tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/arab-israelis-7740/articlesArab Israelis – The Conversation2023-04-13T12:27:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034642023-04-13T12:27:28Z2023-04-13T12:27:28ZMost Palestinians in East Jerusalem are sitting out Israeli protests – but they are still concerned about a potential judicial reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520607/original/file-20230412-20-9p08z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Palestinian girl plays with a ball outside of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the old city of Jerusalem. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/672383194/photo/topshot-palestinian-israel-religion-islam.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=t9WkHH1lF85JtWrqYIm99b5o1In5Ibg729a0jjWTo50=">Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israeli protesters have been demonstrating against the Netanyahu government’s controversial efforts to radically overhaul the judicial system for nearly three months. And while the <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-enters-a-dangerous-period-public-protests-swell-over-netanyahus-plan-to-limit-the-power-of-the-israeli-supreme-court-199917">protests regularly bring out more than 100,000 people</a> to the streets across Israel, few Arab faces have appeared among the demonstrators. </p>
<p>The protests cause some minor annoyances, like traffic delays, to Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. </p>
<p>But the greater threat to these East Jerusalem Palestinians are the proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary system. The changes, referred to as “reforms,” would limit the Supreme Court’s powers to rule against the legislative and executive branches, effectively giving the Knesset the power to override Supreme Court decisions <a href="https://www.ajc.org/news/what-to-know-about-israels-judicial-reforms">with a simple majority</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that such changes would be dangerous to East Jerusalem Palestinians, especially when right-wing governments – like the current one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – are in power and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/qanda-with-raja-shehadeh">oppose giving Palestinians</a> more rights. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/graduate-students/dlief.html">political science scholar</a> with a regional focus on the Middle East, I have spent a significant time with East Jerusalem Palestinians asking what they think about judicial reform plans and the protests against it. </p>
<p>Our discussions show that East Jerusalem Palestinians feel an an overarching sense of indifference and resignation to whatever will happen. </p>
<p>“That is the Israelis’ fight, not mine,” or “What does it matter what happens? Nothing will help with anything anyway,” were the most common reactions that East Jerusalem Palestinians had to the protests when I spoke with them in March 2023. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several white buildings are seen in the distance, beyond a concrete wall and green, grassy areas." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520606/original/file-20230412-16-v1mxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A view of East Jerusalem is seen in February 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1198900127/photo/daily-life-in-jerusalem.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=jVnH8hAANB4-ILX0beUul1qISJ7nmYHk4htyrkLGo1w=">Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>A brief background</h2>
<p>While Israel claims that East Jerusalem is simply a part of its capital city, the United Nations and <a href="https://en.idi.org.il/articles/38540">Palestinians say it is occupied territory</a> by the Israeli government. Further, East Jerusalem covers approximately 27 square miles and is home to about about <a href="https://en.idi.org.il/articles/38540">362,000 Arab residents</a> who are considered permanent residents of Israel. </p>
<p>These Palestinians have no passports and cannot vote in Israeli elections. </p>
<p>Just 18,982 Palestinians in East Jerusalem have <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-05-29/ty-article/why-so-few-palestinians-from-jerusalem-have-israeli-citizenship/00000181-0c46-d090-abe1-ed7fefc20000">obtained Israeli citizenship</a> since 1967. This followed the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-1967-six-day-war">1967 Six-Day War</a>, when Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan over a territorial dispute and occupied parts of Jerusalem that were under Jordanian control. </p>
<p>This small number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem who have received Israeli citizenship stems from two main factors. First, many Palestinians feel resistant toward taking Israeli citizenship because of cultural divisions and a desire for their own nationhood. Second, the Israeli government makes it difficult for these Palestinians <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-01-15/ty-article/.premium/east-jerusalem-palestinians-face-uphill-battle-in-bid-for-israeli-citizenship/0000017f-e55e-d62c-a1ff-fd7fe78d0000">to get Israeli citizenship</a>. </p>
<p>Today, East Jerusalem Palestinians truly <a href="https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/reports/the-legal-status-of-east-jerusalem.pdf">live between two worlds</a>. They are <a href="https://pij.org/articles/1662/palestinians-in-west-jerusalem-economic-dependency-amid-violent-contestation">politically and economically connected</a> to West Jerusalem, home to Israeli Jews and the Israeli government. Most East Jerusalem Palestinians are able to cross in and out of West Jerusalem easily, though <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/israel-begins-construction-of-new-wall-separating-jews-and-arabs-in-east-jerusalem/a-18790400">walls exist</a> around sections of East Jerusalem, dividing Arab neighborhoods from Jewish ones.</p>
<p>Palestinians in East Jerusalem also pay Jerusalem city taxes and <a href="https://justvision.org/glossary/east-jerusalem">receive general city services</a>, like water. </p>
<p>About 79% of the Palestinian families in East Jerusalem <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-jerusalem-poverty-lifestyle-5a461a09f2e14043beffa6643f5bf699">live in poverty</a>. </p>
<p>Culturally, East Jerusalem Palestinians are more connected to the West Bank, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080034/west-bank-israel-palestinians">landlocked Arab area of Israel</a> that is governed by a separate government, the Palestinian Authority. Many East Jerusalem Palestinians have extended families and friends living in the West Bank.</p>
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<span class="caption">Palestinian women are checked at an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/959718222/photo/topshot-palestinian-israel-religion-ramadan.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=-VXkdDY7TAvLkkUCFEJ_sDe6nSJgxfa7mveKhGo22fs=">Musa Al Shaer/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Speaking with East Jerusalem Palestinians</h2>
<p>With this guiding question – what do East Jerusalem Palestinians think about the proposed judicial reforms and the protests against them – I conducted a survey and series of interviews with 24 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem over the course of three days in March 2023. Another Palestinian I spoke with lived in the nearby city of Ramallah, but worked in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>I spoke with 10 women and 15 men, and the average age of the respondents was about 26. Thirteen of these people had full-time jobs, while seven were employed part time. The rest were either students or temporarily unemployed. </p>
<p>A slight majority of the respondents – approximately 52% – said that they were following <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-rejects-claim-mossad-backed-judiciary-overhaul-protests-2023-04-09/">news about the judicial reforms</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/8/thousands-join-israeli-judicial-protests-amid-soaring-tensions">ongoing protests.</a> </p>
<p>Respondents demonstrated empathy toward the protesters’ goals of suspending the judicial reform plans and, in some cases, pushing Netanyahu out of power, with one respondent openly claiming that “If I were an Israeli, I would protest too!”</p>
<p>But just two respondents said that they would want to participate in the protests themselves. “I know how the Israeli police behave,” one person explained, saying that they were afraid of being arrested or that legal action would be taken against them.</p>
<p>More significantly, they said that they did not want to protest to help preserve a legal system that has not helped them. </p>
<p>The respondents were also very concerned about the potential for increased violence against them if they joined the protests. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for example, grabbed headlines in early November 2022 for encouraging Israeli police to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-11-25/far-right-ben-gvir-israel-national-security-minister">open fire on Palestinian stone throwers</a>.</p>
<h2>A disconnect</h2>
<p>As Israelis demonstrate in the name of saving their democracy, these Palestinians’ overarching sentiment is that they have no leader or partner to help them achieve their own civic rights or national aims. </p>
<p>“Who represents Jerusalem for us? Who speaks for Jerusalem? What brings us together?” were rhetorical questions posed during my discussions and interviews with East Jerusalem Palestinians. These people feel they are cut off from the Palestinian Authority – but that the Israeli government is also “out to get them,” as one respondent said. </p>
<p>Fundamentally, these East Jerusalem Palestinians want their most basic needs met. In particular, they say that the city neglects their neighborhoods – for example, resulting in a buildup of trash. And that their schools are severely underfunded, relative to the Jewish ones in West Jerusalem. </p>
<p>Palestinian civil society leaders have argued that this sense of isolation and lack of direction has produced a generation of young people in East Jerusalem <a href="https://public-policy.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/public-policy/files/thesismichal_weissbrod.pdf">willing to sacrifice everything</a> and possibly push back violently against the Israeli government and citizens. </p>
<p>It’s clear that East Jerusalem Palestinians indeed are listening and watching the major events underway in Israel. They want a voice in politics. But until they feel like an equal partner with democratic rights equal to Jewish Israelis, they will sit on the sidelines – and sometimes, even respond angrily with violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Lief does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent in-depth interviews with Palestinians living in East Jerusalem show that while they are following the Israeli protests, they feel an overall sense of resignation about their futures.Derek Lief, PhD Student/Researcher, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610352021-05-26T15:00:32Z2021-05-26T15:00:32ZHow urban planning plays a role in Israel-Palestine<p>On May 21, a ceasefire was agreed to between Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, putting an end to a bloody 11-day conflict. Despite the relative calm that has ensued, the violence of these past weeks across Israel-Palestine has unveiled distinct urban fronts.</p>
<p>The conflict was triggered in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/jerusalem-sheikh-jarrah-occupation-aqsa/2021/05/09/822ce066-af68-11eb-82c1-896aca955bb9_story.html">Sheikh Jarrah</a> neighbourhood of East Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It took hold of the Israeli <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/12/gaza-crisis-fuels-escalating-violence-mixed-towns-israel">so-called mixed cities</a>, such as Jaffa and Lod/al-Lidd, and engulfed Gaza, where Israeli air raids retaliated against the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57066275">rockets</a> Hamas fired on cities including Tel Aviv. </p>
<p>For some, this <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-civil-war-frontline-lod-b1847798.html">felt like civil war</a>. As <a href="https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dpublog/2020/04/21/gaza-and-the-covid-19-crisis-breaking-the-cycle-of-structural-vulnerability-first/">our</a> research demonstrates, these urban frontlines reveal how urban planning itself is weaponised. </p>
<p>Across the territory, cities and towns are controlled and demographically engineered by the state. This occurs on both sides of the Green Line (the 1949 ceasefire boundary between the West Bank and Israel, which Israel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/world/middleeast/07borders.html">rejects as indefensible</a>), in the West Bank itself and in the Gaza Strip. Increasingly seen as <a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid">an apartheid regime</a>, the government’s goal throughout is to encourage Jewish expansion and restrict Palestinian growth.</p>
<h2>The mixed city</h2>
<p>Heterogeneity is a basic urban condition. The term <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Jewish-Arab-City-Spatio-politics-in-a-mixed-community/Yacobi/p/book/9780415845502">“mixed city”</a>, widely used in Israel to describe an urban conglomeration occupied by Jewish and Arab communities, suggests a diversified and well-integrated society. </p>
<p>The reality, however, is that Jewish and Arab residents are divided – both spatially and socially – through an ongoing Judaisation of the territory. The state apparatus is actively spreading Jewish populations while <a href="https://www.academia.edu/16991244/Spreading_and_Concentrating_the_Camp_as_the_Space_of_the_Frontier">dispossessing</a> Palestinian populations. </p>
<p>This process is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29167751/Camp_evolution_and_Israels_creation_Between_state_of_emergency_and_emergence_of_state_">rooted</a> in Israel’s territorial and urban history. After the Palestinian Nakba (“the catastrophe”) and the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, the Palestinian citizens who stayed became a marginalised minority. Many of their cities, meanwhile, were transformed by Israeli Jewish <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/d47j">town planners and residents</a>. </p>
<p>The example of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Jewish-Arab-City-Spatio-politics-in-a-mixed-community/Yacobi/p/book/9780415845502">Lod/al-Lidd</a> is instructive. The 1948 war saw 250 Palestinians killed in the city and a further 20,000 become refugees. </p>
<p>The Israeli Military Administration initially placed the 1,030 people who remained under strict surveillance in an enclosed area known as <a href="https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/3327/3289">the Sakna</a>. The city’s Palestinian houses and land, meanwhile, were expropriated by the state, who redivided and rented them out to Jewish immigrants. </p>
<p>From the 1950s, the state drew up a master plan for the city, now known as Lod. Intensive demolition (of the historical urban fabric) was followed by extensive reconstruction (of modernist housing blocks, infrastructure and services) to the benefit of Jewish immigrants. Palestinian housing and infrastructure needs, however, <a href="https://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/eng/publications/makan/haim.pdf">were overlooked</a>. </p>
<p>Waves of internally displaced Palestinians have since settled in Lod, from Bedouins whose lands in the Triangle region were expropriated to Palestinians expelled from Gaza and the West Bank for collaborating with the Israelis in the 1967 war. If only 9% of the Lod population was Palestinian in the 1950s, today they account for almost 30%. </p>
<p>The Israeli state, in its attempts to control what it terms the “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238704497_Urban_Ethnocracy_Ethnicization_and_the_Production_of_Space_in_an_Israeli_%27Mixed_City%27">demographic balance</a>” has continued to actively settle Jewish immigrants in the city. It also supports a growing number of settler organisations developing residential projects <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269702910_Tzfadia_E_and_Yacobi_H_2007_Identity_migration_and_the_City_Russian_Immigrants_in_Contested_Urban_Space_in_Israel_Urban_Geography_28_5_436-455">for Jews only</a>. This is happening in other mixed cities too, including <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-the-hebronization-of-jaffa-1.9775349">Jaffa</a>.</p>
<h2>The divided city</h2>
<p>After the 1948 war, Jerusalem was divided by a walled border zone separating Israel from Jordan. When Israel occupied and annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, the state proceeded to reshape the city on both a territorial and a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/48007481/Borders_Boundaries_and_Frontiers_Notes_on_Jerusalems_Present_Geopolitics">demographic level</a>.</p>
<p>A massive construction programme of Jewish settlements and neighbourhoods pushed beyond the city’s outer ring. Palestinian development, however, was stifled. The state demolished housing, limited Palestinian construction, allowed unequal distribution of infrastructure (including schools, roads and sewage systems), and prevented Palestinian immigration to the city. </p>
<p>Today, East Jerusalem accommodates <a href="https://jerusaleminstitute.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/PUB_505_facts-and-trends_eng_2019_web.pdf">around 40%</a> of the city’s Jewish population, up from 4% in the early 1970s. And supposedly neutral urban trends (privatisation, gentrification) only serve to further contain and <a href="https://emekshaveh.org/en/a-privatized-heritage-how-the-israel-antiquities-authority-relinquished-jerusalems-past/">control Palestinian urban space</a>. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-les-cahiers-de-l-orient-2018-2-page-119.htm">touristic planning</a> is co-opted, as our research into the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/26/jerusalem-city-of-david-palestinians-archaeology">contested archaeological site</a> of Silwan shows. Despite the fact that scholars agree there have been no archaeological finds proving the biblical king David’s presence, tourists flock to the site. The dig has seen much Palestinian property acquired in bad faith. The tourism industry that has arisen around it, meanwhile, has state backing.</p>
<p>In Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighbourhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/17/palestinians-sheikh-jarrah-jerusalem-city-identity">real-estate disputes</a> belie how the state uses the courts to further its settler-colonial project. The recent violence was triggered, in part, by the threatened <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-east-jerusalems-sheikh-jarrah-palestinians-brace-for-battle-over-evictions/">eviction of Palestinian families</a> from their homes in favour of the Jewish settler organisation Nahalat Shimon. </p>
<p>Israel’s violence is enacted through discriminatory land-use policies, court rulings and planning strategies. The aim is to maintain a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">solid Jewish majority in the city</a>. </p>
<h2>The disconnected city</h2>
<p>With the occupied territories of the West Bank and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m2kThIVCkc">Gaza Strip</a>, the aim is to create well-connected Jewish settlements that link into one Israeli-controlled territory. Palestinian space, meanwhile, is an ever-shrinking <a href="https://conquer-and-divide.btselem.org/map-en.html">territorial archipelago</a> of disconnected enclaves. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/longstanding-access-restrictions-continue-undermine-living-conditions-west-bank-palestinians">Checkpoints and roadblocks</a> restrict Palestinian movement in the West Bank and maintain its separation from the Gaza Strip which is, in itself, tightly controlled by Israel.</p>
<p>Since 2007, the state has implemented an <a href="https://gisha.org/UserFiles/File/publications/50_Shades/50_Shades_Of_Control_EN.pdf">air, land and sea blockade</a>, adapting the colonial effort to limit Palestinian space into a large-scale project, only this time there are no settlers. </p>
<p>Instead, with 2 million inhabitants, around 70% of whom are refugees, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRPnvdCbNGM">Basic necessities</a> (medicines, fuel, food and building materials) are in constant deficit. It is also one of the most polluted: 97% of its drinking water is <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-expert-warns-97-of-gaza-drinking-water-contaminated-by-sewage-salt-1.5747876">contaminated</a> by sewage and salt. </p>
<p>This is in addition to Israel’s <a href="https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dpublog/2020/04/21/gaza-and-the-covid-19-crisis-breaking-the-cycle-of-structural-vulnerability-first/">brutal destruction</a> of Gaza’s natural resources and the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57205968">built environment</a>.</p>
<p>The Israeli state aims to expand, connect and invest in Jewish spaces while dividing, shrinking and destroying Palestinian spaces. Urban planning is used as an inherent part of this endeavour, designing density, vulnerability, separation and displacement into the very fabric of Palestinian urban areas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From discriminatory land-use policies to evictions and demolitions, urban planning has long been weaponised against the Palestinian peopleIrit Katz, Assistant Professor in Architecture and Urban Studies, University of CambridgeHaim Yacobi, Professor of Development Planning, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1611382021-05-19T15:18:17Z2021-05-19T15:18:17ZAs trust between Israeli Jews and Arabs reaches new lows, Netanyahu rises again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401643/original/file-20210519-15-1g7p6gv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5725%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a briefing at the Hakirya military base in Tel Aviv on May 19, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-speaks-during-a-news-photo/1232979500?adppopup=true">Sebastian Scheiner/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-57133635">the world’s capitals</a> in mid-May 2021 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/protests-israel-washington.html">blamed the Israeli government</a> for recent bloodshed in Israel and Gaza, and called on world leaders to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu into <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-ceasefire-biden-netanyahu/">calling a ceasefire</a>. Protesters emphasized the <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/israel-palestine-conflict-and-news/10646709/">perceived power imbalance</a> between Israel and Palestine. According to this view of the asymmetry between the two sides, Israel is a major economic and military power while Hamas-led Gaza is poor, weak and has suffered many casualties.</p>
<p>In Israel – where I’ve lived and worked for 25 years, and from where I write these lines from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkhav_Mugan">reinforced concrete saferoom</a> legally required in all apartments erected here since Saddam targeted Israeli civilians during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1991_Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel&oldid=1023143340">the first Gulf War</a> – debate is raging over different asymmetries. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A laptop computer on a desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401566/original/file-20210519-21-10q64rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In front of a window with a steel covering, the saferoom desk at which the author wrote this article while Hamas shot missiles at Israeli cities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eli Gottlieb</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/video-john-oliver-accusing-israel-war-crimes-last-week-tonight-goes-viral-1592301">Israel’s critics</a> see a powerful nation attacking a weak one, Israelis see a sovereign state defending itself against terrorists who deliberately target civilians. And where Israeli right-wingers see violent betrayal of Israeli Jews by Arab citizens with whom they’ve coexisted for decades, Israeli left-wingers see a Jewish majority that hasn’t done enough to ensure equal rights for its Arab minority.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://gwu.academia.edu/EliGottlieb">cognitive psychologist</a>, I am not surprised by the mirror images that different sides in the conflict hold of the asymmetries between them. Asymmetries are perceptions and, just like optical illusions, people can look at the same sets of facts and events and see – or be persuaded to see – different things.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/tv/CPAKj8ppyeU","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Israel-Hamas asymmetry</h2>
<p>In op-eds and viral <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmitSegalNews/posts/325162538974685">social media posts</a>, many Israelis have been contrasting Arab aggression with Jewish restraint. They talk about Hamas targeting missiles at Israeli civilians and inflaming dormant inter-ethnic tensions in Israel’s mixed cities. And they describe themselves as going to unprecedented lengths to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza and to preserve a delicate coexistence that took years to construct between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens.</p>
<p>This asymmetry is diametrically opposed to the one emphasized by Israel’s critics. Palestinians and their supporters cast Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as weak victims. Most Israelis see Hamas and their Arab Israeli supporters as the aggressors, and perceive the group to be <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-has-hamas-already-won-1.9806250">growing stronger</a>, as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/world/middleeast/gaza-rockets-hamas-israel.html">range of its missiles</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/israel-is-winning-battles-hamas-is-winning-the-war-analysis-668280">incitement of anti-Jewish violence</a> extends ever deeper into Israeli territory, threatening its major cities.</p>
<h2>Right-left asymmetry</h2>
<p>But there is a split in Israeli politics. Those on the right see Israel’s Arab citizens <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57085023">attacking innocent Jews, torching synagogues and destroying property</a> in neighborhoods they’ve shared for years. Those on the left, however, see their government’s <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-superfluous-argument-about-symmetry-in-the-jewish-arab-conflict-668354">continued disregard for the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens</a> and reluctance to apply the full force of the law <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-riots-police-chief-pans-terrorists-from-both-sides-irking-minister/">equally to Arab and Jewish rioters</a>. </p>
<p>Posts by right-wing commentators this week contrasted the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/neohgx/there_is_no_symmetry/">relative frequency</a> of acts of violence committed by Arab Israelis on Jewish Israelis and their property with the relative absence of corresponding violence perpetrated by Jewish Israelis on Arab Israelis.</p>
<p>Left-wing commentators, on the other hand, focused on Israel’s shared responsibility for, and moral duty to address, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-israel-s-oppression-managed-to-unite-palestinians-on-both-sides-of-the-green-line-1.9818313">the pent-up frustrations</a> of Israel’s Arab minority.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A famous optical illusion" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401447/original/file-20210518-17-15of3uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this famous optical illusion, both lines are exactly the same length.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/museo_ilusionario/6072927163">Juan Luis Roldan via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The role of framing and social context</h2>
<p>Cognitive psychologists deal with such differences in perception all the time.</p>
<p>One example is the <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/muller-lyer-illusion">Muller-Lyer illusion</a>, in which two lines of identical length are made to seem shorter or longer by the addition of “fins,” which slope inward or outward, respectively at each end. Similarly, in the current conflict, perceptions of who is aggressor and whom victim are shaped by the inclusion or exclusion of additional data, such as who has suffered the most casualties, who has more effective defenses, and so on. Like the fins in the Muller-Lyer illusion, such data can shape perception irrespective of their relevance.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iRh5qy09nNw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Solomon Asch’s famous conformity experiment, explained.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another example is <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-16966-001">Solomon Asch’s conformity experiment</a>, in which a group of participants is required to identify which of three lines on one card is the same length as a reference line on another card. But there’s a catch: All but one of the participants has been told in advance to select a line that is obviously shorter than the reference line. The uninitiated participant usually changes his correct answer to conform with the incorrect answer chosen by the rest of the group.</p>
<p>A similar dynamic seems to be playing out on social media around the current Israel-Palestine conflict. Some celebrities who initially posted relatively balanced messages later adopted more partisan positions in response to pressure from followers.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CO9htFxDrdT","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>The impact on domestic politics</h2>
<p>One person who has gained from Israelis’ shifting views on Jewish-Arab asymmetries is Netanyahu himself.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, an “anyone but Bibi” coalition government seemed about to be formed following Israel’s fourth inconclusive election in two years. <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HkShJWODd">Unprecedentedly</a>, Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing, and largely Jewish, Yamina (“Rightwards”) party, was deep in talks with Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List party. Last week, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/bennett-change-coalition-is-out-of-the-question-now-668117">Bennett pulled out of the talks</a>. One week, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-deaths-mount-as-israel-says-hamas-leaders-are-its-target-11621339740">3,000 Hamas missiles</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/right-wing-rioters-smash-windows-of-arab-owned-businesses-in-bat-yam-667993">several more riots</a> later, the prospect of such talks being revived seems farther away than ever. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yiQEkNMLTr4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli firefighters on site after a synagogue was torched in Lod.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So Bibi is back on top, performing very publicly the role of <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-officials-expect-gaza-cease-fire-within-days-as-rockets-fired-at-south-1.9821476">heading Israel’s military response</a> and reaping the political rewards of the greatest crisis of trust in decades between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens. <a href="https://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/66321507640/misquotation-a-week-is-a-long-time-in">A week is a long time in politics</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eli Gottlieb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are two splits in public opinion about the current Israel-Palestine violence, though everyone has the same set of facts. A cognitive psychologist explains how this can happen.Eli Gottlieb, Senior Visiting Scholar in Education and Human Development, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1003102018-07-23T10:23:51Z2018-07-23T10:23:51ZIsrael’s new nation-state law restates the obvious<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228718/original/file-20180722-142438-s7wkqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C23%2C2788%2C2050&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iraeli Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka is removed after protesting the bill's passage</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Olivier Fitoussi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early last Thursday, July 19, while most Israelis were sleeping, Israel’s right-wing coalition government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/middleeast/israel-law-jews-arabic.html">narrowly passed a highly controversial law that had been years in the making</a>. </p>
<p>The so-called “nation-state law” legally enshrines Israel’s Jewish character and makes it one of the state’s guiding judicial principles, akin to a constitutional amendment in the United States.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/final-text-of-jewish-nation-state-bill-set-to-become-law/">new law declares</a> that Israel is “the national home of the Jewish people,” that only Jews have a right to national self-determination in Israel, that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and that Hebrew is the only official language – downgrading the official status of Arabic. </p>
<p>Among its other provisions, the most contentious one says that “the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” Critics fear this deliberately vague language could be used to legitimize <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-compromise-reached-on-jews-only-communities-clause-1.6271813">Jewish-only communities and even exclusive towns</a>.</p>
<p>The one thing that proponents and opponents of the nation-state law agree on is that its passage is of profound and historic importance – representing a milestone in Israel’s 70-year history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228712/original/file-20180722-142426-5ilfr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knesset officials celebrate the bill’s passage with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Olivier Fitoussi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly hailed it as <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-hails-jewish-state-law-as-a-pivotal-moment-in-zionist-history/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=abb9578673-">“a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the State of Israel</a>.” </p>
<p>On the other side of the political spectrum, Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Knesset member who belongs to the Joint List party – a coalition of primarily Arab parties – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/middleeast/israel-law-jews-arabic.html">bitterly denounced the law</a> as “the end of democracy,” and “the official beginning of fascism and apartheid.”</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pgpEt8MAAAAJ&hl=en">As a scholar</a> of Israeli society and politics, I think that both sides have overdramatized the new law’s significance, for their own political purposes. It is largely a declarative and symbolic measure, with no immediate, practical application.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the law could eventually have far-reaching implications for Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and for Israeli-Palestinian relations. </p>
<h2>From the beginning</h2>
<p>Most of the new law’s provisions will have no impact because they are already contained in other laws. </p>
<p>There are, for example, numerous laws that codify and express Israel’s Jewish identity. The most famous is <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1950-1959/pages/law%20of%20return%205710-1950.aspx">the Law of Return, passed in 1950</a>, which automatically grants citizenship to any Jew emigrating to Israel. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228709/original/file-20180722-142411-q3gir5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israel’s Independence on May 14, 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since its <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/declaration%20of%20establishment%20of%20state%20of%20israel.aspx">founding in 1948</a>, Israel has declared itself a Jewish nation-state. Whereas most states see themselves as serving only the interests of their citizens, Israel’s Jewish identity means that its primary mission is to serve the Jewish people, wherever they live. </p>
<p>Consequently, Israel’s non-Jewish citizens – <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html">one in four Israelis</a> – are of lesser importance. This has been most consistently apparent in the treatment by Israel’s governments of the country’s Arab minority, which <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/israel-population/">comprises 21 percent</a> of Israel’s population. </p>
<p>The Arab minority has long been discriminated against and <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/israelpalestine/identity-crisis-israel-and-its-arab-citizens">neglected by the state</a>. That fact was officially acknowledged in a groundbreaking report issued in <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-official-summation-of-the-or-commission-report-september-2003">2003 by the Orr Commission</a>, an Israeli government-appointed body headed by a former Supreme Court justice. </p>
<p>Although Arab citizens of Israel – <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/middle-east-government-politics-and-policy/israels-palestinians-conflict-within?format=PB">most of whom also identify as Palestinian</a> – have the same democratic rights as Israeli Jews, they have generally been treated as <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2016-06-08/israel-s-second-class-citizens">second-class citizens</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the fact that Arabs have become more successful, more visible and more outspoken in recent years, they remain marginalized in Israeli society and politics, and there are still large inequalities between Arabs and Jews in many areas of life such as <a href="https://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/upfiles/2011/Adalah_The_Inequality_Report_March_2011.pdf">education, housing and employment</a>. Worse, Arabs must contend with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/this-is-our-land-protests-at-plan-to-remove-bedouins-from-ancestral-villages-8748966.html">land confiscations</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/03/08/israel-stop-discriminatory-home-demolitions">home demolitions</a>, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/25/most-israeli-jews-do-not-see-a-lot-of-discrimination-in-their-society/">municipal underfunding, and both formal and informal discrimination</a>. They are <a href="https://www.acri.org.il/en/2015/03/15/acris-petition-against-discriminatory-screening-procedures-at-israeli-airports/">still treated</a> and <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW67_Arab-Jewish_Relations_in_Israel.pdf">widely perceived as a demographic and security threat</a>, a potential “fifth column” in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. </p>
<h2>Enshrining inequality</h2>
<p>Israel, therefore, has never been a truly liberal democracy that treats all its citizens equally regardless of their ethnicity or religion. </p>
<p>Instead, from the outset it has been an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/179117">“ethnic democracy”</a> or <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8675.00151">“ethnocracy”</a> as scholars have labeled it, serving Jews first and foremost. </p>
<p>While Arab living standards have certainly risen over the years, Israel has never fully lived up to the promise contained in its <a href="https://www.knesset.gov.il/docs/eng/megilat_eng.htm">Declaration of Independence</a> to “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” and “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228711/original/file-20180722-142432-9e7ob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators protest jailing without trial or charges of a Palestinian journalist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Ariel Schalit</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most Arab citizens of Israel have come to believe that they will never attain full equality with Israeli Jews as long as Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Hence, they have increasingly advocated for Israel to redefine itself as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/world/middleeast/08israel.html">“state for all its citizens</a>.” </p>
<p>The new nation-state law was primarily intended to counter such demands. </p>
<p>Avi Dichter, the Likud Knesset member who first proposed the bill and was one of its main sponsors, made that clear during the stormy Knesset debate over it. </p>
<p>Dichter said, “We are enshrining this important bill into a law today to prevent even the slightest thought, let alone attempt, to transform Israel <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5312792,00.html">to a country of all its citizens</a>.” </p>
<p>In other words, the new law is aimed at preserving the status quo, not radically changing it. Rather than transform Israel into an undemocratic “apartheid state,” <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-say-newly-passed-jewish-state-law-legalizes-apartheid/">as some of its critics charge</a>, the nation-state law is more likely to ensure that Israel cannot be easily transformed into a liberal democracy or a bi-national state.</p>
<p>The fact that the words “democracy and "equality” do not appear at all in the law is telling. Nor is there any recognition of the presence of a Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel. On the contrary, the new law implicitly denies their very existence as an indigenous national minority that also has a legitimate claim to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/Minorities.aspx">national self-determination, or at least collective rights</a>. </p>
<p>In doing so, the nation-state law will only anger, and further alienate, Israel’s Arab citizens. The message the law sends to them is unequivocal: This state is not yours and this land does not belong to you.</p>
<p>The law also delivers a clear message to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who are now considering giving up their demand for a separate Palestinian state in favor of seeking <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-state.html">equal citizenship within an expanded Israel</a> – a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. </p>
<p>By legally entrenching Israel’s Jewish character, and potentially legitimizing Jewish privileges when they are challenged in court, the law could be used to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish state and continues to give preference to Jews even if – or perhaps when – Israel officially annexes much of the West Bank and Jews become a minority within its borders.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the nation-state law’s long-term impact will depend upon how Israeli policymakers apply it, how judges interpret it, and how Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories respond to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than transform Israel into an undemocratic ‘apartheid’ state, the new nation-state law is more likely to ensure that Israel can’t be transformed into a liberal democracy or binational state.Dov Waxman, Professor of Political Science, International Affairs and Israel Studies, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780682017-05-25T03:31:55Z2017-05-25T03:31:55ZIf Israeli lawmakers demote the Arabic language, then what?<p>In May, the Israeli Knesset took the first step toward approving a new <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.788393">nation-state bill</a>.</p>
<p>If passed, the new bill will rearrange the state’s relationship to its citizens, particularly, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.628311">the Arab minority</a>.</p>
<p>The bill reiterates that Israel is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.788393">“the national home of the Jewish people,”</a> at the same time as it reaffirms the nation’s democratic principles. <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-fast-tracks-Jewish-nation-state-bill-490690">If it becomes law</a>, the bill would establish Hebrew as the national language of Israel, removing Arabic as an official language. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.cbs.gov.il/www/statistical/arab_pop08e.pdf">about 20 percent</a> of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs who remained in Israel after it was established in 1948. As I discuss in my book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-arabic-in-israel-9781474420860?cc=us&lang=en&">The Politics of Arabic in Israel</a>,” Arabic has been an official language in Israel since 1922, when a law was passed during the British rule over Palestine. After the establishment of Israel, the law remained in place. </p>
<p>What will the elimination of Arabic as an official language mean for the history and the future of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel?</p>
<h2>Linguistic legacies of 1948</h2>
<p>While Arabic has been an official language of Israel, Hebrew is used more commonly and publicly. Over time, Palestinian citizens of Israel have become increasingly bilingual, but not the other way round. Israeli Jews are generally <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=8405">not interested in learning Arabic</a>. Scholars like <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=8405">Yehouda Shenhav</a> of Tel-Aviv University claim that Israel’s melting pot necessitated that all Jews living in the country should speak Hebrew. And, in fact, the number of Arabic speakers among the descendants of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.539432">Mizrachi Jews</a> who immigrated from Middle Eastern countries when Israel was established has dwindled.</p>
<p>It’s easy to imagine that removing Arabic as an official language will accelerate this trend. Some may even see the law as part of a process that Israeli sociologist <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/103-politicide">Baruch Kimmerling</a> referred to as ethnic exclusion and “<a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/103-politicide%22%20of%20the%20Palestinians">politicide</a>.” </p>
<h2>One nation, one language?</h2>
<p>The historian <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/nations-and-nationalism-1780-programme-myth-reality-2nd-edition-1?format=PB#pdHdjG1Gc0vLgSXZ.97">Eric Hobsbawm</a> reminds us that the 19th-century model of the European nation-state assumes that a nation is united by one language. He was also quick to point to the ethnic exclusion and cleansing that this model brought into the 20th century. </p>
<p>Arabic has been spoken in the Middle East since at least the <a href="http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Society%20%20social%20sciences/Politics%20%20government/International%20relations/Language%20and%20Identity%20in%20the%20IsraelPalestine%20Conflict%20The%20Politics%20of%20Selfperception%20in%20the%20Middle%20East?menuitem=">seventh century</a>. The language reflects the influences of the diverse cultures that contributed to it: Greek, Persian, Pharaonic, Canaanite, Hebrew, Aramaic, Islamic and Ottoman. The Arabic on the tongues of Palestinian citizens in Israel has traces of all of the peoples who settled the land since antiquity. </p>
<p>For example, some syntactic characteristics of Palestinian Arabic resemble Aramaic, which was spoken 2,000 years ago by inhabitants of Palestine and Greater Syria. It also borrows words from Turkish.</p>
<p>The elimination of Arabic as an official language in Israel risks violations of linguistic rights – the ability for humans to choose what language to use. Linguistics scholar <a href="http://multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781783097470">Tove Skutnabb-Kangas argues</a> that linguistic rights are human rights, and human rights are national rights and social rights.</p>
<p>The passage of this law and the attempt to mute the sound of Arabic in Israel may indeed make the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more difficult to resolve.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify its argument.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camelia Suleiman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A linguistics scholar explains why the loss of Arabic in Israel would be a loss of history, culture and possibly human rights.Camelia Suleiman, Assistant Professor, Arabic Studies, Linguistics, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/591172016-06-03T01:02:13Z2016-06-03T01:02:13ZIs OPEC’s oil era over?<p>Just a couple months ago, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/did-opec-just-start-preparing-for-the-end-of-the-oil-era/">some were declaring the old oil order</a> dead after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) failed to agree on coordinated action at its April meeting in Doha.</p>
<p>That meeting was meant to bring about a production freeze to arrest the downward spiral of prices that began in July 2014. Instead, the Doha meeting was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-meeting-draft-idUSKCN0XE02Y">over before it began</a>. Iran refused to slow production until it had regained its pre-sanctions position in the market, so Saudi Arabia canceled the freeze and continued to produce at peak levels. </p>
<p>This week, with oil <a href="http://www.wsj.com/public/page/news-oil-gold-commodities.html">trading</a> at six-month highs, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-01/saudis-said-to-seek-restoration-of-opec-unity-after-doha-failure-iowrk295?bcomANews=true">OPEC members once again had high hopes</a> to show that the organization remains relevant as they gathered in Vienna. Yet, once again, the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/opec-said-to-keep-status-quo-after-failing-to-agree-output-limit">meeting ended without agreement</a>, resulting in no change to the current policy of essentially unlimited production.</p>
<p>So does the verdict that OPEC is dead still stand, signaling the end of an era in which it supposedly ruthlessly controlled the price of oil? In fact, that era <a href="http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cepmlp/gateway/files.php?file=cepmlp_car17_65_711758044.pdf">barely existed</a> in the first place. The failed meetings confirm a longstanding truth: the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/05/is-opec-a-cartel/18420/">world’s most famous cartel</a> <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/persian-gulf/2015-12-03/how-opec-lost-its-bite">has never really been a cartel</a>. </p>
<p>Rather than the arbiter of global energy, OPEC is and has always been a dysfunctional, divided and discouraged organization. </p>
<p>My recent research has taken me through the <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2016/01/19/the-oil-of-iran-past-and-present-in-perspective/">history of oil</a>, particularly the relationship between oil revenues, economic development and the geopolitical balance of power in the 1960s and 1970s. Oil’s history has been dominated by a struggle for balance, a contest between competing interests, both economic and political, and between the fundamental market forces of supply and demand. </p>
<p>OPEC has never been shielded from or been able to fully thwart these forces.</p>
<h2>Early days: divided and powerless</h2>
<p>When it was created in 1960, OPEC was meant to offer members a greater say in how their oil was produced and priced, addressing the disproportionate power wielded by private Western corporations. Its larger goal, to bring order to the chaotic world of global energy, has always been elusive. </p>
<p>OPEC was formed from frustration. In the 1950s, the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/globaloilproduction12/1950-s-oil-production">world was awash in oil</a> as small nations in the Middle East and Latin America discovered enormous deposits, and Western oil companies sought to tap them to meet rising demand. </p>
<p>To gain access to those deposits, the major oil companies (known as the <a href="http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/Oil-The-seven-sisters.html">“Seven Sisters”</a>) signed concessionary agreements with local governments, allowing them to pump, refine, transport and market a nation’s oil in return for a royalty, typically 50 percent of profits. </p>
<p>This arrangement gave <a href="http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/Oil-Oil-and-world-power.html">the companies control over the oil</a> – they set production levels and prices – while governments simply collected a check and had little influence on anything else. </p>
<p>In February 1959, amid an oil glut, the Seven Sisters <a href="http://www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_project/media/downloads/publications/GenInfo.pdf">decided</a> that a price correction was necessary. And so they unilaterally <a href="https://www.quandl.com/data/BP/CRUDE_OIL_PRICES-Crude-Oil-Prices-from-1861">began cutting the posted price</a>, from $2.08 to $1.80 by August 1960. (Back then, oil prices didn’t always follow market forces and were typically set by producers.) </p>
<p>The cuts meant a significant loss of revenue for the oil-producing states. In protest, the oil ministers of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait <a href="https://mees.com/opec-history/1960/09/16/first-opec-meeting-held-in-baghdad">met in Baghdad</a> that September and formed <a href="http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/24.htm">OPEC</a> to achieve a more equitable arrangement with the Sisters. </p>
<p>In reality, the oil-producing states could do little to coerce the companies into offering better terms. The Seven Sisters dominated global markets and were capable of shutting out individual producers. Oil was abundant, and nationalization seemed out of the question because the companies could successfully exclude an offending country from the market, as <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/oil_nationalization/oil_nationalization.php">they did with Iran in 1951</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, the United States itself was the world’s top producer and immune from supply shocks thanks to <a href="https://knowledgeproblem.com/2013/08/28/politicized-implementation-of-u-s-oil-import-quotas-1959-1973/">import quotas.</a>. If OPEC threatened to take production offline in order to put pressure on the companies, the U.S. could increase its own to make up the difference, as it did during <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537121.2013.829611?journalCode=fisa20#.V1BXEfkrLX4">a partial Arab oil boycott in 1967</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, OPEC did not possess enough market share to make a meaningful impact.</p>
<h2>A new balance of power</h2>
<p>Besides being relatively impotent, OPEC couldn’t agree on a consistent policy among its members. Saudi Arabia wanted to keep production levels low and prices consistent, preserving the global economy and the political status quo. Iran and Iraq, with huge military and development budgets, wanted prices pushed as high as possible in order to maximize revenue. </p>
<p>According to scholar and oil consultant <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Jg80AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=Ian+Skeet+OPEC&source=bl&ots=iu2WFOL73d&sig=-sbhad1ecMH4zM5cQRIXs8qYO-M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIzrHAivPMAhVDwYMKHf49C7MQ6AEIOzAF#v=onepage&q=Ian%20Skeet%20OPEC&f=false">Ian Skeet</a>, an attempt to extract more favorable terms from the Sisters in 1963 was sabotaged by the shah of Iran, who sought a separate agreement. </p>
<p>During the 1960s, OPEC met, debated and released grandiose statements on their rights, yet failed to form a united front.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, significant changes were occurring at the time. <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/globaloilproduction12/1960-s-oil-production">Demand for oil</a> shot up, while production in the U.S. stagnated. The ability of the Seven Sisters to control the market was undermined by international competitors drilling new fields in North Africa, where <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/qaddafi-leads-coup-in-libya">Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi threatened</a> to shut off supply if he didn’t get higher prices.</p>
<p>The companies were under <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-103/issue-17/general-interest/the-1973-oil-embargo-its-history-motives-and-consequences.html">more and more pressure</a> to deliver satisfactory terms to the OPEC members. The price of oil, which had held steady at $1.80 a barrel for years, began ticking upwards. <a href="https://knowledgeproblem.com/2013/08/28/politicized-implementation-of-u-s-oil-import-quotas-1959-1973/">American import quotas ended</a>, leaving the U.S. more vulnerable to supply shocks as its production capacity steadily declined. </p>
<p>These conditions, while not the result of actions by OPEC, gave the organization an opportunity to influence the market and upset the balance of power. </p>
<h2>The oil price revolution</h2>
<p>This shift accelerated in the 1970s as <a href="http://acc.teachmideast.org/texts.php?module_id=4&reading_id=120&sequence=21">war broke out</a> between Israel and its Arab neighbors, creating an opportunity for OPEC to wrest control from the Western oil companies.</p>
<p>To punish the U.S. for supporting the Jewish state, Arab oil producers (<a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-103/issue-17/general-interest/the-1973-oil-embargo-its-history-motives-and-consequences.html">not OPEC, as popularly believed</a>) cut production and declared <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/10/15/234771573/the-1973-arab-oil-embargo-the-old-rules-no-longer-apply">an embargo</a>. Together with the war, this destabilized energy markets as demand outpaced supply.</p>
<p>Amid the fighting, OPEC met with the Seven Sisters in Geneva and demanded an increase in the posted oil price. After rejecting a small change, OPEC announced it would double the price to $5 and later doubled it again to $11.65. </p>
<p>This triggered a massive shift in economic power, what Stanford University professor <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Price-Revolution-Professor-Steven-Schneider/dp/0801827752">Steven Schneider</a> called “the greatest non-violent transfer of wealth in human history.” With the uptick in oil revenues, OPEC states spent lavishly on economic development, social programs and investments in Western industry and steadily nationalized their domestic industries, pushing out the Seven Sisters.</p>
<p>How did the balance of power seem to shift so suddenly? Among other reasons, the major oil companies could not agree among themselves on a new price and were actually tempted by the high profits that would result. In other words, OPEC had seized control of the oil market largely due to circumstances <a href="http://vm136.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/projects/debt/oilcrisis.html">beyond its control</a>. </p>
<h2>The oil crisis</h2>
<p>Despite its victory, OPEC had come no closer to resolving its internal divisions. This became evident when another energy crisis hit. </p>
<p>In January 1979, the shah of Iran fled amid revolution, and <a href="http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/40">global oil markets panicked</a>. Prices soared, from $12.70 to over $30 by 1980. Iran’s 6 million barrels per day (bpd) disappeared, and other OPEC states eagerly seized the opportunity to sell oil at costly premiums, <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/opec-states-raise-oil-prices">sending the price even higher</a>.</p>
<p>In the ensuing years, Saudi Arabia tried to impose <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7363">a quota system</a>, with overall production capped at 20 million bpd. Most members ignored their quotas or over-produced to gain greater revenue. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the West worked to improve energy efficiency and invested heavily in non-OPEC oil sources, including Alaska, Canada and the North Sea. By 1985, OPEC’s market share <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/30/business/worrying-anew-over-oil-imports.html?pagewanted=all">had fallen below 30 percent</a>. OPEC <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/Projects/BPEA/1986-2/1986b_bpea_gately_adelman_griffin.PDF">dropped its production quota</a> to 19 million bpd, then 17 million, to account for diminishing demand, but only the Saudis obeyed the rules, losing market share as other producers pumped above the quota level.</p>
<p>By 1986, the Saudis had had enough. Without warning, the Saudi oil minister announced that Saudi production would increase. Overnight, Saudi <a href="http://www.oilandgas360.com/oil-the-30-year-anniversary-of-the-1986-collapse/">production shot up more than 2 million bpd</a>, flooding the market and <a href="http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Todays-Oil-Bust-Pales-In-Comparison-To-The-80s.html">sending prices plunging below $10 a barrel</a>. Sick of watching other OPEC members cheat them out of profits, the Saudis chose to enforce <a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/01/21/2095432/re-re-visiting-the-1986-oil-crash/">new discipline through an artificial market shock</a>. </p>
<p>Just as the kingdom did in 2014, this move indicated Saudi willingness to use its massive reserves to “correct” the market and push out high-cost producers, even at the cost of its OPEC allies.</p>
<h2>Feeling the pain</h2>
<p>OPEC’s fortunes have oscillated since the 1986 shock. Cooperation remained elusive. </p>
<p>A 2011 meeting, dubbed <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-06-08/opec-members-are-unable-to-reach-consensus-on-output-quotas-el-badri-says">“the worst ever”</a> by recently-removed Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi, produced disagreements over production levels. Acrimony reigned as OPEC states ignored calls for economic diversification in favor of oil-fueled economic growth. </p>
<p>High prices during the early 2000s accounted for a huge boom in oil revenues for OPEC members. For <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/03/oil-prices-and-budgetsthe-opec-countries-most-at-risk.html">Venezuela and Nigeria</a>, oil accounts for over 90 percent of all exports. Most OPEC states believed that high demand would last forever, that high prices could fund government programs and that the good times would never end.</p>
<p>Yet the good times appear to be over. OPEC has failed to control the downward spiral in prices, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30223721">reportedly begun by Saudi Arabia</a> in November 2014 to flood the market with cheap crude to put new and old competitors – U.S. shale producers and Iran – out of business. Saudi Arabia pursued its political interests and existing market share, leaving other OPEC members to fend for themselves.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/OPEC-Is-Dead-Whats-Next.html">death of OPEC</a> has been announced in some quarters, with its <a href="http://news.forexlive.com/!/the-question-on-everyones-lips-is-opec-dead-or-just-in-a-coma-20160523">long-term decline</a> seemingly assured as global energy enters a new era. </p>
<p>It is possible that Saudi Arabia may emerge from this current crisis unscathed, free to embark upon its recently announced Vision 2030 plan for an “oil-less” economy, <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/saudi-arabias-vision-2030-economic-plan-break-its-oil-addiction-draws-cautious-praise-2359400">however dubious that plan might appear</a>. It’s possible that OPEC may succeed in concerted action in the future. But its recent failures suggest that political interest will be more likely to divide OPEC and prevent mutual self-interest from uniting its members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Brew is affiliated with OilPrice.com, where he writes once per-week on current energy issues.</span></em></p>OPEC has been declared dead in recent months as the group of oil-exporters has been unable to agree on a plan to stabilize the market. But was it really ever alive in the first place?Gregory Brew, PhD Student in History, Energy and Foreign Relations, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497942015-11-04T16:46:35Z2015-11-04T16:46:35ZWhat is the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin?<p>On November 4 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was murdered by Yigal Amir, an extremist religious Jew opposed to his peace deals with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">Oslo process</a>, which culminated with the awkward handshake between Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, established limited self-rule for Palestinians and entailed an Israeli redeployment from the West Bank, territory that Amir believed to be the biblical birthright of the Jewish people. </p>
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<p>It’s common to contend that Rabin’s murder also killed the peace process. But given Rabin’s willingness to change course depending on the circumstances, there is no way to know whether he would have continued with the concessions agreed in the Oslo accords. </p>
<p>So, 20 years on, how to assess Rabin’s legacy? </p>
<h2>The 1990s – a relatively secure decade</h2>
<p>Rabin knew that by the 1990s, Israel was more secure than it had ever been since its establishment in 1948. </p>
<p>By the time he became prime minister (for the second time) in 1992, Israel had a peace treaty with Egypt and a close alliance with the United States. It was the strongest military power in the region, with the most advanced weapons systems and a powerful domestic arms industry, while its most vociferous enemies – Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization – had either been defeated (Iraq in the First Gulf War) or were at the nadir of their influence and appeal (the PLO at the end of the First Intifada). It was also in the early 1990s that the country established diplomatic relations with key states in the world, including Russia, China and India. Israel could, Rabin felt, afford a peace process with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>That realism also led Rabin to the belief that a Palestinian state was inevitable as a result of Oslo, as he told his close aide Eitan Haber (who in turn told me during an interview). </p>
<p>Rabin <a href="http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/16/4/687.abstract">didn’t like or trust</a> Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and it’s not clear whether he had a sense of what such a state would look like. But he knew ruling over another people was no longer viable. And he was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Israels-National-Security-Woodrow-Wilson/dp/0801862175">already thinking</a> about Iran as the primary strategic threat to the country. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, Rabin was capable of using brute force when he deemed it necessary. </p>
<h2>A ‘risk’ for peace?</h2>
<p>Rabin’s “break their bones” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hHQe4qn-EmUC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=Rabin+break+their+bones+Yaari+intifada&source=bl&ots=DYWWXxPDDe&sig=ZuuOCDui6ZacxF-1QNcJIsWNcks&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBGoVChMIgdKc4tP0yAIVDGs-Ch0WAgmC#v=onepage&q=Rabin%20break%20their%20bones%20Yaari%20intifada&f=false">instructions</a> regarding Palestinian protesters and rioters in the First Intifada helped legitimize a harsh Israeli response to civilian rallies against the occupation. </p>
<p>He used deportation and border closures as he thought necessary. In other words, he did not hesitate to use force and coercion. But he was, at the same time, willing to innovate for the sake of Israeli security, and to adopt nonmilitary means as well. </p>
<p>It’s become a cliché to talk of “risks for peace,” and Rabin used similar language in defending Oslo. </p>
<p>But Rabin didn’t see things as gambles. As a military man, he saw issues as having best solutions, which might still fail. But it was important to try. </p>
<p>Almost all of Israel’s leaders have dismissed this part of his legacy – his willingness to take risks.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/19/the-weakening-of-the-israeli-left/"> Even those on the left and in the center</a> worry that the Israeli public doesn’t want to hear about an end to the occupation while Palestinian terrorism continues. Unlike Rabin, they have been unwilling to confront public opinion on the matter.</p>
<h2>A golden era for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel</h2>
<p>There is another important issue of Yitzhak Rabin’s time in office that has been eclipsed in the past 20 years. </p>
<p>Rabin’s second tenure as prime minister is known as the “golden era” of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Rabin paid more attention to Arab citizens of Israel, about 20% of the population, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-10-14/arab-israelis-step-out">than any other Jewish Israeli leader had before or has since</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Peace-Life-Yitzhak-Rabin/dp/0060186844">directing more resources</a> to the community, he responded to their concerns by dropping the traditional paternalistic attitude the Zionist parties had long held regarding the Arab minority.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, for the first and only time, Arab political parties played an indirect role in policymaking. </p>
<p>In 1993, as a result of the Oslo accords, Rabin lost his majority in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Two Arab parties propped him up from outside his own coalition, voting with the government on no-confidence measures brought by the opposition.</p>
<p>Rabin’s views on Israel’s Arab minority reflected his analysis of Israeli-Palestinian relations more broadly – namely, that coercion was simply untenable as a solution to Israel’s relations with Palestinians inside and outside of Israel.</p>
<p>Since 1995, Arab citizens have either disengaged from the political process or <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-israels-minorities-bring-about-a-change-in-government-38764">voted for Arab parties in increasing numbers</a>, at the expense of Rabin’s party, Labor. The percentage of Arab citizens’ votes for the top three Arab parties, for example, has climbed from 68.7% in 1999 to 80% in 2015.</p>
<p>Wars between Israel and Hamas have cast Palestinian citizens of Israel as potential fifth columns, while Arab participation in the political process has been delegitimized by some Jewish leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, running for reelection in 2015, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-apologizes-to-arabs-for-voter-turnout-remark/">warned</a> his supporters that Arabs were coming out to vote “in droves” and thus endangering his party’s rule, and that of the right wing more generally. (Netanyahu later apologized for the remark, though many Arab leaders remained skeptical and unsatisfied.)</p>
<p>At the same time, a new generation of Arab leaders has adopted a more confrontational approach, most notable in their rhetoric. In addition to calls for the Arab community to be recognized as a national minority that would give the equal status to the Jewish community, some Arab politicians have also cast Jewish Israelis as among the evildoers of the world. Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, for example, has <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Zoabi-says-IDF-worse-than-ISIS-379241">compared</a> the Israeli military to the Islamic State. Not surprisingly, this caused the Zionist parties to view the Arab parties with suspicion and hostility. </p>
<p>It’s difficult, then, to speak clearly about Rabin’s legacy because of changed domestic and regional conditions, only some of which are related to the Oslo process that Rabin promoted. </p>
<p>But I would argue that he should be remembered for trying – for understanding that Israel needed to change, to focus on achieving domestic harmony and an accepted place in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The right in Israel, by contrast, views <a href="http://www.momentmag.com/qa-explaining-israels-wave-of-violence/">the recent wave of violence</a> as simply the latest outburst of anti-Jewish activity and threat that stretches back to the Roman age. </p>
<p>Rabin also proposed serious ideas for how to scale down the occupation, even in the face of domestic opposition. The left in Israel forgets this, and tends to react to public opinion rather than try to shape it with bold policies.</p>
<p>Rabin’s was a gritty peace, requiring constant effort to fend off challenges. It was not the “clean” version many expect today – that the occupation will be easy to end, that Palestinian hostility will cease once Israel withdraws from the West Bank, that Israel’s security concerns are exaggerated. That he pushed forward in the face of these challenges makes Rabin a peacemaker in the true sense of the word.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent E Sasley receives funding from UT Arlington.</span></em></p>Twenty years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – the man who ushered in the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians – was assassinated. Today’s Israel is a very different place.Brent E Sasley, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389342015-03-25T14:09:47Z2015-03-25T14:09:47ZBibi sitting pretty – how will the next Israeli government look?<p>By all accounts, Benjamin Netanyahu won his unexpected election victory on the back of a dramatic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/israel-election-exit-polls-netanyahu-deadlocked-isaac-herzog">last-minute surge of support</a>, as he outrageously abandoned his commitment to a two-state solution and warned that that the Arabs were flocking to the polls. </p>
<p>Netanyahu <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.648668">will be asked this evening by Israeli president Reuven Rivlin</a> to form a government and will have 28 days, under Israel’s constitution, to build a coalition that will balance all the various competing interests. Talk of a national unity government to include Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni is likely to remain just that as Netanyahu is widely tipped to appoint a religious-right coalition.</p>
<p>Contrary to widespread pre-election analysis, the Zionist Union leaders were not the formidable force many – especially abroad – had made them out to be. Herzog, while distinguished and capable, was never charismatic and Livni – widely seen as the acceptable face of the Israeli peace process – has always played better abroad than at home. </p>
<p>While it looked as though they were competing with Likud, this was only part of the picture. The other parties that make up the spectrum of Israeli politics, with few exceptions, see Likud as their second home and are on hand to help Likud over the 60-seat threshold. This will become clearer over the next month as Netanyahu negotiates his new-look coalition.</p>
<p>But what is clear is that, even if Herzog had beaten Likud into second place Zionist Union would still have needed a substantial margin to prevent a Likud return to power. </p>
<p>But, even so, this is still a Netanyahu victory and the question remains: how did he do it?</p>
<h2>Choosing the Bibi sitter</h2>
<p>Counter-intuitively, it is the catalogue of failures and security threats that characterised Netanyahu’s performance from 2012 that led so many Israelis to vote for another four-year Netanyahu term. </p>
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<p>As Likud’s crass “Bibi as baby-sitter” election video suggested, only he can keep the home and the child safe as Israel faces the consequences of the collapse of the Kerry-brokered talks with the Palestinians, spiralling violence in Jerusalem and on the West Bank, another war with Hamas in Gaza, Islamic State appearing on the Syrian border, growing fears of a “bad deal” with the Iranians and a very visible deterioration in the relationship with the White House. </p>
<p>Despite the deteriorating security during the last Netanyahu administration, in fact because of it, the Israeli electorate has demanded another right-wing coalition led by “<a href="https://theconversation.com/bridge-burning-netanyahu-cant-walk-back-his-election-rhetoric-39146">Mr Security</a>” himself. </p>
<p>To be sure, Herzog polled well in the better-off districts, the occupants of the Tel Aviv bubble turned out in force and the Israel’s Arab citizens voted in record numbers, but when Netanyahu called to the electorate for help, the poor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-israels-minorities-bring-about-a-change-in-government-38764">the marginalised and the ethnic groups</a> from North Africa and the former Soviet Union who distrust the old socialist elites rallied in support. They know that security does not come easily. Israelis still remember the terrible violence of the Second Intifada that followed the leftist peace policies. </p>
<p>This narrative informs right-wing politics in Israel – and Israel has been lurching to the right for a long time now. Socio-economic issues matter in Israel and Netanyahu is not popular, but when there is trouble on the doorstep and in the house itself, no one wants to an inexperienced baby sitter.</p>
<h2>People have spoken - now it’s party time</h2>
<p>Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin had urged a national unity government – but as the gap between the Zionist Union and Likud widened this became increasingly unlikely. Under the Israeli system, the president must invite the largest party to form a government provided that it can demonstrate the required 61 members to command a majority. </p>
<p>At this stage the president takes soundings and the parties make an expression of intent. After two days of meeting the party leaders, Rivlin has established that Netanyahu has the provisional support of the right, religious parties and the centrist Kulanu party. This is enough to produce a 67-strong coalition. </p>
<p>So it’s now a matter of negotiating power within the coalition – who gets what. Here is the opportunity to re-balance the coalition. The troublesome Yair Lapid can be replaced by the less aggressive and more right of centre Kulanu. </p>
<p>The religious parties can be brought in to make up the numbers and Lieberman and Bennett be treated less generously – as befits the leaders of parties whose support has melted away. The result: another right-wing religious coalition but with Netanyahu firmly in charge.</p>
<h2>Wanted: an acceptable face of the right</h2>
<p>On the other hand, a narrow right-wing coalition may not be so attractive to Netanyahu. The majority is small, empowering internal dissent and Netanyahu has had his fill of that. Also, such a narrow coalition offers little hope to the international community. There is certainly US pressure to widen the team and there are precedents for this. Bridges need to be rebuilt and quickly. </p>
<p>After the 2009 election, Netanyahu brought the Labour party into the coalition, with Labour leader Ehud Barak appointed defence minister. Similarly, Livni was appointed justice minister in 2013, with her more significant role of lead negotiator with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>So what are the options now? The strength of the ill will between Livni and Netanyahu seems to rule out any role for her this time around. Similarly Lapid – and although he has made the right noises on two states he has a limited international profile. This leaves Herzog, who although lacking international recognition is the bearer of the Labour Oslo tradition. To be sure, he is embracing the role of leader of the opposition, but do not rule him out yet. He could be <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.648313">the acceptable face of the 2015 coalition</a>. This would go a long way towards repairing relations with the Obama administration.</p>
<h2>What now for the Arab parties?</h2>
<p>The successful Knesset vote last year that <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-israel-votes-netanyahu-government-may-be-ousted-by-its-own-laws-38870">raised the voting threshold from 2% to 3.5%</a> had been boycotted by the Arab parties. Designed to exclude small parties from the Knesset, Israel’s four Arab parties were facing electoral oblivion – a fate widely predicted by political commentators calling foul on racist gerrymandering. </p>
<p>In fact, the casualty has been Yachad, the Jewish right-wing religious party, which failed to clear the hurdle. For the Arab parties, the change did something that years of arguing had failed to do. It brought the Arab parties together as the Joint Arab List with a shared agenda to improve the living standards of Israel’s Arab 20% population and combat the endemic institutional discrimination. </p>
<p>While Netanyahu urged his supporters to the polls with <a href="https://theconversation.com/bridge-burning-netanyahu-cant-walk-back-his-election-rhetoric-39146">outrageous warnings of Arabs voting “in droves”</a>, he was right in one respect. The Joint List under its modern, charismatic leader, Ayman Odeh, produced a near-record Arab turn-out. Having secured 13 seats, they are the third-largest party in the Knesset. Were the Zionist Union to join the coalition, the Arab party would be the largest party in opposition. </p>
<p>But the Arab parties are permanently in opposition. While they have voted in the past to support Labour government policy, they have never been in government. Their view of an Israeli state for all its citizens is just too far removed from prevailing views of the Jewish state to allow anything other than an opposition role. </p>
<p>So can the Joint List deliver? Will size matter? If not it is likely to degenerate to an alliance in all but name. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is trying to minimise the fall-out. Both <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/21/obama-iran-deal_n_6905634.html">Barack Obama</a> and liberal Jewish constituencies in the US have condemned the anti-Arab rhetoric. Netanyahu has been quick to retreat from his extreme positions and delivered his muted apology to his Arab citizens. </p>
<p>The Israeli system has delivered representation to its Arab minority but it remains to be seen whether increased numbers bring increased power or even enduring unity. Realistically, this will be measured by their success in opposing a right-wing retreat from Israel’s democratic values. </p>
<p>In the meantime Netanyahu has a month to decide who is to be in the coalition and on what terms. Certainly not the Joint List but what about Herzog? </p>
<p>Negotiations have only just begun but the odds are lengthening. With an <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24381">emerging triumvirate of Netanyahu, Bennett and Lieberman</a> calling the shots and no significant counterweight in the coalition Israel may well be heading for increased international isolation. It is difficult to see what such a line-up can offer the US, let alone the rest of international community in return for support in combating Palestinian unilateral state recognition and referrals to the International Criminal Court. We may be seeing a return to Likud’s core ideology of the Iron Wall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Craig is affiliated with
On the board of the European Association of Israel Studies</span></em></p>A startling election victory has delivered the Likud leader with a range of options and left the opposition in disarray.Alan Craig, Pears Lecturer in Israel and Middle East Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389562015-03-18T02:54:17Z2015-03-18T02:54:17ZNetanyahu to lead the next government after Israeli election<p><em>Editor’s note: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scored a victory for his Likud party in the country’s election. He will now seek to form and lead the next government.</em></p>
<p><em>We asked two scholars for their initial reaction to the election and its potential implications.</em></p>
<h2>Short-term gains and long-term shifts</h2>
<p><strong>Gershon Shafir, Professor of Sociology, University of California San Diego</strong></p>
<p>There is no doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu has pulled an electoral rabbit out of the ballot box at the last possible minute. </p>
<p>He did so by cannibalizing the votes of the other parties of the right-wing, or nationalist, bloc. And herein lays his problem. </p>
<p>He will be able to form a new government, his fourth. This is a significant short-term accomplishment. But long-term trends threaten him and his bloc.</p>
<p>Since 1977, Israel has been electing right-wing governments, with two exceptions: that of Labor leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak who were also generals in a country preoccupied with security. But now, for the first time, a civilian leader from the left, Yitzhak Herzog, presented a credible alternative. </p>
<p>Since the 2011 social protest movement, many Israelis have put their stagnant standard of living and the country’s growing economic polarization – among the highest in the world and comparable to the US – at the forefront of their concerns.</p>
<p>Another social justice candidate, Moshe Kahalon, also did surprisingly well. Netanyahu, by contrast, is focused on Iran, ISIS, Hamas, and other real and imaginary security threats. He remains vulnerable to the social protest camp.</p>
<p>The left bloc has several additional accomplishments to be proud of. </p>
<p>The United Arab Party will be the third largest party in the 20th Knesset and will wield a measure of influence Palestinian Arab citizens never have had before in Israel. It is equally significant that this new Arab party chose to emphasize the wishes of its mostly Arab voters for integration and equality with Jews and not for a separatist-nationalist agenda.</p>
<p>It is also the case that the momentum of several right-wing projects has been thwarted. </p>
<p>Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett who seemed poised to expand outside the Russian immigrant and national-orthodox camps respectively and shape new and more aggressive and religious-light Israeli identities, saw their parties rapidly shrink in these elections.</p>
<p>Finally, a truly troubling alliance of the ultra-orthodox with the most explicitly racist elements of Israeli society didn’t make it into the Knesset.</p>
<p>In the longer run, the recovery of the Labor Party (aka the Zionist Union) and the turning back of right-wing ideological projects, will lead to a different Knesset.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Election may lead to more divided American Jews</h2>
<p>*<em>Steven M Cohen, Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion
*</em></p>
<p>The continuation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in office may well deepen divisions within American Jewry over Israel in the coming months and years.</p>
<p>Over the last two years, Mr. Netanyahu enjoyed the partnership of centrist political allies and personalities (most prominently, the former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni), the aura of seeming to genuinely seek a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the appearance of a good working relationship with the US President and his Secretary of State.</p>
<p>Going into the next term of office – should he manage to create a coalition featuring his right-wing allies and the ultra-Orthodox – Mr. Netanyahu will have none of these at his disposal. </p>
<p>He alienated (well, fired) his centrist former allies, announced on the day before the election that he would prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, and partnered with the Republican Congressional leadership in opposition to President Obama.</p>
<p>With the President likely to push for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, American Jews – especially liberals – will find themselves torn between their President and an Israeli Prime Minister whose supporters, positions, and actions elicit little enthusiasm in Democratic Washington or European capitals.</p>
<p>In the US, pro-Israel advocates, liberal Zionists, and Palestinian sympathizers will all feel more compelled and more justified to push their agendas forward, sometimes wielding much sharper elbows than in the past – accusing each other of violating Jewish values and endangering the security of Israel and the Jewish People.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our two scholars look at the longer term consequences of this week’s elections: in Israel and in the US.Steven M Cohen, Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy , Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/387642015-03-16T15:12:22Z2015-03-16T15:12:22ZCan Israel’s minorities bring about a change in government?<p>There are <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4624761,00.html">5.3 million eligible voters</a> living in Israel today (votes may be not cast abroad). Among these voters there are three main minority (non-dominant) groups. Their numbers break down, according to my own estimates, as follows: Palestinian Arabs are 15%, Mizrahim or “Oriental” Jews (who immigrated from Muslim countries) are 30%, and Russian-speakers who arrived after 1989 are 12%. </p>
<p>These three groups differ markedly in their political outlook and their voting behavior. But they may all contribute their share to ousting the present prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from power.</p>
<p>Here’s why. </p>
<h2>Palestinian-Arab Israelis: forced into a better position</h2>
<p>In the last Knesset elections in January 2013, 77% of the Arab vote went to two Arab national parties and to the left-wing Arab-Jewish <a href="http://hadash.org.il/english/">Hadash</a>. Significantly, Arab <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11368309/Bayan_The_Arabs_in_Israel_no._4_Special_Elections_Issue_February_2015">turnout</a> was 56%, much lower than the 68% national average. </p>
<p>The newly elected Knesset decided to reduce the number of small political parties. In 2013 there were 33 parties to choose from; 10 were elected. In this election the minimum share of the vote needed by any party to enter parliament has been raised from 2.5% to 3.25%. The overall number of parties in the running is now down to 25 but it’s no coincidence that this rightwing move has hit the Arab parties particularly hard. </p>
<p>What this has forced the Arab politicians to do – for <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israels-sparring-arab-political-parties-have-united-for-the-first-time/2015/03/09/6f6c021a-c660-11e4-bea5-b893e7ac3fb3_story.html">the first time</a> in the history of Arab Israeli politics – is to form a joint party list that combines communists, nationalists and Islamists. </p>
<p>An alliance between Arab parties may unfairly cut down the number of options offered to the Arab voter but it’s expected to raise turnout from 56% to 65%. This, in turn, may well increase the representation of Arab parties – from 11 to a projected 13 Knesset members.</p>
<p>All Arab parties, Hadash included, are permanent opposition parties. This reflects the actual and perceived status of Palestinian-Arab citizens as an ideologically dissident and enemy-affiliated minority. </p>
<p>Public opinion polls, however, <a href="http://en.idi.org.il/analysis/idi-press/publications/hebrew-books/still-playing-by-the-rules-the-index-of-arab-jewish-relations-in-israel-2012-hebrew/;%20http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_15350-1442-2-30.pdf?150315131309">show</a> that most Arab voters are interested less in changing Israel’s Jewish-Zionist character and in the creation of an independent state of Palestine than they are in education, housing, employment, health and crime prevention. They do not trust their Israeli political leaders. They want their politicians to deal with Arab daily concerns, and are in favor of Arab parties joining Jewish coalition governments if that will improve their living conditions.</p>
<p>If the result of the elections is that there is a national unity government (defined as being headed by the two largest parties with the prime minister rotating after two years), then the Arab alliance could lead the parliamentary opposition for the first time in history. </p>
<p>The other possibility is that a left-center coalition government will take power with the support of the Arab parties from outside the coalition in exchange for favorable policies toward the Arab minority as was the case of the 1992-95 <a href="https://www.academia.edu/8567588/Public_silence_and_latent_memories_Yitzhak_Rabin_and_the_Arab-Palestinian_citizens_of_Israel">Yitzhak Rabin government</a>. </p>
<p>The latter option may be less likely given the Netanyahu camp’s explicit campaign against what they describe as the grave “danger” of an “anti-Zionist,” “leftist” government supported by “Arabs” coming to power. </p>
<p>This accusation is serious. The assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in 1995 by an Israeli ultra-nationalist was preceded by a Likud campaign <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/This-Week-in-History-Rabin-assassinated-380652">denouncing</a> the Rabin government as “[not having] a Zionist majority” and the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization as not legitimate. </p>
<p>Whatever happens after March 17, however, the fact remains that through greater turnout the Arab minority will have been empowered in this election. </p>
<h2>Mizrahi Jews feeling taken for granted by Netanyahu</h2>
<p>Most Mizrahi Jews <a href="http://d-nb.info/982755937/04">back the right.</a> Historically, they have tended to vote for Netanyahu’s Likud party, the national-religious Habayit Hayedudi party, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas (a Sephardic party) and Yahad (a splinter of Shas, on the far right). </p>
<p>With their strong Jewish identity and widespread resentment of Arabs, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13531040801902708#.VQWkao7F-8Q">Mizrahi Jews</a> are attracted to the rightwing parties because of the priority these parties give to Jewish over universal values, Jews’ over citizens’ interests, and a Jewish over a democratic state. The leftwing Labor – and European – establishment holds little attraction because of the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6910162/_They_Will_Take_the_Country_from_Us_Labor_Zionism_the_Origins_and_Legacy_of_the_Other_in_Israeli_Mass_Media_and_Hegemonic_Narratives">discrimination</a> it meted out to their parents and grandparents in the 1950s and 1960s. </p>
<p>A majority of Mizrahim are still in the working and lower classes – with the establishment European Ashkenazim being in the middle class and up. Many attribute their lower position in society to past Labor policies. </p>
<p>Israel’s recent social justice protests that kicked off in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/04/israel-protests-social-justice">summer of 2011</a> resulted in massive street demonstrations demanding better public services and opposing neo-liberal capitalism. The movement also raised awareness across society. As a result, many Mizrahim feel even more dismayed with the ruling Likud Party for neglecting them and for focusing, instead, on foreign and security policy. Consequently, they feel less motivated to make the effort to vote. </p>
<p>The emergence of the social justice movement also favors the new parties in the center. </p>
<p>One of these parties, Kulanu (or “all of us”) broke away from Likud in November 2014. Its leader is a Mizrahi Jew (whose family was from Tunisia), Moshe Kahalon. </p>
<p>Kahalon presents himself as a pragmatist. His aim is to become Minister of Finance in order to support the ailing welfare state and break up corporate monopolies. </p>
<p>The Kulanu party claims to be non-aligned with any political block: it aspires to play the role of the king-maker in the election. What its existence has also shown is that it is possible to move Mizrahi voters from the right to the center. </p>
<h2>Drifting Russians</h2>
<p>The Russian-speaking voters are relatively recent arrivals. They poured into Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. They are pragmatic but also strongly lean to the right. </p>
<p>In general, <a href="http://en.idi.org.il/media/1354408/Index2009-Eng.pdf">they are against</a> anything that smells left, sounds overly democratic and looks pro-Arab. In the past, they have voted for ethnic Russian parties that have promised to protect their interests as newcomers. </p>
<p>In the last election, <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/63246-150305-the-heart-of-the-russian-speaking-voters-still-belongs-to-lieberman">over half</a> of Russians voted for the Yisrael Beytenu (“our home”), a Russian party led by the controversial Avigdor Lieberman who is now the country’s foreign minister. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74948/original/image-20150316-9176-ekbbo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Still loyal to Avigdor Lieberman and Yisrael Beytenu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amir Cohen/Reuters</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now, however, supporters of the party are deserting it in droves because many of its leaders are being investigated for political <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4607728,00.html">corruption</a> and because the party has a poor record in addressing the special difficulties of the Russian community. </p>
<p>Most of the disaffected Russian speakers will probably shift their vote to the Likud but some (around 15%) intend to vote for the centrist Ashkenazi Yesh Atid party that stands for the middle class and secularism. These are voters from the new Russian generation who are upwardly mobile and looking to integrate into the mainstream.</p>
<p>The upshot of all this change is that Yisrael Beytenu may disappear altogether. </p>
<h2>A profoundly divided electorate</h2>
<p>Israel’s main minorities definitely have the potential to contribute to the toppling of Netanyahu government – Arabs by voting in greater numbers; the Mizrahim by not voting at all or by voting for the centrist Kulanu party instead of Likud; and the Russians (or at least some of them) by drifting away from rightwing parties.</p>
<p>The 2015 election reveals the depth of divisions in Israeli society, the growing overlap between class and identity politics and the continuing weakening of the once dominant secular Ashkenazi establishment. </p>
<p>This profound <a href="http://www.ines.tau.ac.il/bibliography.html">fragmentation</a> only contributes to government instability and to the impasse in dealing with Israel’s severe problems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sammy Smooha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why the 2015 Israeli elections are witness to big shifts in how minorities vote and why that’s bad news for Benjamin Netanyahu.Sammy Smooha, Professor of Sociology , University of HaifaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/342292014-11-14T06:19:50Z2014-11-14T06:19:50ZAs unrest brews, Israel and Islamic State find common ground in mutual hatred<p>The seven-week Gaza War ended inconclusively on August 26. Israel declared victory saying that Hamas was seriously weakened and had achieved none of its aims whereas Hamas claimed to have repelled Israel forces while continuing to be able to fire rockets. </p>
<p>The human costs were great, with more than 2,200 people killed, the great majority of them Palestinian civilians including at least 400 children. Israeli military losses were 66 soldiers with 450 wounded, some of them maimed for life, few compared with the Palestinians but much higher than expected, including many from the elite Golani brigade. The infiltration tunnels, in particular, <a href="https://theconversation.com/problems-ahead-for-israel-after-pyrrhic-victory-in-gaza-30575">proved to be very difficult to find and destroy</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath, the Gaza economy may now be hugely damaged but Hamas itself has experienced increased support, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank, across the region and beyond. Funds are readily available for reconstruction, but Israel has worked in concert with the al-Sisi government in Cairo to restrict the movement of construction materials. </p>
<p>As winter approaches this is causing considerable anger in Gaza and the West Bank, although the Israeli authorities insist that reconstruction can all too easily be re-directed towards tunnels and missile launchers.</p>
<h2>Leaderless intifada</h2>
<p>Meanwhile Israeli diplomats are seriously worried about the loss of public support overseas – especially in Western Europe. But the government has a greater concern – an upsurge in insecurity in the West Bank and in Israel itself. This has manifested itself in lone attacks on civilians including knife attacks and the use of vehicles to kill pedestrians.</p>
<p>During the height of the Gaza War there was talk of a new organised Palestinian uprising (<em>intifada</em>). But that was never very likely given the remarkable levels of security control across the West Bank involving strategic roads, road blocks and checkpoints, not to mention the continuing co-operation between Israeli and Palestinian police and security forces.</p>
<p>What worries the Israeli government is the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/world/middleeast/a-leaderless-palestinian-revolt-proves-more-difficult-to-curb-.html?_r=0">evolution of a leaderless and unpredictable revolt</a> and this is of particular concern when it involves Israeli Arabs acting within Israel. It stems partly from the Gaza War and the lack of rebuilding but has been heightened by the activities of radical Israeli religious groups insisting on the right to pray at the Temple Mount – the Moslem Haram al-Sharif - with some even insisting that the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock should be replaced by a “<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/sarah-irving/crowdfunder-indiegogo-hosts-campaign-destroy-al-aqsa-mosque">Third Jewish Temple</a>”.</p>
<p>What has made tensions even higher has been the determination of the Netanyahu government to usher in a further wave of settlement building, much of it in the East Jerusalem that the Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.<br>
In all, this is proving to be a thoroughly uncertain period for Netanyahu’s government and does much to explain <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2832961/Clashes-Jerusalem-ahead-Kerry-talks-Abbas.html">John Kerry’s visit to the region this week</a>. </p>
<h2>Unlikely allies</h2>
<p>For the Israelis, though, the one development that remains helpful is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/islamic-state">rise of Islamic State</a> in Syria and Jordan. In their relations with Washington, successive Israeli governments were long able to portray the country as a bastion of Western influence in the face of Soviet regional ambition. After the Cold War, the 1990s proved more difficult – but by the end of the decade there were new threats: al-Qaida, the Iraqis and especially the Iranians and their presumed nuclear weapons programme.</p>
<p>Then, a year or so ago things were looking difficult once more. Saddam Hussein was long gone, the US had withdrawn from Iraq, al-Qaida was diminished and there was a worrying rapprochement under way between Washington and Tehran. That is still the case and it is here that the rise of Islamic State has been something of a god-send. Once again, Israel is a powerful ally for the US against a common enemy.</p>
<p>But this also suits the Islamic State propagandists. Indeed the Gaza War has been a gift to them, not least in the opposition it has stirred up among young Muslims in Western Europe. In the UK, for example, teachers in schools with many Muslim students have been reporting a degree of bitterness and anger, even expressed by children as young as seven or eight, which they have not seen for a long time.</p>
<p>Islamic State itself is under some pressure from the coalition air strikes and <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2014/11/11/iraq-anbar-surge/18848715/">will be facing another 1,500 US troops in the coming weeks</a>, some of them in the areas of greatest conflict, but this is far from critical – and the decision of the powerful Egyptian paramilitary group, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/world/middleeast/egyptian-militant-group-pledges-loyalty-to-isis.html?ref=world&_r=0">Ansar Beit al-Maqdis</a>, to support it has been a welcome step.</p>
<p>Israel, with its very close links with the United States, and its recent war in Gaza is therefore really helpful as Islamic State seeks more recruits from Europe. It may seem extraordinary that Israel and the Islamic State – such different entities – should find each other serving a useful role, but that is a marker for the current fractured state of politics in the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rogers has received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. He lectures regularly at the Royal College of Defence Studies. He will be giving a talk at the Edinburgh Festival on Wednesday, August 27 on the theme of “A Century on the Edge, 1945-2045 – from Cold War to Hot World”</span></em></p>The seven-week Gaza War ended inconclusively on August 26. Israel declared victory saying that Hamas was seriously weakened and had achieved none of its aims whereas Hamas claimed to have repelled Israel…Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/306792014-08-20T05:23:24Z2014-08-20T05:23:24ZComparing Hamas to biblical cult of child-killers is neither accurate nor helpful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56800/original/zgs9kv9c-1408445628.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cult of Moloch - not in same league as Hamas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Idol_Moloch.jpg">Charles Foster via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From debates concerning the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the 1967 Six Day War’s titular reference to the days of creation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has often been made to resonate with biblical images and language. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Elie-Wiesel-Hamas-Child-Sacrifice.pdf">an advert published last week</a> by The Guardian the Nobel Prize-winning writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel contributed to this tradition by provocatively comparing Hamas’ treatment of Palestinian children in Gaza with child sacrifice described in the Hebrew Bible.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56797/original/y7cm82s9-1408444477.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Was The Guardian right to print this?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://observer.com/2014/08/exclusive-the-guardian-accepts-the-elie-weisel-ad-rejected-by-london-times/">Jewish Values Network</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The advert, organised by <a href="http://thisworld.us/">This World: The Values Network</a>, has been reproduced in a variety of prominent US newspapers but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/08/hamas-thetimes">was rejected for publication by The Times</a>. In response The Guardian ran the advert on Monday August 11, provoking a range of critical responses. These included a group of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/gaza-propaganda-machines">Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors and victims</a> distancing themselves from Wiesel and the <a href="http://stopwar.org.uk/statements/sign-letter-condemning-guardian-for-branding-the-palestinian-resistance-as-child-killers#.U_J0GvldU8x">Stop the War Coalition</a> asking for signatories to a letter condemning The Guardian for printing the advert.</p>
<h2>Child sacrifice</h2>
<p>The advert itself should not be dismissed out of hand even if it is problematic. In his attack on Hamas, Wiesel is careful not to come across as Islamophobic, praising the wisdom, learning and peaceful nature of “true Muslims”. And, in highlighting the danger Hamas is placing Palestinian children in, he cautions us to consider the profoundly difficult ethics of not only indiscriminately targeting Israeli citizens but also bringing the population of Gaza into the firing line of Israel’s counterattack.</p>
<p>But to frame the debate in terms of biblical descriptions of child sacrifice is unhelpful. In one passage, Wiesel creates a three-way comparison between Hamas, the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/moloch.html">child-sacrificing Moloch-worshippers</a> of the Hebrew Bible, and the mass-murder of Jewish children during the Holocaust. </p>
<p>Hamas and the Nazis, he concludes, are “death cults indistinguishable from that of the Molochites”. The problem is that it is in fact really quite easy to distinguish between the actions of these three groups. </p>
<p>The worshippers of Moloch are presented in the Bible as sacrificing children as part of religious rituals designed to gain divine favour (the work of my colleague Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou is helpful in highlighting the complexities of trying to uncover the <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Af1E5i62nSEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">historical backdrop behind this presentation</a>). The Nazis murdered Jewish children as a result of their racist desire to produce a Europe wholly free of Jews. Hamas endangers Palestinian children because of a tactic centred on firing rockets at Israel from built-up civilian areas. </p>
<p>Each situation is quite distinct. Although drawing an analogy between the three is possible, you just end up with an analogy so loose that it initially seems virtually useless.</p>
<p>But encompassing ancient child-sacrifice, the Holocaust and Hamas in a single category does nonetheless have its use for Wiesel in creating the vision of a vast evil that transcends particular points in history. Such a vision has an evocative, quasi-mythic power, but unfortunately it does little to help us make sense of the specific motivations and strategies of Hamas. </p>
<p>Rather than seeing Hamas fighters as human beings driven by varying mixtures of rage, desperation and extremist ideology, they become players in an ongoing battle between good and evil that is epic in scope and primordial in origin. Israeli soldiers become agents of light, and Hamas becomes a force of unqualified darkness. Using the Bible to render the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in such terms offers a comfortingly simple narrative, but it provides little insight into messy realities.</p>
<h2>Should Guardian have run the ad?</h2>
<p>But was Stop the War right to argue that Wiesel’s advert should not have been published by The Guardian at all? The matter is not straightforward, but if we follow a principle that says the burden of proof always lies with the party aiming to curtail free expression, it is hard to make a compelling argument that Wiesel’s advert should have been suppressed. </p>
<p>We might cynically conclude that The Guardian’s reasons for including the advert amounted to little more than trying to flag up its own commitment to free speech in comparison to a rival newspaper, but that in itself is not a sound reason to censor the advert. A more substantial argument may be that it invokes indiscriminate hatred. </p>
<p>However, as I have already noted, Wiesel is at pains not to target all Palestinians with his criticisms. Furthermore, when included in the pages of The Guardian I am not convinced that many readers would actually be swayed to start seeing the current conflict as a war between the unequivocal evil of Hamas and the morally spotless actions of the Israeli Defense Forces. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/guardian-view-killing-children-gaza">The paper has repeatedly presented stern criticism of Israel</a> and it is unlikely that many regular readers will have been convinced to wholly abandon these condemnations as a result of Wiesel’s clumsy rhetoric.</p>
<p>And there are, I suggest, positive aspects to publishing the advert. Wiesel is an influential and often admired thinker, particularly in the US, and is <a href="http://thisworld.us/2014/08/06/london-times-refuses-to-run-elie-wiesel-ad-denouncing-hamas-human-shields/">described by This World: The Values Network</a> as “one of the most respected human beings alive” and “the living face of the Holocaust”. While it may be questionable for one person to singularly encompass the meaning of the Holocaust for current affairs, the undoubted extent of his reach renders his a voice worth wrestling with. </p>
<p>Witnessing Wiesel’s stark vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict provides a window through which to view an influential, and in some quarters pervasive understanding of the situation. Beyond all of this, reading rather than suppressing his provocative advert helps to show up the toxic potentials of mixing contemporary warfare with the Bible.</p>
<p>This issue of censorship is difficult and certainly publishing Wiesel’s advert has the potential to throw up all manner of complainants asking: “but if this can be printed, what else is permissible?” But each case must be treated on its own terms and the bar for invoking censorship must be set higher than we are always comfortable with.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Tollerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From debates concerning the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the 1967 Six Day War’s titular reference to the days of creation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has often been made to resonate with biblical…David Tollerton, Lecturer in Jewish Studies and Contemporary Biblical Cultures, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/295972014-07-23T17:38:14Z2014-07-23T17:38:14ZAs a Sakharov laureate and a mother, I call on the world to save Palestinians – and Israel<p>Times are very rough for both Israeli and Palestinian families. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html?_r=0">death toll in Gaza currently stands at around 620</a>, 74 of whom are children. The death toll in Israel stands at 30, two of whom were civilians. <a href="https://theconversation.com/murder-of-three-teenagers-sends-israel-into-security-overdrive-28679">Three Israeli teenagers</a> were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank. A Palestinian youth from Jerusalem was burned alive by Jewish extremists. </p>
<p>Dangerous and violent <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.550152">racism against Arab Israeli citizens</a> encouraged by Israeli ministers and parliament members leads to riots in the streets, breeds aggression and severe discrimination against Palestinians, along with a new aggression against peace activists. </p>
<p>Israel is currently suffering from an unprecedented social and economic crisis. The single source for this crisis is Israel’s destructive occupation. The occupation has raised two generations of Palestinians as prisoners jailed between military checkpoints and walls. </p>
<p>The two generations of Israelis who believe that they are the lords of the land are nurtured by the illusion that the oppression of 4.5m Palestinians gives them security and peace, and that such an oppressive society is capable of raising compassionate children. Therefore they are shocked when their boys become ruthless killers, as is revealed by current events. </p>
<h2>Illegal settlements</h2>
<p>One of the most dominant and disastrous expressions of the occupation is the settlement project in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which is <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-settlements-are-illegal-under-international-law-336507">illegal under international law</a>. The settlements allow Israel to take control of Palestinians’ natural resources in violation of international law, to strengthen its presence in the territories, and to make the occupation irreversible. </p>
<p>Despite agreements, international resolutions and Israeli promises, the settlements are expanding. All the while, Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and so-called “<a href="http://www.settlerwatch.com/en/publikationer/vastbankens-abc/">Area C</a>” (61% of the West Bank, under full Israeli control) are constantly destroyed. </p>
<p>While water flows in the settlements without limitation, Palestinian villages live under a cruel water regime, as was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/14/martin-schulz-european_n_4787089.html">recently pointed out</a> by the president of the European parliament, Martin Schultz, during a speech he made before the Israeli Parliament. Many roads are closed to Palestinians and the restriction of movement is unbearable.</p>
<h2>World must do more</h2>
<p>To this day, the international community has not done enough to stop Israeli settlements. European countries have profoundly criticised them while continuing to co-operate fully with Israel, economically, politically and militarily. As a result, Israel does not pay any price for seriously violating international law. On the contrary, Europe also pays for much of the humanitarian damage of the occupation, making it even easier for Israel to maintain.</p>
<p>A year ago, the EU made a small step in the right direction: <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/eu-issues-new-guidelines-for-project-funding-in-israeli-settlements-a-912072.html">guidelines were issued</a> prohibiting EU institutions to fund or to finance research organisations and activities in the settlements. Twenty European countries have published formal warnings to their citizens and companies regarding trade and financial relations with the settlements. </p>
<p>And yet, these measures do not seriously challenge Israeli policy in occupied Palestine. Europe could do much better as illustrated by its response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It took the EU a few weeks – not years – to make its stance against Russian actions crystal clear. Just this week the EU has taken a further bold step in <a href="http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/213965.html">suspending the funding of new public-sector projects</a> in Russia by the EU’s lending institution, the European Investment Bank. </p>
<p>This is in addition to the previous decision to ban the import of Crimean goods, and to impose targeted sanctions on both Russian and Ukrainian officials and on business firms operating in Crimea. This all occurred, of course, well before the Malaysian jet was shot down just this week. </p>
<h2>Israel fostering apartheid</h2>
<p>Israel controls millions of Palestinians under an ongoing military occupation, claiming that this situation is “temporary”. However, a military occupation of 47 years, which includes the establishment of settlements, cannot be described as “temporary”. </p>
<p>As an Israeli longing for peace and justice, I believe Europe has to contain the settlement policy with greater determination and more concrete measures. </p>
<p>The world increasingly understands the threat that the settlements pose to peace and stability in the region. </p>
<p>Over time, neither Palestinians nor Israelis can survive without freedom and independence for the Palestinians. Already, the undemocratic character of the state of Israel is increasingly transforming it into an apartheid state.</p>
<p>For the two nations living in this region, there is a joint and real interest in ending the Israeli occupation as a precondition for peace. We, the citizens of Israel and the stateless people of Palestine, cannot bring this about on our own. We need the help of the international community at large and of the EU in particular. </p>
<p>As a laureate of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Human Rights, and as a mother and a human being, I call on the EU to use all the diplomatic and economic tools at its disposal to help save my country from the abyss of eternal occupation and injustice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nurit Peled-Elhanan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Times are very rough for both Israeli and Palestinian families. The death toll in Gaza currently stands at around 620, 74 of whom are children. The death toll in Israel stands at 30, two of whom were civilians…Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Lecturer, School of Education, Hebrew University of JerusalemLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198442013-11-05T06:12:19Z2013-11-05T06:12:19Z‘Catastrophe’ looms as Israel debates Bedouin resettlement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34413/original/3bzmsc9c-1383571738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C3%2C614%2C366&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Equal citizens? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shy Halatzi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout this year, Bedouin in the Negev desert in southern Israel have been relocated as part of a plan to <a href="http://www.fairobserver.com/article/israel-prawer-begin-plan-relocation-negev-bedouins-part-1">resettle between 30,000 and 40,000</a> Arab citizens of Israel from their “unrecognised” villages to new townships. </p>
<p>The Israeli government says the resettlement will give Bedouin access to modern service: roads, water and electricity. The Bedouin complain that they are being forcibly removed from land they have occupied since long before the state of Israel was founded. They also claim that they are being forced out of their land to make way for new Jewish settlements in the Negev. </p>
<p>This week the “bill for the regulation of Bedouin settlement in the Negev”, better known as <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/154461816/The-full-translated-text-of-Israel-s-Prawer-Plan">the Prawer-Begin plan</a> will receive its second reading in the Knesset. The atmosphere, as the bill is debated, will be febrile – successful passage of this legislation will mean the likely demolition of dozens of Bedouin villages. Unsurprisingly Jerusalem is braced for mass demonstrations.</p>
<p>Drafted by the former Likud Knesset member, Benny Begin, the bill gained approval on January 23 and on June 24 passed the first of three readings before it is passed into law. In anticipation of the successful passage of the bill into law in the coming weeks, a dedicated police unit <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4445428,00.html">has been set up</a> to supervise the evacuation of residents, the demolition of properties and to counter demonstrations.</p>
<p>Leaving behind homes in 35 unrecognised villages, residents (regarded as “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/this-is-our-land-protests-at-plan-to-remove-bedouins-from-ancestral-villages-8748966.html">trespassers on state land</a>”) will be relocated to the existing towns of Rahat, Keseifa, Segev Shalom, Aro’er, Lakiya, Tel Sheva, and Hura, which are recognised by the <a href="http://adalah.org/eng/Articles/2207/How-have-the-residents-of-the-13-%E2%80%98Abu-Basma%E2%80%99-ten">2003 Abu Basma Plan</a>, or to the <a href="http://www.mmi.gov.il/static/HanhalaPirsumim/Beduin_information.pdf">purpose-built villages</a> constructed around the Negev.</p>
<p>While the plan focuses on the well-being of the Bedouin, the permanent displacement of 40,000 people has drawn national and international censure. Protests have taken place throughout the region and are likely to increase on the bill’s passing. In the Negev, protest banners likened the plan to the events of 1948, indicating that the bill’s passing would mark <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0d99c68-00d4-11e3-8918-00144feab7de.html#axzz2j1ygd4Rx">a second nakba</a>, or, “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/15/israelandthepalestinians">catastrophe</a>”. Over the summer, local youth groups gathered signatures for petitions against the plan and posters appeared in northern border towns bearing the slogan “Prawer won’t Pass!”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34410/original/724v2r8k-1383570556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catastrophe: the Prawer Plan would displace up to 40,000 Bedouin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Catron via Creative Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By mid-July the demonstrations had reached Nazareth, Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, while <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israel-demolitions-bedouin-homes-negev-desert-must-end-immediately-2013-07-18">Amnesty International</a> and <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/18/israel-excessive-force-against-protesters">Human Rights Watch</a> condemned the demolition of homes and the use of excessive force by police against protesters in Beer Sheva and Sakhnin.</p>
<h2>In the interests of all?</h2>
<p>Central to the Prawer-Begin plan is the development of social infrastructure in the Bedouin communities. Avoiding terms such as “resettlement” and “displacement” in favour of “regulation” and “settlement”, employment opportunities, education and integration have been highlighted as the fruits of relocation. Inclusivity <a href="http://www.acri.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Begin-Report-English-January-2013.pdf">is emphasised</a> as a key to future stability (“Inclusion [of Bedouin] in the prosperity of the Negev will contribute to all its inhabitants”), while investment in Bedouin children is regarded as a priority that will “help them exploit their talents and realise their natural right to happiness”.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the dissonance between the vision of integration and the response to any land claims issued by the Bedouin is problematic. The <a href="http://www.landpedia.org/landdoc/Analytical_materials/Goldberg_recommendations-english.pdf">2007 Goldberg Commission</a> acknowledged that “the Bedouins are residents […] they are not ‘invisible’ and do not lack standing and rights [and] they must be included in processes determining their future”. The Prawer-Begin plan, on the other hand, holds that under the land laws, ownership claims issued by Bedouins cannot be accepted.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34411/original/qjrhy46z-1383570981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Architect: Benny Begin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WIkimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To support this, the plan points to the fact none of the ownership claims submitted by Bedouins have been accepted by the courts -– and the claims list is long: almost 3,000 claim memorandums have been issued and are pending resolution.</p>
<p>The government injection of NIS 1.2 billion (Israeli New Shekel) – about £213m – will fund schools, factories, transportation, security and social infrastructure. However, it has <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0917/Bedouins-slam-Israel-s-desert-development-as-Nakba-in-the-Negev-video">failed to convince Bedouin residents</a> that the plan is more than legalised displacement.</p>
<h2>Relocation, relocation, relocation</h2>
<p>The dislocation of the Negev Bedouin is not a new phenomenon. In 1990, land was confiscated from the al-Azazmeh tribe for military use and the base became an agricultural kibbutz shortly after. Relocated to Ramat Hovav, the al-Azazmeh resided in an industrial zone that contained toxic and chemical waste. In 2007, concerns were realised when a pesticide container <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3437272,00.html">exploded at the Makhteshim-Agan factory</a>, causing a phosphoric acid cloud over an area that has a mortality rate <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/study-ramat-hovav-has-double-the-average-number-of-birth-defects-and-cancer-1.124008">that is 65%</a> higher than any other residential area in Israel.</p>
<p>While the new towns will not be in industrial zones, there remains the question of inclusivity in practice. According to <a href="http://adalah.org/Public/files/English/Publications/Articles/2013/Prawer-Begin-Plan-Background-Adalah.pdf">a report</a> by the Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality in May 2013, the three-month “listening process” around implementation began after the plan itself had been approved, which suggested that “listening” to the Bedouins’ needs was merely a cosmetic approach designed more for public relations than anything else.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Begin’s post-facto “listening process” and “revisions” simply provided a façade of a participatory consultation process</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, the planned destruction of villages and homes takes away any choice and contradicts the Plan’s advocacy of “equal citizenship” for all affected by Prawer-Begin. Some families may be happy to move to new or expanded towns with, but others certainly prefer the status quo. </p>
<h2>Another way</h2>
<p>The provision of schools, jobs and security in the plan is a positive step, but the crux rests in the engagement process in terms of inclusive negotiations, the will to acknowledge unrecognised villages and the application of law to all settlements in the Negev. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel there are more than 115 Jewish settlements and 60 individual farms <a href="http://www.acri.org.il/en/2013/10/03/bedouin-whats-next/">that do not meet the criteria outlined</a> in the Prawer-Begin plan. Recently, the government approved the construction of 11 new settlements on the sites of former Bedouin villages.</p>
<p>In light of the bill’s flaws, <a href="http://bimkom.org/eng/wp-content/uploads/AMP-English2.pdf">alternatives have been proposed</a> by NGOs. A new master plan by Bimkom, <a href="http://www.acri.org.il/en/category/arab-citizens-of-israel/negev-bedouins-and-unrecognized-villages/">The Council of Unrecognised Villages</a> and Sidra outlines criteria for planning with Bedouin communities, including the promotion of human rights, recognition of existing Bedouin settlements, community engagement and consideration of the Bedouin land system.</p>
<p>The success of the Prawer-Begin plan rests on the application of equal citizenship, inclusive engagement and the rejection, not promotion, of <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2001/12/04/israeli-schools-separate-not-equal">discriminatory practices</a>. The essence of the bill is stability and “a better future” for all residents in the Negev – but security will only work properly with the consent of all. </p>
<p>As long as the Bedouin are regarded as trespassers – and permanent displacement is mistakenly viewed as the means to achieve progress, stability will remain elusive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luisa Gandolfo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Throughout this year, Bedouin in the Negev desert in southern Israel have been relocated as part of a plan to resettle between 30,000 and 40,000 Arab citizens of Israel from their “unrecognised” villages…Luisa Gandolfo, Lecturer in Peace and Reconciliation, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.