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Visions of Life for Israel's Arabs

(Spectator-UK) Jake Wallis Simons - Which Middle Eastern country offers the best life for Arabs? Take any measure - democratic representation, women's rights, lack of corruption, freedom of speech, the protection of sexual minorities - and Israel comes out on top. While Palestinians have been blocked again and again from casting a vote for over a decade, Israeli Arabs have made it to the ballot box four times in the last two years. In June, their efforts produced an Arab minister in the cabinet. A portion of Israel's Arab population is indelibly hostile to the state, cleaving to Palestinian nationalism or religious fundamentalism. But the majority does not strongly share these feelings. Last week, I visited Acre, a scene of recent rioting, with an old city that is 95% Arab. Residents told me they attributed the unrest more to the disaffection of local youngsters than some bold, political statement. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Netanyahu's intellectual forebear and hardly a shrinking violet when it came to Jewish self-determination, wrote: "All of us, all Jews and Zionists of all schools of thought, want the best for the Arabs of Eretz Israel. We want them to prosper both economically and culturally. We envision the regime of Jewish Palestine as follows: most of the population will be Jewish, but equal rights for all Arab citizens will not only be guaranteed, they will also be fulfilled." The writer is deputy editor of the Jewish Chronicle (UK).
2021-07-29 00:00:00
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