[Peace-discuss] Racism in Israel

[David Green]

Racism in Israel

Savitri Groag, The Electronic Intifada, 18 December
2005

Susan Nathan is a Jewish woman, raised in England. Her
father is South African. About six years ago she moved
to Tel Aviv. Soon she did not feel comfortable there
living within the racist system of the Israeli
government, so she decided to move to Tamra, a
Palestinian village in Israel. From her insider's
position in the Palestinian community in Israel she
describes in her book "The other side of Israel" the
different shapes of discrimination that the
Palestinian minority in Israel meet daily. "There is a
much international attention for Gaza and the West
Bank. But about the internal discrimination of
Palestinians in Israel nobody speaks. That's why I
wrote this book, I am the bridge between the Jewish
and Arab world", says Susan Nathan. In October this
year she visited Belgium and Holland to promote her
book.

QUESTION: What was your motivation to move from
England to Israel in the first place?

SUSAN NATHANI made the decision already when I was
about twelve years old. I was raised very Zionist and
knew from childhood on that I should go to Israel. In
England I felt that I belonged to a minority. I had to
go to church, always had to explain the meaning and
origin of my Jewish name (Levy). I constantly felt
that I was different. That's why I developed my
Zionist ideology. Many Jews that made aliyah
(emigration to Israel) do not speak about the enormous
feeling of power this gives to them. The Jews move
from a position in a minority group in the diaspora to
a country that is designed according especially to
their wishes. In Israel there are national holidays,
Jews do not need to adapt. The Jews who make aliyah
feel like defying the world that used to pursue them.

QUESTION: And why did you decide to move to Tamra, a
Palestinian village in Israel?

SUSAN NATHAN: When the intifada started the Jews
pointed to the Palestinians: "Look, they disturb our
peaceful coexistence. They behave like barbarians". I
felt unrest appearing in my quiet middle class soap
bubble in which I lived in Tel Aviv. I wanted to
investigate if the media was true in its reporting. I
work with an NGO called "Mahapach", which means
revolution. This NGO aims at supporting poorer
communities of Arab and Mizrachi (Arab Jews) origin
within Israel. I was asked to support the Arab
communities.

When I arrived at first in Tamra, I understood within
10 minutes that the situation here was comparable to
the situation I knew from South Africa. At that moment
I could not return to my normal life in Tel Aviv,
pretending that nothing was happening. I had to speak
out about manipulation of reality by the media
propaganda machine.

QUESTION: What is your book about?

SUSAN NATHAN: My book is about the status of the
Palestinian minority living in Israel. Palestinians in
Israel are being discriminated in their lives on every
level. The worst form of discrimination is comes from
land allocation. 94 per cent of the land in Israel is
in the hands of the JNF (Jewish National Fund). This
land can be used by Jews from all over the world.
Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20 per cent of the
Israeli population, are destined to their ghettos.
Thus the Israeli state sends a constant message for
Arabs to leave Israel. For me it should not be a
solution if the Palestinians should obtain more land.
I'd rather have the Jewish and Palestinian community
mingle. One state for all inhabitants. That
unavoidably means the end of the Jewish state.

QUESTION: What other ways of discrimination of
Palestinians in Israel do exist?

SUSAN NATHAN: In all layers of society life
Palestinians are being discriminated against, from
education and employment to land allocation and
community subsidy. Illegal houses (built because
Palestinians in Israel could not obtain building
permits, where Jews from all over the world could) are
being demolished. In the meantime Israel is building
settlements in the West Bank illegally.

Also, in education there is discrimination. Arab
schools get fewer subsidies. For instance, books and
computers are not paid for. Schools are located in bad
buildings, without heating or air conditioning. Also,
Palestinian teachers are screened before they are
allowed to teach. They are not allowed to have too
much political interest or to teach about the
Palestinian history or the Naqba (the catastrophe for
the Palestinians due to the foundation of the state of
Israel in 1948). Palestinian history is being denied.
In the meantime complete museums about Jewish history
have been established.

It is rejected to establish a Palestinian university
in Israel. The racist system is being disguised by the
fact that Israel lacks a constitution. If a
constitution should be recognised internationally the
principle of equality should be part of it. Then
Israeli Arabs should have a ground to fight their
inequality. The system of laws in Israel in itself is
a way of discrimination, because many laws are valid
only if you have served in the Israeli army, which
only Jews are entitled to [do].

There are many other ways of discrimination.
Palestinian villages, for instance, are not in
computer databases; at the airport Palestinians with
Israeli citizenship are questioned and searched
thoroughly and eventually cannot pass. Jews do not
want to know about discrimination, they don't want to
see it. So Palestinians in Israel live separately,
invisible for Jews.

QUESTION: What is the role of the international
community to improve the situation of Palestinians in
Israel?

SUSAN NATHAN: With their hearts Europeans support the
Palestinians. But they act too cowardly against
Israel. This mainly is the result of the feeling of
guilt Europe has, because of their poor actions
against the Holocaust. I am disappointed of the lack
of intervention from the side of Europe. But in the
meantime I think that it is the responsibility of us
Jews to change that situation. Jews from the diaspora
should come to Israel and inform themselves about the
situation of discrimination.

QUESTION: And what can Jews in the diaspora do?

SUSAN NATHAN: Jewish communities worldwide yearly
donate millions of dollars to support Israel. They do
so because they believe that Jews are victims and
therefore need to be supported. What they do not
understand is that they support the dangerous plans of
the Israeli government simultaneously. If they should
know what their support actually does mean, they'd
abhor it. Their safe homeland exists at the cost of
another ethnic group. This goes against all lessons of
Judaism. Luckily the Jewish communities in the
diaspora are behind; the right of return for Jews, for
instance, is on the political agenda in the Knesset
already.

QUESTION: Your book is not about the occupation, the
wall and the colonists, but about the situation within
Israel in particular. Does the Israeli population know
of the racist system they are living in?

SUSAN NATHAN: They don't want to know. It is so much
easier to be against the occupation than against
something that is at stake in their own society. That
would mean that they should change their lives to
change this system.

QUESTION: How important is education if we want to
change the racist system?

SUSAN NATHAN: Together with Ilan Pappe I founded a new
NGO, aiming at including the Naqba in the curriculum
of regular education. Things can only change if we
Jews understand that the history of the Palestinians
also means our own history. Likewise, our history of
banning and expulsion is also their history.

QUESTION: Do you think the situation will change
eventually?

SUSAN NATHAN: For sure. The number of Palestinians in
Israel is increasing. The new generation is positioned
further away from the suffering of their parents and
is better educated. They will not accept what their
parents did accept. The inequality will explode
eventually and result in another intifada.

Young Israeli Jews become aware more and more of the
situation. Young people tell me: "You draw attention
to topics which we were vaguely aware of, but which
were never quite clear to us. Although we knew that it
exists, we did not know how the discrimination works."

Also the economic position of Israel is weakening.
Many Mizrachi Jews experience that they also are being
discriminated by their own Jewish state. At a certain
moment all groups with feelings of unrest within civil
society will unite. It is only a matter of time.

This interview was first published in 'De Brug' a
magazine published by SIVMO -- a Dutch organization
that supports Israeli human rights and peace
organizations. SIVMO can be contacted at
sivmo at xs4all.nl or at the following address. This
interview was reprinted with permission. Laurens den
Dulk helped with translation, and Amal Awad helped
with editing of this interview. To order Susan
Nathan's book The Other Side of Israel click here.



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