Saturday, September 15, 2007

Jewish National Fund Bill -- Update from Informed Sources














God willing, it will be voted down.


GBacharach said...

And arabs still have it better off in Israel than anywhere else in the middleast!!

Levi9909 said...

Ho hum, another day, another post culled from the Magnes Zionist. This time though, I had a little doubt about what you said about Palestinians not being allowed, by law, to join the Israeli army. Trusting you, as I do, I ran with what you wrote, and one of my regulars commented as follows: I dont think He is correct about palestinian Israelis not being allowed to serve. it's just not compulsory, but a few do. I met a xtian border policeman once.

The latest comment on the same thread is: Until recently it was illegal to call yourself a Palestinian in Israel. Enlisted Arabs are drawn from particular communities on the classic colonial basis of an ethnic and not a national identity (obviously the national identity is Israeli, hyphenated with communal orientation).

I would be interested in the history of these patterns of recruitment and the regulations associated with such recruitment.

You are of course very welcome to contribute at my site or let me know by reply on this one. What exactly is the position regarding Palestinian Israelis and the Israeli army? I always thought that they simply weren't conscripted but that they could volunteer.

Jerry Haber said...

To gbacharach

1) You make this claim on the basis of what opinion poll? Or is that your judgement, whether Israeli Palestinians agree with you or not? What makes you think that they are better off than, say, in Jordan, or Kuwait?

2) Arguably, US Blacks in the fifties, under segregation, still had it better off than anywhere in Africa. Would you use that as an argument against desegregation? "

childofabraham said...

Dear Levi9909,

First, a good book to read on this topic (in Hebrew only I am afraid, i think it is in the process of translation to English) is "good arabs", by Hillel Cohen. I have a feeling the Haber has the book...
T the issue at hand, there are different Palestinians Israeli communities. The majority are Muslim, who are not allowed to serve. There is a small Christian community who is allowed to volunteer, although very few volunteered in the past and I imagine that today it is just a handful.
Then there is the Druz community which in many case does not see itself as part of the Palestinian people and does serve in the Army (there are changing trends in this as well).
The last communities are the Beduin communities where there is a historical split between the northern ones who generally serve and the southern ones who generally don't.
But again, the majority of non Jews in Israel are Muslim Palestinian Israelis who are not allowed to serve in the military

Gbacharach said...


Why would they want to?!


I dont think theres really any debate about this.

I understand that you critisize Israel because your Jewish but you should also be defending it because your Jewish. Why dont you ever post good stuff about Israel?

childofabraham said...


It is not an issue of want. It is an issue of not allowed to. They would want to because it is much easier to get to University, get to many jobs, get tax exemptions, get help with mortgage and in general be accepted to Israeli society if you served in the military.
Again, this is not just an issue of social acceptance. There are major financial consequences for not serving, something which by law they are not allowed to do.
My claim is not based on a public opinion pole but on Israeli law.
Don't really care about what is happening in Kuwait, but in laws which discriminate in my own country (I just bought a house in Jerusalem and got assistance from the ministry of housing because I served in the army. Gee, i wonder if Palestinian Israelis would want that...)

Ralph Seliger said...

There is a real need for housing for young demobilized soldiers and, of course, land for a peace village is a beautiful idea.

The Magnes Zionist is mistaken that Palestinian Israelis (or Muslims) are not permitted to serve in the military. Druze are subject to conscription on the same basis as Jews (except that their women are exempted, as is the case with Orthodox Jewish women). Other Israeli Arabs are permitted to volunteer. Bedouin (who are Muslim) have a tradition of volunteering; other Arabs hardly ever do. Similarly to Druze and Jews, Circassions (Muslims who are not Arabs) are conscripted.

Labeling these distinctions among communities as mere "colonialist" inventions ignores the fact that they are truly distinct.

Please consider linking with

Jerry Haber said...

"Why would Israeli Palestinians want to serve in the IDF?"

Considering that the state is defined as a Jewish state, and Palestinians citizens are systematically discriminated against, it is quite understandable why they would not want to serve.

A good percentage of the Jewish population figures out some way to avoid service.

But that is not the point. The point is that if Israel is a state of all its citizens, then all of its citizens should have equal rights and equal responsibilities.

And because of the position of the army in the national ethos, those deprived of serving are doubly discriminated against -- they are not allowed to serve, and then they do not have the priviliges and the status of army service.

Jerry Haber said...

To Ralph Seliger:

As you see, I deleted the phrase "by law" from the post, and I accept the correction.

But I do have a comment on the distinctions within the Palestinian communities.

Yesterday, I was reading Hillel Cohen's 2006 book "Good Arabs", which deals with the relationships between Israeli Palestinians and the State from 1948-1967, especially, the use of Arab collaborators by the State, and surveillance of Palestinian Israeli society. I plan to summarize a lot of the book, which is based almost entirely on newly published archival material, for the blog. Most disturbing -- and still the situation -- is how General Secret Services, in effect, controlled the hiring and firing of teachers. Part of the reason why the Palestinian Israeli educational system is in the shape it is in, is that many teachers were hired or removed based on the degree of help they provided to the state. A teacher who supported Arab nationalism in the 1950's, for example, would be fired, whereas informers and collaborators who were not qualified were often given jobs. Again, this is documented by Cohen.

But re the Druze and army service, to which Cohen devotes an entire chapter of the book. Briefly put, the motivation behind the Israeli government first allowing, then compelling, the Druze to enlist (which resulted in strong protests, including violence, by many Druze) was a divide-and-conquer mentality, that wished to pit Palestinian minorities (Druze, Christians, Bedouin) against the majority Muslims. Druze are indeed a sect of Muslims and Arab, but Israel fostered Druze alienation from Palestinian Muslims mainly in order to weaken their feelings of Palestinian Arab nationalism. All this is brilliantly documented in Hillel Cohen's book. The attempt to create an ethnic Druze "community" in Israel which would not see itself as Muslim, or would not see itself as a sect of Islam, has paid off for Israel. Although, the Druze have complained bitterly that they are not treated as equals to Jews, despite their military service, many of them take pride in their military service, and that they are recognized as a separate religious community.

By the way, the Wikipedia article on the Druze in Israel, which looks like it could have been written by the Israeli government press office, mentions that the Druze themselves wanted compulsory enlistment. This is true for their leaders, but what the article does not say -- and again, what Cohen demonstrates through the documentary record -- is that they were largely bought off with the carrot and the stick method, and that any declarations of support for matters of interest to Palestinians was met with strong resistance by more accomodating members of the community and the government.

Once again, this is a classic case of how a majority pits the minority's minorities against it.