Role of Palestinian Politics In Israel

Role of Palestinian Politics In Israel







Submitted To: Prof. A.K. Pasha
Submitted By: Ayyoob Thayyil Karuvadi
Dated: 25-11-08









Centre for West Asian and African Studies
School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi- 67
The role of Arab politics in Israel ever since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was not a subject of major academic attention and this was not considered to be a major factor in any of the negotiations held to solve the Arab Israeli conflict until recently. In this paper I propose to study the status of the Arabs in Israel in terms of their political role. Here a number of important questions arise including the nature of the state of Israel, its treatment of Arab minorities and the political space available to the people. In the course of this study I would place the formation of Arab identity in a historical context and would analyze relation of the State with the Arab population and their relation with the State. For a proper understanding of this question one has to see the historical background that has led to the minority status of the Arab in Israel. Constitutional rights and their actual enjoyment of the rights enshrined in the Basic Law would also come to the discussion.
Background
The question of ‘role of Palestinian in Israeli politics’ has attracted the interest of the political analysts and academicians since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and its entry into the UN was one of the much debated topics in both academic and decision making level. The very creation of the state of the Israel in Palestine has virtually made the indigenous Arabs, refugees in their own native land where they lived for generations. When the state was formally established the Jewish leaders were at lose as they were not able to take any decision regarding the Arab population who remained inside the Jewish State as they were accustomed to thinking only in terms of the Jewish population. However, the very nature of the state of Israel, as a homeland for the Jews and hence the existential threat that the indigenous non Jewish people posed made the issue all the more complicated. But the new state was compelled to take the issue of the Palestinians seriously by the international community and its recognition and global legitimacy would be dependent on its treatment of the Arabs inside its territory. This led to granting all political rights to the Arabs. Despite these rights on paper the people were virtually made politically impotent due to the very nature of the state of Israel as a Jewish State and all the people were not Jews. However, by the passage of time the Arab population have developed their own political parties and tried their level best to express their grievances and tried to exert maximum pressure possible. But demographic structure and the hostile relation between the two made the relation complicated and any kind of productive engagement was absent throughout these decades. Though the Jews were opposed to any form of accommodation of the Arabs as the very existence of the Jewish state required the negation of whatever is Arabic they albeit grudgingly allowed them to participate in their electoral activities from 1949 itself when the first election took place.
To develop a clear-cut understanding of the political engagement of the Arabs in the political system that is hostile to them one has to look how they were treated in the newly formed nation. The question of citizenship and equal right is at the core of any meaningful political engagement in any given society. Here a little more background would be in place. Ever since the establishment of the Zionist movement in 1880s its leaders were consistently looking for the creation of a homeland for the Jews who were subjected to the prosecution of the Europeans for centuries for a variety of reasons.1 However, the Belfour declaration of 1917 and its incorporation to the League of Nations goals later gave the Zionist leaders the hope that their long cherished dreams are coming true. But the global powers that time didn’t address properly the question of the indigenous Arab people in the proposed ‘homeland’ for the Jews. Systematic expulsion of the majority Arabs and inviting Jews from all over the world to come and settle in Palestine was one of the major action plans of the Jewish lobby. This was facilitated by the British government who was given the mandate in this region following the defeat and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the World War I. The final decade of the British rule in Palestine witnessed further decline in Palestine fortune2. the effort of the Zionists culminated in the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the expulsion of the majority of the Arabs and reducing their presence to a minority. During the mandate period through different organizations including the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund the Zionists managed to develop a full-fledged system of governance. But the question of Palestine in the Promised Land has never come to their consideration until the question of coexistence with the Arabs became a reality after the establishment of Israel.
Early engagement in political activities
Due to a number of reasons the Arabs who were reduced to a minority in the newly formed Jewish state were not organized to form any meaningful political organization. Five major reasons are cited for their inability of political organization in any significant degree. (1) The shock of turning from a majority into a minority, dispersed in several separate regions; (2) the absence of an experienced political leadership (which found itself outside the frontiers of the new state); (3) unfamiliarity with Hebrew as well as with the new rules of the political game on a country-wide scale; (4) The Military Administration; (5) that most Jewish parties and organizations have not encouraged Arabs to join their ranks.3 This was against the rapid development in the political arena among the Jews. But the second generation emerged with a deep understanding of their predicament to find that without political mobilization they could not assert their own identity that was formed by a number of local and regional developments. The lifting of the Military Administration in 1966 was a major turning point in the political history of the Israeli Arabs. A number of developments in the country as well as in the region has directed and dictated the course of their political activities.
During the most difficult period of the Arabs life in Israel, since 1948 to 1966, the Arabs were compelled to join some of the political parties with a Zionist thrust against their own will. This phase was one of the disastrous one as the political leadership was imposed on the Arabs by the military rule and they were chosen on account of their support of the Zionist cause which has caused all the predicaments of the Arabs. All their ventures to constitute as a national minority ran into all sorts of obstacles. The Israeli government put tremendous barriers on them that virtually made movement beyond once own family or village impossible.4 Ilan Peleg argues that the imposition of the military rule was aimed at sidelining the Arab population economically, politically and to ghettoize them. The Arabs were also seen as an existential threat to the State of Israel. 5 In the first few decades of the State, the Israeli authorities regarded the Arab minority as a threat, a fifth column and a group that would join Israel's enemy in any future war. This negative attitude was reflected in hostile policies toward the minority, including significant expropriation of land and, above all, the imposition of a military government, Ilan Peleg6 comments. The growth of a wider political awareness among the Arab has resulted in the rise of a new enlightened leadership with both intellectuals and practical politicians, who stood for the equal rights and even treatment of all citizens of the country.
Arabs were included in the political activities of the state since the very beginning. In the first election in 1949 Mapai was the major political party active among the Arabs. As one of the eminent Arab writers Sabri Jiryis says ‘Mapai has always set the standard for political activity among the Arabs while the other parties merely reacted to Mapai’s enterprise.’7 In the first interim election itself the party has sponsored two Arab lists and one of them won two seats in the Knesset. But the decision of the Mapai to make itself politically active among the Arabs was taken not out of any compassion but to thwart any attempt of forming an exclusive Arab party. It is evident from the fact that it was hesitant to accept the Arabs initially and there was nothing in its manifesto that would attract the Arabs to it8. One of the major twists in this direction was the decision to draw a special list before each election on the basis of residence and religious sect from among the Arabs who supported the party. However, until the party merged with Achdut Havooda and formed the Israeli Labour Party in 1969 Mapai continued its policy of accommodating and addressing the Arab issues outwardly without taking up any of the important questions.9
Other important political platform available for the Arabs was the Israeli Communist Party and in the first election one Arab leader was elected to the parliament from its list. This party has remained for a long time the only party for the Arabs to air their objection to the discriminative state policy. In a marked departure from the Mapai or Mapam Communist party showed a genuine interest in these issues. The authorities were careful enough to check the growing influence of the communist party through intimidation of the Arab population. The military government had asked the Arabs not to support the Communist Party and threatened to cancel the license if they defied the government order. This was the case for any sympathetic approach from the Arabs to any of the anti Zionist movements. But due to the lack of fund the party was not in a position to advance the cause of the Arabs. The reason why many of the Arabs were attracted to the Communist party despite the repressive government warning was the very policies of the successive government with the consent of Mapai that have jeopardized the livelihood of the Arabs through the confiscation of their lands and other measures. The communist members in Knesset have shown greater interest in any problem involving Arabs and this has led to the increasing support of the Arabs to this party.
Mapam has also tried to garner the support of the Arabs and tried to play the vote bank politics. All the attempts by Mapam to indoctrinate and convert the Arabs to accept the socialist Zionism made the party unpopular and the support of the Arab showed a downward trend.10 This attempt of the party to go beyond the material benefit from the association with the Arab masses was an undoing of itself.
But the political dispensation under the premiership of Ben-Gurion was accused for taking a number of coercive measures and fielding only those candidates who have collaborated with the Jewish authorities to expropriate the Arab lands and cheated the aspirations of the Arabs at large. Though the Arabs were elected to each Knesset they were having no role in any of the major decision making especially when it is anything related to the security of the nation including the question of return of the Palestinian Arabs. The members were also seen in a suspicious manner as they are potential challengers of the state of Israel and questioning the very basis of its creation. Apart from these three major parties other parties also tried to win the support of the Arabs in the eve of the election but none of them have any major promise to the Arabs at large because all of them were extreme Zionist parties.
However, in this period, one of the major charges leveled against all the political parties in the country is that it had never supported the formation of an exclusive Arab party and some of the parties wanted the involvement of the Arabs in their party just to prevent the formation of any Arab political party that would be vocal enough to challenge the policies of the successive government in favor of the Jews. The Arabs were also not in a position to form a party of their own in 1948 because of their lack of political experience and the departure of those who have some experience in the field. However by the passage of time the Israeli Arab people gradually became cognizant and wanted to form a party of their own. This move might invite widespread opposition as it would be a blow to the unquestioned unilateral decision making of the Jews. The political awareness and the loosening hold of the military government and its withdrawal have made the Arabs bold and some of their leaders came forward to form a political party of their own.
Major Assertive Involvement
Both ideologically and practically the Arabs matured since the 1967 war as the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza facilitated contact between the Palestinian people and it contributed to the increasing political consciousness, both in general and in the context of Palestinian nationalism. This led to more organized political action and involvement. A number of political movements and activities were launched by the new generation leadership in 1970s. The mass movement could be separated into two broad categories that of secular nationalist and the other Islamist. The former was seeing their predicament as a direct fall out of the confrontation between the patently colonialist political Zionist ideology and the colonized while the latter looked at it as a religious one and irreconcilable.11 The growing political assertiveness sent a wave of fear to the Zionist leaders and they were devising novel methods to curb this growing threat. One of the direct results was the implementation of a Basic Law that stipulates that a list of candidates shall not participate in the election for the Knesset if its aim or action points implicitly or explicitly deny the existence of State of Israel as the state of Jewish people. The change at this phase has come in both leadership and community level.12 In 1970s a political consensus emerged lagging behind more than two decades of political vacillation and confusion. The leadership has a clear cut idea about their own status and identity and places both Israel and their fellow Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank and the larger Arab Israeli conflict in its correct position. There was a growing realization that they can achieve their political goals and make their voice heard only through the correct political tools. The communication gap between the Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza was bridged after the six day war and this led to recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as representative of Palestinian cause.13 The war of 1973 further made them bold to respond vociferously against the Israeli suppression and unequal treatment of the Arabs. The most important and vocal political action came in the form of a document calling for the immediate cessation of the highhandedness in Gaza and West Bank.14 Continuing loss of agricultural land due to the expropriation by the government and marginalization of the Arab populated area from industrialization and attendant hardships resulted in further political mobilization.15 Thanks to these developments a new political culture emerged with new modes of political activity and organization. The National Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands, the National Committee of Arab Heads of Local Councils, and the National Committee of Arab Students came into being in this particular socio economic and political developments. This was in addition to more hardliner political ideologies like the Sons of the Village and the National Progressive Movement. The first intifada in 1987 has ushered in new vigor to the vein of the Israeli Arab and the emergence of the Islamic Movement was a result of it. Though its seeds were planted in the six day war of 1967 which eroded support for the secular nationalist movement.16 The founding of the Arab Democratic Party (ADP) by the Arab MK Abdel Wahab Darawshi who was affiliated with Labor and launched the new party in protest of the inhuman Israeli suppression of rebellion in Gaza and West Bank.
Intifada in itself was a major massive political statement and it should also be mentioned in the context of the Arab Israeli politics despite the fact that it took place in West bank and Gaza. This is because the collective political action without participation in elections and established political parties led to the formulation of consensus in both Palestinian camps on specific issues that have paramount importance to the future of Palestine as a nation. The formulation of consensus among the Palestinians in Israel and in occupied territories over the necessity of a Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, as a key measure to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict was a major development. In addition, the importance of the Arab equality inside Israel and struggling to achieve it through nonviolent manner was also a part of the consensus.
Arab Political Parties
There are a number of Arab political parties in the Israeli political scene. Despite their limited influence and role a number of parties were formed to express the concerns of the one fifth of the Israeli community.
Al-Ard
Al-Ard meaning the "the Land" could be called as the first attempt of the Arab to form a party of their own. It was established in 1959 as a pan-Arab nationalist movement. The party challenged the legitimacy of the State of Israel and demanded sweeping changes in the leadership of the Palestinian community. Al-Ard emerged as an alternative to the communists, who have promised to deliver on a number issues including the refugee return and abolishing absentees land law had dominated and attracted a large number of Arab politicians and the mass in Israel. The party was banned in 1964 citing its anti national character and its pan Arabism. It tried to come in another name “the Arab Socialist Party but it was also banned from contesting to the Knesset. Leading members of the party are Sabri Jiryis, Habib Qahwaji, Salih Baransi, Mansur Qardawsh and Muhammad MiÊ¿ar.
Hadash
It is an acronym for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality in Hebrew 'Hazit Democratit Leshalom ul'Shivyon. It was an alliance of the Israel Communist Party and some other factions sympathetic to the Arab cause. Hadash was formed in 1977 by Meir Vilner of Rakach among others. The anti-Zionist party has a number of progressive demands including, the return of Israel to June 1967 borders, and establishing an Arab state alongside Israel and the Palestinians should be given the right to return to Israel or should be given compensation. The party also demands for granting equal citizenship to the Israeli Arabs. It also stands for ensuring the rights of individuals and separation of religion from state.
Balad Party
It is an acronym for Brit Le'umit Demokratit meaning National Democratic Assembly it also means homeland in Arabic. This party was found by Azmi Bishara one of the vocal representatives of the Arab aspirations in 1995. The Arab nationalist political party Balad has the objective of turning the state of Israel into a democracy for all its citizens, irrespective of national or ethnic identity.' it has other major stated aims including the recognition of Palestinian Arabs in Israel as a national minority and to grant autonomy in education, culture and press. It also demand the implementation of the UN Resolution 194 that entitles the right of return to the Palestinian in addition to demanding the withdrawal of Israel to its 1967 border and form an Arab state comprising West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
Major impediments for the Arab participation in Politics
Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the right to vote and the right to get elected to the Knesset. But they have a very limited role in determining the policy of the nation especially those critical of the government and the State policy.17 The contradiction in the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic was a puzzle and one of the major predicaments for the Arabs in Israel. This was in addition to the fact that the Arabs were always seen as a security threat to the nation. The identity crisis of the Israeli Palestinian was compounded with another factor too. The Israeliness of these Arabs was looked down suspiciously and smelled betrayal by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It was only after the six day war in 1967 that these Palestinian were also accepted in the larger Palestinian universe.18 The major problem was that it is not citizenship or membership in the state system that determines the extent of services and privileges that the state bestows on the individual and the group; the determining factor is membership in the dominant ethnic group. Citizenship, therefore, is relegated to a less important status than belonging to the national groups that compose the state.19 The very nature of the state as a Jewish one has made the Israeli Arabs indifferent to the State but in order to reclaim their right as a national minority and raise their voice against the injustice meted out against them it was inevitable to take into politics. “Because Israel officially defines Jewishness and not Israeli citizenship as the criterion for inclusion in the state definition, it constitutionally (not only by policy and practice) excludes from its identity all citizens who are non-Jews. At the same time, it includes all non- citizens who are Jewish, regardless of any ideological commitment, sentimental attachment, national consciousness, or indeed desire on their part to be part of the state, but just on the basis of the single criterion of fitting the state's definition of who is a Jew-a definition drawn from traditional Halachic principles.”20 The meaning of Jewish state is expressed not only in national, cultural, religious and social symbols alone but in the very perception of the mainstream Jews.21 The very participation in the political activities seemed to be meaningless. When they did attend Knesset sessions the Arab members limited their activity to making generalized speeches about problems experienced by the Arabs and humbly asking the authorities to find some solutions.22 But their role was restricted to the issues that never raised the major issues related to the Arabs like the repatriation of Palestinian refugees and those which questioned the injustice meted out to the Arabs by the state apparatus including the confiscation of the land or the inferior status of the Arabs in the country. But all the while the Arabs were not given any say in the executive branch of the government whose functionaries are committed to Zionism. The contradiction lies in the fact that the Israeli government also supports the Zionism that is based upon the assumption of expelling all the Arabs from the Promised Land and airlift the Jews from all over the world in their stead.23 This basic contradictory factor is never taken into account, let alone solving it. It is a fact that since the creation of the state of the Israel few Arabs have occupied any influential posts in the government and not a single Arab has ever served in the cabinet despite the fact that they constitute roughly 20% of the total population. Arabs have faced military rule and the hardships under this rule. One governor has summed it up; the military government interferes in the life of the Arab citizens from the day of his birth to the day of his death. It has the final say in all the matters concerning workers, peasants, professional men, merchants and educated men, with schooling and social services….. Often too it arbitrarily interferes in the affairs of political parties, in political and social activities and in local and municipal councils.24
Another important point is that the demographic advantage of the Arabs in Israel was turned in favor of the Zionist ideology through a number of measures including the massive expulsion in 1948 followed by a number of other measures to keep the number on check. The authorities were systematically carrying out their plan in lieu with the Zionism that include the gathering of the Jews in the Promised Land that was captured after ousting its legitimate residents and owners.
These facts should be viewed against a number of attempts by the alternative governments to tackle the question of Arabs and their direct attempt to erode any Arab attempt to form a political platform worth its name. The Koing report of 1976 is an eye opener as it documents the recommended containment and discrimination policies of the then government of Prime Minister Yithzak Rabin. The report sheds light on the systematic planning and deliberation in the decision making circle to tackle the Arab question inside Israel including demographic challenge that the Arab poses in addition to the containment of the increasing political leverage and other economic and educational issues.25 The report recommended to “prevent the establishment of independent Arab political parties or nationwide organization. In this respect the state was successful in preventing the establishment of political parties, like the attempts which were made by Elias Kussa, the Popular Front, Al Ard Movement. We have succeeded in the prevention of such endeavors during 20 years.”
In the political field the Arabs were compelled to vote for the ruling Mapai during the military rule in the first one decade and the dependence of the Arabs in economic matters on Arabs made their case all the more volatile. The Mapai, in its turn accepted the Arabs in its fold to prevent any political power concentration in an exclusively Arab centre. The authorities imposed strict control of the elections in the local Arab areas in order to prevent the election of any Arab leader who maintains a hostile view towards the Jews. IN some cases the municipal councils were dissolved just because the Arabs who were deemed to be hostile were elected.


Conclusion
From what we have discussed it is clear that the Palestinian Arabs living in Israel have emerged as a formidable political power over a period of time which challenge and wield pressure on subsequent Israeli governments to make amendments and build a true democracy. It would be correct to assume that the political mobilization and empowerment of the Arabs have grown enough to compel one of the powerful military regimes in the world to turn into itself and resolve its contradiction. The very concept of democracy could not go hand in hand with the Jewishness of Israel. Unequal and unjust treatment of a people who are the original inheritors of the land and expropriating their land to accommodate anyone living in any part of the world just because of his ethnic similarity is nothing more than a racist one. The very function the Israeli Arabs are doing is that of questioning this ideology and working hard to build a true democratic nation based on justice equality and liberty. The study has also shown that the Arabs have over a period of time developed a political consensus, organization and leadership with substantial legitimacy and popular support. These institutions and consensus are not aimed at achieving the rights of Arabs in Israel alone but to solve the whole Palestinian question while it stood first and foremost for achieving their rights using proper political tools.














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