The space for Arabs in a ‘Jewish and Democratic state’

This article first appeared on The Media Line.

Increasingly, Israel is a country debating its desire to be both democratic and Jewish. The direction the state chooses will have far reaching consequences for all of its citizens – Arabs as well as Jews. A new survey reveals the growing strains over identity and the place of Israel’s largest minority in society.

“Inherent tension in the dual definition of the state of Israel as ‘Jewish and democratic’… has grown even stronger in recent years,” The Israeli Democracy Index 2015, an annual report on the health of the country’s political and societal character, stated recently. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, first officially announced in the country’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. But at the same time the state views itself as democratic and defined itself as such in the Basic Law of 1950.

The argument over whether these two ideas are mutually exclusive is an ongoing one and is something that raises questions about the place of non-Jews in the country, the most visible of which are the 20.7% of the population who are Arab.

Of the 1,019 people sampled in the survey, 67.1% described tensions between Jews and Arabs in Israel as being “high,” a significant increase from the previous year’s 58%. Analysts believe that this is hardly surprising considering the wave of violence that has taken place in Israel since the start of October: 12 Israelis and 68 Palestinians, 43 of whom were identified as attackers, have been killed.

When it is taken into account that polling was conducted in April and May, before recent attacks, then current figures are “probably even worse,” Yochanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Media Line.

Plesner drew attention to figures which showed that 55.7% of Jewish Israelis saw an inherent conflict in people who think of themselves as Palestinian and as loyal Israeli citizens. Of the Arabs polled, 75.6% said there was no contradiction present. This links to ongoing opposition from a majority of Jews (56.6%) to Arabs being present in the government and in national decision making, Plesner said. “(A majority of) Israelis say, ‘well if you see yourself as part of an active enemy then you’re not trustworthy to be part of decision making at the highest level,’” the former parliamentarian explained.

In modern Israel, many Arabs think of themselves as being both Israeli and Palestinian, Samy Smooha, professor of sociology at Haifa University, told The Media Line. “There are three ways that Arabs can identify themselves: Israeli Arab, Israeli Palestinian or as Palestinian,” Smooha said. The exact wording a person uses is very telling as to their views and to their feeling of connection to the state of Israel, the sociologist explained.

For the majority of time following the creation of the state in 1948, “Arab Israeli” was the term most commonly used. But this has been replaced over the past 15 years by the expression “Palestinian in Israel,” Smooha suggested. Those who refer to themselves as “Israeli Palestinian” acknowledge their connections to both cultures and generally seek to address the problems of equality they see in the state, while those who use only the term “Palestinian” are far more likely to wholly reject being a citizen of the country, the professor argued.

According to figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are nearly four and a half million Palestinians living in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in east Jerusalem. The vast majority of these people are not Israeli citizens. However the 1.3 million Arabs living inside Israel, who were within its borders when the state was declared in 1948, are entitled to full citizenship. Some, in addition to members of the Druze community, are integrated into Israeli society to the extent that they serve in its military.

The majority of Arabs living in Israel see themselves as “Palestinian Israelis” and this has been the case for some time, Sami Miaari, a lecturer in labor studies at Tel Aviv University and a researcher with the Israeli Democracy Institute, told The Media Line. “They see the struggle as a struggle for rights, not for nationality as it is in the West Bank,” Miaari said, suggesting that the American civil rights movement was a fair comparison.

During the wave of violence that began in October, it has been noticeable that very few attacks have been conducted by Arabs holding Israeli citizenship. The majority of assailants were from east Jerusalem or the West Bank. According to Smooha, this is to be expected. “Israeli Palestinians enjoy democracy and law and order and do not want to destroy this,” he explained. However, such individuals do not feel equal and are unlikely to do so while its Jewish character is presented as being paramount, the sociologist argued.

“This is the Jewish state; it is the homeland of the Jewish people. You cannot be a full and equal member of Israeli society because the state declares itself to be the homeland of all Jews in the world.”