The
Israel Democracy Institute’s annual survey reveals a gulf between the
sentiments of many Israeli Arabs and the radical discourse of their
leaders.
The
Israel Democracy Institute’s ‘Israeli Democracy Index 2012’ – an annual
comprehensive survey of the mood of Israeli society, widely considered
one of the most authoritative in the field – provides some fascinating
data about attitudes among Arab-Israelis regarding Israeli democracy and
the state itself. The findings (not significantly different to previous
years) certainly reflect a critical attitude towards the Israeli
reality and government policies. But they also reflect something else: a
huge gap between the responses of Arab-Israelis and the typical
discourse of the Arab elite in the country; between opinion at the base
and rhetoric amongst the political leadership of this community.
Findings
Before
setting out the findings, we must ask how reliable they are. It is
sometimes suggested that the relatively positive results of these kinds
of surveys reflect the reluctance of Arab participants to express their
views with full candor and their desire to appease the establishment or
the Jewish majority.
But one of the survey’s most interesting findings
is the negative answer given by the great majority of Arab respondents
to the question, ‘Do you think that the Knesset Members from Arab
parties are more radical than the general Arab public?’ Only 24.4 per
cent think so; almost half of the rest say the Arab MK’s are actually
more moderate than the Arab public at large. This is obviously a very
disappointing answer from the viewpoint of the Jewish majority. Those
who gave it were clearly not afraid of anybody and not trying to please
anybody. Precisely for this reason, it can be regarded as strengthening
the credibility of the other answers in the survey: after having
expressed support for their political leadership, the Arab citizens
proceeded to give, on many important points, answers that are hugely
different from what the leadership is saying.
There is a huge difference between the responses of ordinary Israeli Arabs and the typical discourse of the Arab elite.
The picture is thus complicated,
and the fundamental attitude of the Arab minority towards the State
appears to be deeply ambivalent. But given the prolonged national
conflict, with no end in sight at this point, this ambivalence should be
regarded as good news. The Arab parties express the negative aspect of
this ambivalence well enough; but anyone reading the survey will notice
that the other aspect exists as well, and it is not at all negligible.
Proud to be Israeli.
Some 44.5 per cent of Arab citizens (compared with 89 per cent of
Jewish Israelis) answered affirmatively when asked whether they are
‘proud to be Israeli’ (14.1 per cent ‘very proud’, 30.4 per cent ‘quite
proud’, 20.4 per cent ‘not so proud’ and 29.3 per cent ‘not at all
proud’). This reflects a decline from last year, when 52.8 per cent of
Arabs responded positively, but it is still within the normal
fluctuations over the last decade (between more than 40 and more than 50
per cent). Some argue that a state that defines itself as Jewish
cannot, by definition, inspire feelings of patriotism among its Arab
citizens – these findings tell a different story. It should be noted
that the expression the survey uses is not ‘Israeli citizen’ but
‘Israeli’. In theory this should be the same thing, but in fact,
everyone living in Israel knows that both Jews and Arabs often use the
term ‘Israeli’ as a synonym for an ‘Israeli Jew’.
To my knowledge, none of the leaders of the Arab public would adopt the label ‘Israeli’, and many reject this term explicitly.
The Arab leadership also rejects the term ‘Israeli Arab’ because it
sounds too Israeli. The acceptable alternative is not ‘Palestinian
Israeli’ or ‘Israeli Palestinian’ but ‘Arab Palestinian citizen of
Israel,’ or ‘(Arab) Palestinian in Israel’. Under these conditions, the
willingness of slightly less and sometimes slightly more than a half of
the Arab public to adopt the label ‘Israeli’ and express pride in it is
of great significance. A few years ago I spoke with a group of British
journalists who questioned me about the situation of Arab citizens of
Israel. After dealing with various specific points, I asked them: do you
suppose that 45 per cent of Catholics in Northern Ireland would be
prepared to say ‘I am proud to be British’? One of them replied, ‘I
don’t believe there are 45 Catholics in Northern Ireland who are willing
to say I am proud to be British, never mind 45 per cent.’ Of course, he
may have been exaggerating.
Israeli democracy.
In relation to Israeli democracy, 44 per cent of Arab respondents say
Israel’s democracy is at the ‘appropriate level’, 7.8 per cent say
Israel is ‘too democratic’, 37.2 per cent said it is ‘not democratic
enough’ and only 11 per cent that it is ‘not democratic enough by far’. The last answer corresponds to what is routinely said by virtually the entire Arab leadership. In
fact, the ‘vision documents’ of the Arab leadership claim that Israel
is not a democracy at all. That is not the opinion of the Arab public.
With
regard to political institutions, 51.3 per cent of the Arab population
have confidence in the Knesset and 51.8 per cent in the president, while
only 39.3 per cent have confidence in the government (the cabinet).
This signifies, presumably, not political support for the present
government, but rather confidence in the government as an institution.
Nearly
82 per cent of the Arab respondents ‘definitely agree’ that under no
circumstances should violence be used to achieve political goals. The
percentage of Jews that answered that way to the question is 75.5 per
cent.
Equality.
Asked whether Arab citizens are discriminated against (‘disadvantaged’,
as the survey puts it) compared with the Jewish population, a large
majority of respondents answered ‘yes’. One should not make light of
this finding. But here also there are marked differences between the
message from the public and the message of the leadership. Some 46.6 per
cent ‘strongly agree’ with this claim, while 28.3 per cent ‘somewhat
agree’ and 22.5 per cent ‘disagree’ or ‘do not agree so much.’
National security and state institutions.
16.8 per cent of Israeli Arabs say they would increase Israel’s defense
budget, while 40.8 per cent would leave it unchanged. In 2011, when the
question was asked in a different way, 45 per cent responded that it
was ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to enhance Israel’s military
capability. Some 42.4 per cent of Arabs say they have confidence in the
IDF and a further 18.8 per cent have confidence ‘to a small extent’.
Only 32.5 per cent have ‘no confidence at all’. It seems that even among
those who do not have great confidence in the IDF, more than a few are
of the opinion that there are other forces in the Middle East that
inspire even less confidence.
Some
62.3 per cent of Arab respondents say they have confidence in the
police (25.1 per cent ‘a lot of confidence’ and 37.2 per cent ‘some
confidence’) – a significant increase from the previous survey and
slightly more, remarkably, than the percentage of Jews who say so. The
editors of the survey comment that this may be due to increased recent
police efforts to fight crime in the Arab sector. If indeed one year of
relatively good work is enough to garner the police of the Zionist state
an expression of confidence by a large majority of the Arab public,
this indicates that the real relationship between the state and its Arab
citizens is very different, and much more complex, than is commonly
thought.
If
so, there is an important lesson here for other parts of the Israeli
establishment: a concrete action – even if not particularly dramatic –
by official institutions, for the benefit of the Arab public, as part of
the country’s citizenry, can certainly lead to increased confidence by
the Arab citizens in these institutions.
Some 78 per cent of Arabs say they have confidence in the Supreme Court (compared with 72 per cent of Jews).
Certainly, the Supreme Court is the most liberal branch of the Jewish
state, which has done a lot to protect the civil rights of the Arab
minority. But it is still unmistakably a branch of the Jewish state. Not
many radical critics of the Jewish state, within the country or abroad,
are willing to give credit to its Supreme Court.
Israel’s future.
When asked about their assessment of Israel’s outlook for the next
fifteen years, a large majority of the Arab respondents estimated that
the country will be able to defend itself militarily (62.8 per cent),
and that it will not lose its Jewish character (68.1). Some 49.7 per
cent think Israel will become much more religious, and 55.5 per cent
believe its international isolation will grow. But the assessment that
enjoys the highest majority is that Israel will retain its status as a
high-tech leader (75.9 per cent). Some 60.2 per cent of Arabs (compared
to 75.6 per cent of the Jewish population) say they are ‘optimistic
about the future of Israel’. Just over half of those are ‘very
optimistic’, the rest ‘quite optimistic’.
Conclusions
Of
course, one may question the methodology and significance of any poll,
but consistent findings in a series of authoritative polls are not
something that can be easily dismissed. Anyone who studies the data
closely, and factors in the difficult prevailing circumstances, must be
impressed by the extent of optimism among Israel’s Arab minority. The
findings should, I think, inspire some cautious optimism in the reader
as well. After all, the data was collected after a period in which the
Yisrael Beitenu party and parts of the Likud questioned the loyalty of
the Arab minority in Israel in a highly inflammatory manner. The
shameful public call by a group of municipal rabbis not to sell or rent
apartments to Arab citizens, met only fairly mild disapproval from
government leaders, and no official measures were taken against these
rabbis, despite the fact that they are public servants paid by the
state. Back in 2006, some Arab Knesset members publicly praised
the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah whilst his missiles fell on Haifa
and (the Arab-Israeli town of) Nazareth; this did not help the relations
between Jewish and Arab citizens either. Indeed, anyone listening to
the nationalist rhetoric on both sides could easily imagine that the
relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel were about to explode.
However,
these and similar findings indicate that Jewish-Arab relations in
Israel are actually much better – or less bad, if one prefers to put it
this way – than the nationalist rhetoric would suggest. Clearly, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict casts a large shadow over these relations.
But even absent a solution to this conflict (which would of course be
highly desirable in many respects), there is much that can and should be
done to improve the civic status of Arabs in Israel and the relations
between the majority and the minority. The claim that the Arab citizens
of Israel are essentially and fundamentally alienated from the state is
plain wrong.
Alexander Yakobson is
Associate Professor of Ancient History in the History Department of
Hebrew University. His research on modern topics deals with democracy,
national identity, the nation-state and the rights of national
minorities in Israel and in Western democracies. He is a co-author (with
Amnon Rubinstein) of Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish
Nation-State and Human Rights (2003). He is an op-ed writer at Haaretz
and Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
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