Israeli Druze briefs local leaders on Israel's 'neglect' of minorities

New Jersey Jewish News
May 10, 2007
By ROBERT WIENER

Hamodie Abu Nadda, a member of Israel's Druze community and an Arab affairs analyst at the Anti-Defamation League's office in Jerusalem, calls himself a "second-class citizen."

"The Druze are very loyal to the State of Israel but we do have problems of equality," he said in a blunt presentation to Jewish leaders in Whippany. "We feel the state has neglected us as a minority. We paid a high price for being citizens. We shed blood together. But in some ways, the State of Israel has forsaken us."

Abu Nadda, a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces, spoke May 7 at a lunchtime meeting of the Community Relations Committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

His appearance at the Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus was arranged through a multi-agency Jewish task force on Israeli Arab issues to generate awareness among North American Jews and Israelis about efforts to advance civic equality in Israel.

Although "things have been changing for the past two years," said Abu Nadda, who was decorated for service in last summer's war in Lebanon, "we are a long way from achieving equality, and that is a problem for my community."

He was accompanied by Jessica Balaban, director of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues which is housed American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Her New York-based task force is composed of 66 Jewish organizations, including UJC MetroWest NJ. UJC MetroWest has also dispatched funds to a Druze community that was affected by the war in Lebanon.

As a key member of the task force steering committee, the ADL's Jerusalem office "is onto the problem," said Abu Nadda.

For the past 18 months, Abu Nadda has worked as a translator of Arabic media, looking for "anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, and racist comments." He is also helping to develop education programs with Beduin and Arab schools to combat anti-Semitism.

When he left his Druze hometown of Yarka and moved to Jerusalem, Abu Nadda said, he had no problem living alongside Jewish Israelis, but "sometimes you get an ad in Israeli papers saying not to rent apartments to non-Jews. You get that in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. That's a problem. It is uncomfortable to live in a place where they don't respect you. It doesn't matter whether they are Jews or Arabs. We are an outsider."

Despite generations of tension between the Druze and Israeli-Arab communities, Abu Nadda foresees closer ties ahead.

"It is always easy to look at the bad things, but there is some hope," he said. "There are a lot of Arab writers who say the Arab world should change and normalize its ties with Israel because they say Israel is not the core of their problems. The core is in their homes and their education, and you cannot blame the Israelis or the Jews or the world conspiracy for everything that is happening in the Arab world."

He said Druze and Israeli Arabs "have common issues to face. We are in the same boat as them but we are in First Class, and they are not."

Yet he remains optimistic that Druze, Muslims, and Christians will some day achieve full equality in Israel.

"There is hope. Seventy-five percent of the Arab minority believe and accept Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. They don't want to be part of Palestine," he said. "Being an Arab in Israel, even if you're a second-class citizen, it doesn't mean you will turn to Hamas or al Qaida. In the Palestinian territories that's a different thing. But if you give the Arab minorities in Israel their social rights, their rhetoric will change."

UJC MetroWest NJ's CRC sponsored the presentation "as part of its efforts to learn from different segments of Israeli society and to partner with the Inter-Agency Task Force. Recently," according to Lori Price Abrams, CRC director. "There have been many members of our community who have approached me about co-existence initiatives in Israel. This was a good place to pick up the conversation," she said.