Arabs campaign for equality - on TV

A media campaign launched on Israeli television invites viewers to confront their prejudice toward Arabs, in a bid to foster dialogue between Jews, Arabs

Roee Nahmias|Published: 10.06.05 , 10:23

A new television campaign in Arabic will attempt to tackle the issue of racism and prejudice toward Arabs in Israel, and foster dialogue between Arabs and Jews. The campaign, which will be broadcast during prime time on all major channels, is an initiative of the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel.

Launched on the eve of the new year, the campaign's commercials feature a black screen on which common phrases in Arabic appear. An announcer reads the words out loud.

Mossawa spokeswoman, Abir Kopty explained that the commercials aim at getting the viewers to consider their reactions to anything which represents "Arab," including daily words and phrases such as "good morning" or "have a nice day."

Kopty said that the campaign consists of two separate parts. In the first part, which includes the media commercials, the public will be exposed to the issue of inequality toward the Arab population in the country.

An equality festival

The second stage of the campaign that will follow the media one, will concentrate on inviting the Israeli public to attend the "Mossawa (equality) Days" festival in the northern Arab town of Nazareth, scheduled to be held during the month of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Organized by the Mossawa center, the Nazareth city council and the town's cinemateque, the festival will include conferences, tours, movies on human rights issues, artists exhibitions, and activities for children. The visitors to the festival will also be invited to dine in the town's restaurants, which will be opened each day after the fast.

"The campaign is very unsophisticated, but it arouses many reactions, because it is in Arabic. The rejection it provokes, regardless of its true literal content, constitutes the campaign's basis. An Arab person who says 'good morning' on a bus, generates immediate alarm," Kopty explained.

At the same time as launching the campaign in the Israeli and Russian media, Mossawa intends to introduce a similar campaign in the Arab media, entitled "Mossawa (equality) is a right."

"We wanted to tell our public it should not forego the right for equality, even if it is hard to achieve at the present reality," she concluded.