Volunteering to integrate

Arab Israelis should not be expected to become diehard Zionists. But at the very least they should avoid the self-defeating pitfall of refusing to reconcile themselves to the existence of the Jewish state.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
MDA-Jordanian Red Crescent exercise in Arava 311 (photo credit: Dani Machlis / BGU)
MDA-Jordanian Red Crescent exercise in Arava 311
(photo credit: Dani Machlis / BGU)
Violence has too often been the response of some members of the Arab community in Israel to the growing trend among young Arab Israelis – primarily females – to volunteer for at least one year of National Service (Sherut Leumi).
Recently, an Arab woman who works as a regional organizer of National Service was hospitalized after being beaten by members of her community who opposed what she was doing. Another woman had her tires punctured.
Arab MKs such as Jamal Zahalka and Haneen Zoabi (Balad) have spoken out sharply against National Service as a Zionist attempt to “blur Arab identity.”
Zahalka has referred to those who perform National Service as “lepers.”
In an attempt to combat such opposition and raise consciousness among young Arabs, heads of the National Service Administration will convene a conference in Acre Tuesday to promote National Service. Arab-Israeli leaders such as Hasan El-Hayab, chairman of the Beduin Communities and mayor of Zarzir, will speak in favor of National Service. Hayab, a lieutenant-colonel in the IDF, says that if “everybody goes their own way and there is no commitment to shared national objectives, the result will be anarchy.”
We heartily agree. More and more Arab Israelis do, too.
In the past five years there has been a six-fold growth in the number of Arabs volunteering for National Service.
Today, 1,552 Arab Israelis (1,395 of them female) are performing National Service. And the numbers are expected to continue to grow. Sar-Shalom Jerby, director-general of the National Service Administration, estimates that about 2,000 Arab Israelis will likely volunteer this September.
This is still just a fraction of the potential, but the growth is encouraging.
The vast majority (75 percent) do their National Service within the Arab community. Volunteers work as tutors in schools, perform paramedical functions and some help take care of the elderly. Hayab and others in the Arab community such as Na’il Zoabi, a school principal in the Gilboa area, have noted that the Arab community is the first to benefit from National Service. Arab resistance to integration into Israeli society is in the end self-defeating.
NEVERTHELESS, SOME leaders of an increasingly radicalized Arab Israeli society have been spearheading a campaign against National Service. Asma Agbarieh of Maan Workers Advice Center argues that as long as Arab Israelis are discriminated against when it comes to state funding for public education or the job market, or in the allocation of land, there is no reason to expect them to volunteer for National Service. “The discrimination that exists in Israel against Druse and Beduin, both of whom serve in the IDF, is proof that performing one’s national duties is no guarantee of equality,” Agbarieh claims.
More needs to be done to ensure that Arab citizens enjoy equal opportunities. However, performing National Service helps strengthen Arab communities, fosters social cohesion and provides graduates with important state benefits such as reduced-interest mortgages and funding for higher education. Employers inevitably will look more favorably on Arab Israelis who have done National Service compared to those who have not.
There is a worrying tendency among many Arab Israelis to advance a radical “narrative” painting Zionism as a “colonialist” movement and denying the Jewish people’s historic ties to Israel, which only deepens alienation and perpetuates discrimination. Nor is it helpful for Arab Israelis to make their participation in National Service conditional upon the ending of Israeli “occupation” in Judea and Samaria, as some Israeli Arab leaders have demanded. It is counter-productive and unfair to place the blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict solely on the Israeli side, as such an attitude does, while ignoring Palestinian intransigence, incitement, religious radicalism and a refusal to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
Arab Israelis should not be expected to become diehard Zionists. But at the very least they should avoid the self-defeating pitfall of refusing to reconcile themselves to the existence of the Jewish state.
For all the talk, some of it valid, of discrimination, Arab Israelis enjoy better education, better medical services and more civil rights than their fellow Arabs living in neighboring countries. Reconciliation to Israel’s right to exist and thrive carries with it a willingness, however begrudging it may be, to integrate into Israeli society.
And National Service is a perfect way to facilitate this integration.