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Israeli Democracy and the Rights of Its Palestinian Citizens

Israeli Democracy and the Rights of Its Palestinian Citizens. Raphael Cohen- Almagor September 2013. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Israeli Democracy and the Rights of Its Palestinian Citizens

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  1. Israeli Democracy and the Rights of Its Palestinian Citizens Raphael Cohen-Almagor September 2013

  2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights • All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. • Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  3. Preliminaries • The Palestinians comprise some 20% of the Israeli population. • According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 1,573,000 Israeli-Palestinians in 2010. • 80% are Muslims.

  4. Preliminaries • Most of the Arabs reside in the Galilee in north Israel. • Smaller numbers live in the so-called Triangle area at the centre of Israel and in the Negev desert in the south (mostly Bedouins).

  5. Preliminaries Israel was established as a Jewish democracy Based on Liberal-Democratic values AND Jewish values

  6. Preliminaries

  7. Preliminaries • Between 1948 and 1966, Israeli-Arabs lived under military rule. • Their rights and liberties were severely limited as they were regarded with suspicion as a security threat. • With the abolishing of the military rule in 1966, the Israeli-Arabs began their integration into society as citizens with equal claims to those of the Jewish majority.

  8. Preliminaries • The relationships between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority remain far from ideal. • In 2007, 66% of the Arabs characterized their relationships with Jews as “not good”, and 80% thought they were discriminated against.

  9. Arguments • The litmus test for measuring the extent of democratization of any given society is the status of minorities.

  10. Arguments • I argue for accommodating the interests of the Israeli-Palestinians, striving to safeguard equal rights and liberties for all citizens notwithstanding nationality, religion, race or colour, and insisting that citizens have also duties to fulfil.

  11. Arguments The most basic norms democracy has to secure are respecting others as human beings, and not to inflicting harm upon others.

  12. Arguments • The key to the success of Zionism is integration into the region. • The key to Israel’s integration into the region is the integration of Arabs as equals in Israel.

  13. Society’s Profile No shared raison d'être • 20% wish to transform democracy into theocracy • 20% do not endorse the Zionist ethos • 20% of the population are immigrants from the former Soviet Union where no democracy existed

  14. Main Schisms • Between Jews and Arabs • Between secular and religious people • Between Israel and the Occupied Territories

  15. Israeli-Palestinians • Formal v. Full Citizenship • Discrimination • Racism

  16. Is Israel a Liberal Democracy? • In The Law of Peoples, JohnRawls drew a distinction between liberal and illiberal societies. • Liberal societies are pluralistic and peaceful; they are governed by reasonable people who protect basic human rights. • In contrast, nonliberal societies fail to treat their people as truly free and equal. They adopt norms based on compulsion and coercion

  17. Israel is a Jewish democracy • The framework of governance is democratic, but its underpinning concepts give precedence to Judaism over the Respect for Others Principle, and the Harm Principle. • Consequently, Israel adopts illiberal policies and practices that are discriminatory in nature, preferring Jews over others.

  18. Positive Data • Mortality rates among Israeli Palestinians have fallen by over two-thirds since the establishment of Israel, while life expectancy has increased 30 years, reaching 78.5 (women 80.7, men 76.3) in 2009. • Infant-mortality rates have similarly been significantly reduced from 56 per 1,000 live births in 1950 to 6.5 in 2008.

  19. Positive Data • As for education, adult illiteracy rates among Israeli Palestinians dropped from 57.2% (79% among women) to 7.7% (11.7% among women). • In 1961, less than half of Arab children attended school, with only 9% acquiring secondary or higher education.

  20. Positive Data • By 1999, 97% of Arab children attended schools. • Fifty years ago, a mere 4% of Arab teachers held academic degrees; • by 1999, the figure had vaulted to 47%.

  21. Home? • According to the 2012 Democracy Index, 27.7% of the Israeli-Palestinians greatly feel a sense of belonging to the State of Israel, while 38.2% feel somewhat a sense of belonging • 33.5% hardly feel this way.

  22. Discrimination • 30% of the Jews felt hatred towards Arabs; • 46% of the Jewish respondents did not wish to have Arab neighbours; • 30% of Arab job seekers felt negative discrimination; • ¼ of Jewish employers (22%) discriminated against Arab applicants in the hiring process.

  23. Discrimination • 46.6% of Arabs very much agreed with the statement that they were discriminated against; 28.3% agreed with this statement (total 74.9%). • The majority of Jews did not share this view. • Only 13.8% of Jews very much agreed that Arabs were discriminated against and 24.5% agreed with this statement (total 38.3%).

  24. Poverty • Some 50% of the Israeli-Arab population lives in poverty. • The poverty rate among Arab families has significantly increased since the 1990s, rising from 35% in 1990 to 45% in 2002 and to 57.6% in 2006. • In 2009, 53.5% of the Arabs lived in poverty, compared to 15.2% of the Jews. • Overall, while they comprise 20% of the population, Arabs constitute 37.8% of the poor.

  25. Job Market • In 2010, the unemployment rate among Arabs was 8%, compared to 6.4% among Jews. • In 2009, almost 50% of the manpower in construction, commerce and industry were Arabs. • On average, Arab men earn 60 percent of the national average wage, while Arab women earn 70 percent of the average wage.

  26. Income • In 2006, the average monthly gross income of Arab households was NIS 7,590 compared to NIS 13,245 which was the average monthly gross income of Jewish households. • In 2009, the hourly pay for Arabs was 62% less than that of the Jews: NIS 27, compared to NIS 44 hourly pay for Jews.

  27. Arab Localities • Tend to be poor. • Lack of resources. • Of the 535 communities that were categorized as “nationally significant”, only four were Arabs and all four were small with little population.

  28. Religious Budget • The Ministry of Religions allocates only 2% of its budget for Palestinian concerns.

  29. Education • Rate of matriculation certificates obtained by Jewish students was nearly double that of Arab students, 59.74% compared to 31.94%. • 31% of Palestinians qualified for university acceptance on the matriculation exam, compared to 76 percent of Jews. • Only 11% of the BA students were Arabs.

  30. Education • In the advanced degrees, Arab MA students constitute 7% • PhD: 3%. • Arabs constitute only 2% of the academic staff.

  31. Land • Arab citizens are discriminated in having access to land, in land planning, in rural and urban development, and in housing provisions. • Arabs own only 2.5 percent of Israel’s lands. • The lack of town plans and planning permissions for Palestinian towns is one of the main causes of inequality and of the failure of the Palestinian citizens to fulfill their economic potential.

  32. Land and Essential Services • More than half of the Bedouins, about 90,000 of 170,000 people, are deprived of their ancestral lands, living in what the Israeli government terms “illegally constructed villages”, still without public utilities or basic services. • 36 Bedouin settlements in the Negev are unrecognized (without essential services: water, electricity, gas, drainage, state education and health). • Some 45,000 structures are at risk of demolition.

  33. Land • The Bedouin reside in 300-350,000 dunam(1 dunam=1000 m2) which is 3% of the Negev (13 million dunam). • Up until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Bedouin settled 2-3 million dunamof the Negev.

  34. Civil Service • In 1992 only 2.1% of civil servants were Palestinians. • During the Rabin-Peres governments, there was a significant improvement to 4%. • in 2010, 7% of civil servants were Palestinians.

  35. Civil Service • Israeli Arabs, except for Druze and the Circassian, are exempted from serving in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). • The exemption, however, proved to be a double-edge sword as it serves as a recipe for discrimination. • It is for the benefit of the Palestinians to remove this obstacle to their full integration into Israeli society.

  36. Civil Service • Palestinians can serve in the local hospitals, the Red Magen David health service, the fire brigades, the community police, local hospices and nursing homes, charity and human rights organizations.

  37. Representation • To date, there has been one Arab minister, RalebMajadele. • This should be corrected. • In 2005, there were 546 directors in governmental companies; of them 53 (9.7%) were Arabs.

  38. Representation • Delegates of the Arab minority should be represented, in accordance with their size in society, in the Knesset and in the government. • At the same time, Israel would like to see from all its citizens, without exception, a real and strong commitment to the state, to peace, and to the struggle against terror.

  39. Declarations, Language and Symbols David Ben-Gurion: “the Arabs who reside in Eretz (Land of) Israel enjoy all the rights that residents in any democratic country enjoy, and a Jewish state is possible only as a democratic country”.

  40. Declarations, Language and Symbols David Ben-Gurion: “In accordance with my moral belief we do not have the right to deprive a single Arab child, even if our reward resulting from this deprivation would be the fulfillment of all our wishes”.

  41. Declarations, Language and Symbols Ze’evJabotinsky: “First of all, I consider it utterly impossible to eject the Arabs from Palestine. There will always be two nations in Palestine – which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority”.

  42. Declarations, Language and Symbols Ze’evJabotinsky: ”I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly peaceful credo”.

  43. Declarations, Language and Symbols Moshe Sharett: “being surrounded by Arab countries all around but the sea, we have interest of self-preservation to keep our conscience, integrity and hands clean and pure”.

  44. Declarations, Language and Symbols Moshe Sharett: “The State of Israel will not deny the Jewish spiritual heritage whose principles are the love of people, the pursuit of peace and loyalty to justice. It will not betray the moral ideals of the Zionist movement whose foundations are liberty, equality and social progress”.

  45. Declarations, Language and Symbols YigalAlonsaid:Jews, who became a symbol for prosecuted and oppressed minorities, should show exemplary treatment of minorities in their own country but instead they consciously employ continued discriminatory policies against other religions. “Israel must be able to prove that it can treat its minorities in the most enlightened way”.

  46. Declarations, Language and Symbols Benjamin Netanyahu: “there is no scope for discrimination in the State of Israel. We are obligated to equality of opportunity for everyone. The Arab sector is a central engine of growth for Israeli economy which has yet to be fully utilized”.

  47. Declarations, Language and Symbols Benjamin Netanyahu: “integrating minorities in the job market would contribute not only to the Arabs but to Israel at large. This is Israel’s national interest and Israel should encourage this integration”.

  48. The Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence holds that Israel will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; that it will be based on the foundations of liberty, justice and peace;

  49. The Declaration of Independence that it will uphold complete equality of social and political rights to all of its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex, and that it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.

  50. Recommendations • The symbols should remain Jewish with some accommodations in order to make the state a home for its Palestinian citizens as well.

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