Stuck in the middle
Abdullah El-Ashaal* argues that the strength of Israel's democracy lies in its treatment of its Arab minority
The Israeli Central Elections Committee's attempt to disqualify two of the most prominent leaders of the Israeli Arab community from running in general elections, a decision which was later reversed by the Israeli Supreme Court, raises a pressing question. Is there a crisis of democracy in Israel, as a result of its inability to solve the problems of those Arabs who live within its borders? Or rather, is there a crisis of identity among Israeli Arabs?
After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Israeli Arabs, the original owners and inhabitants of the land, found themselves unwillingly transformed into a foreign minority in their own home, their only citizenship Israeli. Early Arab nationalist thought encouraged them to leave Israel and refuse to live in this regional anathema unrecognised by the world at large. Having no real choice, however, they stayed, though their hearts remained with their family and compatriots abroad and in the rest of Palestine.
As Israel acquired greater permanence, Israeli Arabs grew ever more convinced that any future settlement would focus not on dismantling Israel -- as the rest of the Arab world thought before 1967 -- but on an Israeli withdrawal from the lands it occupied in 1967. Indeed, the most Arabs could hope for would be a return to the borders of 4 June. That being the case, Israeli Arabs might as well start getting used to the state of things inside Israel, the only alternative being a leap into the unknown or into a refugee camp in a neighbouring country. Israeli Arabs, especially the younger generation, grew accustomed to living an Israeli way of life. This mindset has been exhaustively researched and studied.
There is, however, another hypothesis -- namely, that Israeli Arabs have not lost hope that Arab nationalism, broken by the Zionist project, may yet rise from its grave. Israeli Arabs are thus torn between a faint hope that has grown progressively dimmer as Arabs have become even more fragmented, and between a reality fed on the possibility of settlement. Israeli Arabs are undoubtedly relieved at the possibility of a settlement, for a simple reason: it spares them the existential and behavioural crisis of living between the Israeli reality and the Arab reality. Peace with the Palestinians will normalise their lives, allowing them to revive the lost relationships with their family and roots and releasing them from the lethal split existence between the Arab and Palestinian worlds and the Israeli one. There is another advantage of peace for Israeli Arabs: it will erase the suspicion that they are living with the "enemy", that is collaborators in Israeli policies against the Arab world.
Undoubtedly, this sense of being torn between the Arab and Israeli worlds has grown more intense with time, making it difficult to chose between the two in those rare moments of choice offered since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. This is perhaps one of the most important outcomes of this Intifada: the emergence of a unified Palestinian consciousness. Israeli Arabs have felt the tragedy of their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, openly proclaiming their sympathies and supporting their right to a state in Palestine, to life, and to dignity.
Israel's increasingly fierce acts of repression, the heightened tone of the Palestinian resistance, and the rivers of blood Israel has left in Palestine have touched all levels of Israeli society and have had a number of effects on Israeli Arabs. First and foremost, they have been forced to look for a means of reconciling their Palestinian identity -- existential, emotional, and intellectual -- to their legal and everyday existence as Israelis. As a result, Israeli society, which in any case distinguishes between Jews and Gentiles, has increased its discrimination against Israeli Arabs. At best, they are viewed as strangers in the midst of a Jewish society, at worst sympathisers with the enemies of this society on sensitive security issues. This line of thinking has been inappropriately and even opportunistically exploited of late with the result that the experience of coexistence and assimilation gained over the last 50 years has been erased, or at least seriously eroded, for both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. Israeli Arabs complain of daily and overt discrimination, both from the authorities and society at large. Perhaps Israeli society is following the example of its closest ally, hitching its destiny to that of the US, where it has become customary to infringe on the constitution and democratic norms.
The final result of all this was the central elections committee's rejection of the candidacy of Ahmed Al-Tibi and Azmi Bishara, both part of the Israeli political system and standing members of the Knesset, on the pretense that they do not recognise Israel.
Much has been said in the debate over the political situation of Israeli Arabs, but I shall discuss one point only. Israeli Arabs are clearly proud of their membership in the larger Arab world -- indeed, this was the accusation used to disqualify Al-Tibi and Bishara, as this identification is supposedly incompatible with their Israeli identity. But this equation rests on a flawed assumption, for a sense of belonging to the larger Arab nation does not exclude a recognition of Israel. Indeed, the Arab world has exerted the utmost effort to convince Israel to withdraw from Arab lands and thus be recognised by all Arabs. The problem, then, is the Israeli occupation of non-Israeli lands in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. Today all Palestinians, no matter what their affiliation, speak in terms of a settlement with Israel. Not even radical Arab nationalists seek to liberate historical Palestine from the river to the sea.
Israel cannot view Israeli Arabs' identification with the larger Arab world, which wants peace, as incompatible with the trappings of Israeli citizenship and the loyalty this legal relationship entails. Assuming otherwise makes for some very strange situations. Should the innumerable ethnic groups in the US, for example, hide their roots and their pride in them in light of their citizenship and ties to American society? Israeli logic would have them all deny their countries of origin. When forced to chose, a crisis of loyalty may indeed result, but only rarely. The American of Iraqi origin may not be pleased at the prospect of a US attack on Iraq, even if he distinguishes between the Iraqi people and the policies of the Iraqi regime. But his US citizenship requires him to serve in the military and to refrain from working against US interests. While the crisis may be more acute in the Israeli situation, Israel's immoral and decidedly undemocratic way of dealing with the Palestinian issue has cost it much in the Arab world, particularly with Palestinians. Israel's greatest loss is this: it has planted a seed of doubt in Arabs, making them wonder whether it is possible to live with Jews at all.
It now appears that Israel was not truly aware of the gains it had made before the peace process was derailed by Netanyahu in 1996 and the subsequent Intifada. Most important of all was the hesitant, unspoken readiness of Arabs on both the popular and official levels to accept Israel in the region. The only condition was that Israel compete as an equal, without displays of authority, hostility, or military might.
The success of Israeli democracy should be measured domestically by its ability to absorb Israeli Arabs, just as the American system succeeded in attracting the whole world to its bosom before 11 September. It should also be measured by Israel's behaviour in the face of the occupation and the steps it takes to establish friendly relations with the West Bank and Gaza, and later with its Arab neighbours. Only this will guarantee security for Israelis and for all the people of the region. One day soon, Israel will realise that its security cannot be achieved through tyranny or displays of might, nor by killing Palestinians just because they demand an end to the occupation, regard for their political, social, and economic rights, and, above all, the right to determine their own future.
Israeli Arabs are a fertile testing ground for the future of Israeli democracy, offering aIsraeli society a means of permanently moving away from Ariel Sharon's racist and hostile view of things. It is still within Israel's power to prove that it is the democracy of which the West speaks so highly. It can still prove that Israeli Arabs are part of Israeli society, which must diversify culturally, ethnically, and religiously. The world has seen no democracy based on one religion and one people to the exclusion of all others since the Roman period. The West, too, in its history and literature has recognised the strong link between democratic political systems and the foreign policies of those systems. The more truly democratic a nation is, the greater its interest in peace, for itself and for others.
* The writer is assistant foreign minister.
