, his Arabic inflections only barely discernible. A few minutes earlier, he told me, he had picked up a group of religious American Jewish tourists. When they had realized that he was an Arab, they had promptly reopened the door and gotten out. Israeli Jews often did the same thing, he said. It happened frequently, but still always upset him.

We were driving through the area of Jerusalem where the government buildings are located, and he gestured at them as we passed. "I pay my taxes," he said. "I'm a citizen of the country -- even if it is the Jewish state."

I didn't tell him that I worked in one of those buildings.

"You know," he added, "we have a saying: 'My country is at war with my people.'"

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Existential friction between Israel's Arab and Jewish citizens has existed since the founding of the state, though it has always been overshadowed by Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. In 1948, during Israel's War of Independence, hundreds of thousands of Arabs living in what was to become the state of Israel either fled or were expelled (this depends on whose narrative you buy, but in all likelihood was a combination of the two), and became the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere in the Arab world. Those who were left behind became citizens of the new Jewish state.

There are now over 1 million of them -- just under 20 percent of the total population -- though they are conspicuously absent from discussions about the Middle East in the Western media. They vote, serve in the Israeli parliament, and -- formally at least -- have the same legal rights as Jews. Israel's Declaration of Independence promised them "complete equality of social and political rights."

The problem is that Israel defines itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" -- but has not reconciled the apparent contradiction in being both "Jewish" and "democratic." In reality, Israeli Arabs are in many ways seen and treated as second-class citizens. And now, there are signs that a long-simmering tension between Israeli Arabs and Jews may be rising to a boiling point. In December, a broad coalition of Israeli Arab leaders and intellectuals published a document titled "The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel," which called for cultural autonomy and the right to veto government decisions concerning Israeli Arabs. It also declared a vision of Israel not as a Jewish state granting them full civil rights, but as a "state of all its citizens." Unsurprisingly, the document was denounced as dangerous and treacherous by many Israeli Jews.

Increasing hostility between the two sides could have serious consequences for Israel's future. Israel's growing Arab population -- with its much higher birth rate than that of the Jewish population -- will become increasingly important to the economy and internal politics of the country. Jewish-Arab relations within Israel can also be seen as a bellwether for the chances of peace across the greater region. If Israel's Arab citizens can become more visibly assimilated into Israeli society, that could potentially diminish the Muslim world's antagonism toward the Jewish state, and boost faith in the prospect of a peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. But if the mutual hostility flourishes and becomes more apparent, it will likely have the exact opposite effect.

Although there is some harmonious coexistence -- most notably in the Jewish-Arab city of Haifa and in some joint Jewish-Arab cultural institutions -- there have never been warm feelings between the two populations. This past summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon pushed things to a new low. Israel found itself involved in the sort of violence that it had not seen in a generation, and the existential fears that seem to always hover just below the surface of Israeli society -- and help to define the country's policies -- burst forward, bringing with them the malignant tribalism that plagues the Middle East.

Many in the Israeli right wing immediately branded Israeli Arabs as part of the enemy. At the same time, a disturbing number of Israeli Arabs actually backed Hezbollah, even demonstrating in Israeli cities to voice their support for the Lebanese terrorist group. Meanwhile, a disproportionate number of Israeli citizens killed during the war were actually Arabs -- partly, it has been widely alleged, because the security infrastructure (alarms, bomb shelters and the like) was in a state of disrepair in areas where Arabs predominantly live.

During the war, Taleb Al-Sana, the head of the United Arab List, one of the key Arab parties in the Israeli parliament, received repeated anonymous phone calls describing him as the leader of a "fifth column" and threatening to kill him. He is a highly controversial figure, having, for example, recently visited Syria and met with Syrian officials -- in defiance of Israeli regulations. In a recent conversation, Al-Sana told me that the war had significant repercussions for Israeli Arabs, and had clearly worsened tensions.

"When the Jews are in danger," he said, "they enclose themselves and don't accept others. They were the minority for many years, in many countries, in ghettoes." He paused for a moment before adding, "They got out of the ghetto, but the ghetto did not get out of them."

Indeed, Israeli Jewish public opinion turned sharply anti-Arab during the war and in its aftermath. And since it ended, the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, Avigdor Lieberman -- who has repeatedly questioned Israeli Arabs' loyalty and called for the possible revocation of their citizenships -- has been brought into the Olmert government and given an important security position in the cabinet.

Next page: Israeli-Arab villages are often refused official permits by the government -- and sometimes are even demolished