THE SHIN BET IS IN OUR BEDS The time has come to recognize that depriving Palestinian Arabs is the flip side of giving preferential treatment to Jews in Israel. When the State of Israel’s goal is to “redeem” the nationally-owned land in the Galilee, there is no alternative but to treat the mayor of Sakhnin’s request to expand his city’s limits as a malicious plan to undermine the country’s existence, no matter that all the man wanted was to make life better for his city’s residents. ... The Palestinian Arabs themselves are supposed to accept the discrimination as a kind of background item in a country not meant for them. If we look closely at the accomplishments made in the country, we will see that they are fragmented and not continuous: the freeing up of a few dunams here, a production facility there. And that is why development in the Arab sector looks like patches on a garment that is threadbare and falling apart. ... It is not only the establishment that opposes the Palestinian Arabs. Public opinion is also hostile to their struggle − so much so that the Palestinian Arabs say to themselves: All right then, let’s resign ourselves to the discrimination, since discrimination is more merciful than the flood of incitement we will get if we fight it. On Land Day in 1976 the Palestinian Arabs came out to demonstrate against the massive wave of land expropriations. The Israeli government suppressed the protest brutally, and six young men were killed. This was portrayed as though the Palestinian Arabs had undermined the country’s existence. “Welcome to the Jewish Knesset,” the prime minister said to his British guest last week. Well, today it’s the “Jewish Knesset,” tomorrow it will be the “Jewish Negev” and later on it will be the “Jewish Galilee” − until it becomes the “Jewish Greater Israel.” But don’t worry: the Arabs are here, among other things, to save the Jews from their own crazies. - Oudeh Bisharat was born in 1958 to a family originally from Maalul, a Palestinian village destroyed by the Zionist Jews in 1948, and now lives in Yafiah, in the Galilee, with his wife and three children. His novel, The Streets of Zatunia, sends up Palestinian-Arab politics in Israel. haaretz/opinion/.premium-1.580744
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 04:14:12 +0000
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