A Talk with Israel's Arabs
OAK, LISTON M.
SEARCHING FOR EQUALITY A Talk with, Israel's Arabs BY LISTON M. OAK Haifa Jubran, an Israeli Arab, is chairman of the Arab-Jewish Association for the Promotion of Understanding. Established in...
...This will bring to 145 the number of welfare workers on the West Bank, nearly six times as many as at the close of the Six Day War...
...As if to underline his view, he notes that one means of fostering this would be a common educational program for both Jewish and Arab youngsters...
...These remarks are no idle protest...
...the others are being given further training and an additional 10 will soon be added to the staff...
...Why not first make peace with us, who do not want war and who love our country, which is Israel...
...We reject the extremists, the terrorists, Arab demagogues like Nasser, as much as you do...
...The national interests of Israel and the Arab nations are not contradictory but complimentary," Jubran affirms...
...Arab women, too, generally enjoy the same rights as Jewish women...
...And while the seemingly intractable Arab-Israeli war gives few immediate signs of hope for the future, talking with old-time Israeli Arabs and even residents of the recently occupied territories helps one understand the optimism of an Abba Khoushy and a Salim Jubran...
...We are loyal...
...We must live in peace and cooperation...
...We only want you to carry out, in deeds as well as words, the promise of full and complete equality...
...Those in the field attend periodic week-long refresher courses...
...Thus, the average annual income of an urban Arab family is now about $2,450, compared to $2,590 for an average Jewish family...
...No Arab holds important posts in the government...
...where the population is mixed, Arabs are represented according to their numbers and maintain their own parties...
...Even when voicing one or another complaint to a visiting journalist, they admit they enjoy a degree of well-being and freedom unknown to their brothers across the borders...
...Operating through a network of Moslem and Christian institutions and Israeli government agencies, the social workers' efforts are mainly directed at rehabilitation...
...Nevertheless, many Arab liberals and labor leaders seek open, full admission to the dominant Labor party, for whose candidates most Arabs vote...
...Although attention understandably focuses on the Arab areas captured during the Six Day War and on Arab guerrilla activity, the association's Arab-Jewish Community Center in Haifa is running vital training programs for the surrounding Arab villages...
...We constitute about 12 per cent of the population, but less than 2 per cent of civil service jobs are held by our people...
...Established in 1966, the organization's statement of goals declares: "A basic concept of the Zionist movement was, and still is, that the return of the Jewish people to their country is concurrently adherent to an understanding to be reached with the Arab people of the Middle East, based on the desire to construct a common future for both of the Semitic peoples...
...The villages and towns also elect their own councils...
...For the most part, the old mayors, police, and other authorities elected or appointed before the 1967 War have remained in power, except when they have worked with Al Fatah or other guerrilla organizations...
...Because the Palestinian guerrillas themselves are particularly bitter in their hatred of Israeli Arabs who cooperate with the Jews, it is especially ironic that the loyal majority are under suspicion for crimes of a very few...
...If anything, the Arabs appear to be enjoying a kind of self-rule and prosperity that they never knew before, and their standards of living have risen high above those in surrounding areas...
...Moreover, medical centers and maternity and child health clinics operate in almost all Arab areas, whereas in 1948 there was only one such facility...
...And indeed, the success of the organization in promoting fellowship would seem to vindicate his faith...
...Many people think this form of political segregation a mistake, but it seems unavoidable so long as Jewish suspicion still survives...
...Their case was recently well put by one Israeli Arab before an assembly of Histadrut officials: "You want to make peace with the Arab governments which openly declare their intention to destroy you...
...give us full equality by integration in political and social life...
...All the evidence points to one inescapable conclusion: that never before has a conquered people been treated in such an intelligent, humanitarian way...
...For the other, more fortunate residents of this area of 420,000 people, the Israeli occupying authority has arranged low-interest, long-term loans-enabling women, for example, to buy sewing machines-and provided men with jobs in home construction, road building and agriculture...
...The persistence of separate educational facilities and other forms of segregation, however, belies the real gains made by Israeli Arabs since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948...
...Moshe Takomi, chief administrator for the area, had expected no more than 20-30...
...They believe in complete integration in Israel...
...The center's accomplishments are due largely to the dedication of Jubran and his like-minded colleagues in the General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) and the Knesset...
...Of the remainder, most were college or university graduates and 15 were employed immediately...
...Eighty of the applicants were rejected as unqualified...
...It is inevitable...
...Outside the cities, Arabs now use modern farming methods and machinery, which have produced a dramatic rise in living standards...
...For among the variety of problems confronting the West Bank, those of juvenile delinquency and prostitution are widespread, in addition to the plight of the aged beggars and the blind...
...The Ministry of Welfare, for instance, recently advertised for social workers on the West Bank, and was startled to receive 200 responses...
...Villages and towns have been rebuilt with electricity, running water, bathrooms, telephones, and other conveniences...
...Jews and Arabs can, and must, live together in tranquility...
...This has changed radically...
...We suffer from your groundless fear...
...Perhaps more important, it serves as a social and cultural gathering place for both young Arabs and Jews in the western Galilee district...
...Opposed to segregation in all its forms, Jubran sees no reason why his children should sit in one classroom, and his neighbors' in another...
...But beyond unavoidable punishment of terrorists and those who cooperate with them, the official policy has been to interfere as little as possible in domestic affairs...
...in equality and freedom regardless of race, religion or politics...
...At the time the Arab-Jewish Association was founded, the late Abba Khoushy, mayor of Haifa, listed the many obstacles to achievement of these aims, but voiced a firm conviction that the two peoples could live together in peace and harmony...
...Before the War, social work in the occupied territories was rare, as in all Arab countries, and considered charity...
...In the territories occupied by Israel in the Six Day War, of course, grounds for Jewish apprehension is very real...
...We want to join your political parties...
...Peace is in the interests of all people of this part of the world...
...Where once Arab laborers were held in the thrall of feudal, absentee landlords, today 70 per cent are members of Histadrut unions, enjoying equal pay with Jewish workers for equal work, and such fringe benefits as medical coverage and pensions...
...The fact of the matter is that out of a total of 350,000 Israeli Arabs, only 116 have been arrested in the past two and a half years for alleged terrorist activities...
...Faced with the tremendous task of absorbing a million and a half refugees from Hitler's concentration camps . . . the State of Israel solemnly renews the pledge of equality and fraternity toward its Arab citizens which appears in the opening chapter of the Declaration of Independence...
Vol. 53 • February 1970 • No. 4
