Not a Fish (provincially speaking)

Is Israeli Arab support for their elected leaders waning?
An article in Yediot Aharonot�s �Shabbat Supplement�, this week, takes a look at a new Arab Israeli political movement called �A-Nahada�, which the newspaper translates as revival, but according to my dictionary also means, awakening, uprising and repudiation. This is a group that claims to be fed up of the Israeli Arabs� elected leaders who are only interested in the Palestinian struggle and are not at all interested in the status of Israeli Arabs. Many of the activists involved in this new movement were formerly active in Arab political parties and are disillusioned. One of them says he believed that solving the Palestinian problem would ultimately solve the Arab Israelis own problems of inequality. Although hardly an excuse for the Israeli Arabs� widespread support of the war the Palestinians in the territories are currently waging against Israel, this is probably true.

If there was a peaceful Palestinian State along side Israel, right now, established on the basis of Ehud Barak�s offers in the Summer of 2000, and Israeli Jews could see that the Arabs are were no longer a threat, Israeli Jews themselves would be fighting for equality for Israeli Arabs. So up till two years ago, the Israeli Arabs support for the Palestinians was logical. Two years ago it ceased to be. The Israeli Arabs were shocked and horrified when 12 Israeli Arabs (the 13th was from Gaza) were killed in violent demonstrations staged by thousands of Israeli Arabs in October 2000. Their anger and indignation led to the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the events.

What they don�t seem to realize is how shocked and horrified Israeli Jews were. The inside of Israel became like the West Bank. Main roads were blocked and became dangerous. A man was killed on the main road from Haifa to Tel Aviv by a stone thrower from an Arab village. People were actually afraid to go from Tel Aviv to Haifa! Can you imagine such a thing? Roads to the north became dangerous and the north was actually cut off from the rest of the country, for a short while. I remember my father couldn�t go visit his friend from Deganya on the shore of Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), because roads were closed. Jewish inhabitants of the Galilee found the roads to their villages cut off by angry mobs, made up of their neighbors in villages they�d been on friendly relations with for decades. Jewish Israelis suddenly understood that Israeli Arabs are a potential danger.

The thirteen deaths shocked the Arabs into ending the hostilities, but left them angry and hostile. The Jews have also been slow to forgive. In the summer of 2001, I took my family north to Mount Meron for a few days. It is nice and cool there, even in the heat of August. I did my homework, and checked all the nice places to visit in the area. I decided that on the way up, we should eat in a restaurant on the road, in Ma�iliya, an Arab village near Ma�a lot. This restaurant was highly recommended in all the best books and I hoped we�d have a table. After all, it was the height of the summer vacation and lunchtime. The restaurant, run by Christian Arabs, and bearing the same name as a very famous Lebanese Jewish singer, was empty. That summer, I also took a nighttime tour of Yaffo (Jaffa). It was a Thursday night, usually a night many Israelis spend out on the town, because many people don�t work on Friday. We went past the popular Abu-Lafiya�s bakery. In normal times people would have been queuing up there. They had one or two clients that evening. I think business has picked up in Yaffo, but few Israeli Jews dare venture into Israeli Arab villages these days, even after two years of quiet.

Back to the Yediot Aharonot article, this group has decided to leave the Arab parties and join the Labor Party. They say the only way to make a difference is to be part of a large influential party. The interviewer suggested that maybe they�re backing the wrong horse, the state of the Labor Party being what it is. But it seems they are not backing the party as much as Mitzna, personally. One of them told the interviewer that without Mitzna as head of the labor Party, many of the 1,500 new Labor Party members who joined the Party through this new Arab movement, would not vote for the Labor party in the elections.

An interesting passage: ��I would rather cut off my hand than vote for the Arab parties� says another interviewee, �Arab parties that represent Arafat, do not represent me and my problems. Azmi Bishara who traveled to Damascus and sat next to Nasrallah, did not go to represent me or to deal with my problems. He represents himself and I have no problem with his standing trial for it. Abie Nathan was also tried for flying to Egypt. We elected them, we sent them to the Knesset, we expected them to deal with our problems, and in the end they are representing Arafat there. They say that that is what�s important? I say no. I voted, as others did, for representatives who would look after problems of education, unemployment, health and housing. We can�t sit quietly and listen to them talking all day about what is happening in the territories��.

Bish and I can�t remember if