One of the most important principles in a democracy is to protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority. A democratic state is by nature pluralistic and respectful of diversity among its citizens, and enables each group within its population that so wishes to maintain all the components of its own identity, including its heritage, culture, and national identity. In a democracy, every minority group has the right to express its own narrative concerning the past and its own vision of the future, even if these differ from or challenge the narratives of the majority. A democracy does not condition citizens' rights on declarations of agreement or "loyalty" to certain ideas and opinions. All the above are basic principles of substantive democracy.
The attitude of the State of Israel towards Arab citizens contradicts these democratic principles. Many Jewish citizens and many of their elected representatives believe that Arab citizens of Israel are entitled to equality and to protection of their rights only on condition that they abandon their national identity, culture, language, and historical heritage, and declare their "loyalty" to values they do not share.
Today, Arab citizens of Israel comprise close to 20% of the total population of the country, numbering over 1,000,000. They live predominantly in villages, towns, and mixed Arab-Jewish cities in the Galilee region in the north, the Triangle area in central Israel, and the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south. They belong to three religious communities: Muslim (81%), Christian (10%), and Druze (9%). Under international instruments to which Israel is a state party, they constitute a national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority.
In Israel there are glaring socioeconomic disparities between Jewish and Arab population groups, particularly with regard to land, urban planning, housing, social services, employment opportunities, and education. Over half of the impoverished families in Israel are Arab families, and Arab municipalities are among the poorest in the country.
The events of October 2000, exactly one decade ago, were a particularly sharp and painful manifestation of the complex relationship between the State of Israel and the Arab minority that lives in this country. During these events, thirteen Arabs were killed, including twelve Israeli citizens and one resident of the Occupied Territories. None of the policemen involved in these events has been prosecuted. This reality created a grave sense among Arab citizens that they could be injured with impunity, seriously damaging the already fragile trust between the Arab minority and the state. These events are a chilling illustration of the possible outcomes of ongoing discrimination and injury to a minority group. October 2000 added a new layer of pain, offense, and mistrust to the relations between the state and the Arab minority, leaving an open wound that has yet to heal. From the standpoint of the Arab public, the lesson of October 2000 was that the state will not hesitate to employ lethal violence against its Arab citizens if they fail to act in accordance with its policies.
The investigation of the events of October 2000 by the Ministry of Justice's Police Investigation Department (PID) was marred by grave defects. Justice was not done, and no-one was called to ccount for their actions. The failure to prosecute those responsible for the killing of the Arab citizens exacerbates the mistrust that dominates the relationship between the Arab minority and the state; impairs the status of the Arab minority and leads to a negligent attitude to Arab lives; weakens the rule of law in the State of Israel; delegitimizes protests; and constitutes a blemish that will continue to mar Israeli democracy.
The Or Commission, a state commission of inquiry, was established to investigate the events of October 2000. The commission's recommendations offered the state a historic opportunity to redefine its attitude to the Arab minority that lives in Israel; to acknowledge the needs and rights of this minority; to repair injured trust; and to correct the course of the relationship with the Arab minority. Ten years after these events, however, the State of Israel does not seem to have internalized the commission's conclusions, since its attitude towards the Arab minority has only worsened.
Over the past two years, in particular, we have seen an unprecedented deterioration in the attitude of the state towards the Arab citizens. This has been manifested in discriminatory proposed laws - some of which recently passed as laws by the Knesset (parliament);1 attacks on freedom of expression and political activity; racist statements by public figures; a hostile approach by the police and the law enforcement bodies; policy based mainly on force; and ongoing discrimination against the Arab public in the allocation of budgets and resources. Alongside these attacks, a growing attempt is being made to force Arab citizens to meet inherently antidemocratic tests of "loyalty."
Two particularly problematic pieces of legislation along these lines just passed in the most recent Knesset session -The Nakba Law and the Acceptance to Communities Law. Part of the recent slew of anti-democratic legislation that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has been relentlessly working to prevent, these two bills became laws on 22 March 2011.
Together with the Abraham Fund Initiatives and residents of communal villages who oppose the bill (Atid Misgav), ACRI filed a petition in the Israeli High Court of Justice, demanding to disqualify the “Acceptance to Communities” law on the grounds that it provides a “license to discriminate” against “unwanted” communities, who are rejected by acceptance committees in communal villages and in kibbutz expansions. This law legalizes a common discriminatory practice, which has already been criticized by the High Court of Justice.
The Nakba Law, officially titled “Budget Principles Law (Amendment 39) – Reducing Budgetary Support for Activities Contrary to the Principles of the State,” will enable a committee of bureaucrats from the Ministry of Finance to fine municipalities, public institutions, or publicly supported organizations – if they believe that these bodies oppose the interpretation of the term “Jewish and democratic State,” express feelings of mourning related to the Israeli Independence Day or the Nakba, or violate the symbols of the State.
Therefore, for example, it will be possible to fine cultural or educational institutions and local municipalities if they hold an event that gives artistic expression (or any other form of expression) to critical or alternative opinions. The actual meaning of this fine is the revocation of public funding, up to ten times the cost of the event in which the “offense” was committed.
The bill seeks to single out and mark Israel’s Arab citizens as dangerous and disloyal to the state if they seek to express their own narrative and interpretation of historical events. The bill completely ignores the state’s duty to recognize ethnic- national minority groups, their culture, and their narrative, as part of their right to cultural independence.
It is important to note that the Arabs in Israel constitute not only a minority, but an indigenous people - that is, a minority that was present before the establishment of the current political entity. This status was recognized inter alia in the Report of the aforementioned Or Commission. An indigenous minority, as distinct from an immigrant minority, bears a stronger affinity to the local land and history, and views the country (though not necessarily the state) as its historical homeland. International law has enshrined the rights of minorities in general, and of indigenous minorities in particular, notably the right to equality, the right to property, and the right to maintain cultural identity, in a series of conventions and declarations to which the State of Israel is committed.
A democratic state does not demand that a minority – and certainly an indigenous minority with the history and circumstances that exist in Israel - forego its identity in order to receive rights. An understanding on the part of the Jewish majority, and on the part of the institutions of state, of the indigenous affinity between the Arabs in Israel and this country is critical in order to build relations of trust between the state and the Arab minority. It is also critical to understand the manner in which the Arab minority perceives its identity, as well as natural affinity - in historical, national, social, and familial terms - with the Palestinian residents of the Territories and with the Arab inhabitants of neighboring countries.
In addition to the conditioning of rights on "loyalty," demands have also been made to condition the rights of Arab citizens to benefits provided by the National Insurance Institute, on the basis of the slogan "no rights without obligations." Recent examples include the decision to condition acceptance to the Foreign Ministry's cadet course on military or national service, and the granting of benefits to released soldiers in institutions of higher education. Arab citizens - like religious Jews and people with disabilities - are exempt from service in the Israeli military by law; neither are they obliged to perform alternative civil service.
More importantly, however, a democracy does not present its citizens with conditions for enjoying basic rights, and does not discriminate among citizens. In 2006, the Haifa District Court ruled in a petition submitted by Adalah (a human rights center) that the use of military service as a criterion in acceptance to student dormitories discriminates against Arab students and should be abolished. It is important to understand that the demand for citizens to declare allegiance to the State of Israel as a Jewish state (as if there was a single monolithic perception of the Jewish nature of the state); to the Zionist vision (as if there was a single monolithic definition of this vision); and to the narrative of the Jewish majority (as if there was a single monolithic narrative accepted by all the Jewish citizens) is tantamount to a demand for Arab citizens to erase their own identity and deny their past. At the same time, these same demands are also (indirectly) imposed on Jewish citizens, reflecting an imaginary consensus within the majority group regarding these issues.
It is not impossible to improve the trust between the various arms of the state and the Arab citizens. This will be achieved if the Jewish majority and its representatives in positions of power understand that democracy entails an obligation to enable the Arab minority to maintain its identity, heritage, andculture, and if they abandon the desire to control the life of the Arab population and to impose on it alien values that it does not share. In this context, it is also worth mentioning the comments by Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor during a debate on one of the proposed laws mentioned above:
Why do we need to add the word 'Jewish' to every proposal and to show the Arab citizens that it does not belong to them? And then people wonder why they are adopting more extreme positions. ...[w]hy do [we] need to make things harsher and more severe all the time? The majority does not need to remind the minority all the time that it is a minority.
Rather than raising improper and impractical demands for Arab citizens to identify with the Jewish identity of Israel and with the symbols of the Jewish nation as common national symbols, an effort should be made to promote solidarity and identity on a civil and egalitarian basis. The minority should enjoy all the legal and democratic courses of action and expression provided in any reasonable democracy.
For further information, please contact: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), National Headquarters, Nahalat Binyamin 75, Tel Aviv 65154 ISRAEL; ph (972-3) 5608185; fax (972-3) 56081659; e-mail: mail@acri.org.il; www.acri.org.il
1. For details of the proposed legislations see ACRI List of Top Anti-Democratic Legislative Initiatives in www.acri.org.il/en/?p=1639