Lenience to Arabs?
Photo: AFP
?Harsh criticism of haredim
Photo: Eliad Levy
Israeli double standard
Op-ed: Why are haredim being slammed while Israel’s Arabs are shown lenience?
It was interesting to see our leaders Sunday choosing to discuss the future of two sectors and their integration into Israeli society: The haredim and the Arabs.
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We can assume that any Israeli news consumer could not miss the plethora of colorful headlines, politicians’ statements, and columnists’ remarks against the haredi sector. Tons of arrogance and venomous hatred were being poured there.
Yet the discussion pertaining to the Arab community enjoyed almost no media coverage, and if it did, we found it deep inside the newspaper, under the headline “Prime minister convenes secret session on Arab Israelis.” This meeting was so sensitive that the Prime Minister’s Office refused to provide any details about it.
Now, imagine what would have happened around here had the things uttered about the haredim by government ministers been uttered about the Arab community. Imagine the mayhem. Everyone would have enlisted for the Arab cause, ranging from the prime minister to lower ranking officials, who would have slammed the speakers for daring to say what they did.
Arabs embraced
It’s not as though the Arab community is discriminated against to a greater extent – it enjoys respectable political representation, it has its own parties, and it boasts Knesset members within the largest parties. There is even an affirmative action law aimed at integrating Arab Israelis into government institutions, something which the haredi community can only dream of.Yet it appears that regardless of the facts, people will aim to turn the haredim into anathema while patting, embracing and encouraging the Arab public. On occasion, when we hear about some negative affair pertaining to the Arab community, officials take care of the “bad weeds” while convening sensitive discussions about the Arab community’s future.
We can try to analyze what motivates the harsh criticism of the haredim while showing lenience to the Arabs. There may be many reasons for it, some of them political: The Arab community has registered for the large parties en masse, so no politician wishes to mess with it. Yet whatever the reason, it cannot justify such contradictory approaches to two types of minorities.
And it’s not that I’m challenging the Arab sector here, heaven forbid. I am not urging officials to blast it, as they do to the haredim. I only seek to get the attention of anyone who possesses a hint of objectivity and make him think once or twice next time before speaking out against the haredim. Would he say the same things against the Arabs?
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