FEATURED JOBS
Without a constitution or a bill of rights in a country in which residents come from 100 nations and speak 70 languages, Israel will continue to struggle as a democratic state.
But the three speakers at the General Assembly’s 90-minute discussion “Israel’s Democracy in the Headlines: Perceptions and Realities” believe that through equal opportunities for education and employment, Israel will reach its potential as a democratic society while helping to bring about a reduction in its constant state of war.
Israel is a country of almost eight million people, of which about three-quarters are Jewish. But that is changing, and the percent of non-Jews living in Israel will one day soon become the majority, said speaker Arye Carmon, president of the Israel Democracy Institute.
Broken down further, Jews are divided into ultra-Orthodox, religious or secular, he said. These varying groups are educated in different schools, from ultra-Orthodox to state-religious to state-run. Add that to the Arab schools, and all the diversity and differing levels translate to tension, he said.
The political fragmentation that results widens the social divide between Jews and Arabs, rich and poor, newcomers and veterans, religious and secular and those involved in the center of Israeli life and those living on the periphery, he said.
The result, Carmon noted, is a government of multiparties, none having a majority, and a society that fights over where women can sit on a public bus and whether or not to require loyalty oaths of its citizens.
“This threat to democracy comes from a divided and insecure society,” Carmon said.
It should be for Israelis to decide their identity, not for others to discuss whether Israel is a democratic Jewish state or a Jewish state, he stressed.
“We are building a democracy on sand. The challenges are there. The hopes, believe it or not, are there. But there are lots of challenges.”
One large challenge is building a country with the Arabs who live there, the speakers said.
For that to happen, Arab children need to be educated with the same high standards experienced by Israeli Jews, said speaker Dalia Fadila, provost at Al-Quasemi Academic College of Education.
While she struggles to bring real education to her school, whose students are mostly young women, Fadila must deal with the reality that Arab students continually score worse than students
educated in third-world countries.
“There are two systems of education. One is definitely first world, and the other is fourth world, not even third world,” she said.
Only about 9 percent of Arabs living in Israel go to college. And of that number, only 30 percent are educated in Israeli-run universities.
If Israel is not ready for a totally shared society, at least create a healthy society, where doors are open to all, Fadila said.
Many of the Arabs who do go to college choose teaching as a profession, and there is a glut of teachers. Yet, the Israeli educational system is desperate for more teachers, she said.
Arabs cannot compete for those jobs due to the poor education they receive, she said.
“There is a need on a practical level now to invest in our education in the State of Israel,” she stressed. “Education is the only way to a positive healthy society. For me, education is the key.”
If Israel is not ready for a totally shared society, at least create a healthy society, where doors are open to all, Fadila said.
“Arabs are still confused [as to] what they are, where they stand,” she said. “They choose to be blind. They choose not to decide. That way, no decisions are made.”
While the Arabs make up about 20 percent of the population, they think of themselves as the majority. They count the people of Jordan and Saudi Arabia with them, she said.
But while the Arabs cling to an “illusion of majority,” the Israelis struggle as a minority, concerned with threats and fears from throughout the entire region, Fadila said.
The consequence is what she referred to as “mutual blindness.”
Fellow speaker Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg, senior research fellow at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, agreed that the way things currently are in Israel, “we have a minority that can never identify totally with the state, with the flag.”
These minority citizens need to know Israel is a democracy, where they are true participants.
“I don’t like us to be Jewish, that this is the Jewish section and this is the Arab section. The language should be Jewish democratic,” he said, adding that “it never says in the Bible” that there will be no Jews on the land.
“We didn’t go 40 years in the desert just to have our state by ourselves. It’s not a state for Jews only,” Rothenberg said.
He envisions an Israel that during Super Sunday, a major fundraising campaign by the Jewish federations, money is collected and given out to all people living there.
If Israelis truly felt like the majority in the country, then they would take responsibility for minority rights, he suggested. “There is no responsibility if you don’t feel you are the majority.”
“I am a citizen of a sovereign state in which at least 20 percent of us are Arabs,” Rothenberg said.
The speakers often pointed to how words can change things. Just the word Arab is problematic as there are Christian Arabs and Moslem Arabs. The word settlers also is too broad.
Stereotypes create fear, anti-Semitism and conflict, the speakers agreed.
“Fear is the biggest enemy of freedom,” Carmon said.
When questioned how this balanced society will affect Israel’s security, Rothenberg said democratization will create the necessary balance.
“There is no need for a balance. We need a total democratization of society,” he said, stressing that he was speaking as a rabbi, an educator and a former paratrooper who has watched his three sons and two daughters serve in the Israeli military.
In an interview following her talk, Fadila admitted to “not getting a lot of support frankly” in her Arab community. “I am actually fighting for everything I do.”
While she acknowledged having to constantly prove herself, Fadila isn’t stopping. “I feel like there is a fire inside of me that I can’t stop from burning.”
Following his talk, Rothenberg described himself as realistic but not necessarily optimistic.
“It’s a question of what you stand for. I don’t stay home.”
