I Hear Them Both Laugh

On and off for over a year now, our home on the outskirts of Jerusalem has been subject to extensive reconstruction. The kind that always leaves behind a little something that has not yet been completed and needs to be done.

The contractor, a blue-eyed, pure-bred Israeli, seems to have been involved in some pretty interesting stuff during his military service. One guy, a blond giant, came from the former Rhodesia. Another, a Greek, is here because he fell in love with an Israeli girl and wants to be converted so he can gain citizenship. An IT engineer by profession, he is doing this job until his papers come through. His name is Adonis. However, since “Adoni” in Hebrew means “Sir,” everyone calls him that.

The fourth member of the crew is a Palestinian Arab, let’s call him Ahmed. How often did all of us not share a simple lunch made up of Pita bread, humus, fried chips, an “Arab” vegetable salad, and a Coke! Here it is about Ahmed I want to write.

Ahmed is a big, white-bearded, very dignified, man perhaps fifty years of age. He always wears a white galabia and regularly says his prayers. By and by we learnt that he has five daughters, all of them married, and two young sons. He himself, he says, liked studying and used to be a good student; however his father pulled him out of school so he could help put bread on the family table. That is how he became a laborer, a fact he rather regrets. Unfortunately his teenage sons are more interested in living it up than in studying. They dress in fashionable shirts and jeans and go about with elaborate hairdos. However, he is confronting them and hopes that they will end up by attending a university, find good jobs, and won’t have to work as hard as he does.

The other day I happened to overhear a conversation he had with Dvora, my wife. Perhaps I should add that Dvora is the type who can make even a stone talk. A great gift, that.

Ahmed: I really do not understand why those people in Gaza are launching their rockets at Israel.

Dvora: I think it is because they have difficulty controlling their own population. They want to draw attention away from their own failures.
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Ahmed: I agree with you there. I think Netanyahu is a good prime minister and a good man. Look at how much Qatari money he got for Gaza! Yet they still go on shooting. It is all because of those bloody Iranians. They keep stirring the pot.

Dvora: I agree that Netanyahu is bright and even that he is a good prime minister. But not that he is a good man. His real problem is that he does not want a Palestinian State.

Ahmed: Me neither! Why? Because our leaders, unlike yours, steal whatever they can lay their hands on in order to feed their clans. And not just here in Palestine. That is how it works throughout the Arab world. That is why they always stay poor and exploited. Working for you, I feel respected. Back at home I have to pay baksheesh [a bribe]. Or else nothing happens. With you Jews things are different. Look at Netanyahu who has been buying himself cigars at the state’s expense and is now being put on trial. We Arabs do not have such laws.

Dvora: Before I was able to start rebuilding this house in which you have been working I had to obtain a zillion permits. One from the Department of Antiquities which had to confirm that the job would not disturb any archaeological remains. Next, the Israel Land Administration had to give its blessing. And the Firefighting Authority. And any number of other organizations. And our neighbors. And the engineer and the architect and safety expert I was obliged to hire. About the only people whose consent I did not need were the rabbis! All this, simply to add an elevator that would enable me, an elderly woman who has some difficulty walking, to reach each of our three floors (the cellar included) as well as the street. Never mind that the company that built and installed the elevator already has all the necessary permits to go on with the job. Regulations must be obeyed. Just getting everyone to sign took me eighteen months. To say nothing of the sum I had to pay, which might well be larger than your bribe. This is just the way a modern state operates. Everyone controls and supervises everyone else. Cover your ass, is what we call it.

Ahmed: Really? You don’t say! With us, as soon as you have paid your baksheesh you can start building. No one cares.

I hear them both laugh.

Happy Birthday, Israel

A year ago at this time of the year, I posted an article arguing that Israel has been the most successful political creation of the entire twentieth century. Demographically, economically, politically, militarily, scientifically, culturally—no other country started from so little and no other achieved so much in such a short time. Let me remind readers that, a hundred something years ago, even the language—Hebrew—was moribund. Used almost exclusively for prayer, it had to be rebuilt almost from the beginning. Today, to celebrate my country’s 68th birthday, I want to focus on a particularly touchy question: namely, the place occupied by, and the feelings of, Israel’s 1,300,000 strong Arab community.

The research was done by Prof. Sami Samocha, a professor of sociology at the University of Haifa. He has been monitorings_a relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel for 35 years, no less. Thanks also to my colleague, Prof. Alex Yakobson, who drew my attention to Samocha’s work.

The following information pertains to the year 2015. It presents, in somewhat simplified form, the responses to 19 out of 178 questions Samocha asked Arab-Israeli citizens. Needless to say, the questionnaires were anonymous.

Bad news first:

61.1 percent strongly oppose or oppose their children attending Jewish schools, whereas only 38.4 percent would strongly like or like them to do so (0.5 percent did not answer this question; since the number of non-respondents to this and the remaining questions is very small, in what follows I did not bother to mention them). 67.9 percent greatly fear or fear serious infractions of their civil rights, whereas only 31.6 percent are very certain or certain that will not happen. 56.5 percent greatly fear or fear they may one day be “ethnically cleansed,” whereas only 44.8 percent do not fear such a possibility or do not fear it at all. 32.2 percent strongly believe or believe in the government, whereas 67.8 percent disagree or strongly disagree.

And now, to the good news:

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76.1 percent of Arab Israelis strongly agree or agree that Arabs and Jews should work together in common organizations, against only 22.6 who either disagree or strongly disagree. Working side by side with Jews, 65.8 percent feel completely at ease or at ease versus only 26.6 percent who disagree or strongly disagree. Visiting a shopping center also frequented by Jews, 58.8 percent feel either completely at ease or at ease whereas only 31.11 disagree or strongly disagree. 53.6 percent strongly agree or agree that Palestine is the common homeland of both peoples, whereas only 45.6 percent strongly disagree or disagree. 66 percent strongly agree or agree that Israel is a good place to live, whereas only 35.8 percent disagree or strongly disagree. 59 percent strongly prefer or prefer living in Israel than in any other country in the world, whereas only 40.8 percent strongly disagree or disagree.

75 percent are quite ready, or ready, to have Jewish friends whereas only 24.3 percent reject, or strongly reject, that possibility. 52.3 percent strongly believe, or believe, that Jews have many positive qualities Arabs should adopt whereas only 35.5 percent disagree or strongly disagree. 58.1 percent strongly believe, or believe, that Arab Israelis resemble Jewish Israelis more than they do Palestinians in the west Bank and the Gaza Strip, whereas only 41.2 percent disagree or strongly disagree. 27.5 percent would be very ready or ready to live in a Palestinian State, whereas 72.4 percent would either reject or strongly reject such a possibility. 65.8 percent strongly hold or hold that Israel has a right to exist, whereas only 33.8 percent disagree or strongly disagree.

Finally, 89.4 percent say either that, as Arabs, they had never been threatened or hit by Jews, or else that this had only happened once or twice. Only 10.3 say that this had happened to them more often. 77 percent say either that being Arab never made them feel discriminated against or that this only happened once or twice; whereas only 22.5 percent said that they had felt so more often than this.

Let me end this with two anecdotes. My oldest son lives in northern Israel in a town called Carmiel. Nearby is Dabach, known after the head of the family tribe, a big man whom I last saw while he was snoring peacefully away in his office. The complex includes a supermarket, several shops, a restaurant, and a large parking lot. Currently the family is busy building a second complex in Haifa. Since prices are low, Dabach is frequented by both Arabs and Jews, me—when I get there—included. Never in any of my visits did I witness any problems between Arabs and Jews.

The second anecdote goes as follows. The other day I was listening on the radio to the mayor of Umm el Fahem, an Arab-Israeli town of over 50,000 inhabitants adjacent to the northern part of the West Bank. The interviewer asked him about the possibility that, in some eventual peace agreement, the border would be moved slightly to the west so that he and his people would live in a Palestinian State. In response, the man almost got a stroke. With good, reason, too. Given that Arab-Israeli per capita GDP is more than ten times higher than that of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and given also the truly terrible things that are currently happening in Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, the Sudan, and the Sinai.

So have a happy birthday Israel. To expect Arab Israelis to wax enthusiastic about that birthday, let alone celebrate it, would be too much. I do, however, hope that as many of them as possible will make use of it to have a merry day off.