Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
along kinship and political lines have also reduced the Arab leverage in lobbying for more
funding.
Another reason for differential allocations, however, is unequal treatment by the state. The
government-appointed Or Commission Report of 2003 states, “The Arab citizens of Israel live
in a reality in which they experience discrimination as Arabs. . . . Although the Jewish major-
ity's awareness of this discrimination is often quite low, it plays a central role in the sensibilities
and attitudes of Arab citizens.” The report cites examples of the types of discrimination against
Arabs, including government failure to move toward equal allocation of state resources, to-
ward confi rming the equality of Arab citizens, and toward uprooting discriminatory policies
and actions. Nor does the state supply equal law enforcement in the Arab sector.
Many Israeli Jews admit that they condone preferential treatment for Jews. They tend to
view Arabs as a security risk— a view that has a basis in reality — and this reduces the availabil-
ity of some jobs. Even so, disparities and discrimination have been declining since the 1990s.
The gap in the money allocated to Jewish and Arab local municipal councils and education
systems has also narrowed.
Generally speaking, although intercommunal relations are not warm, they are quite stable
and not usually tense. Yet communal attitudes cannot be easily stereotyped. According to a
2003 poll, 70 percent of Israeli Arabs accept a defi nition of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic
state, in which Jews and Arabs live together,” whereas 38 percent accept the Zionist principle of
Israel's right to preserve a Jewish majority. Since 2000, however, a majority of Israeli Jews and
Arabs have consistently viewed relations between the two groups as “not good.”
Indices that measure coexistence have also declined. In 2007, for example, the percentage of
those who felt that both sides had historic rights to the land fell from 68.5 percent to 54 percent
for Jews and from 67.5 percent to 49 percent for Arabs. Jews supporting full equality between
Jews and Arabs in Israel fell from 73 percent in 1999 to 56 percent in 2007, evidently in response
to their identifi cation of Israeli Arabs with Israel's enemies.
Differences in geographical location, language, and worldview limit interactions between
the communities. Yet neither side evinces eagerness to draw closer. Thus, most Arab Israelis
are not enthusiastic about the nature of the state in which they live, and they also have to deal
with the confl ict between their country of citizenship and members of their ethnic group and
religion. Yet they know that the democratic rights and living standards they have in Israel are
better than they would enjoy in an Arab or Palestinian state.
The key point is that the majority of Israeli Arabs accept the fact that Israel is a Jewish state
and that they benefi t materially from the status quo — they are not suffi ciently motivated to
battle to change this or to move elsewhere, even to a Palestinian state —but they do not believe
Israel has a right to be a Jewish state in theory. Their political and worldview choices appear to
be deadlocked. Whether increasing modernization of the Arab sector or events elsewhere in
the region will change this remains to be seen.
Bedouin
Bedouin number about 170,000. There are approximately 110,000 in the Negev and 50,000 in
the Galilee, and the remaining 10,000 are in central Israel. Although Bedouin are Arabs, they
