Posted on 09/11/2003 6:21:01 PM PDT by yonif
The following appeared this week in the Palestinian daily Al Hayat al-Jadida: "The teacher wondered how any geography teacher in the Arab schools could convince his students that "Safad" [in Arabic] was changed to "Zefat" [Hebrew] and that Sefuriya [Arabic] had suddenly became "Zipori" [Hebrew].
"He expressed the opinion that the students would rip up these maps and the teacher who would accept them would be considered a traitor... He was reminded of [a recent] distribution of Israeli flags... the students ripped them to pieces and threw them in the garbage...."
These words wouldn't surprise if they were attributed to a teacher in the Palestinian Authority school system. However the person quoted is an Israeli Arab teacher on salary from the Ministry of Education. The children ripping up Israeli flags are Israeli Arabs.
With the media focus on the Or Commission's criticism of the Israel Police during the Israeli Arab riots, it is virtually forgotten why the police were shooting.
It was October 2000. The Palestinian Authority had started a war against Israel. Two days into the war thousands of Israeli Arabs throughout Galilee joined the battle on the side of Israel's enemies, supported vocally by their leaders and passively by the general population.
They threw stones, firebombs, burned tires, killed an Israeli Jew and injured many others, and closed down the main roads of the North for days.
Israel, it seems, has lost the allegiance of 20 percent of its citizens, who in time of war side with the enemy. How did this happen?
While there are many contributing factors, there is ample evidence that this transfer of allegiance was a primary goal of the Palestinian Authority long before the start of the October 2000 war.
The PA implemented a systematic and determined policy toward Israel's Arabs, especially the youth, targeting them continuously with the message that their identity and allegiance should be with the PA alone. At the PA's initiative, there was a never-ending series of PA-Israeli Arab educational, sporting, and cultural events. The message - explicit and implicit - was one of joint history, culture, and destiny.
When the PA decided to have a "Miss Palestine" contest in 1999, it included Israeli Arabs girls. Moreover, the PA made sure that six out of the 10 finalists, and the winner, were all Israeli Arabs. When the PA set up a national soccer team the coach was an Israeli Arab from Nazareth.
There are numerous organizations and programs in the PA whose sole purpose is to promote this involvement and identity. These include: Committee for Relations with 1948, Children without Borders, Contacts between the members of a United People, Relations without Borders - all of whose activities are aimed, according to the PA daily: "to increase the contact and affinity between the members of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, the inside [Israel] and the Gaza Strip. (Al-Kuds, May 24, 1999).
ARAFAT'S OFFICE has a special unit, the Committee for Contacts with the Residents of Occupied Palestine. Terms like "Inside Arabs" and the "Residents of Occupied Palestine" are all PA euphemisms for Israeli Arabs.
The PA has denied the possibility of the existence of an Israeli Arab identity, writing in one 1999 editorial: "How can the executioner and the victim be one?" (Al-Hayat al-Jadida August 18, 1999.
The PA has been careful to send representatives to events internal to Israeli Arabs. Numerous graduation ceremonies in Jerusalem and the Galilee had no representative from the Ministry of Education - but did have a PA representative. For instance, Al-Hayat al-Jadida of May 25 1999 reported: "A year end ceremony in a Jerusalem school was held in the presence of the PA Ministry of Education representative, and the Palestinian national anthem was sounded."
Such gestures were actively supported by Arab leaders like MK Azmi Bishara, who marched with Israeli Arab youth waving PA flags. Bishara explained that were the young people to lose their Palestinian identity all that would remain would be family and tribal ties.
"The blue [Israeli ID ] card card you have in your pocket is not an identity card; it is a residence card."
The PA initiated the process of "de-Israelizing" of Israel's Arabs, and found in them willing partners. It happened openly, under the eyes of the government, which did nothing to try to win the allegiance of its citizens.
Today's Israeli Arab attitude might be summed up by the following description, which ran in the April 20, 1999 edition of Al Quds: "[Israel] is not their state, its interests are not their interests, its symbols are not their symbols, its policy is not their policy."
Tragically, even if this does not accurately reflect Israeli Arabs today, it may well in the not too distant future.
The writer is director of Palestinian Media Watch (http://www.pmw.org.il).
Good point WOSG. In some cases they were propagandized; in other cases, they were run out of both the disputed territories and of Israel proper by the assertions of the Islamists.
As yonif has pointed out elsewhere, this is the third bomb poised to destroy Israel. Perhaps the young Israeli Arabs could be sent on scholarships to Europe, where they would be feted and made to feel at home.
It seems that Israel should bring back the death penalty for treason. The legislation should also provide for expulsion and revocation of citizenship for the immediate family of anyone convicted of treason.
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