As’ad Ghanem and Sarah Ozacky-Lazar Preface Late September and early October 2000 witnessed a watershed in the relations between the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, on one side, and the state and its Jewish majority, on the other. Three days of violence, turbulent demonstrations, blocking of main roads, stonethrowing, and police gunfire cost a high toll of human victims and severely damaged the relations between the two national communities in Israel and between the Arab minority and the Israeli establishment. Concerted activity by of the Palestinian-Arab leadership and populace in Israel accompanied by intense activity by Jewish politicians, restored relative calm that was shattered again on the eve of the Day of Atonement, October 8th, when a frenzy Jewish mob stormed down from Upper Nazareth and attacked the eastern neighborhood of Nazareth. Two more Arab citizens were killed by police gunfire in this incident, bringing the total number of victims to 13 Arab citizens killed by the police and one Jew killed when a stone struck his car near Jisr a-Zarka—in addition to dozens of persons injured and hundreds arrested. The intensity and timing of the string of events was unexpected and generated, as stated, a deep chasm in the relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. What caused the outburst? What set off the protests that raged out of control in so many places at the same time? How can we explain the incidents in Arab communities and the damage to private and public property that accompanied the militant protests? How was quiet restored after a week of conflagration? Will this quiet prevail in the long term, or are there factors that may reignite the blaze? What long-term causes and immediate factors sparked the protests? In the pages that follow we shall endeavor to answer these and other questions, attempting to analyze the significance of the events and their implications for the future status of the Palestinian minority in Israel as well as their impact on the relations between the two communities. ***** In an article we published during the first intifada, which started at 1987, titled “Green Line, Red Lines”—we argued that the intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would not spill over to the Israeli side of the Green Line, as many feared. we said then, that the interest of the Arabs in Israel was to reinforce the Green Line and the differences in their status vis-à-vis their brothers and sisters in the occupied territories, rather than the opposite. This, we felt, was the case despite their identification with the goals of the intifada, chiefly the demand for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state . A decade later the picture is much more complex and ambiguous. Are we truly witnessing a gradual obliteration of the Green Line and a blurring of the differences between the two Palestinian communities in their homeland? Is Israeli citizenship losing its force and meaning for the Arabs to the extent that they are willing to adopt the protest methods of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and break Israeli law? To what extent do the Israeli authorities view the Arab citizens as equals and treat them accordingly? It is still too early to make definitive statements. We can, however, identify trends and offer future scenarios. Introduction The last decade of the twentieth century was marked in the Middle East by tension between efforts to achieve peace and dramatic political processes and the signing of agreements, on the one hand, and violent conflicts, wars and retreat to the old and familiar patterns of conflict, on the other. In a long-term historical perspective the decade as a whole may perhaps be seen as a typical transitional period from war to peace, and the outburst of violence will be interpreted as the inevitable convulsion characteristic of such a transition. Today, however, when we are still in the midst of one of these severe spasms, it is impossible to predict the end of the process—neither its duration nor the nature of the solutions that will be found at its end. The decade began in the throes of the intifada—the Palestinian popular uprising that erupted in Gaza in December 1987 and spread to all of the territories occupied by Israel. The intifada changed the rules of the game between occupier and occupied and put an end to the process of “creeping annexation” of Palestinian lands to Israel. The next step was the Madrid Conference, convened by the super powers to advance the political process between Israel and its neighbors; this constituted an initial breakthrough toward multilateral negotiations on many topics that divided Israel from its neighbors. The Gulf War, which came a few months later in 1991, was an exceptional event that had a major impact on the Israeli civilian population, demonstrating that in the conditions of modern warfare control of territory does not necessarily guarantee security. The term “strategic depth” took on a different meaning than in the past. This short war also exposed the vulnerability and fragility of the Israeli rear echelon and the limitations of military power, which could be neutralized by diplomatic pressures. The signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993, with the mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian national movement, and the seven-year political process that followed had a decisive influence on the web of relations between Israel and the Palestinians, including the attitude toward the state of those who hold Israeli citizenship, as will be explained below. The peace treaty with Jordan was signed in 1994, but guerrilla warfare continued soldiers in southern Lebanon, claiming many victims on both sides, until the unilateral Israeli withdrawal a year after Ehud Barak’s election as prime minister in 1999. The Oslo process, which continued throughout that time, with its ups and downs, ran into a dead end in September-October 2000 and all the understandings and agreements achieved with such great effort came crashing down all at once. The territory was set ablaze with a limited but irritating shooting war and a harsh Israeli military reaction, which claimed almost daily casualties on both sides. It was also a tumultuous decade in Israeli politics. The national unity government headed by Yitzhak Shamir gave way {how short memories are! the NU govt fell in 1990 and was followed by a right-wing govt …} after the 1992 elections to a narrow leftist government headed by Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin established a minority coalition of his Labor Party and Meretz {ditto! Rabin’s coalition originally included Shas, remember?}, which relied on the support of Arab Knesset members not included in the coalition. As part of the “blocking majority” that made it impossible for the Likud to form a government in the Thirteenth Knesset, the Arab parliamentarians enthusiastically supported Rabin’s steps toward peace but did not exploit their pivotal status to work changes in domestic politics. Rabin’s assassination in November 1995 marked a deep political and social break that led to the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, under the new system of direct election of the prime minister. Netanyahu set up a coalition of right-wing and religious parties that was compelled to comply with agreements signed by the preceding government and to move ahead under pressure in the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. The latter continued to consolidate its power in the territories transferred to its jurisdiction and established its own institutions, armed security agencies, and a bureaucratic and undemocratic regime, despite the democratic elections of January 1995. In June 1999, the Israeli electorate spoke again and returned a Labor party candidate, Ehud Barak, to the prime minister’s residence. This time, however, Barak preferred to set up a broad coalition, including Meretz on the left and Shas, the National Religious Party, and Yisrael ba’Aliya on the right; but this hybrid proved unstable and came apart within a year. At no stage did Barak invite the Arab parties to participate, even though his election, with 57 percent of the vote, was due in large measure to the massive support of the Arab voters. The estrangement between the prime minister and the Arab population and its representatives increased, and the depth of their disappointment corresponded to the magnitude of their previous expectations. In November 2000 Prime Minister Barak announced his support for early elections, because his government had lost its Knesset majority; in December he resigned, triggering elections for prime minister only in February 2001. This political background, both foreign and domestic, influenced the Arab Palestinian minority in Israel, with regard to attitudes, patterns of organization and political participation, daily behavior, and aspirations for the future, in different and sometimes opposing directions. Our analysis of the long-term causes of the events associated with the al-Aqsa intifada will focus on several areas: 1. The global arena 2. The Israeli circle 3. The Palestinian circle 4. Internal crisis in Palestinian society in Israel We shall endeavor to trace the changes in each of these domains during the course of the last decade and explore how the frustration and distress that build up constituted a seething pressure cooker that exploded when the heat was turned up too high. The Global Arena The end of the Cold War as the main stage on which world politics was acted since the end of World War II led to an emphasis on local and regional politics. At the same time, there evolved an intensive search for an appropriate response to the challenge posed by the vast mosaic of groups consolidating on an ethnic, religious, or national basis, or alternatively on the basis of economic, social, cultural, and political interests. These groups advance demands for equality, autonomy, or independence and are willing to wage a fierce battle to satisfy their needs and fulfill their aspirations. The end of the process of liberation from Western colonial domination, the collapse of the Communist bloc, and other factors to be mentioned below ushered in a new age in world politics in which the problems of intergroup relations are moving, slowly but steadily, to the center of the international political debate. The demands of various groups are the focus of ongoing debate in almost every international and national system. Conspicuous sides of this can be found in most of the cases of ethnic or group violence surveyed by Horowitz (1985) and Gurr (1993) , which are occupying an increasingly central place in world politics. The conflict between Blacks and Whites in South Africa turned a corner, the relations between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada grew hotter, and the ethnic struggle in the Middle East intensified. The struggle among national, religious, and ethnic groups in the former Communist bloc erupted with great intensity, generally conducted by violent means that included full-scale war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, as in the former Yugoslavia and Chechnya. An example of another sort is the former Czechoslovakia, which split into two ethnic states through agreement rather than violence in what was known as the “the velvet revolution.” In what were once considered to be calm and ethnically homogeneous states, such as Algeria, conflict broke out between Muslim fundamentalists and more secular groups. This wave did not skip ostensibly stable western countries. France is the scene of a lively debate about the right of the Corsicans to autonomy and of religious groups such as Muslims to follow their traditions. In Germany, severe tensions between locals and immigrants led to a strengthening of neo-Nazi movements; a similar process is underway in other countries, such as Austria and Switzerland. Despite the process of globalization that is supposed to lead to greater solidarity and the creation of an international common denominator, the future world order will have to be based on an attempt to cope with the increasingly frequent intergroup conflicts and to resolve them in ways that can satisfy the particular collective desires of the various groups. Groups will cooperate against their countries, countries will cooperate with groups against other countries or groups, and transnational alliances will emerge based on common interests. There will be rivalries among the various groups in countries, regions, and internationally, ranging from quiet competition that abides by customary and legal principles to violent struggle. Members of groups will cross borders and cultures to cooperate with others or to direct their protest over the nonsatisfaction of their needs against institutional actors deemed responsible for their situation. In this context we can explain, for example, the violence in New York by Muslim fanatics from the Middle East. They came to engage in terrorism in the heart of Western civilization not just as an expression of the struggle between their Islamic culture and Western culture. They wanted to make a clear and brutal statement to the dominant Western group, which dominates the world order and which they believe discriminates against them, that their needs are not being satisfied. The ruling groups generally want to maintain their control and superiority, while the subject groups, which are becoming increasingly aware of the disparities between them and the dominant groups, want to achieve equality. Democratic countries that are willing to move toward a resolution of their internal group conflicts have developed diverse arrangements, including the American model of liberal democracy, the consociational model applied in Belgium, the ethnic democracy of Israel and Malaysia, and others. There is also a discussion of the relevance of each model for dealing with intergroup problems . The media play a special role in this arena: on the one hand they transmit information, values, norms, and snapshots of the situation among the various regions and groups in the world, thereby contributing to the construction of the Western-dominated economic, political and cultural power system. Because the media are global and accessible to all, they should be able to mitigate the differences between peoples. In practice, however, their contribution is precisely the oppositely: in an age when groups are becoming similar in many areas, they search obsessively for what distinguishes them from all others. The media fuel the urge of downtrodden groups to become more like the hegemonic groups. They help strengthen their group solidarity and provide an efficient instrument for the expression of opinions and messages that find their way directly to the agendas of governments, international organizations, and the general public. In this way the various media have become a significant and powerful factor influencing the contours of conflicts and of the domains of intergroup cooperation. To gain public attention, protest methods, even those of groups with pure goals like environmental protection, must be more outrageous and violent than in the past. Such behavior wins them broad worldwide media coverage and fuels a rivalry among them to gain rapid and effective international recognition. Another factor that has modified the status of minority groups is the growing understanding of the significance of human and civil rights and basic freedoms and increasing civic awareness among peoples and groups all over the world. During the second half of the twentieth century mass movements appeared throughout the world to demand rights and equality for minority groups—notably the civil rights movement in United States, led by Martin Luther King; the student movements in France and elsewhere in Europe, which demanded greater freedom and equality; and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, which culminated in the change of regime in 1989 that led to the abolition of apartheid and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president. Even in the Communist bloc there were movements that demanded democratization and greater rights for citizens; almost all of them were put down with force. But the accumulating demands and repression ultimately led to the total collapse of the old order in the Eastern bloc and democratization in all its countries. International organizations, especially Amnesty International, serve as the watchdogs of human rights, intervene in cases of discrimination and the violation of rights by states, and are active in spreading the concept and awareness of civic equality. These developments led to a deepening consciousness of basic rights, equality, and liberties—not only of human beings as individuals, but also as self-defined groups. Many of them spawned leaders and spokespersons that disseminate their ideas in the international media. We believe that these processes will continue to be with us and will even grow stronger in the twenty-first century, demanding solutions everywhere, including Israel. The Israeli Circle The “Israeliness” of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel is a controversial concept that is interpreted in diverse ways by various political and social actors . Their Israeliness is manifested first and foremost by their formal status as citizens of Israel and residents who are part of its political framework, with all that this implies—being subject to the laws of the state, participating in elections, developing consciousness of democracy and civil rights, and so on. Their Israeliness is also manifested in their lifestyle and culture, education, and especially in their presence in academic institutions, material and media consumption, bilingualism, integration in the economic system, social ties, and in many other domains. At the same time, the Israeliness of the Arabs is incomplete in several dimensions. First of all, there is no agreed-upon definition of the concept itself even among Jews, so that it is not clear what it really means to be Israeli. In addition, the Arabs are on the periphery of society, marginal in all spheres of life, with almost negligible influence on the decision-making processes in most important domains. Paradoxically, the forum in which they are most represented, courted, and heard is politics, especially during election campaigns; there too, however, they have been kept on the sidelines since the founding of the state, their parties never included in parliamentary coalitions and their representatives never appointed to senior positions. From the time of the public debates about the Citizenship Law (enacted by the Knesset in 1952) through the present, the Arabs in Israel has never challenged their receiving Israeli citizenship. On the contrary, they have always fought to be included in it and have worked to preserve and develop it . The overwhelming majority of the Arab citizens have learned to take their citizenship seriously and to exercise it not only in the formal act of voting but also in public and political participation and in the struggle for civic equality. The campaign for equality is the supreme indication that the Arabs wish to give real content to their citizenship and do not take it for granted . Their interpretation of the meaning of citizenship is frequently at variance with the conventional Jewish view that is measured by “loyalty to the state” and identification with the state and its Jewish character and symbols. At many junctures of life Arab citizens find that the establishment and Jewish majority do not treat them as equal citizens and that the Jewishness of the state and its security needs, rather than its professed democratic character, dictate its course and attitude toward them. Even though on the surface it may appear that Israeli society is going through an accelerated democratization process and becoming increasingly open to the admission of peripheral groups to the center, we would argue that during the last decade there has actually been a regression in how the Jewish majority perceives the Arabs’ citizenship. Since the outbreak of the first intifada and the beginning of the negotiations with the Arab states and the Palestinians, there has been a salient increase in the delegitimation by Jews of the Arab citizens and its elected representatives; the most blatant expression of this actually came during the period of the Rabin government, when the term “Jewish majority” became part of the national political discourse. The government lacked a “Jewish majority” for peace and was therefore not legitimate, argued right-wing circles—implicitly declaring that there are two types of citizens in the state and two types of Knesset members: more equal and less equal. Despite several feeble protests, the term made its way into the public discourse and became “legitimate” and accepted. Thus the “Golan special-majority law” was born in order to prevent the Arabs from holding the balance in a future Knesset vote on withdrawal from the Golan Heights. From time to time a proposal is floated to exclude the Arabs from referendums on fateful questions for the state, as if they are not part of it. For their part, Arab representatives increase the ferocity of their statements against government policy and are viewed by the Jewish majority as illegitimate citizens when they define themselves as Palestinians, express support for the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation, and identify with the suffering of their fellow Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East. The entire concept of the “blocking majority,” as entertained during the Rabin years, also points to an ambivalent attitude toward the Arabs . On the one hand, the late prime minister needed them in order to ensure Knesset passage of pass the peace agreements, since his minority coalition had only 56 Knesset members. On the other hand, however, despite the pleas, urging, and threats of Arab Knesset members that they would withdraw their support if their demands on domestic matters were not satisfied, Rabin never agreed to include them as full and legitimate members of his coalition and government. Their self-understood support for his peace policy was exploited to the fullest. On the eve of the elections for prime minister in February 2001 the situation is different. Ehud Barak, the candidate of the left, can no longer be sure of sweeping the Arab vote thanks to his external peace policy, because during his abbreviate term in office he did not relate to them as partners and excluded them and their representatives from all involvement in the management of national affairs. Israel applies democratic procedures of government on the institutional level, with regular elections, changes of regime, separation of powers, professed separation of the military from politics, and so on. But when it comes to policy toward its Arab-Palestinian minority, it ignores the true substance of democracy. The state is identified with one ethnic and national group, the Jews, and adopts many means so as not to include members of the Palestinian minority as equal citizens entitled to all the benefits received by Jewish citizens. In practice, Israel perpetuates the inferiority of the Palestinians vis-à-vis the Jews and discriminates against them in various spheres of life. The Jews’ hegemony and Arabs’ subordination is manifested on three levels : (1) The ideological and declarative level: The state of Israel was founded to be the state of the Jewish people. It has a Jewish-Zionist character and its objectives, symbols, and policies all rest on the basis that it is the state of the Jewish people, while denying the existence of a Palestinian national minority living in its territory. This situation was exacerbated by the passage in 1985 of Amendment 9 to the Basic Law: the Knesset. It added section 7a, which bars Knesset lists that negate the existence of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. During the debate that preceded passage of the amendment, formulas submitted by MK Tawfiq Toubi of the DFPE and MK Mati Peled of the Progressive List, to the effect that the state of Israel is “the state of its citizens,” or “the state of the Jewish people and of its Palestinian citizens,” were voted down by large majorities. Not only does this situation engender discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel on the day-to-day level and nullify the theoretical possibility of their achieving equality with the Jews; in practice it leaves them with no formal entity that is defined as their state. They find themselves in a quandary concerning their status; for example, are they citizens like the Jews? Is the state also their state? What are the prospects for achieving equality within the state? This uncertainty causes the Arabs and their leaders a sense of distress that goes beyond the level of emotions and belonging. The Palestinian citizens in Israel are also deprived when it comes to the dominant values and symbols of the state and its institutions. Compared to the Jews, who treat the symbols, values, and institutions of the state as their own private bailiwick, see them as part of their heritage, and identify with them, the Palestinian citizens feel nothing for these exclusively Jewish and Zionist symbols. They cannot identify with many of the symbols of the state whose citizenship they hold, because these symbols are rooted exclusively in the religious and ideological heritage of the Jewish majority. (2) The structural level: The Palestinians in Israel are involuntarily excluded from Israeli institutions, which function as the property of the Jews and are supposed to serve Jewish-Israeli or general Jewish objectives rather than Israeli objectives shared by all citizens of the country. On the structural level, this exclusion has many modes, such as the exclusion of the Arabs from the centers of political decision-making, their nonconscription into the army, the non-employment of Arabs in senior positions, the existence of special offices to deal with Arabs, and the attitude that they constitute a security risk. The structure of Arab education and the media too work to exclude the Arabs from the Israeli collective and perpetuate their marginal status in the state. (3) Policy and its implementation: This includes various forms of discrimination against Arabs in the statute book, in the allocation of budgets, and in the allocation of land. Thus, for example, the Law of Return and the Citizenship Law are two statutes intended to preserve and augment the Jewish majority in the state; their clear objective is to reduce the number of non-Jews, including Arabs. Israeli law enshrines fundamental discrimination in favor of Jewish citizens and to the detriment of Arab citizens. The special legal status accorded to non-Israeli Jewish institutions, such as the Jewish National Fund and the World Zionist Organization, which have a commitment only to Jewish Israelis, is another aspect of this legal discrimination . With regard to the allocation of budgets, the Palestinian citizens suffer an ongoing discrimination in practically every sphere of life, as documented in many studies and official reports, as well as in reports published by various private organizations . Despite changes for the better in recent years, the disparities remain in various areas; without a massive program of affirmative action they will continue to haunt this community for many years to come. There is ongoing discrimination with regard to the division of territory and national and regional development plans. Most Palestinian-owned land has been expropriated during the years of Israeli independence. The state has applied various means to deprive the Arabs of their property and turn most of the lands into “nation lands” administered centrally by national and regional planning agencies. The planning boards include permanent representation of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Jewish Agency, and the Jewish National Fund—most of whom demonstrate no concern for the interests of all citizens on an equal footing and are clearly biased in favor or the Jews. In practice, Israeli planning policy is designed to serve the Jews and almost totally ignore the Arabs. Thus planning policy serves as a tool for controlling the Palestinians in Israel and preventing their “expansion” . Israel’s ethnic policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian minority is supported by an overwhelming majority among the Jews, who view the state as a tool to serve the Jews in Israel and around the world, support its absolute identification as a Jewish state and preserving Jewish hegemony in all spheres . At the same time, the sophisticated policy of inclusion and exclusion practiced against the minority creates existential distress in the Arabs’ lives and pushes them toward a major crisis in their relations with the Jews and the state—which the Jewish majority perceives as an existential threat. Every ethnic group that wants to be part of the state apparatus will, by the nature of things, demand equality, affiliation, and identity. These values are basic and nonnegotiable human needs that cannot be ignored or repressed permanently. The combination of limited democracy with the ethnic component in the direction of policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian minority weighs heavily on the minority. Instead of helping it, it creates a feeling of progress and integration in the life of the state and a false sense of normal development, which runs into insuperable obstacles and hindrances. This confusing situation leads to the disintegration of the existing structure of the minority society and is apt to lead to escalation and crisis. The ethnic character of the state and the absence of shared equal or national-territorial citizenship to unite all citizens confronts both the majority and the minority with difficult options concerning the nature of the partnership that will satisfy the desires of the majority and the aspirations of the minority. On the one hand, the state and the Jewish majority will face a grave situation if they continue to ignore the demands and aspirations of the minority. Israel and its Jewish majority cannot continue to maintain the ethnic system and policy against the Palestinian citizens; they will have to give serious consideration to realizing equality among all its citizens. If they do not, as time passes the minority, having become increasingly aware of the limitations imposed on it and having augmented its numerical and electoral strength, will be pushed to employ unconventional means in pursuit of its objectives, including even recourse to violence. The Palestinian Circle The Palestinian community in Israel also plays a marginal role in the Palestinian national movement and has a special and problematic status among the various groups that make up the Palestinian people. Historically they were late to adopt a Palestinian identity and were not involved in the first steps of the national awakening after the nakba of 1948 . They were not party to the establishment of the PLO in 1964 nor the drafting of the Palestinian Covenant and national objectives and were not included in the Palestinian institutions, most of which were set up in the diaspora. Only in the early 1970s were several representatives of the “1948 Arabs,” including Mahoud Darwish and Sabri Jiris, co-opted to the Palestine National Council after leaving Israel; but in practice they did not represent the interests and needs of the community from which they came, and did not maintain contact with it after they left Israel. Throughout its years of activity, the PLO made no concerted attempt to enlist Israeli Palestinians into its ranks or leadership and did not relate to their specific problems . Their remoteness from the national movement was manifested even more with the start of the thaw between Israel and the PLO in the late 1980s and the beginning of the political process in the region. During the past decade the Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel have not been considered to be political partners of the PLO nor of the Palestinian Authority set up in the West Bank and Gaza strip. The contacts between these two segments of the same people have a personal, family, and humanitarian nature, with very little practical political involvement. Regular meetings take place between senior figures in the Palestinian Authority, including Arafat, and Arab Knesset members, who occasionally mediate between the Authority and Israel. But these contacts do not express subordination or institutional affiliation. The problems of the Palestinians in Israel are viewed by all sides as an internal matter that they must hash out with the Israeli establishment, and not as a subject in which the Palestinian Authority should or can intervene. This consensus is implicit in the relations between the PA and Arab leaders in Israel, providing another indication of the marginal position and complex status of the Arabs in Israel during a period when the Palestinian people is building its independence and sovereignty. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are different from their counterparts in the Palestinian territories in a number of aspects: they are not partners in determining the internal arrangements of the PA, cannot vote or be elected to official posts in it, and play no part in the talks and contacts between the PA and Israel; nor are their problems raised in the negotiations to end the conflict. Today there is no way that the Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship will be included in government and social institutions in the Palestinian Authority and the future state unless they leave Israel and renounce their Israeli citizenship. The Palestinian center is emerging in the West Bank and Gaza; even though there are still institutions operating in the Diaspora, it may be assumed that they too will be transferred to the future state. The Arabs in Israel, who never left the historical territory of Palestine, will paradoxically find themselves unable to participate in the consolidation of the national center being set up in part of their homeland, not contributing to its practical development, and excluded from its institutions, both individually and collectively. Nor will they be able to depend upon the Palestinian Authority to raise their problems with the government of Israel or demand a solution of their problems as part of the negotiations about the future relations between the sides. This anomalous situation augments the distress, confused identity, and sense of marginality and rejection that the Palestinians in Israel feel vis-à-vis their fellow Palestinians. Another factor linked to the issue of the ties between the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority is their criticism of the nature of the PA—especially the absence of democracy and violations of human rights by it. This criticism is usually moderated by the explanation that the Authority is still not independent and that the Palestinians are still under Israeli occupation. Nevertheless, though generally not in the open, they express their disappointment that the Palestinian state in the making has not developed democratic institutions and is not internalizing the values of human and civil rights. Despite the flaws of Israeli democracy, especially as it applies to them, the Arab citizens of the state have learned to appreciate the meaning of freedom of expression, freedom of organization, the protection of the legal system, and citizens’ capacity to exert influence in the country in which they live. They would like to see the emergence of democratic institutions in the State of Palestine as well. Surveys conducted among the Arab population and interviews with its leaders indicate clearly that they have no intention of moving to the Palestinian state when it comes into being. Their main justification for this is that they already live in their homeland and on their land and have no desire to uproot themselves from their places of residence to become “refugees” yet again . But even proposals for border rectifications that would attach the villages of the Triangle to the Palestinian state, without uprooting the residents, generally stir up fierce opposition. This indicates the Arabs’ desire to remain citizens in the State of Israel, despite the difficulties, to enjoy the relative personal security, both political and economic, that they enjoy there, and to fight from within to improve their status. By contrast, they are wary about joining a Palestinian state whose evolving character remains unclear, where their status would be problematic and different, and where they would have to try to integrate from an inferior starting position. Nevertheless, we believe that this situation is not static; their position could change as a function of political and social developments in the future, both in Israel and in the Palestinian state. Internal Crisis in Palestinian Society in Israel The internal distress that besets Palestinian Arab society in Israel finds expression in many domains: rapid demographic expansion alongside economic distress and poverty; the consolidation of an identity that is incomplete in both its Israeli and Palestinian components, as explained above; the lack of a clear and uniform perception of their future within Israel; the lack of a strong leadership to advance their claims; the complexity of their internal social situation, marked by ethnic, religious, clan, and other tensions; an incomplete process of modernization and a failure to internalize values; and a profound cultural crisis. Demographic expansion alongside economic distress and poverty: The demographic expansion of the Arab population in Israel and changes in the physical structure of Arab localities are key questions in this context. These have not been accompanied by suitable economic development. Arab localities, some of which have grown from villages into towns and cities, still lack industrial zones and adequate sources of employment, so that most breadwinners are forced to work in the nearby Jewish cities . Most of them are at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale of Israeli localities. According to official data, about 60 percent of the Arab citizens in Israel are under the poverty line . The Arabs suffer a severe housing shortage as a result of discriminatory governmental policy, and this problem has been getting worse over the years . Many localities and villages are still not recognized by the central government, which means that they do not enjoy basic services such as running water and electricity, schools, municipal government, and so on . The Bedouin in the Negev, who account for about ten percent of all the Arabs in Israel, are the victims of continuing mistreatment by the authorities; their title to their lands is not officially recognized and the state continues to attempt to settle them in towns of its own choosing, unlike the Jews in the Negev, who may select their own lifestyle and residential pattern . They suffer severe unemployment and an extremely low level of services. In almost every economic sphere the Arabs suffer both as individuals and as a group. Incomplete Israeli and Palestinian identity: In the current situation, neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian identity of the Arab citizens can be complete and exhaustive. This epitomizes the problem of their collective identity . The Palestinian component of the Israeli Arabs’ identity cannot be complete when the Palestinian national movement is setting up the Palestinian homeland somewhere else. The intensity of the Israeli component of their identity is a subject of controversy in the research literature In their official definition, the Palestinians in Israel are citizens of the state; but their Israeli identity does not exist if one considers the essence of group identity to be a sense of psychological belonging and emotional sympathy. Their predicament is not the contradiction between the Israeli and Palestinian identities but the incomplete nature of both of them. The lack of a strong and consolidated leadership: In the 1950s and 1960s, when the Arabs were still under the thumb of the military government, they were not permitted to consolidate a strong leadership to fill the vacuum left by the disappearance of the leadership from the Mandatory period. A national leadership began to emerge after the abolition of the military government in 1966 and the slow release from its shadow. Collective institutions were founded, such as the Council of Heads of Arab Local Authorities, established in 1974 with the encouragement of the authorities, and later the Supreme Follow-up Committee, set up in 1982. These bodies have spearheaded the Arabs’ struggle since the mid-1970s—a struggle that reached its zenith in the late 1980s with the proclamation of the “Equality Day” strike in June 1987 and “Peace Day” in December 1987, two general strikes that symbolized the two main issues for which the Arabs in Israel have fought: equality and peace. Since then there has been a slow deterioration in the standing of the Follow-up Committee; in general the public no longer views it as having authority. In practice it is beset by internal paralysis as a result of power struggles among the groups represented in it; this too limits its ability to operate vis-à-vis the national authorities. The significant degree of pluralism in political parties and civic organizations that has emerged among the Arabs in Israel since the 1980s has weakened rather than strengthened the status of the leadership. The inability of the Arab Knesset members to agree on a candidate for prime minister to contest the February 2001 elections, from among themselves or from outside the political system, is an up-to-date example of the divisions that impair the leadership’s capacity to work together to advance the interests of the general public. The absence of a clear perception of the Arabs’ future: The distress here is inherent in the fact that the Arab leadership and general public in Israel have still not formulated a shared perception and goal for the community’s future. There is no agreement even in general terms concerning the demand for recognition as a national minority or for autonomy and its practical meaning. There is no unambiguous statement about the meaning of Israeli citizenship for them or consensus about a campaign to achieve their civic demands after Israel and the Palestinian Authority reach a final agreement. Even though the concepts “national minority” and “a state of all its citizens” and the demand for equality have become commonplaces, the clear and precise practical implications thereof remain unclear. Even the old slogan of the Israeli Communist Party - “two states for two peoples,” which a majority of the Arabs supported as the basis for a negotiated solution of the conflict, has become irrelevant; today most Arab spokespersons explicitly object to retaining the definition of Israel as a Jewish state after a peace agreement and the establishment of Palestinian state—in practice demanding that there be one state for the Palestinian people only and another state with a civic character, shared by Palestinians and Jews. This demand is rejected out of hand by an overwhelming majority of the Jews in Israel and the world and even by the international community . Social structure: The hamula, extended family, as a traditional institution and frame of reference is still the basis of the social structure of the Arabs in Israel. Although the nuclear family plays a key economic role today, it has not yet achieved similar status on the social and political levels; this leads to many social and political complications and impedes the development of the Arab community in Israel . This state of affairs attaches a question mark to their ability to adapt to modern norms of life and internal democratic conduct. The role of the hamula is prominent in the important area of local government. Municipal elections are always accompanied by internal struggles within localities in which the sound operation of the council frequently takes second place to family considerations that are sometimes at variance with the welfare of the community as a whole. Because local government is one of the key political arenas of Arab society in Israel—given that central government is almost blocked to them—the ailments of the system affect the entire Arab population. The oppressive role of the hamula makes the situation of the individual extremely problematic. Arab society represses individuals and does not give them sufficient space for normal development. The salient expression of this is the condition of Arab women, who find themselves subject to enormous family pressures and in practice constitute a minority within the Arab minority—a situation that impedes their normal social development and function , and holds back the development of Arab society as a whole. The failure to internalize democratic values and incomplete modernization: The Arabs’ integration into the Israeli political system has led to the incomplete adoption of lifestyles, behaviors, and democratic ways of thought. The political, social, and economic labyrinth in which they live and the authorities’ selective policy toward them has generated a number of significant contradictions that go along with the process of democratization they are experiencing . The most important of these are as follows: Active participation in Israeli politics at the national level versus a limited ability to influence decision-making Voting in national elections on the basis of national and ideological issues, but voting on a clan basis in local elections A vigorous struggle for equality and integration into the Israeli system, alongside the establishment of separate national organizations The emergence of a consensus about waging the Arabs’ struggle only within the bounds of the law, alongside a rise in the number of violent incidents committed by members of the community The absence of a practical and legal way to select a national leadership, although the Supreme Follow-up Committee ostensibly functions as such The expression of almost automatic support for Palestinian positions in the conflict, versus their being part of the Israeli political system and nonparticipation in internal Palestinian politics. These contradictions attest to the practical difficulty of internalizing democracy and making it an integral part of the Arabs’ lives. Playing two games—the Western-democratic and the traditional-undemocratic—at the same time impedes their ability to develop as a democratic group internally as well as their absorption as an integral part of the political, social, and economic life of Israel. Cultural crisis: The acute situation with regard to identity is also associated with an intensifying crisis of cultural and social values, at least among the Arab elite. After the 1948 war, the Palestinians found themselves involuntarily isolated from Palestinian culture and the Arab world. The war resulted in the liquidation of their urban centers and the uprooting of the middle-class and cultural elite that would have been able to continue nurturing Palestinian Arab culture. For years the Israeli Arab population was cut off from the world of Arab culture, art and literature. The first window to the Arab world was opened after 1967. Other channels developed later, in the wake of the peace treaties with Egypt and then with Jordan. But the Arab world, too, is beset by an existential cultural crisis—the confrontation between the adoption of Western values, technology and mass culture and the desire to preserve tradition and distinctiveness. From the other side, Israel offers cultural institutions and a vibrant artistic and cultural life; but because these are dominated by Jews and have a Jewish-Zionist and Hebrew nature, the Arabs remain on the sidelines of this activity, able mainly to adopt the external gloss of westernized Israeli culture, which has no connection with their own authentic roots. A separate Arab culture of theater, music, poetry, and literature has developed in Israel, but it too is unsure about its identity and affiliation and still has no meaningful impact on society. The Immediate Causes of the Violence Against the background of the long-term factors described above, a number of events took place that ignited the fire and caused the conflagration. As will be remembered, the trouble began with a series of demonstrations in Arab communities on September 30 to protest Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Tempe Mount several days earlier and the killing by police of several Muslim worshippers on the haram a-Sharif on Friday, September 29. The combination of the religious factor—the perceived attack on a Muslim holy site—and the national and economic distress proved to be lethal. Sharon’s visit came against the background of a long campaign mounted by the Islamic Movement among the Arabs in Israel under the title “al-Aqsa is in danger,” which alleged in part that archaeological excavations were being conducted underneath the mosques with the aim of causing them to collapse during an earthquake. For a number of years the Islamic Movement has been holding mass rallies in Umm al-Fahm to “save” al-Aqsa; the last of them, attended by tens of thousands of persons, was held shortly before the start of the disturbances. The killing of Muslim worshippers outside the mosque further intensified these fears and emotions. The picture of Muhammad a-Dura, a young boy from Gaza killed in his father’s arms, broadcast on television stations all over the world, increased the anger and mourning and identification with the events in the Palestinian territories; this led to the decision to call for a general strike and protest demonstrations in Arab localities . In our assessment, there was no prior organized intention to escalate the demonstrations and use illegal and violent methods against the police and Jewish citizens. But the violent confrontation at the Umm al-Fahm junction led the police to respond with live fire at demonstrators, killing two of them . From this point there was a rapid and grave deterioration throughout the country; at the end of three days of violent demonstrations and police gunfire 11 Arab citizens were dead, dozens wounded, and a sense of an irreparable breach had been created on both sides. A “second round” took place after a few days of calm, on the eve of the Day of Atonement on Oct. 8, when a Jewish mob descended from Upper Nazareth to the eastern neighborhood of Nazareth and began to riot and attack Arabs. The police, called out, fired toward the Arabs rather than the Jews ; the two citizens killed increased the number of Arab victims of the al-Aqsa intifada to 13. There is no proof that agents of the Palestinian Authority were involved in the events inside Israel, even though, according to unverified reports, fatah activists from the West Bank intervened after the riots began in the villages of the Triangle to prolong the intifada inside the Green Line, distributing posters in Arab localities and even participating actively in the disturbances . The best assessment is that the disturbances were a spontaneous process, but that after the first deaths the PA encouraged the protests. The Palestinian media issued regular reports about the disturbances in Israel and included the names of the victims among the Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza, with no distinction among them. Senior officials of the PA publicly stated their support for enlisted the Arabs in Israel in the Palestinian struggle , unlike the past, when separation was maintained. The hesitant response or reaction of the Israeli government and media and the Jewish public to the killing of Arab citizens and prime minister’s unambiguous support for the police, created great frustration among the Arabs and augmented their bitter disappointment with Ehud Barak. To this was added the serious delay in the government’s decision to appoint a state commission of inquiry to look into the events. Originally the prime minister announced the establishment of a committee of “clarification”, changing his mind only in the wake of massive pressure by the Supreme Follow-up Committee and the Arab Knesset factions. At the time of writing (February 2001) the commission of inquiry is still in the initial stages of gathering information about the events. The expectation among the Arabs is that the truth will come to light and conclusions drawn against those responsible. The families of the victims have organized an action committee that expresses an opinion on political issues. For example, it has stated its opposition to Arabs’ turning out to vote for prime minister and called for a boycott of the elections . The Events of October 2000: The Start of a Crisis or a Passing Incident? On Oct. 16, 2000, the president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, was interviewed by Channel 1 of Israeli TV during an Arab-Jewish encounter in Kafr Qasim. He stated that, in his opinion, the recent events and violent confrontations between the Arab minority in Israel and the security forces and some Jews were “a passing incident”, an episode, that said nothing about the general situation or the true nature of relations between the two communities. In an interview with an Arabic newspaper. Katsav added that “the good relations built up over a period of 50 years cannot be destroyed in two weeks” . Statements in this vein by opinion-makers, politicians, advisers, and journalists were hurled into the media space controlled exclusively by Jews. They indicate a supreme effort to present the events as a passing episode, to whitewash the situation and restore the status quo ante without attempting to penetrate to the root causes of the eruption. We believe that this approach prevents a courageous examination of the altered situation and of the true significance of the intifada waged by the Palestinians in Israel when they realized that their aspirations had come into frontal conflict with the policy and aspirations of the state. The Israeli assessment that this was only a passing episode, was mingled with overt and covert threats by Israeli decision-makers, with the president himself at their head, against those marked as “inciters” and leaders of the disturbances. It was made clear that these were exceptions who should be punished according to the full severity of the law. These two tactics for dealing with the protest of the Palestinians in Israel also find backing from some commentators and advisers drawn from Israeli academic circles, who are interested in preserving the current situation and are afraid of any changes in the rules of the gain. On the other side, during the past decade, the Palestinians in Israel have largely come to favor the introduction of an arrangement similar to that crystallizing between groups in divided societies in the Western world—the total elimination of discrimination against minority groups and the abolition of the institutionalized dominance of the majority. They wish to achieve genuine equality with the Jewish majority and demand that the state serve them on equal footing with the Jews, grant them equal resources, provide them with equal public services, allocate land and appointments in the public service on an equitable basis, permit them to participate fully in government and parliamentary coalitions, give them equality in determining the nature and objectives of the state, and allow them to select a countrywide leadership to spearhead the realization of these goals. In practice they are demanding that the state be binational and serve all its citizens as individuals and as groups, rather than a Jewish ethnic state that shows clear preference to one group of citizens (the Jews). These demands express an aspiration for an essential change in the character, objectives, and policies of Israel as the state of a Jewish people, a demand that is anathema to the overwhelming majority of the Jewish citizens and the authorities. In our estimation, the intensity of the events and the mass participation in them indicates that this time it was not a case of “a handful of rioters”, but of the deep frustration of broad sectors of the population. Vast sectors among the Arabs have come to the conclusion that there is a profound gap between their aspirations, which they consider to be just and natural, and the state’s willingness to respond favorably and move toward them. The killing of 13 Arab citizens by police gunfire further intensified their doubts as to the meaning of their Israeli citizenship as a value that protects them and is worth fighting for. The debate about participation in the elections is a direct outcome of the crisis caused by the events of October. The Israeli government’s initial reactions—such as the establishment of a committee of clarification, pulling old budget plans from desk drawers, and initiating and encouraging Jewish-Arab encounters in the field—were means to put a good face on the situation and restore peace and stability, rather than steps to deal with it authentically and get to the roots of the problem. The Arab leadership responded in similar fashion. Some leaders tended to cooperate with the government actions to cool off the situation; some interpreted the events as a reaction to Sharon’s visit to the haram a-Sharif , or as identification with the Palestinians struggle against the occupation, and not as a protest against the treatment of Palestinian citizens in Israel. This attests to these leaders’ reluctance to deal with the genuine causes of the crisis and propose solutions to the inevitable contradiction between the existence of Palestinians in Israel and their national aspirations, on the one hand, and the policy, goals, and intentions of the Jewish state, on the other. In this situation, which will evidently continue to accompany us for many years, the events of the al-Aqsa intifada will prove to have been no passing episode. Rather, they are part of an ongoing series of clashes that are the outcome of the fundamental quarrel between the state and the Jewish majority on one side and the Palestinian minority on the other. The relative quiet that has prevailed within the Green Line after mid-October is liable to mislead and lull to sleep and defer attempts to solve the problems. The election campaign and the continuation of the intifada in the territories of the Palestinian Authority diverted attention to other topics; many of the proclamations made by both sides soon after the incidents are no longer valid. We share the assessments voiced in October that we have entered a new stage in the character of the discourse and relations between the Arab citizens and the state, and that from now on they will be conducted according to new rules . Especially among the younger generation there are expressions of pride about the intifada and proclamations of a willingness to use force in the struggle to achieve their rights . The fact that it was only after the violent clashes that the issue reached the public agenda and that, for the first time since his election, the prime minister met with the Arab leadership (for the first time since he was elected), cabinet ministers raced from Arab community to another and made promises, and the media devoted significant attention to the issue—all this conveyed the message that this might very well be the best way to attract attention and produce change. Unlike the past, this time Arab leaders did not issue unambiguous condemnations of the violence; most of their statements dealt only with the police brutality against the demonstrators. Attempts by Arab Knesset members and community leaders to hold back demonstrators, sometimes with their bodies, failed almost everywhere. The end of the violence and the calm that has prevailed since indicate the Arabs’ suspicion and fear of a harsh reaction by the police and the authorities rather than true calm and acceptance of the current state of affairs. In the last days before the elections for prime minister, supporters of Ehud Barak have been trying various means to restore Arab support for him and warning the Arabs against a change of administration. The general reaction, however, has been one of no confidence in promises and disinterest in voting, out of a sense that there is no practical difference between the two candidates in how they relate to the Arab citizens and that in any case the Arabs have no power to influence the political system. Even after the elections and the victory of Ariel Sharon, all the basic components of the crisis described above still exist. Continued hostilities in the Palestinian territories and a failure to reach an accord will further intensify the frustration and bitterness of the Palestinians in Israel. Coverage of the genuine problems and a sincere attempt to deal with them through negotiations and openness, accompanied by practical steps to reduce the gaps between the two communities in all spheres of life, can blunt the tension. Reports and recommendations have been submitted to the government in the past, and after these events as well . What is needed is simply to roll up the sleeves and do something in the field.

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