Last update - 00:00 31/05/2007
Knesset Constitution Cmte. Chair: Israeli Arabs to have collective rights
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
Israeli Arabs will receive certain collective rights that will be guaranteed by a future constitution said Menachem Ben-Sasson, chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Thursday.
According to Ben-Sasson, the rights would be similar to those granted to minority groups by other nations' constitutions, and relate to language, culture, education, as well as proportional representation in state institutions.
"Jews in the Middle Ages, who lived under Islamic rule, had collective rights, and therefore the Arab public in Israel should also enjoy such rights," said Ben-Sasson, during a Tel Aviv conference on the issue organized by the Musawa Center for Arab Rights in Israel.
"Citizens succeed when they have an attachment to their community," he said. "The issue of collective rights must be at the heart of the constitution and not marginal."
"Citizens have obligations, and if the Arab citizens do not serve in the army, then it is possible that they will have to participate in a civilian national service," he added.
Ben-Sasson called on Arab Israeli leaders to take part in writing the constitution, or in legislative preparations carried out by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee before its implementation.
"Those who don't attend the preparatory sessions will have no right to complain in the future that the rights granted aren't sufficient," he said.
MK Taleb al-Sana of Ram-Tal, who is also a member of the Knesset constitution committee, said in response that Arab Israeli rights could not be granted by an intrinsically racist government body.
Dr Yussuf Jabarin presented the Knesset committee 10 collective rights issues on which the Arab Israeli community demands future legislation, outlined in a document by the Musawa Center.
Chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee of Israel, Shuweiki Hatib said "In Israel there are two realities, that of the weakened Arab population and that of the Jews."
"We want to change this. We, the people, can do this, and we want to do it by democratic, legal means," added Hatib.
President of the Israeli Press Council, Justice Dalia Dorner, said the demand for a change in the nature of the Jewish nation may have negatively effect the Jewish majority, but that it was necessary to have democracy.
"Israel was not founded to promote democracy, it was founded to be a Jewish state. However it is Israel's responsibility to be democratic and to grant its Arab citizens total equality," she said. "It is a failure on the part of the state that Arab citizens have not been granted equal rights," Dorner added.