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| Jewish and Arab Members of the Israeli Knesset argue over Palestinian rights |
The view expressed here is that the solution to the conflict begins in Israel. If Israeli politics was not controlled by the hard right, the prospects for peace and addressing the Palestinians’ legitimate rights for a sovereign state and the ability to enjoy democracy, prosperity and dignity could be met.
The key to such change is the active involvement in Israeli politics of its Palestinian citizens. If Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel had more power, they might be able to translate that power not just into improving the lives of Palestinian Arabs in Israel proper but Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well. How could that process move forward?
In the current political scenario, neither Israel’s center-right nor the center-left has been able to form a stable government. The political instability which has resulted is evident in the four snap and inconclusive elections Israel has held since 2019. Israelis have become increasingly disenchanted with their fragmented political system.
Recently, a major change has been in the making with the willingness of Israel’s Jewish political parties to consider forming coalitions with Israel’s Palestinian Arab parties, even if indirect. With several seats in the Knesset – Israel’s parliament - the Palestinian parties hold the balance of power in deciding which coalition can form a government. Even Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vilified Palestinians, whether Israeli citizens or living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza, tried in the March 2021 elections to attract Arab voters to his political coalition.
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| Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Mansour Abbas (United Arab List) |
Should the proposed minority government survive with Arab support, it will become clear to Israel’s Jewish citizens that their Palestinian counter parts have decided to become full players in politics and use the electoral process to improve their lives. These “facts on the ground” would have the effect of eroding the ability of Israel’s far-right to argue that the Palestinian Arabs – 20% of Israel’s 9 million population – constitutes an ongoing threat to the nation-state.
Once they became supporters of the new governing coalition, with the ability to bring down the government if their party withdrew its support, Palestinian Arab Knesset members would possess considerable power due to the roughly 50-50% split between center right and center left voters in Israel. This division within Israel’s Jewish electorate is unlikely to change anytime soon, and the coming attacks on the new coalition by Netanyahu once he is no longer prime minister will only make Israel’s political coalitions even more fragile. Palestinian Arab Knesset support will thus become even more important, ironically giving them the ability to act as power brokers.
As key coalition members, Palestinian Arab members of Knesset would acquire the power and influence to insist on a number of important changes. One would be to end their marginalization within the Knesset. Since 2012, several bills introduced by Arab Knesset members, which were intended to address discrimination against Israel’s Palestinian citizens, were never allowed to come up for a vote. Likewise, a 2016 legislative amendment allows the Knesset to vote to expel members who criticize Israeli policies. Arab Knesset members feel that law in intended to silence them. In their new position of power, they could demand that this amendment be annulled.
Israel Discriminatory Measures Undermine Palestinian Representation in the Knesset
Arab parties could also insist that their ongoing political support of the Change-Yesh Atid government is contingent on reigning in far right settlers who seek to expropriate Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Under Netanyahu, not only were these settlers not constrained, but they were tacitly encouraged to pursue policies which further repress the Palestinian rights. While Naftali Bennett would react negatively to such pressure, there is a strong likelihood that he would support the rule of law over losing his governing position, especially since his party only received 5% of the vote in last March’s elections.
The Sheikh Jarrah Expropriation
Arab Knesset members could demand other concessions as well. While Palestinian Arabs constitute 20% of Israel’s population, only 7% of judges in Israel are Arab. Placing more Arab judges on Israel’s courts would have a positive impact by allowing Palestinian citizens to more effectively contest discriminatory government policies, such as poor municipal services, sub-standard education funding, and poor health care facilities. If Arab Knesset members could demonstrate their ability to improve the Israeli Palestinians’ standard of living, this would be another step towards making Israel a truly democratic state.
Only 7.7% of Israeli Judges are Arab, New Study Finds
At the same time, the international community needs to add its voice to this process. The European Union, the United States, the United Nations and other nations committed to the peace process would need to step up its financial support. This financial support would be especially helpful if it promoted collaborative projects between Israeli Jewish and Israeli Palestinian citizens. Many such projects have been underway but funding them publicly would have a positive effect not only in helping them succeed but demonstrating to the world that efforts to establish peace are not just talk but a reality.
As I wrote in a recent post, the recently established ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, and Egypt and Jordan earlier, suggest new relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors and possibilities for jump starting the peace process. With its large sovereign wealth fund, and the investments it is already making in the Israeli economy, the UAE has special leverage in helping to improve the status of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Already it has offered a $10 billion investment in Israel’s energy and other sectors of its economy.
The UAE could directly invest in existing Palestinian enterprises in Israel and assist new start-ups to become successful entrepreneurial ventures. It could likewise provide funds for joint Jewish-Arab NGOs, social entrepreneurial ventures and peace-building education initiatives. Following the example of Brandeis’ University’s Our Generation Speaks, the UAE could invite Jewish and Palestinian social entrepreneurs to its Emirates Foundation for Youth Development, and the Youth Hub, run by the Federal Youth Authority, to encourage joint ventures across religious and ethnic lines and to build ties of trust among Palestinian and Jewish Israelis.
Youth Hubs in the United Arab Emirates
The UAE has paid special attention to its youth population as seen in the appointment as age 22 of Shamma Bint Suhail bin Faris al-Mazrui as Minister of Sport, and Noura al-Kaabi as Minister of Culture and Youth. The UAE is well situated to develop projects which are directed at educating youth as to the benefits of peaceful cooperation and coexistence, especially though the development of social entrepreneurial ventures. One simple example could be the promotion of restaurants which serve Middle Eastern cuisine loved by both Arabs and Jews. Indeed, this is one of the few places in Israel where Palestinians Arab and Jewish Israelis come into contact, e.g., in the very popular restaurant, Shawarma Emile, in the northern city of Haifa
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| Shawarma Emil - Haifa, Israel |
What will be the results of inaction? A recent Opinion column in the Washington Post by Farid Zakaria touted Israel’s impressive technological development and economic dominance in the MENA region. Its military superiority dwarfs all of the states of the region.
However, Zakaria fails to discuss the internal fault lines of Israeli society. Just as many outside observers viewed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as secure in his power given Iran’s oil wealth, his support by the US and his powerful military, his regime fell during the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. While the parallels with Israel may seem a bit far-fetched, the recent violence between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis during the 11 day war between Hamas and the Israeli military should be of serious concern. The attacks carried out by mobs on Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods, houses of worship and businesses does not bode well for the future.
With demonstrations occurring in the West Bank as well, and Hizballah threatening to enter the conflict, the Israeli government realized that military might could not quell civil disturbances. Much effort has been made, especially since the 1990s, to build cooperative associations of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. However, even within Haifa, the purported model of Jewish-Arab relations, coexistence remains tenuous and the city largely segregated.
Haifa the Capital of Coexistence is Segregated
The greatest threat to Israeli democracy is the far right settler movement which seeks to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem and the West Bank of Palestinians who live there. The settler movement is hostile to all principles of liberal democracy. Violence is one of the main tools in its arsenal to achieve its goals. Ultimately, it is not just the enemy of Palestinians, both citizens of Israel and those in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but of secular liberal Israelis who sincerely would like to live in peace with Palestinians, both citizens and non-citizens.
Beyond Palestinian Arab political parties using their influence in the Knesset to improve the standard of living of Palestinian citizens, and the UAE deploying its investments not only to strengthen ties with the Israeli government, but to assist Israel’s Palestinian citizens, the Israeli center-left would be well advised to seek out Palestinians to develop a broad based political movement which could counter the far right settler movement. Such a movement might just be the beginning of solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
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| No more wars -the killing must stop! |
