fbpx

The Arab High-Tech exchange, part 3: Israel’s Arab integration challenge

[additional-authors]
June 3, 2015

Roni Floman is an Israeli writer. Her first book, Sojourners and Settlers, is a non-fiction book about the Israeli community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her second non-fiction book, Good Intentions – Arab high-tech in Israel, came out in Hebrew in 2013. Its English translation is available here. She works as a marketing consultant for Israeli high-tech companies, and holds an MBA from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France and an LLB from the Tel Aviv University. She lives in the Sharon area and has three boys.

(You can find part 1 of this exchange here and here.)

***

Dear Ms. Floman,

In your previous response you clarified that your book is “critical of the policy and discrimination that result in the de-facto segregation of Israel’s workforce” more than it is directly critical of the leaders of Israel’s high-tech industry, and you presented Arab integration in high-tech as part of the larger story of the Arab population in Israel.

But it seems you chose to focus on a sector in which the representation of Arabs is, due to various reasons, exceptionally low. After all, minority representation is quite low in Silicon Valley too. In the Israeli high-tech world there is also the well-known reliance on IDF training and the substantial language barrier (Israeli Arabs study in Arab schools) that automatically add to the low representation rates.

Your book could have painted a very different picture of Arabs in Israel, though, had you focused on Arab-Israeli pharmacists, who constitute roughly half of the country’s pharmacists. Considering this population’s rough starting point, and the different cultural barriers it faces, this statistic could be presented as an impressive success story.

While it would be silly to argue that Israel can’t do a lot more to integrate its Arab minority, do you not think that focusing on the high-tech sector gives us a slightly skewed picture of the current state of the integration of Israeli Arabs?

I'd like to thank you again for your book and for doing this exchange.

Yours,

Shmuel,

***

Dear Shmuel,

Thank you for the opportunity to do this exchange; it’s been a pleasure.

I’d like to begin by stating that the book is not a book about policy or a critique of Israel. It is a mirror of what it is like to be an Arab in Israel, a question that makes many people curious – I wanted to bring them along with me as I was journeying to see what it is like to be an Arab citizen of the Jewish state. Naturally, a lot of being an Arab in Israel is a direct or indirect byproduct of policy (and discrimination), but what interests me is the odd mixture of technology-based irrational exuberance combined with being an Arab in Israel. The person whose technology success story is in the newspaper who’s invited to have coffee with someone from the general security service. This mixture of modern-day Zionism and gung-ho high-tech Israeliness with a minority that is often perceived as the ultimate “other”, and that still tells stories of the Nakba in 1948, is fascinating. The oddity of someone coming to Herzeliya Pituach to raise money and then returning to a village where there is no work, no effective policing and a corrupt form of local government highlights the story of Arabs in Israel. This juxtaposition is thought-provoking, making the stuff that makes sense (such as “why should there be Arabs in high-tech – people hire from the IDF?”) make no sense. When 20% of the Technion students are Arab, when the high-tech industry is lacking sufficient human resources but is still having difficulty in hiring Arabs, the question becomes more interesting.

What’s optimistic about the book is that the work of NGOs and the government’s Ministry of the Economy have resulted in a real change that occurred as I was writing the book, showing that policies can be reversed and new trends set in motion. A sudden change of attitude can reverse the course of how the two economies, that of Jews and that of Arabs, interact.

I came in as an observer – an observer of an Arab from Taibe that works as a lawyer in an all-Jewish firm on Rothschild Blvd., an Arab from Israel’s upper galilee entering the rarified air of a venture capital fund and getting them to make an investment in his company, fulfilling a “startup nation” dream of sorts, impressed by the Jews but strongly Palestinian in his identity.

Many (highly-educated) people believe that meritocracy is all; that the right degrees, language proficiency and attitude can guarantee equality. I wanted to pop that bubble and show what it’s like on the other side and also discuss everything that interests me about Arabs in Israel: their villages, political affiliations, the narratives they carry.

The choice of the high-tech sector isn’t intended to pick on the government or on the high-tech sector – I thought it was a lovely juxtaposition and I also dearly love high-tech. I also knew enough about high-tech and startups to be an able observer of the more intricate side of the business story and that can provide something in return to my subjects (professional services…).

It is true that Israel has many Arab pharmacists, but it is important to note that this, too, is a result of activity by the owner of Super Pharm, that openly and (perhaps deliberately) encouraged Arab employment, going through the same logic of Intel Israel in the 80s. The proliferation of Arab doctors, nurses and pharmacists demonstrates that Arabs can acquire academic professions and excel in them – and that since pharmacists and nurses are not well paid, they are effectively replacing jobs that Jews are forsaking. This is not proof that there is no discrimination – it is proof that people want a good job and can qualify for it, raising the question of why an Arab computer science graduate has such difficulties finding a job.

The issue you bring up of the Arab speaking schools is one I find especially intriguing. Are Arab-speaking schools for Arabs and Hebrew-speaking schools for Jews a form of a gentle government that is tolerant of minorities and gives them the freedom to learn in their language? Or are these schools a case of “separate but equal” (although the budgets are not equal; Arab schools get less)? Or, more interestingly, are these schools a sign that the country never tried to drive a unified agenda through all its state funded schools? Is it intentionally segregating Arabs or providing them the education they wish for? I do not know. I once presented these questions to my son’s classmates – in Ninth grade. They argued amongst themselves. They then said they would rather not fear Arabs, that they would rather study with them and get to know them.

I can comment that I visited an Arab friend with my children. We were concerned about how his daughter, who had just begun studying Hebrew as a second language at school, would converse with my children. My sons certainly had no conversational ability in Arabic. His wife told me not to worry. She wants the girl to be exposed to Hebrew; her career is driven by her excellent Hebrew. And somehow, this story of mutual curiosity holds the hope I crave for – that human curiosity, a good career and a fulfilling job will provide social mobility, equality and peace.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Difficult Choices

Jews have always believed in the importance of higher education. Today, with the rise in antisemitism across many college campuses, Jewish high school seniors are facing difficult choices.

All Aboard the Lifeboat

These are excruciating times for Israel, and for the Jewish people.  It is so tempting to succumb to despair. That is why we must keep our eyes open and revel in any blessing we can find.  

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.