Yesterday I took a break from holidaying with my Mum to join
my fellow ITFers on our third educational seminar day. The topic was the Arab Minority in
Israel. In my opinion, this is a massive internal issue that Israel is dealing with that touches on related issues such as history and narrative, racism, human rights and coexistence.
In terms of background, there are around 8 million people in
Israel and 20% of these are Arabs.
The term ‘Arab’ is a fairly general classification, and it covers Arab
Muslims, Arab Christians and Druze communities. It is important to note that not all Arabs identify as being Palestinian.
Our trip yesterday started in Haifa at Beit ha-Gefen – a
centre that aims to foster co-existence between Jews and
Arabs (Muslim and Christian). The
centre runs mixed activities like art projects, hikes and international travel
and it was really great to be shown a place that solely focuses on something
that I think is missing in Israel society.
Our guide talked to us about how Haifa is a leader
in co-existence in Israel. Haifa
is one of nine mixed cities in
Israel; ‘mixed’ referring to Jews and Arabs living under the same
municipality. The term 'mixed
city’ surprised me. In Australia,
we don’t have mixed cities. You
can live wherever you want no matter where you’re from or what nationality you
identify with. Certain suburbs in
cities may have more people from a certain religion or nationality living there
but everyone happily lives together and is thankful if they live in a
certain area that identifies with another culture because it probably means the food is more
delicious. Israel is a different
story though. Because of history,
cultural differences and religious disparities, towns are usually either Arab
or Jewish. These towns may be
located side by side but they do not mix.
Haifa works extremely well as a mixed city. The most predominant reason for this is that it has no real religious significance to any religion, unlike say
Jerusalem. To me, this makes
complete sense. When
religion gets involved, people can easily loose sight of reason. They are dealing with a higher purpose so there’s no
compromising or negotiating. That’s
why I am such a big advocate for the complete separation of religion and state
(although BiBi defs does not agree with me on that one).
Our guide also said there is more tolerance in Haifa, for
instance, there are some buses on Shabbat whereas in other cities in Israel,
there are no buses on Shabbat (grrrr haha).
There is also a massive Christmas Tree and Menorah in the German Colony
in Haifa whereas in other cities, even mixed cities like Akko, chief Rabbis
have refused to have symbols of other holidays. I myself have seen this at my school where we were told we
cannot teach the kids about any Christian holidays. Query Israel being democratic…
Our guide talked about the racism that Arabs have to deal
with in Israel even though on paper, Arabs have the same rights as any other Israeli citizen. For instance, the
inability to rent an apartment after you give your name if it's an Arab
name. Although these landlords may reject you for other reasons, it is fairly
obvious that they don’t want an Arab renting out their apartment. To me this is horrible. I couldn’t imagine that happening in
Australia. I feel like if it did
happen, it would be all over the news and the anti-discrimination commission would be involved. However in
Israel, it seems to be a different story.
We then met with a Druze family and had lunch. The Druze are a really interesting Arab
community in Israel. Wikipedia
tells me the Druze are a monotheistic religious and social community found
predominately in the Middle East.
Druze are known to form a close knit community but they also fully
integrate in their adopted homelands and are very loyal. In Israel for instance, Druze men serve
in the army and all Druze are considered to be very nationalistic and
patriotic.
Druze generally live in their own communities and are a fairly secretive
society. In fact, to be Druze,
both your mother and father have to be Druze. There is no way to be a Druze unless your parents are Druze
and if you choose to marry a non-Druze, you will be ex-communicated from the
community. However, the Druze lady
that we spoke too stated that the Druze do not want their own country. She said it would be too much work and
that Druze are happy being a minority in Israel.
After this, we went to an Arab community in the Galilee and
visited an Arab school to speak with some students. That was probably the most interesting part of the day. We discussed what it’s like to be an
Arab in Israel, whether if a Palestinian State was created these kids would move, whether the kids had any Jewish friends and what things they liked the
most about Israel (with the answer being health insurance and the retirement
pension). It was fairly
confronting but also a really amazing opportunity to speak with people from the other side of the argument.
The key thing I learnt is that Israel has a long way to
go. Being an Arab is Israel is hard. You are discriminated
against, people are scared of you and it’s hard to get a job, rent an apartment
and live as an equal citizen.
I could honestly go on about this all day but the point I keep coming back to is that Israel is a
democracy. It's a Jewish State
but first and foremost it is a democracy. Democracy means equality for all. Arab schools shouldn't get less funding, all cities should be mixed cities, all holidays should be celebrated and all cultures should feel like they can call Israel home. But it's extremely hard (because of history and because this is the only Jewish state in the world). This is why Israel and it's inhabitants / neighbours are still trying to attain peace after more than 60 years. I just think the Government could start to help this by doing a little more to incentivise coexistence and improve human rights for all people who are considered Israeli citizens.
Also my thoughts and wishes are with those people back home dealing with the crazy gunman in the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. For real man, why the Lindt Cafe? Chocolate ain't ever hurt anyone ever.
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| My coffee that morning had a pomegranate in it! Hurrah! |
MM x
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