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List of Illustrations
List of Tables and Figures
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Shimon Peres, President of Israel
Appreciations by: Professor Shlomo Ben-Ami, Vice President
of the Toledo International Center for Peace; and Professor
Joseph Ginat,
Head of Strategic Dialogue, Netanya College
Prologue: Complex Loyalties
1 The Politics of Rift: Models for Analyzing
the Case of Israel’s Arab Citizens
Majority–Minority Relations in Israel: Inclusion or
Confrontation?
The Consensus Model
The Compromise and Co-operation Model
The Control Model
The Division Model
The Case of Israeli Arab Citizens
Theoretical and Conceptual Aspects in Electoral Behavior
2 Political Supervision and Co-optation
The 1948 Naqba: Adapting to a New Reality
Under Military Administration
Allied Arab Lists
Zionist Political Parties
The Israeli Communist party (Maki, Rakah, Hadash)
The al-Ard Movement and the Democratic Popular Front
3 New Political Movements and Trends
First Arab Nationalist Movements
Extra Parliamentary Political Organizations
Abnaa al-Balad (Sons of the Village)
The Young Moslems
The Islamic Movement
Moving towards a Civil Society
The Land Defense Committee
The National Committee for the Arab Local Authorities
in Israel
The Supreme Follow-up Committee for the Arabs in Israel
Extra Parliamentary Institutionalization and the
Emergence of the “Third Sector”
New Political Leadership
The 1990s: Non-Reactionary Politicization
Troubled Politics – Parties Under Threat of Disqualification
4 Social Rifts in Arab Politics
The Hamula – A Social and Political Rift
Clan Rifts and Municipal Elections
Local Elections between Clan and Party
Ethnic and Religious Rifts, and Considerations in Choosing
a Party
The Moslems
The Druze
The Christians
The Bedouin
The Circassians
Ethnic Voting Patterns
Shefar’am
Sakhnin – The Municipal Arena as an Expression
of Clan Voting
Umm-al-Fahm – Clan and the Nationalistic Vote
5 Arab Electoral Power
Participating In, and Boycotting, Elections
Distribution of Votes in the Israeli Arab Population
Ideological and Pragmatic Considerations in Choosing a Party
Nationalist/Ideological Considerations
Pragmatic Considerations
Political Trends within the Rifts in Israeli Arab Society
Arab Voters in the Galilee
Arab Votes in the Triangle Area
The Druze vote
Voting Among Galilee Bedouin
Negev Bedouin Vote
Voting Trends among Christian Arabs
Voting Trends in Circassian Villages
Voting Trends in Mixed Ethnic Towns
Voting in Outlying Settlements
Complex Loyalties as Reflected in Voting Behavior
Epilogue: Arabs, Jews and the State of Israel –
The Administration, the Establishment and Arab Citizens
October 2000 – On the Threshold of a New Reality
After the Or Judicial Commission of Inquiry and its Conclusions
Decisions on Arab Affairs – Governance in Israel
Looking to the Future
Postscript
The Second Lebanon War and Israel’s Arabs
The Impact of the Broader Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Israel’s Arab Population – Vision for the Future
Appendix
Results of Elections in Seventeen Election Campaigns
(Excluding Ethnic Mixed Towns) – Division of Votes between
the Three Blocs
Notes
Bibliography
Hebrew Bibliography
Index
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“We
shall never be able to come to terms with ourselves so long as Israel’s
minority populations – in every way our fellow citizens –
feel themselves discriminated against. A Jewish state in which there
is discrimination is inconceivable. Under such circumstances there
can never be peace, nor complete equality. … In his book,
Ra’anan Cohen analyzes the existing social rifts and also
points out the right solutions to them. His book is built upon a
wealth of experience and knowledge, together with a convincing analytical
aptitude.” Shimon Peres, The President of Israel
“This is a relatively rare critical
study of relations between the Arab population and the non-Arab
minority population of Israel. Cohen provides a detailed account
of the political and social lives of Arabs in Israel. It is thus
unique. Cohen (chair, Board of the Industrial Development Bank of
Israel) is Iraqi-born and has served in various political and parliamentary
positions, including minister of Labour and Social Affairs and head
of the Labour Party’s Minorities Commission. He has thus been
well positioned to observe the hostilities between Arabs and Jews,
some for the very first time. Issues such as whether it is more
accurate to regard Jews as a minority in the Arab Muslim world or
as a non-Islamic religious group in the Arab community come to the
fore. The book is up-to-date, taking into account the most recent
conflicts among the groups. Recommended.” Choice
“Cohen’s book sustains no particular
argument or claim beyond the portrait of threatened and uncomfortable
Jewish domination over an Arab population increasingly drawn toward
radical or rejectionist postures with respect to Israel as a Jewish-Zionist
state. He summarizes his position quite pessimistically, observing
that ‘the Jewish-Arab rift is too multi-faceted for attempts
on the part of Jews and Arabs to overcome the discrepancy between
Israel’s definition of itself as a Jewish state and its concept
of itself as a democracy to succeed’. At the end of the book,
however, Cohen offers recommendations for the future which together
are almost a non-sequitur to the entire volume, including the summary
observation I have just quoted. After showing that all previous
plans for setting Arab-Jewish relations on a clear foundation have
been shelved or ignored, he outlines his own new plan for doing
so, including a social charter that would ‘determine agreed-upon
rules on issues of dissent … the charter will become a binding
administrable document’; include the Arab parties in governing
coalitions; granting of a measure of ‘political autonomy’
to the Arab-Palestinian minority; build Arab language and culture
into Jewish curricula; and, most amazingly, establish compulsory
national service that would create ‘a melting pot’ for
‘as many youngsters as possible, Arabs and Jews’.
…In Cohen’s treatment,
peace between Israel and the Palestinians will do nothing decisive
to solve the problem of Arab discontent and inequality within Israel.
These books are most valuable as data about how the discourse among
Israeli experts on the ‘Arab problem’ has changed and
how it has not over the last 60 years. Each provides fascinating
and previously undocumented details associated with the author’s
personal engagement with the issue.” Middle East Journal
“A retired Israeli politician presents an analysis of the
complex situation of Arab citizens in Israel by discussing several
models accounting for their status and loyalties; a history of their
political organizations (e.g., the Allied Arab lists, al-Arad movement);
and new Arab Israeli movements, trends, and divisions including
the Islamic movement. The book includes a foreword by Israeli President
Shimon Peres in which he states that ‘We shall never be able
to come to terms with ourselves so long as Israel’s minority
populations … feel themselves discriminated against,’
election statistics by ethnic voting bloc, a map of Israel, and
photos.” Reference
& Research Book News
“The study of Israel’s Arab
citizens is a minefield for those who seek to address this multifaceted
and complex population’s issues and concerns in a comprehensive,
even-handed manner. For those who sympathize with the Palestinian
case, it is often difficult – if not impossible – to
fully comprehend how this Arab population can participate within
the Zionist enterprise without being, at the very least, collaborators
in their own people’s suffering and plight.
… And
yet, from the Zionist perspective as well, few Jews and others can
imagine how members of the Palestinian Arab community can ever truly
be a part of the Israeli enterprise. Do these Arabs not, ultimately,
have torn loyalties? Do they not ultimately seek to unify their
communities with the rest of their brethren in the recreation of
Arab Palestine? Are they not, ultimately, an enemy within, an ever
growing population of Arabs who, when given the opportunity, will
overthrow the Jews, if not through war and weaponry, then at the
ballot box?
… The
present volume, at its core, follows in the vein of this second
narrative, almost to the letter. The goal of the volume, virtually
in its entirety, is to show that voting patterns among the Arab
communities are, like the ‘demographic bomb’ issue which
is also briefly discussed, a cause for concern; there is a decreasing
rather than an increasing sense of Arab willingness to identify
with the Israeli collective in recent years, as members of the Israeli
Arab communities are seen to turn instead to ‘radical,’
anti-Israeli alternatives. …
…
While his argument is backed
up by extensive primary and secondary sources, one walks away from
this volume feeling as if Cohen is suggesting that the Arab communities
ought to be grateful for what they have; they are guests here after
all; who are they to be making demands of us after all we have given
them? While this may not have been his intention as he repeatedly
notes his desire to seek common ground and understanding between
Israeli Jews and Arabs, his underlying beliefs nonetheless seem
to be fairly clear: ‘According to the accepted definition,
Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish nation, and the Arab
minority living in it is a political-nationalistic minority and
not only an ethnic minority … the identity of Israel’s
Arabs is also influenced by ethnic Arabs in state and national groupings
that are more or less at war with the State of Israel. The result
for Israel’s Arab citizens is an internal conflict that prevents
them from becoming full partners in the Jewish national state and
in the national consensus on the main issues that shape the political
existence of the State of Israel.’” Digest of Middle
East Studies |
