 |
|
|
| | Email this article • Print this article |
|
|
| Trude Morse, left, a member of Am Kolel Sanctuary and Renewal Center, gets a helping hand from Jafar Farah, founder of the Israel-based Mossawa Center, during a recent program at Temple Emanuel in Kensington that was sponsored by Am Kolel. Mary Totry, a member of the Mossawa delegation, looks on. |
|
Statelessness?
Israeli Arab advocates take their case to D.C. area
by Richard Greenberg, Associate Editor
Think of them as the other Palestinians.
They do not live in the West Bank or Gaza. Their home is Israel proper, where they constitute about 20 percent of the population.
They are full Israeli citizens - but because they are Arabs, they do not enjoy full equality, according to a delegation of Israeli Arab advocates that swept through the Washington area last week as part of a two-city, consciousness-raising tour.
The three visitors represent the Mossawa Center (Mossawa is Arabic for equality), a Haifa-based organization that promotes the rights of Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens through political advocacy, media outreach, research and analysis, and public information campaigns.
Last week's six-day whirlwind tour of the Washington area included stops at Arab and Jewish advocacy organizations; synagogues; and congressional as well as senatorial offices.
"We didn't expect such interest," Jafar Farah, founder of the Mossawa Center, said in an interview earlier this week as he and his colleagues prepared to leave for New York, the second stop on the tour.
"I never really paid much attention to these people before," remarked Lew Franke, 71, of Bethesda, one of about 50 attendees at Mossawa's public program for the Jewish community presented a week ago Wednesday at Reform Temple Emanuel in Kensington. "When I think about Palestinians, I usually think about Israel and the peace issue."
The campaign was prompted in part by "changing realities" ushered in by the U.S. and Israeli elections, events that produced polar-opposite results in the eyes of Mossawa, which is encouraged, it says, by the arrival of the Obama administration and discouraged by the formation of Israel's "new extreme right government" headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and symbolized philosophically by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, who has said Israel's citizens should be required to sign a loyalty oath.
The delegation's Washington-area tour, which ended Sunday, also highlighted the tension inherent in Israel's unique status as both the Jewish state and a democracy.
The internal conflict stemming from that dichotomy was reflected in comments made by Franke and other proudly Zionistic Jews who heard the remarks at Temple Emanuel made by Jafar, a former journalist, and his two colleagues, Mossawa board members Mary Totry, who chairs the civic studies department at Oranim College in Israel, and Khaled Furani, a member of the faculty in Tel Aviv University's department of sociology and anthropology.
(The terms used by Mossawa to refer to the population it represents include Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israel's Arab citizens and Palestinian Arab citizens.)
"It's a dilemma to want a strong Jewish state that will also be respectful of all the people there," said Judy Beltz, 74, of Potomac, a member of several congregations, including the Am Kolel Sanctuary and Renewal Center in Beallsville, which sponsored the Temple Emanuel event.
Beltz said it was a "revelation" to her that there are Palestinians, such as the members of the Mossawa contingent, who live in places like Haifa - rather than strictly in the territories - and have Jewish friends. "It represents a different orientation of the concept of Israeli Arabs," she added.
Am Kolel attendee Theo Stone, a 54-year-old Ellicott City resident, said that as a Zionist, he believes in "the ideal of the Jewish state as [part of] the national liberation movement of the Jewish people." On the other hand, he added, "when I see injustice occurring, it's a hateful thing to me."
Some have questioned whether the Israeli Arab population is a "fifth column" that poses an internal threat to the Jewish state because its allegiances lie mainly with the Palestinians.
"That's a sad question that shows an isolation mentality, not an inclusive mentality," Farah said in an interview, maintaining that the same "unfair question" could just as easily be asked about American Jews. Moreover, he added, there is no evidence that Israeli Arabs have been anything other than loyal citizens.
Nevertheless, according to Mossawa, this population has been subjected to many injustices, including racist "incitement" by Israeli press outlets and politicians, physical violence and funding inequities that demonstrate conclusively that Israeli Arabs are at best second-class citizens. (A spokesperson for the Embassy of Israel declined comment.)
Although Beltz said she empathizes with the plight of Israel's Arabs, several relevant issues were not discussed in detail at the Temple Emanuel event, including whether Mossawa endorses a one- or two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.
Asked about that issue in an interview, Jafar said his organization endorses a two-state solution that recognizes the rights of Israel's Arab citizens, but "we can live with one or two states."
The Mossawa delegation's trip was subsidized in part by the Ford Israel Fund, a partnership of the New Israel Fund and the Ford Foundation. Capitol Hill sit-downs on the group's itinerary included a visit with Rep. Lois Capps (D-23rd-Calif.), who said in a prepared statement: "Israel is the shining light of Democracy in the Middle East .... But as someone who has always been a steadfast supporter of Israel, I worry that failure to address lingering inequalities for all its citizens - or worse, enacting discriminatory laws - would tarnish its standing as a free and democratic nation."
|
Reader Comments
Posted: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Article comment by:
stanley efron
the US treatment of US ctizens of japanese descent in 1941 should be avoided in the Israeli treatment of Arab citizens of Israel
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
|
|
