Subscribe to Print Edition | Wed., November 14, 2007 Kislev 4, 5768 | | Israel Time: 01:40 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Print Edition
Diplomacy
Defense Arts & Leisure Real Estate Jewish World National Advertising
Easy Start Magazine Business Opinion Rosner's Domain Anglo File Week's End Books
del.icio.us
Digg It!  new
Threats of the future vision
By Meron Benvenisti

It isn't clear whether the leaders of the Arab public will succeed in arousing serious public discussion in the wake of the publication of the "future vision" they have presented, which includes formulated demands for a more egalitarian division of the public space in Israel. Chances are that the discussion will be limited to intellectual circles and to Shin Bet security service investigators, and the challenge that has been posed will earn the most efficient answer: It will be scornfully ignored. After all, it is hard to imagine the Jewish public allowing the Arab minority to show it, in a straightforward way, the picture of the binational reality that prevails in Israel in fact. Rather, it will reject the audacious demand for the creation of legal, political and cultural arrangements for administering this binational reality.

For 60 years, the discussion of "the problem of Israel's Arabs" has been going on in the usual runaround of "oppression and discrimination" and its remedies - "thickening of infrastructures," increased representation in public administration, construction of more classrooms - and not necessarily because of a Jewish aspiration to ignore the depth of the ethnic rift.

The Arabs themselves, apart from radical intellectuals, have not been eager to raise demands for collective equality and communal autonomy, out of fear that this would serve as an excuse for the authorities to take revenge on Arab institutions, as has indeed happened in the past.
Advertisement
The focus on the question of discrimination, which can be remedied with development budgets and patronizing activities undertaken by do-gooders, has enabled the Jewish majority to repress the binational tension by means of an oxymoron: "a Jewish and democratic state," and by means of academic hairsplitting on "balance and proportionality" between the contradictory values embedded in that phrase.

The challenge of the "vision of the future" is not new in its contents but rather in the identity of those who are presenting it: no longer marginal intellectuals, but rather the Palestinian-Israeli establishment itself - the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee and the Committee of Arab Local Council heads. It turns out that the Palestinian-Israeli collective's process of crystallization has reached the point of maturity. Its leaders have succeeded in formulating an agreed-upon position demanding collective equal rights, and this inevitably must lead to a process of questioning the Jewish hegemony over the entire public space. From the moment the demon is allowed out of the bottle, there's no returning it, and the emergence of consensual democracy that creates a new balance of collective rights is only a matter of time.

The experience of societies that are rent by ethnic disputes teaches that despite the power gap between majority and minority, a determined minority that conducts its struggle with democratic means will succeed in forcing on the majority concessions in areas that had initially been perceived as matters of principle. In the Israeli case, too, it will become clear, after an exhausting and painful process, that ignoring and oppression do not help, and then it will be discovered that the public space is capacious enough to enable the granting of collective rights to the minority, without impinging in any significant way on the majority's rights, its identity or its image.

The trouble is that the Jewish majority has been educated on the perception that there is only one legitimate collective in the homeland, and therefore it is unable to think in terms of a shared homeland, and the recognition of the existence of a neighboring national minority is too hard to bear.

Institutionalized ethnic separatism among the Arab minority is a direct result of a mistaken policy; it is not the Arabs who have created the separatism but rather the Jews. Their oppression of the Arabs and their discrimination against them are, in every area, based on clearly ethnic criteria, and the crystallization of an alienated Arab minority is an inevitable result.

Now that the Arabs have responded to the challenge and are demanding that they be recognized as a national minority, their demand is being depicted as "a declaration of war," as a call for the elimination of the Jewish state and for, worst of all, a "binational state."

The fear of "binationalism" causes people to use the term carelessly, and thus to divert and muddy the debate. First of all, there is a tendency to confuse the binational reality that already prevails in the State of Israel, in which there are two nations in a state of conflict, with a "binational" political program.

Secondly, people define the Arab demands for a consensual democracy as a demand for the establishment of a binational state like Switzerland or Canada, and then they "prove" that binationalism has failed everywhere else. However, the correct comparison is with the dozens of countries where national minorities are granted recognition of their collective, political and cultural rights, as defined in the laws of the European Union, or in the southern Tyrol, Spain, Canada, Australia and many other places.

The binational bogeyman has emerged in order to prevent any real attention being paid to the challenge of the Arab "vision," but there is a more certain way to put off any serious discussion of the collective rights of Israel's Arab citizens: the excuse of the Palestinian state. One of the reasons for the Zionist left's support for its establishment is its aspiration to iron out the contradiction between the principle of communal-national equality and the discrimination against the Arab-Israeli minority. Therefore, they hold that the desires of the Arabs of Israel "must be expressed in the Palestinian state that will arise, and not in Israel."

And indeed, there is an apparent connection between the "vision" and the situation in the territories. When it becomes clear that a Palestinian state will not arise, the documents of the Palestinian public in Israel will come to serve as the political program of all the Palestinians, in Israel and in the territories alike. This will not be the first time that the "Arabs of 1967" will learn from their brothers, "the Arabs of 1948."
Bookmark to del.icio.us
New Kids in the Strip
Hamas' new police band lifts spirits by crooning about Islamic holy war.
Less than equal
A poll shows 70% of youth don't think Bedouin deserve the same rights as Jews
  1.   Get real, the Palestinian homeland is the PA 10:23  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  2.   Multiculture is required 10:34  |  Marilyn 17/12/06
  3.   True, indeed 11:17  |  Simone 17/12/06
  4.   Imported or Exported ? 11:19  |  Spirit of Gibson 17/12/06
  5.   Get real Marilyn 11:20  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  6.   Re: Ariel 11:28  |  Sami 17/12/06
  7.   To Sami 11:43  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  8.   Who created the separation???? 11:46  |  Binyamin Dissen 17/12/06
  9.   `Binationalism` is a formula for the destruction of Israel 12:00  |  Shalom Freedman 17/12/06
  10.   get real ariel 12:10  |  dubious 17/12/06
  11.   Israel created tensions 12:21  |  tbora 17/12/06
  12.   houdy sami 12:26  |  vladimir 17/12/06
  13.   Land swap seems to be the answer,did not think so before 12:31  |  PETER SM 17/12/06
  14.   Well Mr. Dubious, the Holocaust proves your mistaken 12:58  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  15.   Re: Ariel 12:59  |  Sami 17/12/06
  16.   Well Sami, you`re welcome to stay 13:10  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  17.   National Suicide 13:10  |  Terry 17/12/06
  18.   "the problem of European Jews" 13:26  |  Gus Burton 17/12/06
  19.   Ariel 13:28  |  Sami 17/12/06
  20.   benvenisti on bi nationalism 13:37  |  chalom 17/12/06
  21.   Sami, Lebanon is an Apartheid state 14:05  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  22.   ariel`s mistake 14:20  |  dubious 17/12/06
  23.   21 Ariel. On Apartheid and Lebanon. 14:34  |  Canadian 17/12/06
  24.   Ariel; apartheid profiteer 14:38  |  Sami 17/12/06
  25.   I rememer Yom Kippur War 14:40  |  Mark Lincoln 17/12/06
  26.   Ariel, Jews in Australia are as free as birds 14:52  |  Marilyn 17/12/06
  27.   Whoa, hold on little doggies, Dubious, Canadian and Sami 14:56  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  28.   karachi boos 15:04  |  jimmy 17/12/06
  29.   Marilyn - and you are Austrialian, gives the nation a bad image 15:06  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  30.   Binational is death 15:13  |  zody 17/12/06
  31.   yes ariel 15:35  |  Sami 17/12/06
  32.   Israel suffered at the hands of the British imperialism? 15:37  |  Sami 17/12/06
  33.   doggies? 15:38  |  Sami 17/12/06
  34.   Today: 17 Yr Old Israeli Arab Arrested 15:41  |  Terry 17/12/06
  35.   Today: 17 Yr Old Israeli Arab Arrested 15:41  |  Terry 17/12/06
  36.   Arab states were created by British Imperialism 15:47  |  Zody 17/12/06
  37.   No Sami, Israel existed 2,000 years ago, and more 15:57  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  38.   #8, Binny 15:58  |  Justine 17/12/06
  39.   now back to the 2,000 year old refugee thing 16:17  |  Sami 17/12/06
  40.   And I promise all of the readers here a share in Zody`s apartment 16:20  |  Sami 17/12/06
  41.   Sami, #24 16:30  |  JES 17/12/06
  42.   But Sami, our two thousand year old claim IS valid 16:31  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  43.   Jews created the Holocaust too 16:31  |  Herbert Kaine 17/12/06
  44.   Justine, #38 16:33  |  JES 17/12/06
  45.   History taught in Australia ? 16:41  |  Avrum 17/12/06
  46.   Separation is a better idea. #34 16:52  |  amused 17/12/06
  47.   Ariel 16:58  |  Sami 17/12/06
  48.   JES 17:03  |  Sami 17/12/06
  49.   Sami, sound`s good to me. All refugees can return to Palestine 17:14  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  50.   Ariel god was not the Jews real estate agent 17:19  |  Marilyn 17/12/06
  51.   amused who is not so amusing 17:21  |  James 17/12/06
  52.   Al-Husseini made Arab separatism 17:23  |  William 17/12/06
  53.   Enlightened Character of the State 17:23  |  BP ENL 17/12/06
  54.   Let`s end "institutionalized ethnic discrimination" 17:50  |  Yonatan 17/12/06
  55.   Sami - your term "ethnically cleansed" is wrong 17:53  |  William 17/12/06
  56.   Sami - if the British didn`t own it, neither did the Turks #40 18:00  |  William 17/12/06
  57.   # 28 karachi boos 18:06  |  tbora 17/12/06
  58.   56, William 18:15  |  Canadian 17/12/06
  59.   Equal but not separate 18:21  |  Yonatan 17/12/06
  60.   jes..suggested reading for you 18:57  |  John 17/12/06
  61.   Sami & Ariel 19:21  |  G. 17/12/06
  62.   Sami & Ariel & G 20:08  |  Bruce 17/12/06
  63.   Marilyn #50 20:17  |  Bruce 17/12/06
  64.   Sami Keep on living a misrable life in Israel 20:21  |  Aby 17/12/06
  65.   ARIEL - COMMON FALLACY 20:32  |  Stephen Connor 17/12/06
  66.   Zody - Please clarify 20:37  |  Stephen Connor 17/12/06
  67.   RE #1: A second palestine isnt going to be created within Israel 20:50  |  Tupac 17/12/06
  68.   Terry in Eilat - take a minute 20:54  |  Stephen Connor 17/12/06
  69.   No Steven, you misunderstand 21:01  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  70.   To G., Israel is the Jewish state 21:04  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  71.   Tupac, you`re a bit confused, Israel left Gaza 21:09  |  Ariel 17/12/06
  72.   RE To Ariel: My Friend You Can`t Have a State Within a State 21:26  |  Tupac 17/12/06
  73.   RE to The 2000 Year Argument: Its 2006 not 06 21:36  |  Tupac 17/12/06
  74.   Ariel 22:00  |  Sami 17/12/06
  75.   William 22:05  |  Sami 17/12/06
  76.   William again 22:08  |  Sami 17/12/06
  77.   intagration works better than revolution 22:27  |  zionist forever 17/12/06
  78.   #75 SAMI AND IGNORANCE OF WAR. 22:32  |  paul harris 17/12/06
  79.   #74 SAMI AFTER 58 YEARS THERE ARE NO REFUGEES 22:34  |  paul harris 17/12/06
  80.   Ariel remember that guy in Germany . . . . 22:38  |  revoltop