Yet there is at least one outstanding counterexample, offering an alternative model of leadership for the Arab community. Nawaf Mazalha of the Labor Party, a former deputy speaker of the Knesset, deputy health minister (in the Rabin government), and deputy foreign minister (in the government of Ehud Barak), has dedicated his parliamentary career to the struggle for the protection of the Arab minority’s rights. Despite holding political views that differ greatly from those acceptable to the Jewish majority,63 Mazalha has refrained from denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state and has offered a more balanced picture of the situation of Arab citizens.While he works to end the discrimination faced by Arabs in Israel, he does not advocate forcing the Jewish majority to make radical changes in the basic nature of the country. “I know exactly how to make headlines that will make me a hero,” he said in an August 1999 interview, “but that does not interest me. I really do believe in compromise.”64 Even though he has mixed feelings about Israeli policies, Mazalha refuses to identify with those Arab MKs who support Israel’s enemies:
I am totally against appearing as if we prefer to identify with the Hezbollah, or even with the PLO, more than with our own Israeliness…. They [the Arabs] are my peoples, and I love them, but I do not want to tie our fate to that of Syria or anyone else. I will not hate the Syrians, and when [Attorney General] Elyakim Rubinstein calls Syria an “enemy state,” I have to laugh. Nasrallah is an enemy of the State of Israel, but not my enemy. On the other hand, [while] I can support Syria’s claims in the Golan, I cannot identify with someone who is an enemy of the state, even though he is not my enemy.65
Mazalha’s position is indeed exceptional among the political leaders of the Arab minority in Israel. Many observers may nonetheless perceive this position as better serving the “true needs” of the Arab community—immeasurably better than the threats most Arab MKs represent to the vital interests of the Jewish majority. Up to this point, one can accept or reject this approach. It becomes problematic, however, when one assumes that these “true needs” also exclusively determine the “real positions” of the Arab population, which are presumably not reflected in the radical policies promoted by their elected representatives. Supporters of the “true needs” theory point to the dependence of the Israeli Arab population on good (or at least tolerable) economic relations with the Jewish majority, and conclude that it is inconceivable that this community would continue over time to support the radical agenda of the Arab MKs. According to this approach, the inflammatory statements of the Arab leadership are merely an unfortunate byproduct of the fierce competition that exists today for the attention of the Arab constituency (as well as the Jewish public), and a provocative means of gaining the widest possible media coverage.
This argument, however, rests on two highly questionable assumptions. One is that there is no substantive link between the positions held by elected representatives and those of their voters, even in a democracy like Israel. Second, it assumes that the position adopted by every community invariably reflects its “true needs” in the long run. Such a concept, of course, is hard to reconcile with a great many instances in history in which individuals and collectives adopted policies that led down a long road to disaster. There is no need to look far for a pertinent example: From the earliest days of the Palestinian national movement in the opening decades of the twentieth century, its leadership adopted a political strategy that led to a long chain of calamities, eventually culminating in the “Catastrophe” (al-nakba) of 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced. At that time, there was no shortage of Palestinian observers who read the political map correctly and foresaw the ruin that their leaders’ strategy—an uncompromising march toward radical goals coupled with a systematic disregard for the balance of power—was likely to bring about. Nonetheless, the knowledge of what was to come, which reached even the upper ranks of the Palestinians’ political leadership, did not elevate to positions of power leaders who were willing to challenge the Palestinian strategy and to confront the public with a compelling argument concerning realistic limits on their national objectives. Nor did the leadership’s miscalculations stem only from the lack of a democratic tradition that might have made leaders more accountable to the people; other undemocratic regimes in the Arab world had the sense to adopt a realistic strategy from the outset (the Hashemite regime in Jordan, for example), or to abandon a radical strategy that led to a dead end (as did Anwar Sadat after succeeding Nasser as president of Egypt).
Likewise, the growing radicalism in the attitudes and rhetoric of the Arab members of Knesset cannot be dismissed as a public relations exercise. It seems more plausible that the leadership is to a significant degree responding to the aspirations of the public it seeks to represent and lead. The political radicalization of the Arab MKs reflects, in all likelihood, changes that have taken place in the Arab-Israeli community over the last several years, particularly among its more educated members. The younger generation has adopted a militant Palestinian national identity and does not shrink from direct confrontation with the Jewish public—as was clearly illustrated by the angry demonstrations by Arab students in the spring of 2000. In an interview appearing in Ma’ariv a few weeks later, three Arab student leaders, all young women in their early twenties, displayed their outright hostility towards Israel, identification with its enemies, and understanding for the terror waged against it. They expressed a complete lack of faith in the institutions of Israeli society, including the universities, the health-care system, and the media, and rejected out of hand any suggestion of community service as an alternative to serving in the army. Most important, however, was their attitude toward the national standing of Jews and Arabs in Israel. Khulood Badawi, head of the Haifa University Arab students’ committee and a local Hadash activist, “informed” the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, that “You do not have, nor did you ever have, a place here. This is my country. It was and it still is. It will never belong to anyone else.” Her deputy on the committee, Adin Hamoud, announced that “As far as I am concerned, Israel is the occupied Palestinian state.” Badawi succinctly summed up the long-term role she sees for the Arab citizens of Israel willing to reject the status quo: “We are a time bomb.”66 These words are part of a new reality in Israeli Arab discourse, in which the all-out rejection of the idea of a state of the Jewish people—which until two decades ago was articulated publicly by only a small group of marginal figures—has become an article of faith among student activists, and a premise that can be gainsaid only at the greatest cost by anyone in a leadership position in the Arab-Israeli community.
One should not underestimate the impact that this escalating radicalization of the Arab leadership has on the Jewish majority’s perception of the Arab minority. For the Jews who constitute this majority, it is hard to tell to what degree the statements of Arab elected officials accurately reflect the “real” views of every individual Arab constituent. Israeli Jews are exposed to a constant flow of increasingly hostile statements by Arab MKs, including the rejection of everything that is dear and vital to the Jewish collective, declarations of support for the enemies of Israel, and sympathy for terror attacks. When combined with other manifestations of Arab radicalization, such as the invective of activist Arab students in the universities, the riots by Arab citizens of Israel in October 2000, and the growing involvement of Israeli Arabs in acts of terror (albeit in small numbers), it becomes difficult to avoid the conclusion that these sentiments are not limited to the elected leadership, but instead reflect a genuine change in attitude on the part of the Arabs of Israel. Public opinion polls give further evidence of the effect this has had, with mistrust of the Arab minority by Israeli Jews reaching record levels.67
Arab MKs, who possess firsthand knowledge of the discourse of the Jewish majority, are aware of the effect their radical statements are having on the country. Yet they persist, even at the cost of widening the social and political chasm dividing Arab and Jew. The Arab public, and particularly the younger elites who will soon assume the mantle of leadership, support this trend and continuously carry it further. Under such circumstances, it is hard to offer an optimistic perspective on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel—regardless of whether the state offers viable solutions for the problems of civic and economic inequality. These issues no longer hold the attention of Arab politicians and their voters; instead, the Arabs of Israel have taken up a set of radical, nationalist demands which the Jewish majority cannot possibly satisfy. Given the ongoing challenges facing the Jewish state, from within and without, the signs are not encouraging for a compromise in the near future.
Dan Schueftan is a Senior Fellow at The Shalem Center and at the National Security Research Center at Haifa University. His most recent book is Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity (University of Haifa and Zemora Bitan, 1999).
Notes
1. Ma’ariv, June 6, 2000; Ha’aretz,November 13, 2001.
2. Uriya Shavit and Jalal Bana, “Let’s See You Judge Me,” Ha’aretz supplement, July 13, 2001, pp. 18-24. On his return to Israel, Bishara played innocent, saying that his speech called for “the war option to be foiled, not encouraged.” “Resistance,” he said, is not war—but immediately added that he “made no secret of my sympathy for the Intifada.” When asked about his relationships with the Arab dignitaries who had gathered at Kardaha, he replied, “I criticized them for not giving enough support to the Intifada.” Bishara said this in the summer of 2001, when what was called the “Al Aksa Intifada” no longer showed any signs of being a popular revolt, but had already become a broad-based campaign of terror against civilians coupled with guerilla warfare against soldiers, all instigated or encouraged by the Palestinian Authority. Bishara sought to legitimize the struggle against Israel (including its violent methods) by describing the Intifada as a case of “the struggle of the people in the third-world colonies that were liberated from occupation by resistance.” Ma’ariv, June 22, 2001.
3. Ha’aretz,November 13, 2001.
4. Tom Segev, “My Father Didn’t Teach Me to Be a Communist,” Koteret Rashit, December 4, 1985, pp. 23-26, 34.
5. The partnership in the struggle against the Jewish state also explains the swift and easy transition of a person like Abdulmalik Dehamshe, who formed his national views in the communist movement, and went on to become the leader of a radical Islamic movement. The same common denominator also facilitates partnership in the Knesset between the Islamic movement and the communists, to the point that some of their members have merged into a single party.
6. One is reminded of Bernard Lewis’s criticism of the insistence of radical Islamic movements on strict democratic procedures in order to facilitate their political rise to power in Arab states. Lewis argued that this position should come under the banner of “one man, one vote, once.” In the event that such parties gain power, they inevitably prevent every challenger from using the same democratic procedures in an attempt to remove them from office.
7. Polly Kovadla, “I Am the Salt of the Earth,” Al Hasharon, April 9, 1999, pp. 57-59.
8. Amnon Shomron, “Israel Is a Racist Country,” Makor Rishon, weekly journal supplement, April 3, 1998, pp. 12-14.
9. Hadera, September 29, 2000.
10. Shayke Ben-Porat, Conversations With Ahmed Tibi (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1999), p. 136. [Hebrew] Tibi admitted that the demand to replace the national anthem and the flag immediately was a tactical error. See also Kovadla, “I Am the Salt of the Earth,” pp. 57-59.
11. Gidi Weitz, “I’m Not a Politician, I’m a Revolutionary,” Kol Ha’ir, October 5, 2001, pp. 17-21.
12. Michal Kapra, “Why Are You Surprised? I Have Never Concealed My Sympathy for the Intifada,” Ma’ariv,Weekend supplement, June 22, 2001, pp. 12-14.
13. Al Safir, November 21, 2000.
14. Yedi’ot Aharonot Internet site, November 4, 2000. The “Triangle region” refers to the heavily Arab-populated area of north-central Israel, marked by the Arab cities of Tira, Taibe, and Umm el-Fahm.
15. Ma’ariv, June 1, 1999; Ma’ariv, December 17, 2000.
16. From an interview Darawshe gave to a newspaper sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, July 16, 1998. Quoted in Avraham Rotem, “Your Own Poor Come First,” Hatzofeh, July 22, 1998, p. 7.
17. From a speech Darawshe gave in 1998 to students at Al-Asra University in Amman. Yedi’ot Aharonot, April 3, 1998.
18. Uzi Benziman, “The Israeli Mind Is Coming Up With Some Bright Ideas,” Ha’aretz, June 12, 1998, p. B3.
19. Ben-Porat, Conversations, p. 137.
20. Ran Adelist, “Ahmed TV,” Ma’ariv, Weekend supplement, April 30, 1999, pp. 52-58, 80; see also Ben-Porat, Conversations, p. 137.
21. Weitz, “I’m Not a Politician.”
22. Ben-Porat, Conversations, pp. 129, 131-133. See also p. 140.
23. Ari Shavit, “Citizen Azmi,” Ha’aretz supplement, May 29, 1998, pp. 18-24.
24. In an interview with Ha’aretz in 1998, Bishara even declared that the basis of Zionism—the Jewish people’s right to self-determination—is invalid, since “I do not recognize the existence of one Jewish people throughout the world. I think that Judaism is a religion and not a nationality, and that the Jewish collective of the world has no national status whatsoever. I do not believe that this collective has the right of self-determination.” Even so, Bishara went on to acknowledge that once an Israeli nationality appeared, it earned the right to self-determination, just like every people: “I have to recognize the fact that Zionism has succeeded in creating a Jewish-Israeli community here, and it now has the right of self-determination. Thus, if Israel did not have the right to exist fifty years ago—and in my opinion it did not—it now has a certain legitimacy that comes from the fact that a Jewish-Israeli nationality was created here based on the Hebrew language.” Shavit, “Citizen Azmi.”
25. The Washington Post, April 26, 2002.
26. Ben Caspit, “Tibi Is Bibi,” Ma’ariv, Friday supplement, November 29, 1996, pp. 2-3.
27. Al-Majalah, September 12, 1989, as quoted in Ha’olam Hazeh, October 4, 1989; Ha’aretz, September 24, 1989.
28. Gal Sharon, “The Arab Population Has Not Become Extremist; It Has Reached the Limits of Its Endurance,” Ha’aretz, October 3, 2000, p. B3.
29. Ben-Porat, Conversations, p. 21.
30. Kalman Libeskind, “He Has Confidence,” Makor Rishon, July 23, 1999, pp. 8-11; Yossi Klein Halevi, “Mr. Security,” The Jerusalem Report, August 16, 1999, pp. 18-20.
31. Ma’ariv, February 21, 1999.
32. Shalom Yerushalmi, “Darawshe’s Back in the Headlines,” Ma’ariv, Friday supplement, August 15, 1997, pp. 8-9.
33. Shomron, “Israel Is a Racist Country.”
34. Aviv Lavi, “Azmi Bishara’s Six Days,” Ha’ir, December 26, 1997, pp. 43-46.
35. Lavi, “Azmi Bishara’s Six Days.”
36. Shavit and Bana, “Let’s See You Judge Me.”
37. Lavi, “Azmi Bishara’s Six Days,” Ha’ir, December 26, 1997.
38. Shavit and Bana, “Let’s See You Judge Me.”
39. Another leader of the movement for liberalization in Syria, Michel Kilo, said that Bishara had “adopted the rhetoric of the Syrian government” when he chose not to criticize the looting, the corruption, or the collapse of social services, education, and law in the country. And a well-known columnist of the Al-Hayat newspaper charged that Bishara was engaged in propaganda, that his ideology was selective, and that his readiness to set the Syrian regime above all criticism made him “more Bashar than Bishara.” The program Bishara took part in was Hiwar al-Umr, which was broadcast on the LBC channel on July 22, 2001. The reaction came in Al Nahar (Lebanon), July 26, 2001.
40. Yerah Tal, “For Western Ears,” Ha’aretz, December 30, 1992, p. B2; Danny Hayman, “Hashem Always,” Kol Ha’emek Vehagalil, January 15, 1993, pp. 10-12.
41. Shalom Yerushalmi, “Looking Both Ways,” Kol Ha’ir, November 23, 1990, pp. 34-35.
42. Aryeh Bender, “In These Words,” Ma’ariv, Today, April 17, 2001, p. 1.
43. Ma’ariv, December 25, 1992.
44. Yedi’ot Aharonot Internet site, November 4, 2000; Yedi’ot Aharonot, November 6, 2000; Ha’aretz, November 5, 2000; Al Itihad, November 6, 2000; November 7, 2000.
45. Sharon, “The Arab Population.”
46. Al Sinara, July 14, 2000.
47. Ma’ariv, September 14, 2000. A few days later, during the demolition of illegally built houses near Carmiel, Dehamshe said: “Before the policeman who comes to demolish my house, threaten my life, uproot me from my land, breaks my arms and legs, I’ll break his arms and legs.” Ha’aretz, September 27, 2000.
48. Sharon, “The Arab Population.”
49. Ma’ariv, September 11, 2001.
50. Ma’ariv, January 11, 2001.
51. Ha’aretz, August 6, 2001.
52. Hatzofeh, November 3, 1998.
53. Kalman Libeskind, “I’m Not Part of a Flock of Sheep,” Makor Rishon, weekly journal supplement, September 24, 1999, pp. 10-15.
54. Makor Rishon, January 22, 1999.
55. Klein Halevi, “Mr. Security.”
56. Kul al-Arab, as quoted in Ma’ariv, May 13, 2001.
57. Weitz, “I’m Not a Politician.”
58. Kul al-Arab, August 7, 1998.
59. Weitz, “I’m Not a Politician.”
60. Libeskind, “I’m Not Part of a Flock of Sheep.” In interviews he gave in January 1993, he still claimed that he “was prepared to save anyone on any side from death” and that he did not discriminate between blood and blood: “I condemn and will [continue to] condemn any murder, any killing of innocent people.” Yitzhak Letz, “Hashem Is Nobody’s Fool,” Kol Haifa, January 1, 1993, pp. 28-29; Al Hamishmar, January 7, 1993.
61. Ben-Porat, Conversations, pp. 44-45.
62. On the other hand, the Supreme Court endorsed the establishment of exclusively Bedouin Arab communities and Jewish haredi communities.
63. Mazalha even announced his resignation from the Labor Party because it had supported cuts in child allowances for citizens who had not served in the IDF.
64. Lili Galili, “Nawaf Mazalha Works from Home,” Ha’aretz, August 20, 1999, p. B4.
65. Lili Galili, “Mazalha Hasn’t Been to See Zimmerman Since October 2000,” Ha’aretz, September 17, 2001, p. B9.
66. Sheri Makover, “We Are a Time Bomb,” Ma’ariv, Weekend supplement, June 23, 2000, pp. 20-28.
67. In a poll conducted by Mina Tzemach shortly after the October 2000 riots, 74 percent of Jews polled defined the behavior of the Arab citizens as “treason.” Yedi’ot Aharonot, Friday supplement, October 6, 2000, pp. 11-12. A March 2002 poll conducted by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies showed that a year and a half later, mistrust among Jewish Israelis remained very high: 61 percent of Jews reported viewing Israeli Arabs as a “security threat” to the country. Ha’aretz, March 12, 2002.