Israeli Arabs deserve better

[bemildred]

The announcement that the Israeli Arab leadership is calling for a general strike next month demonstrates the further deterioration of relations between the authorities and the beleaguered Arab citizens of the state. The 1.3 million Arabs living within Israel's borders have never had the most cordial of relationships with the country's rulers, and in the wake of the hard-right coalition's election victory the gulf has grown even wider – culminating in the symbolic protest set for 1 October.

The date chosen is no accident: it marks nine years to the day since 13 Israeli Arab demonstrators were shot dead by Israeli police during a previous general strike – a set of killings that left societal scars that remain unhealed almost a decade later. The government's latest set of proposals – such as the plan to ban the word "nakba" from school textbooks, and to link schools' funding to their success rate in sending students to enlist in the army – have rubbed salt into wounds that continue to fester throughout the Arab community, culminating in the decision to down tools and speak out against their treatment.

The sense of disenfranchisement felt by the Israeli Arab minority is, according to academic Bernard Avishai, a problem too serious to be swept under the carpet by Israel's leaders. Action must be taken, he urged, "to prevent a terrible intifada", fearing a mass explosion of tension that will dwarf anything that's gone on "in Gaza and the West Bank".

"Israeli Arabs live in townships on the edge of Israeli cities; their intellectual elite go to Israeli universities and assimilate, while those not in those circles join drug gangs and jihadist cults." He said that the Israeli Arab community expects to be treated as "full citizens of this country, nothing less" and unless this happens, tensions will spill over onto the streets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/14/israeli-arabs-general-strike