TORONTO — If Israel fails to grant its 1.2 million Arab citizens complete equal rights, they will become a festering problem, warns Israel’s minister of minority affairs, Avishay Braverman.
Avishay Braverman [Sheldon Kirshner photo]
In an interview last week, he declared that the “policy of neglect” toward Israel’s Arab citizens that virtually every Israeli government has followed since statehood must end.
“We have to create a ‘new deal’ for Israeli Arabs,” said Braverman, a Labor party member of Knesset whose visit to Toronto was arranged by the Inter-Agency Task Force, a New York-based coalition of North American Jewish organizations, foundations and private philanthropists committed to advancing civic equality in Israel.
Braverman, the former president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said that improving conditions for Israeli Arabs represents one of three “strategic challenges” that Israel must meet to ensure its long-term survival.
In addition to forming a real partnership with Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20 per cent of Israel’s population, Israel should work toward a two-state solution and overhaul its antiquated system of government, said Braverrman, an economist and former top official at the World Bank.
“We have to move in a different direction,” said Braverman, 61, a tall, athletic-looking man whose brief appearance here was under the auspices of the Canada-Israel Committee.
“It’s a moral and an economic issue, but it’s also in our national interest. It is good for the Jews.”
Under the law, Israeli Arabs enjoy equal rights with Jews and have a higher standard of living than Arabs in the Arab world, he noted.
But Israeli Arabs have not received their fair share of state resources in terms of budgetary allocations and civil service jobs, and their unemployment rate far exceeds that of Jews.
According to Braverman, the only Israeli prime minister who attempted to fully integrate Israeli Arabs was Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995.
One of his successors, Ehud Olmert, acknowledged that Israel has not treated them properly,while the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, believes there is room for improvement in their status, even though he did not appoint a single Arab minister to his large cabinet.
“I pray to God, and I hope, that Netanyahu will rise to the occasion,” he said. “We’ll miss a historic opportunity if we don’t act. What we’re doing is for our grandchildren. I’ll fight for it. It’s one of the most important strategic issues for Israel.”
In a reference to Israel’s current coalition government, he said, “It’s not a question of right or left.”
Citing two right-wing Israeli figures who support him, Braverman mentioned Benny Begin, the son of the late prime minister Menachem Begin, and Moshe Arens, the former defence minister and ambassador to Washington.
“On this issue, they are liberal.”
With Netanyahu’s backing, Braverman has established a special Arab development fund of 160 million shekels to improve the generally depressed Israeli Arab economy and bring many more Arab women into the workforce.
Half the funds will come from the government, and the balance is expected to come from private donors in Israel and the Diaspora through investments in hi-tech and medium-tech projects in Arab localities.
During the few hours he spent in Toronto, Braverman pitched his idea to a select group Jewish community activists.
Asked whether Jews would be inclined to invest in the Arab sector, he replied, “Some would, some wouldn’t.”
Fresh from a tour of cities in the United States, Braverman arrived in Toronto about a week after the Supreme Arab Monitoring Committee, a major Israeli Arab organization, announced that Israeli Arabs will hold a one day general strike on Oct. 1 to protest “continued state discrimination against its Arab citizens” and to mark the anniversary of the October 2000 riots, during which 13 Israeli Arabs were killed by police fire.
Braverman said that surveys indicate that almost one-quarter of Israeli Arabs reject Israel’s existence. The vast majority, however, accept Israel as a fact and want very much to participate in Israeli society as equals.
“If we don’t do what right and appropriate, we will push young Israeli Arabs into the fundamentalist camp. We don’t want an antagonistic minority.”
Braverman dodged a question as to whether Israeli Arabs are second-class citizens, but he agreed that they don’t get an equitable proportion of resources in such areas as municipal budgets and education.
“We have to move forward on these issues. We can’t wait for the Messiah. We should be a light unto the nations and pursue justice.”
Asked if he concurs with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s suggestion that Israeli Arabs should take a mandatory loyalty test to prove their allegiance, Braverman replied, “He’s damaging the very delicate fabric between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and he’s hurting Israel’s international image.”
Seguing to the peace process, Braverman said Israel has no alternative but to move to a two-state solution.
“We have to partition the Holy Land to avoid a one-state solution, which would be the end of Zionism.”
Under a proposed peace agreement with the Palestinians, he said, Israel would pull out from more than 90 per cent of the West Bank, leaving it with at least 70 per cent of Jewish settlers on approximately four per cent of the land.
“The rest of the settlements would be removed.”
In his view, most Palestinians support a two-state solution.
In the meantime, Braverman observed, Israel should develop the Galilee and the Negev.
Israel should also move closer to a presidential system of government to fulfil its huge potential and simplify its bureaucracy to encourage “a quantum leap of economic growth.”
He is optimistic he can succeed.
“I’ll do what I can, and God and history will judge me.”
