Arab hostility won't go away
Photo: AFP
Arab hostility here to stay
Op-ed: Even complete equality won’t erase ‘original sin’ in Arab view – Jewish State’s existence
On the week we celebrated Independence week, Arab Israeli spokespeople and representatives expressed their determination to raze the Jewish people’s national enterprise. Their interest does not focus on the stress the regret over the failure of the violent Palestinian bid to destroy the national Jewish home and prevent the Jews from establishing their independent state.
These blunt messages are marketed to the Israeli and European publics under guise of demands for equality and through deception. Those who endorse these notions present them under the guise of pluralistic messages. Arafat’s agents, Assad’s sycophants, Hezbollah’s admirers, Hamas supporters and those who justify suicide bombings learned to recite the slogans of “human rights,” “democracy,” “humanism” and “freedom of expression." They market the turning of Israel into an Arab state in the form of “a state of all its citizens” or “a bi-national state."
Although they also complain of discrimination and seclusion, the Arabs admit that’s not the essence. Even if perfect equality – which exists nowhere in the world – were to prevail in Israel, the “original sin” will remain fully intact: The very existence of the Jewish nation-state. Arabs view the state's inception as a colonialist conspiracy that established a fundamentally illegitimate entity. In their view, the only way to correct the wrong is through national suicide of the Jewish majority – that is, replacing the Jewish State with an Arab one.
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However, this is accompanied by the demand for demographic mechanisms of realizing the “right of return” and annulling the Law of Return that will make the state Arab.
The hostility and denial of the Jewish right for self-determination is accepted by the Arab political leadership and elites. The picture among the entire Arab public is more complex, as there is no way to know what every Arab Israeli citizen feels “deep in his heart.”
On the one hand, there is a significant minority among the Arabs who recognizes the advantages of the state founded by the Jews and is even proud of it; on the other hand, this public repeatedly votes, in democratic elections, almost only in favor of a radical, hostile leadership and gives rise to elites that reject Israel's legitimacy and identify with enemies fighting to destroy it.
Public opinion polls attest to the dissonance between these two elements, yet the political behavior of Arabs almost always tends to the radical. This is also the facet presented to the Jewish public and the façade which the Jewish public responds to.
The socioeconomic front does not bode well either. Despite an ongoing trend of improvement and minimization of gaps, the discourse on this front is characterized almost entirely by qualms and harsh charges against the Jewish majority, without the Arabs willing to assume responsibility for their own decisive contribution to their economic distress. They attribute the distress to discrimination, even though unequivocal economic data prove that the essence of Arab Muslims’ economic distress stems from their large families and the scant participation of women in the workforce.
These data clearly prove that both Arab Muslims and ultra-Orthodox Jews are facing similar economic distress for the very same reason – a high number of children and one parent avoiding productive work, while non-haredi Jews and Arab Christians are usually able to make a dignified living, as they adopted a modern, responsible lifestyle.
Boost equality, Jewish character
In both realms, the political and the socioeconomic, no “solution” is expected in the foreseeable future, as the Arab cling to an attitude that does not allow for a solution. Rejecting the Jewish nation-state is not just another stance, but rather, an important part of their identity imparted to their children. Most Muslims are unwilling to adopt the modern lifestyle that proved successful among Christians. These two facts guarantee growing alienation vis-à-vis the Jewish majority and persistent distress.The challenge faced by the Jewish majority is a retreat from the clearly unrealistic target of “finding a solution,” in the absence of an Arab-Muslim partner, while adopting a policy of “damage control.” Such policy should simultaneously focus on boosting civil equality and reinforcing the pillars of the Jewish State. Growing equality will not change Arab hostility or the usual qualms, yet it will contribute to the boosting of Israel’s open society and the state’s democratic character.
Boosting Israel’s Jewish character (for example, by legislation that will entrench the superiority of the Hebrew language, with Arabic being designated as a second official language) will make it more difficult for radical Arab elements and their partners on the margins of Israeli society to erode the nation-state established by the Jewish people.
Reinforcing these two components – the Jewish one and the democratic one – is required in and of itself for Zionist reasons, yet it will also be highly effective in thwarting the struggle waged by Israel’s rivals both domestically and abroad.
Dr. Dan Schueft heads the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa. He recently published a book about Israel's Arabs that addresses the issues discussed in the article in more depth
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