Israeli is not a synonym for Jewish

More and more Arab citizens – like many other groups of Israeli “others” – are no longer willing to simply “exist” or “co-exist” and are increasingly aspiring to integrate into the dominantly Jewish Israeli work place. 

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Source/Credit: Common Ground News Service
By Mike Prashker | November 1, 2011

Ramla, Israel - My visit to the torched mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba-Zangeriyah in Northern Israel is not something I will forget. I visited the fire-bombed mosque as part of a diverse delegation of Israeli non-governmental organisation (NGO) representatives, working together on “Kulanana”, an ambitious new initiative to shape a better shared future for all of Israel’s citizens.

The mosque was torched in the early hours of 3 October by suspected Jewish fanatics, one more apparent outrage in a so-called “price tag” campaign of escalating terrorism, routinely directed at Palestinians in the West Bank, but now also towards Arab citizens of Israel. This attack represents another serious setback to relations between Israel’s 7.7 million citizens.


Sixty-three years after Israel’s establishment, it is easy to feel demoralised by such events. Comprehensive research conducted for Kulanana shows that far too many of Israel’s citizens hold stereotypical and negative attitudes towards “others”. This is not confined to Jewish-Arab relations. Indeed, inter-group relations across the many national, religious and ethnic groups that form Israeli society are far from open and accepting.

This troubling situation has numerous historical causes: the traumatic context of Israel’s establishment, the on-going conflict, low levels of intergroup familiarity sustained by separate lives and mutual fears, a still-short democratic history and a fragile democratic culture. All these factors make it hard for Israelis to respect differences and accommodate deep disagreements.

However, rather than descending into despair, we can also view the current deterioration of inter-group relations as an important and even essential phase that could eventually lead to greater inter-group accommodation – both inside Israel and throughout the region.

Paradoxically, recent progress on the equitable civic integration of Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, led in large part by a new generation of young and articulate Arab NGO-activists and professionals who rightly aspire to be both "first-class" citizens of Israel as well as "first-class" Arab Palestinians, have temporarily increased friction. However these tensions should also be understood, in part, as a result of growing awareness among Jewish Israelis that “Israeli” is not a synonym for “Jewish”.

Crucially, as Arab citizens demand their rightful civic place in Israel they are making their presence known. More and more Arab citizens – like many other groups of Israeli “others” – are no longer willing to simply “exist” or “co-exist” and are increasingly aspiring to integrate into the dominantly Jewish Israeli work place. Some are even relocating to what were, until recently, uniformly Jewish neighbourhoods and towns in search of equal municipal infrastructure and services, work and education. It is only to be expected that this process creates increased friction between unfamiliar and fearful groups of citizens.

Thus, with all the associated ugliness and pain of increased intergroup conflict, this moment can also be understood as a constructive process whereby excluded groups are staking their civic claims to a fair future within Israeli society.

However, to achieve a successful transition from conflict to accommodation, to mitigate tensions and to optimise the chance and pace of change, hard work is required.

A critical aspect of the systematic and sustained action required is shaping a much more inclusive Israeli sense of “us”, an inclusive civic identity for Israeli citizens of all backgrounds. For this reason, the new initiative led by MERCHAVIM is called “Kulanana” – a new word made out of the expressions for “all of us” in Hebrew and Arabic, Israel’s two official languages.

Kulanana focuses on the three consensual and interlocking concepts of citizenship, diversity and fairness, and combines a growing range of field projects with an on-going media campaign. Through Kulanana, a large coalition of NGO partners who normally work separately on society-building issues is increasingly acknowledging the inter-connectedness of the challenges and beginning to work together.

This inter-connectedness was powerfully highlighted when David Maharat, the orthodox Jewish Chief Executive Officer of a leading Israel-based NGO helping to integrate the Ethiopian Jewish Israeli community, presented new Qur’ans to the imam of the mosque in Tuba, a clear statement of shared religious and civic values, and the common challenges of racism and exclusion faced by many groups in Israel.

We find ourselves now at a dangerous junction, as the event at Tuba-Zangeriyah has shown. In light of such events immediate action must be taken. We at Kulanana, in partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Education, are now planning a joint programme for the students of Tuba-Zangeriyah and their Jewish-Israeli neighbours, a fitting answer to those who would undermine our vision of a fair, shared future that dignifies the diversity that characterises Israeli society.

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Mike Prashker is Founder and Director of MERCHAVIM – The Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel, and initiator of the Kulanana initiative (www.kulanana.org.il) This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 1 November 2011, www.commongroundnews.org


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