H.E. Dr. Marwan Muasher
Ambassador of Jordan to the U.S. & Mexico
"The Arabs of
Israel are Proud of their Arab Identity
and Should be Welcomed by
Arab World"
Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine
August 12, 1997
Jordan's Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Marwan Jamil Muasher, has been a leading figure in the Arab-Israeli peace process. Prior to his current appointment, he was [Information Minister under Former Prime Minister Abdul Karim Kabarity] and his country's ambassador to Israel. Prior to that, he served as a member of the Jordanian delegation to the Middle East peace talks. On August 12, Dr. Muasher spoke at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine about his experiences with the Arabs living in Israel proper. The following are his remarks:
The subject that I would like to talk about is one that is almost considered taboo, both by the Arab world and by Israel. It is a subject that few have ventured to discuss because of the sensitivity of the issue. My talk will concentrate really on personal impressions that I had during my stay in Israel...I want to give as much of a person impression as I can about a group of people whom I believe have been mistreated both in the Arab world and in Israel.
There were two groups which welcomed me very warmly when I arrived in Israel two years ago. Although the first one was understandable to me, I did not, at first, understand the reaction of the other group. The first group, the Jewish Israeli, acted very predictably, I think. The Israeli- Jordanian peace treaty promised to the average Israeli a chance to be a member of the neighborhood for the first time in fifty years. It did not promise just an end to the state of war, but it promised normal relations and cooperation in all fields. As such, it was very predictable that the average Israeli acted very warmly, almost with a sense of euphoria to the signing of the treaty and to the establishing of normal relations.
But the second group, the Arabs of Israel, not just warmly welcomed me, but embraced me. Before I even set foot in Israel, I received boxes and letters from them while I was still in Amman. Once I arrived in Israel, large delegations would come to the embassy almost daily. Even when we were in a hotel and had very modest offices, 30-40 people would come at a time with gifts, offering invitations to come visit their villages, etc. It was very overwhelming to me at first, and not very understandable. These were people who had been shunned by Israel and by the Arab world for fifty years. To the Israelis they were second-class citizens, suspects, not to be trusted for fifty years, I think they felt vindicated, they felt, finally there was a country which could fulfill their desire for reestablishing cultural ties with the Arab wold (Jordan more so than Egypt, mind you, because they have a lot of relatives in Jordan and they have more of an affinity with the culture of Jordan).
I felt in a lot of ways that I was not just Jordan's Ambassador to Israel, but I was their own ambassador to the Arab world. The Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty was for them a way to regain and reestablish contacts to the Arab world which they were denied for the last fifty years.
My first feeling after that, to be frank, was one of embarrassment, actually sometimes even shame. I quickly discovered that these people had stood fast for fifty years and kept their culture even though they were denied an Arab education at an Arab university, and acceptance in Hebrew university was, of course, very limited to them. And they could not simply go to any other Arab university. Their culture and bridges with the Arab world had been totally cut, and yet, they stood fast. What they got in return is that the Arab world called them and treated them as traitors. It was the most convoluted logic that I ever ran across and I honestly even felt ashamed meeting with these people at first and seeing how they were able to persevere despite severe odds.
In 1948, there were about 700,000 Arabs who lived in Palestine. 550,000 of them left. Which means that the 150-160 thousand who did remain, were people with no political leadership, no economic leadership, no cultural leadership. They were left to start from scratch . They lived under 18 years of military curfew, their civil liberties were largely curtailed for a long time. They were denied, as I said, education, particularly by the Arab world, by Israel certainly. And yet, they made it. They did not only survive, but are thriving now. And you can tell their thirst for education, their respect for any Arab person who is educated because they feel they were denied an education for such a long time.
They do not like to be referred to as "Israeli Arabs" or "Arab Israelis" or "48 Arabs". The term "48 Arabs" is very insulting to them because they were Arabs long before 1948. According to a poll published by the Tel Aviv Dyan Center, most of them call themselves either "Arabs living in Israel" or Palestinian Arabs living in Israel" or "Palestinians in Israel" and that is the way they identify themselves. Most live in the hinterlands where there are no Jewish Israelis living in their midst or in their towns, although there are, of course, sometimes Israelis living in areas around them. If you go to the coastal areas, such as Jaffa or Haifa or Acre, their number is no more than 15%, and actually, in many cases, these are not the original inhabitants, these are people who moved in after 1948. But if you go into Galilee, in particular, into the various towns, it is very difficult to differentiate any of these cities from any village elsewhere in the Arab world...
There are today 70 villages officially recognized by Israel as Arabs. This information is a year and a half old--I don't know if they have since acknowledged other villages because the Arabs there continuously lobby the government. When I say "Arab Village" I mean that they are run by an Arab council. Seven are cities, and 63 are villages. Of course, none of the coastal cities, none of what we know as the main Palestinian cities before 1948 are part of these, because, I as I said, the Arab population is less than 15%. The largest Arab city today is Nazareth, which has a population of about 60,000.
Because the Arabs could not be involved in national politics for a long time--both because they were denied the opportunity and because they sometimes did not wish to participate, these city councils became very important to them because it was their only form of representation--the only expression of their rights. And therefore the mayors of these various cities assumed increased importance because there were the only people elected by Arabs living there. In fact, Ibrahim Nemrasain, who has been the chairman of these villages for the last 20 years, although a simple village man, is regarded by the Arabs probably as the "Godfather" of all Arab elected officials, and he is a very important figure in Arab politics in Israel today.
The Arabs in Israel have two main concerns, and this is something that came as a bit of surprise to me--I had always though that their number one concern would be the peace process and achieving a settlement between Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinians in particular. But this is not so. The peace process is only one of the concerns of the Arabs there. The other main concern, equally, if not more, important, is their civil liberties--equality within the Israeli society.
The issue is very important to them. I think there are very few people who would argue that the Arabs do not have equal rights in Israel. But the question of equality is so important to the Arabs living in Israel that their voting patterns in national politics reflect that. In other words, whereas one would expect that the Arabs would vote almost exclusively either for left-leaning Israeli parties or Arab parties in Israel, this is not always so. Although most of them do vote for left-leaning Israelis, there are always a number that vote for the Likud or for religious parties, even, sometimes, for parties that call for the expulsion of Arabs, because these parties would promise them certain services that other parties did not. If I have my numbers right, in the 1992 election, for example, half of the Arabs who voted, voted for Jewish Israeli parties, and half of them voted for what I would identify as Arab parties...As a result of all this, in 1992, there were eight Arab members in the Israeli Knesset--4 from Hadash and the Arab democratic party, 2 from Labor, 1 Merex and 1 from the Likud.
I mentioned these numbers to point out that the Arabs in Israel are becoming an increasing power in Israeli politics...But there is no question that their numbers are increasing in the Knesset and they are becoming to reckon with. For example, in 1996, eleven Arabs were elected to the Knesset. More importantly, eight Arab members were elected from Arab parties (Hadash and ADP--I consider Hadash an Arab party because most of its members are Arab).
Also, a very important statistic is that whereas in 1992 only 69% of Arabs participated in the elections (as opposed to 80% of the Jewish voters), in 1996, 81% of Arabs participated. Part of that is because the Islamic movement in Israel decided to participate in the elections--a new development which was not the case until 1996. So for the first time, the Arabs and the Jews have comparable participation percentages in the Knesset.
Of the 81% who participated, 94% voted for Mr. Peres. Now, again, the Arabs in Israel are accused by a lot of people of bringing Mr. Netanyahu to power because they did not vote for Mr. Peres--yet it is difficult to expect more than 94% voting for one candidate! So I don't agree with that analysis. Of course, he would be in power, but that's something that you cannot expect.
Of more significance to me if the evolution of the Islamic movement in Israel. This is one of the very few cases of an Islamic political movement in a non-Islamic society...For the longest time (until 1996, in fact), the Islamic movement took the decision not to participate in national politics although they regard themselves as citizens of Israel and do not contest that state as such. But they always felt that their presence in the Knesset would be counterproductive, that to compromise their needs, their views, by being in the Knesset would actually result in losing votes instead of winning votes. As a result, they concentrated on municipal elections. And, in fact, they did a very good job at it. Any Israeli government would tell you that some of the best - run municipalities are those run by Islamic movements in Israel.
Prior to the 1996 election, there was a big debate within this movement, because of the Oslo process, mainly, of whether to participate in the national elections or not. The debate was led on the moderate count by Abdullah Demra Darwish, who is the nominal leader of the movement, and is a communist-learned Islamic person, very wise, very intelligent, very interesting to talk to, very organized, and with very clear views on the where he wants to lead the movement. His faction argued for participation stating that time had come when the Islamic movement should be in the Knesset and should advocate policies reflecting its views.
The other faction was represented by the Mayor of Um al-Fahim, sheikh Ra'ed Salah, who took a hard-line view and argued against participation for the reasons that I outlined above. The two did not agree, and so the movement had a split. Part of the movement participated in the elections in a unified front with the Arab Democratic Party, and as a result were able to have 4 members of the Knesset - 2 from the ADP and 2 from the Islamic movement. For the first time in Israeli history there is someone in the Knesset with a clearly Islamic agenda...
I developed very good relations with all of these peoples. The ones who were the warmest in the beginning were certainly the municipal councils, the villages, the non-politicized people who viewed Jordan as a bridge to the Arab world...
It has been 18 months since I left Israel. My experience with these people has been that they are, in my opinion, more Arab than most. They are hard working, self-made, survivors, true to their lines and culture. In fact, every time an Arab or a Jordanian, whether official or otherwise, refuses to deal with them or calls them traitors, I feel a personal insult. The way the Arab world has treated them is, in my opinion, no less than a crime, and I am very undiplomatic about it. They are proud to be Arabs and I think that the Arab world should be equally proud to regard them as Arabs.