Integration is not racism
Internal Security Minister-designate Gideon Ezra's long years in the Shin Bet security services, in which he rose to become deputy chief of the service before shifting to a political career, did not equip him with a politically correct diplomatic tongue. But some things he says make sense.
Despite the automatic wails of "anti-Arab racism," his suggestion in the wake of last week's murderous terrorist attack on two civilian buses in Beersheba – that use be made of Beduin as bus guards because, unlike Jews, they can "smell out" the difference between local Jews and Arabs and infiltrating Palestinians – should very definitely be given a serious trial.
It's not that Beduin have special genes that give them extra-sensitive, X-ray eyes. That could indeed be interpreted as a racist argument. But there's no denying that their cultural upbringing as Beduin, both in the Negev and throughout Galilee, have equipped them with sensitivities that make them invaluable in the 37-year-old fight against Palestinian infiltration and, more specifically, against the suicide bombings of the past four years.
Hiring and training hundreds of Beduin anti-terrorism bus guards is not necessarily a sure-fire solution; but it is definitely worth a try. And if it works in Beersheba it could be extended to the rest of the country.
One of the beneficial spin-offs of such a policy could be a turnaround of the dangerous anti-Israeli trends in the Beduin sector.
Beduin who sociologically used to be the most backward of Israel's Arab minorities were also for long the most loyal to Israel. But that situation was taken for granted by a long line of both Likud and Labor governments, which refused to reward such behavior, and so the virulently anti-Israel Islamic Movement was able to make serious inroads into the Beduin sector.
It is not too late to reverse that trend and single out the Muslim Beduin for special affirmative treatment while clamping down on other dangerous trends such as polygamic marriages by some of their newly-affluent men with Palestinian women from the Gaza Strip.
Institutions such as Ben-Gurion University and Sapir College in Ofakim have done wonderful work in attracting and encouraging Beduin students – especially young women – but that is not enough. Affirmative action on the part of government institutions must be quick and visible to be effective.
A reversal of policy toward the Beduin must be part of coming to grips with the much more difficult situation vis-a-vis the rest of the Arab population. It is no secret that the cause of improving Arab-Jewish relations and of according greater equality has been set back, by at least a generation, by the violent disturbances that swept the Arab sector four years ago.
The main blame for that breakdown lies with an Israeli Arab political leadership which has chosen to identify itself openly with Israel's Palestinian enemies – and even with suicide bombers – at the expense of the cause of achieving equality in a Jewish Israel.
But the Jewish leadership is also responsible for failing to encourage natural Arab integration, and, worse, continuing to ignore the entire issue.
However, there are natural expressions of a popular Arab desire for such integration out of a lively sense of self-interest. Thus it was heartening to read of the opening of a Jewish-Arab school in the Arab town of Kafr Kar'a in Wadi Ara. It is the third such school of the "Bridge over the Wadi" movement, the others being in Jerusalem and in the Misgav district in Central Galilee.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Education and its district supervisor in Haifa have gone out of their way to torpedo attempts to integrate Arab pupils into Jewish schools in their own neighborhoods in Haifa.
That initiative was at the behest of Arab parents who insisted on taking their children out of the specifically-designated Al Watanabe Arab middle school and placing them in Jewish schools near their homes. They said they were motivated by their desire to give their children the best education available in a Jewish state.
If there is anything "racist" in the whole story it is the ministry's adamant opposition, both as an expression of bureaucratic obtuseness and, I would more than suspect, of a continuing "minority mentality" among the Jewish majority in Israel. This mentality seeks to perpetuate our pre-state demands for Jewish educational autonomy in East Europe as opposed to support for the integration of our own minorities.
In hindsight, one of our biggest mistakes in the immediate aftermath of Israel's independence was failing to insist on the integration of all young Arabs who wanted a secondary education into our own Hebrew school system. At the time it would have been relatively easy since over 90 percent of the Arabs remaining in Israel were still illiterate.
The writer is a retired lecturer in political science and a veteran journalist.
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