Israel Must Not Forsake its Own Arab citizens

The Globe and Mail
April 28, 2006
By SHIRA HERZOG

Tel Aviv - As Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ehud Olmert puts the finishing touches on his coalition government, it was clear from the start that the country's centre-left Labour Party (with 19 seats), would be a natural partner for Mr. Olmert's centre-right Kadima party (29 seats). It also became clear that the Orthodox Shas party (12 seats) would provide support from a religious constituency. But who's out of government is no less interesting than who's in.

The most serious voice in opposition belongs to Avigdor Lieberman's hard-line Yisrael Beytenu (Israel is Our Home) party, which won a surprising 11 Knesset seats. Mr. Lieberman, a former cabinet minister, has political influence Mr. Olmert can't ignore. But the notion that he might be invited into cabinet is a dangerous one; not because of the ongoing police investigation into his personal finances, but because he is prepared to redraw the map of Israel itself, carving Arab-populated areas of the country and trading them to a future Palestinian state in return for some West Bank Jewish settlements. (There are more than one million Arab Israeli citizens who have lived in the country since its founding in 1948; they are close to 20 per cent of the population.)

Tough-talking and urbane, Mr. Lieberman immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet republic of Moldova and earned his political spurs as a liaison for former Likud prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the million-strong Russian Israeli community. In last month's election, as the Likud party reeled from defections to Mr. Olmert's Kadima party, Mr. Lieberman dealt it a fatal blow by drawing away many of the Russian-speaking voters, people who are tough on security but angry at Likud's drastic cuts to the social security net.

Now, Mr. Lieberman is the key political face of Russian-speaking Israelis — an essential constituency for Mr. Olmert's political future.

Like others in the Israeli secular and religious right, Mr. Lieberman now says that, for the sake of Israel's Jewish majority, he would be willing, in a negotiated settlement, to accept the idea of Israel withdrawing from Jewish West Bank settlements in areas heavily populated by Palestinians, as long as land swaps leave major settlement blocs in Israel's hands. But the problem is that Mr. Lieberman goes one insidious step further in pursuit of a solid Jewish majority for Israel's future.

His map of plan for "demographic borders" involves not just West Bank withdrawals but moving Arab citizens and their land from the Israeli side of the pre-June 1967 "green line" to the eventual Palestinian state. He didn't invent the idea (which has been raised periodically in the past and silenced), but he's taking the current Israeli consensus that wants separation from the Palestinians and pushing it to a dangerous new plateau.

Moderate Israelis who find the plan attractive because it involves territorial concessions in the West Bank overlook its implications for the country's democracy.

By drawing on two key planks of the Israeli Jewish psyche — the need to preserve a Jewish majority, and a pervasive mistrust of Arabs — Mr. Lieberman manifests what political scientist Yoram Peri describes as Israeli "post-territorial, ethno-nationalism" (a term first used to describe European nationalism that values ethnic affiliation over citizens hip defined by borders).

It's precisely the political strength of Mr. Lieberman that's forcing Israelis to confront the dilemma hidden just beneath the surface of daily life — the tension in Israel's dual self-definition as a political democracy (where belonging is defined by citizenship), and as an ethnic homeland (where preference is given to membership in the Jewish collective).

There's been some response. At the Knesset's opening session last week, President Moshe Katzav spoke against the idea of forcibly withdrawing citizenship on grounds of race, nationality or religion, and the respected Florsheim Institute quickly published a research monograph that discredited Mr. Lieberman's proposal on legal and demographic grounds.

The Labour Party wanted a commitment in the coalition agreement that "no Israeli citizen will lose citizenship in a future Israeli-Palestinian deal." Unfortunately, the party withdrew the demand in the last stages of negotiation.

Israel's Arab citizens have reason to fear the collateral damage in public attitudes and continued marginalisation. Arab parties hold 10 of 120 Knesset seats but, once again, are left out of government-building. Using national security as a pretext, no Israeli prime minister (with the short-lived exception of the late Yitzhak Rabin) has ever relied on them for a majority or included them in cabinet. Israeli coalition agreements are key to budget allocations, so Arab citizens have never received a proportional share of the public pie for infrastructure, education or social services.

To counter Mr. Lieberman's offensive ideas, Mr. Olmert's government needs to do more than say the right words — and can start by implementing unfulfilled commitments made by its predecessors to Arab communities. If he does, the Prime Minister will find support not just at home but in a key constituency abroad. At an unprecedented gathering in New York this week, leaders of major American Jewish organizations declared this very issue a priority. It's time to act.