So much for the Arab Israelis....
Ha'aretz
Tuesday, October 24, 2000
An intensifying Sense of Alienation
By Ori Nir
Over the past few weeks, the abuse of Arab Israelis has become a national sport. Every day, we hear reports about physical attacks on Arab citizens, about the torching and vandalizing of Arab property and about threats and verbal abuse aimed against Arab individuals.
The reports on such events are, however, only the tip of the iceberg: A large portion of the attacks and incidents of abuse are not reported to the police, the press, or even to civil rights organizations that focus on the predicament of the Arab citizens of Israel.To a certain extent, the events that are not reported are more alarming than those that are. The reason for this is that the failure to report an incident stems from fear, from a lack of faith in the establishment and from the erosion of civic awareness - three elements that succinctly sum up the prevailing mood in the Arab community of Israel.
Apparently, the principal reason for not reporting is fear. Many Arab Israelis are afraid that a report could carry a heavy price tag - in the form of revenge, dismissal from places of employment, or entry into what could be described as a "delicate, complex situation." In short, many Arab Israelis simply do not want to "make waves."
Every so often, one hears the cry of "Death to the Arabs!" in city streets or in soccer stadia. In recent weeks, the slogan, "Kahane was right" (referring to Rabbi Meir Kahane, the slain leader of the now-outlawed, extreme right-wing Kach movement and expressing an entire reservoir of hatred toward Arabs), has appeared along Israeli highways and roads - a painful reminder to Arab drivers of what some Jewish Israelis think of them. Arab laborers have, over the past few weeks, started to exchange information on which routes and which intersections pose the least danger to Arabs in so far as the possibility of being beaten or otherwise abused is concerned.
Fear, however, is not the only reason for the non-reporting. "People have not been filing complaints during the course of the recent incidents," says Hassan Jabrin, executive director of Adala - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, "because they no longer have any faith in the principle of a civic society." Arab Israelis do not trust the authorities and are highly reluctant to lodge any complaints with the Israel Police, members of which shot and killed a dozen Arab citizens and wounded several hundred just a few weeks ago.
"For many of Israel's Arab citizens," Jabrin notes, "the recent events have reinforced the feeling that the authorities are not particularly concerned about incidents in which Arab blood is shed. Thus, they fail to see any logic in reporting events involving the abuse of Arab Israelis. After all, they say to themselves, 'What good will come of reporting the incident anyway?'"
In recent weeks, Arab citizens have been contacting the offices of Arab members of Knesset, asking them to intercede in incidents in which Jewish Israelis have mistreated their Arab compatriots. When the Arab lawmakers ask why the citizens have not lodged complaints with the police, the reply is that the police are only interested in hurting Arabs, not helping them.
Civil rights organizations and the Arab press are trying to persuade Arab Israeli citizens to report all incidents of abuse. The Christian, Arab Israeli newspaper, A-Sinara, informed its readers of the creation of a "hot line" for reports on incidents involving the mistreatment of Arabs. In addition, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Adala have informed the Arab Israeli public that they are prepared to receive reports on such events. Paradoxically, although anti-Arab incidents are a daily occurrence, the number of complaints filed with Adala has actually declined.
According to Jabrin, the reason might be that many Arab Israelis feel "very uncomfortable" about reporting such occurrences: "In a situation in which Arab Israeli citizens are being killed or wounded in demonstrations, people feel very uncomfortable complaining about having been beaten or about one of their windows having been smashed."
The non-reporting of anti-Arab incidents is widening the "civic barrier" between Israel's Arab and Jewish citizens. Since the start of the disturbances earlier this month, Jews - not just ordinary citizens, but also the representatives of government companies and distributors affiliated with private companies - have avoided entering Arab villages. In fact, over the past few weeks, even the Israel Police has refrained from entering Arab villages for the purpose of investigating crimes. The probe of a murder that took place in the village of Tamra was conducted without the police investigative team ever visiting the scene of the crime. "We decided not to go into the village because we did not want to cause a local conflagration," explains Boaz Goldberg, spokesman for the Northern District of the Israel Police.
On the other hand, shopping centers and malls in Jewish cities have repeatedly become scenes of anti-Arab abuse, notes Aawani Bana, an attorney who is attached to the Haifa branch of ACRI. "Hardly a day passes without at least one Arab Israeli being assaulted in a shopping mall," Bana says.
Ironically, the outburst of violence in early October has only made Arab Israelis feel more alienated and less a part of Israeli society, despite the fact that the demand for civic equality was one of the chief rallying cries of the demonstrators. The uprising by Arab Israeli citizens, in protest against anti-Arab discrimination and persecution in the country, has intensified their sense of being outsiders, of being second-class Israelis.
Today, the Arab citizens of Israel are victims not only of bureaucratic injustice, but of aggressive behavior on the part of the country's Jewish citizens as well.
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If I remember right, the Israeli stormtroopers killed a dozen Arab Israelis during last fall's mayhem.... |
