ISRAELI SOCIETY SEEMS TO BE gradually coming to the recognition that a
higher
rate of participation in the workforce on the part of Arab Israeli
citizens
would be a benefit to all. Slowly gathering momentum over the past five
years,
the idea seems to have recently reached a critical mass.
Plotted
on a
graph, the trajectory of this change would ascend steadily towards the
economic
integration of Israel’s Arab population into the mainstream, a goal
gaining a
foothold in the national consensus. Increased workforce participation by
Arabs
has become the bon ton for government officials and industry leaders as
they now
discuss reducing social and economic gaps between Jews and Arabs,
absorbing Arab
university graduates into the job market and encouraging
entrepreneurship in the
Arab sector.
The Israeli economy loses NIS 31 billion ($8.9 b)
annually
due to the low participation of its Arab citizens, according to
government
estimates. While Arabs and Druze constitute approximately 20 percent of
the
population, their contribution to the GDP is only 8 percent.
Only
slightly over 20 percent of Arab women participate in the workforce,
compared
with 57.9 percent employment among Jewish women. Experts estimate that
if the
trends of the past decade continue, within 30 years 78 percent of
Israel’s
primary school pupils will be Arab or ultra-Orthodox, the two sectors
with the
lowest level of workforce participation. Such statistics are propelling
politicians and business leaders to design a template for change.
Workforce
participation is now touted as
the ultimate win-win scenario: good for the Arabs, good for the Jews,
good for
the economy.
But some say that Israel isn’t even approaching
these goals
quickly enough, and they are demanding actions and not merely slogans
and
promises.
“We’re at the cusp of a great opportunity to integrate
the
Arabs into the economy at large,” Shalom Simhon, minister of industry,
trade and
labor in charge of minority affairs, told a conference convened in early
April.
“It’s a small window of opportunity that will only last a
few more
years. We have our work cut out for us. The Arab sector is mature and
ripe to be
integrated.”
Echoing Simhon’s words, Nahed Hazzan, mayor of the
Arab city
of Shfaram, declared, “We don’t want affirmative action or favors, we
want equal
opportunities.”
“THERE DOES SEEM TO BE A new wind blowing, but it
remains
to be seen if the Israeli economy will open itself to us,” says Inas
Said, a
successful Arab entrepreneur who left a lucrative management job in a US
hi-tech
firm to return home to start his own hi-tech company, based in
Nazareth.
“I see a young, vibrant, dynamic generation hungry for
success,
just looking for the right framework. This is the reason that
integrating Arabs
into the economy can be accomplished. If we can manage to create enough
success
stories it will have a snowball effect and the Arab community will
become an
integral part of the Israeli economy,” Said tells The Jerusalem
Report.
Indeed, in recent years, government and private
enterprises have
launched several milestone projects: • In March of last year the
government
unveiled a five-year, NIS 778 million ($222m.) pilot program to create
housing,
jobs and public transportation in 13 Arab towns whose residents
collectively
make up 25 percent of the country’s Arab population. It is projected
that by
2014 nearly 15,000 new jobs will have been created, 7,400 new apartments
will
have been built and a total of NIS 3.4 billion (nearly $1 b) will have
been
collected in tax revenues. Recently, the government approved a similar
four-year
plan for Druze villages.
• Several months ago, President Shimon
Peres
joined forces with 20 CEOs of leading hi-tech companies to launch a
Web-based
portal, Project Maantech, for the recruitment of Israeli Arabs with
academic
credentials. Peres and John Chambers, chairman of the Ciscom
multinational
technology corporation, came up with the idea at last year’s World
Economic
Forum Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
• Dov Lautman, textile
industrialist
and former president of the Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, was
the
driving force behind the launching in 2008 of Kav Mashve, an NGO whose
goal is
to place Arab university graduates in Israeli companies and offers
training for
interviews and preparation of resumés. According to Irit Tamir, Kav
Mashve CEO,
some 300 academics have so far been placed.
• Last year, the
Knesset
established a parliamentary inquiry committee on the integration of Arab
employees in the public sector, chaired by MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab
List-Ta’al). The committee is charged with investigating how to
implement
Israeli legislation that requires a 10 percent representation of Arabs
in the
civil service by 2012. The number now stands at 7 percent.
• In
2007 the
Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian
Sectors
was established in the Prime Minister’s Office. Its purpose is to
maximize the
economic potential of the minority population and to place the issue at
the top
of the national agenda. The Authority is in charge of overseeing the
implementation of projects worth about NIS 1 billion($ 0.29b). It has
recently
created an equity fund with a government investment of NIS 80 million
($22.9 m)
matched by another NIS 100 million ($28.6 m)from private sources to
invest in
Arab businesses.
• In 2010 government officials attended a
groundbreaking
ceremony for the Nazareth Industrial Park. The idea was conceived and
partly
funded by industrialist Stef Wertheimer, who contributed $20m. Plans are
currently being drawn up for additional industrial parks in the Arab
cities of
Umm el-Fahm, Kafr Kasim, Shfaram and Sakhnin. Industrial parks provide
crucial
income to municipalities through municipal taxes and provide
locally-based
employment opportunities.
• The Finance Ministry has recently
changed its
tender criteria for government benefits to fit smaller businesses, which
are
more prevalent in the Arab sector; the Treasury is also planning a media
campaign to encourage Arab businesses to apply.
IN MARCH, OFFICIALS,
BUSINESS people and activists convened in Jaffa for the Prime Minister’s
Conference of the Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab,
Druze and
Circassian Sectors. The day-long conference was the first of its
kind.
Held under the banner of “Partnership and Growth,” the conference
was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Industry, Trade and
Labor
Minister Simhon; Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer; Transportation
Minister Yisrael Katz; Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias;
and
Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office Eyal Gabai. Also in
attendance
were officials from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development
(OECD), the European-based organization of which Israel became a member
in
August 2010, mayors and local council heads, company executives,
academics, and
heads of various NGOs.
Inside the hangar in the port of Jaffa where the
conference was held, there was wall-towall consensus that drawing the
Arab
sector into the mainstream is imperative for the future flow of the
economy.
But at least one attendee was skeptical.
“You can’t talk
in the same breath about integrating the Arabs in the economy and at the
same
time let them feel that they are not really wanted,” Amnon
Be’eri-Sulitzeanu,
codirector of the Abraham Fund, an NGO advancing coexistence and
equality among
Jews and Arabs, tells The Report. “The economic issue is important, but
it’s not
enough.”
The current political atmosphere, Be’eri- Sulitzeanu adds, is
not conducive to economic integration. “The government must stop
exercising a
policy of exclusion and aggression against the Arab minority,” he
says.
“There is a new wind blowing, but it is channeled towards the
economic not enough. We need concrete steps that can build trust and
signal to the Arab
community that we want them because we have a common destiny. We are
here
together to stay together. The economic issue can’t carry on its back
the entire
issue. It’s OK as a beginning.”
While driving to the conference in Jaffa
from his home in the village of Nahef, near Safed in the Galilee, Said,
the
hi-tech entrepreneur, says he had had two hours to ponder the issues.
Mostly, he
wondered if the conference, in which he had been invited to participate
in a
panel on hi-tech, would turn out to be merely a forum for politicians to
utter
slogans.
“I also thought [about the fact] that the Arab minority in
Israel has great potential. I base this on my interaction with a new
generation
of Arab academicians and businesspeople who are not less qualified than
their
Jewish counterparts. From a macro economic perspective, Israel must
capitalize
on such high value resources,” he tells The Report.
Said, an energetic,
wiry man whose many years abroad are discernible in his elegant suit and
excellent English, is regarded as an Arab success story. He returned to
Israel
three years ago after obtaining a master’s degree in electrical
engineering in
Germany and working with companies such as Erickson and Nokia, including
a
position as senior manager in Nokia’s R&D center in Boston. After 20
years
abroad, he returned with his family to Nahef (population 7,800) because
he
wanted to be close to family and, in his words, “to do something for our
community.”
Three years ago, during the height of the economic meltdown
of 2008, he founded Galil Software in Nazareth. He was then the
fledgling
company’s sole engineer. Since then, Galil Software, which provides
software
engineering services to 12 leading Israeli hi-tech companies, has grown
by 100
percent annually. By the end of 2008, the company employed 34 engineers;
by
2009, 65, and by the end of 2010 there were 122 Arab engineers employed
in the
company. Today there are 135.
“We were able to prove that there is a
market for Arab engineers and that if the market opens up to us, we can
integrate and provide much needed services,” he asserts.
“On the one hand
there is demand for a highly skilled engineering workforce, evidenced by
the
fact that Israel exports 10,000 engineering jobs offshore, while on the
other
hand, there are about 2,000 Arab engineering graduates of the best
universities
and colleges in Israel who are unemployed.”
Said points out that the Arab
minority has also claimed a role in the health-care field, with many
doctors and
nurses working in Israeli hospitals. Some 57 percent of all pharmacists
working
in the Israeli drugstore chain SuperPharm are Arabs and the chain is the
country’s largest employer of Arab academicians.
“The Marker,” a leading
financial newspaper, recently published a story on Arab pharmacists with
the
headline “Jewish employers don’t understand that they are missing out on
excellent employees.”
Referring to the large number of Arab health-care
professions, Said continues, “The Jewish community seems to trust us
with their
lives, but in the hi-tech field we are not much desired, at least not
until
about three or four years ago. It’s absurd.”
DURING THE CONFERENCE,
politicians and businessmen analyzed the position of Arabs in the
Israeli
economy from all possible angles.
“We are a society that produces the
greatest amount of technology,” said Netanyahu in his keynote address.
“We
should have been much richer. There are large populations that can
integrate and
work but we need to help them. We have mobilized to that end with full
power and
we have to give all sectors of the population the conditions to be
independent.
If we can do this [integrate Arabs into the economy] in the coming
decade,
Israel can be one of the most successful countries in the
world.”
Reversing the relatively low rate of Arab participation in the
labor force will increasingly be one of the keys to the success of the
Israeli
economy in the coming years, said Bank of Israel Governor Fischer,
echoing
Netanyahu’s words. “The fact that there are skilled and trained people
[in the
Arab sector] who cannot work in professions that use those skills is a
waste for
the market, not just for them.”
Fischer presented figures showing that
the poverty rate in the ultra-Orthodox and Arab sectors has gone up by
more than
50 percent in the past decade, while remaining unchanged at around 13
percent
among the general population. According to Fischer, poverty in the Arab
sector
stems from the low employment rate among women and because men do not
participate in well-paying jobs in lucrative areas such as the hi-tech
and
service industries.
Not one to mince words, Fischer said Arab workers
were often paid less than Jewish ones. “There is no doubt that part of
the
difference between the salary of Arab workers in the labor market and
the salary
of others stems from discrimination.” He added, “We are talking about a
process
that is complicated and one that will take many years to reach… it’s our
job to
help them help themselves.”
John Martin, the OECD director for employment, labor and social affairs,
criticized Israel’s economic and social
policies towards its Arab citizens. Among OECD member countries, Israel
has the
second highest poverty rate, with the ultra- Orthodox and Arabs bearing
the
brunt, he said. The low employment of Arab women only partly explains
the
poverty level.
“The OECD believes that improving employment opportunities
is the best way out of poverty. That means that policy needs to assign a
higher
priority for the employment and working conditions for Arabs and
minority
groups. Resources to support this objective need to scale up and be
sustained
over time if they are to become more effective.”
Martin praised the
government’s NIS 778m. ($222.3m) pilot program for the improvement of
employment, housing and transportation in 13 Arab towns and villages.
But
he added a caveat. Even as a first step, he said, the program “is too
timid. It
needs to be scaled up.” And he further noted that Israel is not “taking
seriously enough” the quota the government itself set, which foresees 10
percent
employment of Arabs in the public sector by 2012.
“You do have excellent
laws but the enforcement of these laws leaves a lot to be desired,” he
said.
Bennie Fefferman, director of economic research in the Ministry of
Industry, Trade and Labor, presented the results of a comprehensive
survey of
1,000 Arab academicians and 1,000 Arab businessmen. The survey reveals
that only
20 percent of Arab scientists and engineers work in their professions
and that
72 percent are forced to work in other professions, mostly as teachers
(about 44
percent). Of all the Arab academicians, 47 percent didn’t bother to
apply “for a
job with Jews” and only 37 percent applied and succeeded. Nearly 32
percent said
that discrimination is the main reason for their inability to work in
the Jewish
sector.
Other factors hindering Arabs from entering the Jewish labor
market are imperfect knowledge of Hebrew and English and living in the
periphery
where jobs are scarce. In addition, the lack of day care for young
children and
lack of public transportation are factors that keep Arab women at
home.
Ironically, Arabs tend to be more satisfied with their economic
situation than Jews, according to Geocartography Research Institute
chairman
Prof. Avi Degani. Degani cited the Integration Index for the National
Economy,
which measures the success rate of investments and other projects in
minority
communities by comparing several Arab and Druze municipalities to Jewish
municipalities of roughly the same size. The index found that Arab
households
were more satisfied with their economic situation than their Jewish
counterparts.
After 11 hours of deliberations, only a few dozen
participants remained in the huge Jaffa hangar where the conference was
held.
Said was one of those who stuck it out.
“Over the course of
the conference I had the impression that certain forces are really
serious about
this,” he noted. “But it remains to be seen. The next two to three years
will
prove if these were only slogans and clichés or if they will be
translated into
action.”
Economist Aiman Saif, director of the Authority for the Economic
Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors, has little doubt.
“Five
years from now we will see several modern industrial parks in the Arab
towns
with investors creating companies with hi-tech industries. There will be
public
transportation operating in the towns and villages, giving women and
young
people the opportunity to get to work. We will see new, modern
neighborhoods
available in the Arab towns, giving young people the alternative to buy
their
own homes in their towns and villages. The standard of living will be
much
higher. I am optimistic,” he promises.
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