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Ha'aretz, May 30, 1999
Are Arabs included in 'everyone'?
By Gideon Levy
While everyone is arguing about whether to bring
Shas into the new government, and the prevailing
argument is that 540,000 voters must not be
"disqualified," the fact that Israel's political
map has nearly an equal number of voters who are
disqualified for another purpose has been
forgotten.The approximately 500,000 Arabs who have
the right to vote, of whom 75 percent cast ballots
this time around, are condemned in advance to
being shunned. All the arguments offered by those
supporting the inclusion of Shas - not to leave
its voters excluded and with a feeling they are
being discriminated against - are even more
applicable here. But toward the Arabs, it's all
right.
Thus, there are many advocates for the Shas's
inclusion in the coalition for social reasons and
they have a fair chance of success, but no one is
seriously considering bringing an Arab faction
into the coalition.
The National Religious Party (NRP), the
second-most extreme right-wing and nationalist
party, already has one foot inside the the
"leftist" coalition; the ultra-Orthodox, who are
opposed to Zionism and to serving in the Israel
Defense Forces, and who explicitly prohibit any
women from representing their faction, are also
natural candidates. Only the Arabs are beyond the
pale, the lepers.
In this respect, quite astonishingly, there is no
difference between the left and the right, between
a Likud government and a Labor government.
Abdulwahab Darawshe as environmental minister?
Inconceivable.
But the sky will not fall if, finally, a
leadership arises that will at least consider
bringing Arab representatives into the government.
Joining the government is a challenge for more
than the Arabs: It is a challenge to a state that
has pretensions to being not just Jewish, but also
democratic.
No less democratic and loyal to the state than the
ultra-Orthodox parties, with a potential for
harming the security of the state that is no
greater than that posed by immigrants from the
former Soviet Union, the Arabs of Israel have long
been worthy of government representation in their
country. Their loyalty to Israel was proved long
ago, and sometimes even seems to be exaggerated,
considering the way the state behaves toward them
and toward their brothers and sisters beyond the
Green Line.
Was there any sector more loyal to Prime
Minister-elect Ehud Barak than the Arab voters?
Support from 94 percent of a population is a
phenomenon that merits recompense. If there is a
gaping chasm between them and their country, it
derives above all from the Jewish state's
alienation from them and denial of them, not the
other way around.
True, it is problematic for any independent Arab
party to join a government that - like all the
governments of Israel - promotes continuing the
Israeli occupation in East Jerusalem, considerable
portions of the West Bank and also in the Golan
Heights, and that does not freeze the Jewish
settlements beyond the Green Line and is not
planning to evacuate them.
The collective responsibility of the government is
off-putting for a party like Hadash or Balad,
which is headed by MK Azmi Bishara and MK-elect
Ahmed Tibi. "How can we take part in a
government," asks Tibi, "when it decides on
bombings in Lebanon or a closure of the
territories?"
But it would have been possible to hold serious
talks with them about the conditions under which
they might join the government, and it could have
been accomplished with no more difficulty than
that occasioned by talks with the NRP, a settlers'
party. Moreover, the United Arab List, the largest
of the Arab factions, has declared its willingness
to join the government.
This could be a golden opportunity. In a
government likely to prove more diverse than all
its predecessors, there is room for Arab
representation. This would signal a new Israel
inside the country, and abroad it would signal
encouraging winds of change to the Arab countries
with which we seek reconciliation. The situation
is not encouraging.
Not only has there never been an invitation
extended to any Arab list to hold serious
discussions on joining the government, in other
government institutions the situation is more
disheartening.
There are only 15 Arabs among the 1,059 members of
the boards of directors of government companies.
The electric company has only six Arab employees
out of 21,000. El Al is completely free of Arabs.
An Arab flight attendant? No way.
In the government bodies that manage the affairs
that most directly concern the Arabs, the
situation is no better. On the national building
and planning board, only one out of the 13 members
is an Arab. On the regional boards in the Galilee,
where the number of Arab residents is equal to and
in some cases exceeds the number of Jewish
residents, their rate of representation is
similar.
There is at least legislation to protect women,
for example, in respect to their representation in
government companies. No one thinks of passing
similar legislation for Arabs. Because that is how
we are: a country consisting of one nation only,
democratic and egalitarian only for Jews.
Because that is how they are: refugees in their
own country, a minority living in the crushing
shadow of the majority, cut off from and alienated
against its will from its own state.
A party with a banner that says One Israel and
whose head promises to be "everyone's prime
minister" must remember that "everyone" also
includes a large minority of Arab citizens
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