Israel is a complicated place. Relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel are complicated. Thus, understanding these relations could be tricky. And two events of the last 48 hours could serve as a fantastic example of this trickiness.
On the one hand, Israel just decided to bolster its budgetary investment in the Israeli Arab sector in an unprecedented way. Imagine that: even Ayman Odeh, the head of the Arab Party, complimented the government – the rightwing Netanyahu government – for this new plan that adds 15 billion to this population's share of the pie.
On the other hand, Israel's Education Ministry just decided to disqualify a novel from being included in school curriculums because of its theme: a love story between a Jew and an Arab. A story that – according to the Education Ministry – “threatens the separate identity” of Jews and Arabs.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel are complicated.
On the one hand, there is the genuine desire of both sides to share this place peacefully and have a state in which Jews and Arabs feel as comfortable as possible. A Jewish State – that is what Israel's majority wants. But also a state that treats all citizens equally, and gives all children the opportunity to excel and succeed. The Israeli government of rightwing parties invested in the Arab sector not because of sectorial, political, interests. The Likud Party will not suddenly become the party of choice for Arab Israelis. It invested in the Arab sector because of the realization that Israel benefits from a thriving Arab sector.
On the other hand, there is the fear and the suspicion and the uneasy coexistence of two communities that are still working towards a stable modus vivendi. Many Arabs in Israel still feel that the place was stolen from them by the Jews. Many of them find it hard to accept the stated, official, Jewishness of the state in which they reside and to which they belong. Many Jews in Israel suspect that the Arabs still want to dismantle Israel as the Jewish state. And they are on alert to preserve the culture of the Jewish Israeli majority – in a region in which Muslim Arabs are the vast majority.
It is easy to argue that the decision by the Israeli government to invest more funds in the Arab sector is the right decision – better late than never. It is easy to acknowledge that the Ministry of Education was not sensitive in crafting its arguments as it considered adding the book “Borderlife” by Dorit Rabinian and then decided against it. If the educators and the pedagogues of the ministry do not think that this is an appropriate book for a school curriculum, they should have decided against it without using arguments that sound quite strange.
The ministry explained that “young people of adolescent age don’t have the systemic view that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.” This might be true. But it is also true that Israel has no significant numbers of “miscegenation,” and that the Jewish majority looks quite ridiculous if it feels threatened by the prospect of young Israeli Jews rushing to assimilate through marriages with Arabs.
Israeli school children study many controversial themes and texts in Israeli schools, and Rabinian's book does not seem to be a shocking addition to this mix. But the Education Ministry also does not have to include all books in the curriculum. It is there to make decisions. And while the fact that the book deals with a Jewish-Arab love story is not a reason to reject it, it is also not a reason to include it.
The bottom line is that Israel sent a conflicting, confusing message to its Arab citizens this week. A message of civic-economic inclusion – and a message of cultural-religious exclusion. This message was sent in an improper way. This message exposed Israel's Educational establishment as outdated and clumsy.
But in fact, this was not a message incompatible with Israel's perception of its identity. And it was not a message that cannot be explained, defended, argued for. Total cultural amalgamation is unwelcome and unencouraged. Total civic integration is welcomed and encouraged.
