An article published this month argues, based on economic and other data, that
Israeli Arabs’ standard of living has risen dramatically, while Israeli Arab
leaders have increasingly radicalized their community.
Prof. Efraim
Karsh, a scholar of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College and
a principal research fellow at the Middle East Forum, published an article –
which is an updated version of a 2003 piece in Commentary magazine dealing with
Israeli Arabs – in the January issue of Israel Affairs and on the website of the
Middle East Forum.
Entitled “Israel’s Arabs: Deprived or Radicalized?”
the article cites statistical evidence demonstrating that Israeli Arabs have had
an increasingly better quality of life since the Jews began settling in large
numbers in British Mandate-era Palestine. For this reason, Arabs continued to
move to Jewish population centers in order to improve their socioeconomic living
conditions.
However, Karsh presents a paradox: as Israeli Arabs’ living
conditions have continued to improve since the early 20th century, the Arab
population has become more radicalized.
He attributes this mostly to
extremist leadership, which began with Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, who
planned to conduct mass murder of Israel’s Jews and allied himself with Hitler
during World War II. Proving his point, just last week, Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas paid tribute to Husseini and his legacy as a great man
who should be emulated by all Arabs.
Israeli-Arab MKs such as Ahmed
Tibi and Haneen Zoabi have also been at the center of controversy in Israel for
their strong pro-Palestinian stances. Tibi refused a request to be interviewed,
saying he was “not interested” in the subject.
In the article, Karsh
mentions Azmi Bishara – a former member of Knesset and the founder of the Balad
party who praised Hezbollah and called for “a state of all its citizens,” a
phrase typically used in calls for Israel to lose its identity as a Jewish
state.
Bishara ended up fleeing Israel after being charged with
cooperating with terrorists.
Karsh says that Arab leaders tend to blame
Israel for all of their problems and incite violence and hatred against the
Jewish state.
However, he argues that Israeli Arabs are anything but
deprived and marginalized, stating that they “have made astounding social and
economic progress.”
“Far from lagging behind, their rate of development
has often surpassed that of the Jewish sector, with the result that the gap
between the two communities has steadily narrowed,” the professor declares in
the piece.
“Health statistics are but one indicator. Perhaps most
significantly, mortality rates among Israeli Arabs have fallen by over
two-thirds since the establishment of the Jewish state, while life expectancy
has increased 30 years, reaching 78.5 (women 80.7, men 76.3) in 2009. At the end
of the 1940s, life expectancy of Israeli Arabs was fifteen years lower than that
of their Jewish counterparts; by the 1970s, the gap had decreased to 2-3 years
and has remained virtually unchanged since then (3.7 years in 2009),” he
continues.
“Not only does this compare favorably with the Arab and Muslim
worlds, but the average Israeli Arab male can expect to live longer than his
American (76 years in 2007) and many European counterparts.”
In a
conversation with Karsh, he said that “the facts speak for themselves” and that
Israeli Arabs “are not discriminated against in any major way,” according to the
data.
Karsh said that “Arab cities are less congested than Jewish ones,”
and that security profiling and other issues are often not a result of racism,
but of history.
He also cited statistics showing that infant mortality
rates have similarly gone down from 56 per 1,000 births in 1950 to 6.5 in 2008,
which is “slightly above the US mortality rate and much lower than that of the
neighboring Middle Eastern states. In Algeria, for example, it is 24.9
deaths/1,000 live births, in Egypt 30, in Iraq 40, in Iran 41.”
Israeli
Arabs have also excelled in education. In 1961, the average Israeli Arab spent
one year in school and today the average is over 11.
In higher education,
“fifty years ago, a mere 4% of Arab teachers held academic degrees; by 1999, the
figure had vaulted to 47%,” the study finds. Another interesting statistic is
that illiteracy dramatically decreased from 57.2% to 7.7%.
Karsh goes on
to cite other statistics, such as those showing that the Arab unemployment rate
has dropped below that of Jewish periphery towns.
“The truth is that the
growing defiance of the state, its policies, and its values was not rooted in
socioeconomic deprivation but rather in the steady radicalization of the Israeli
Arab community by its ever more militant leadership, not unlike their mandatory
predecessors,” he concludes in the piece.
On the other hand, Karsh says
that the facts demonstrate that there are some positive signs. He cites a 2007
survey that reveals a “a surprisingly high level of support for the idea of
voluntary civil service among Israeli Arabs: 75% among young Arabs (aged 16-22),
71.9% among Arab men and 89% among Arab women say they would support the idea of
voluntary civil service.”
In addition, he states that when Israeli Arabs
are asked whether they would like to be part of a future Palestinian state or
remain Israeli citizens, they overwhelmingly say they would like to remain
Israeli citizens. Karsh also calls for new Israeli leaders that “would pay
greater heed to the wishes of their constituents and halt their steady drive
toward an allout collision.”
These ideas echo those of Atef Krenawi, the
founder of new Arab political party Hope for Change.
In an interview last
month with The Jerusalem Post, he said, “In my almost 20 years in public life, I
came to see that the Arab leadership only cares about itself, about keeping its
salaries and its seats in the Knesset, and not about the citizens of Israel.
Moreover, they’re doing great damage in the way they deal with the Palestinian
Authority and the neighboring Arab countries.
We as Israeli Arabs need to
be a bridge to peace, not fodder for more war.”