“Arabs are full citizens, but are not part of the power-making and decision-making in Israel,” explained Zeidan Atashi, an Israeli-Druze, who spoke this week in Milwaukee.
Although “they have all rights the Israelis have,” he continued, “they are not part of the sovereignty of Israel. Since Israel cannot afford to give them what they want [separate sovereignty] they will continue to feel like second class citizens and they will be looking at Palestine, next door.”
The solution to diffusing this problem, he said, begins with land. “Israel must withdraw from all unnecessary settlements in the West Bank and Gaza to open many opportunities for peace and co-existence.”
Then Israel must offer Israeli-Arabs more political and democratic participation, and must make gradual but consistent attempts to promote Israeli-Arab inclusion.
The solution, he said, is to “Israelize” the Arab community — to make them feel that they belong.”
Atashi spoke to a group of some 20 on Monday, Feb. 21, on the topic, “An Israeli-Druze Perspective on Majorities and Minorities in Israel: The Democratic Challenge.”
Hosted by the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, the event took place at the Evan & Marion Helfaer Community Service Building.
A former member of the Knesset and an Israel Defense Forces veteran, Atashi has been active in political and public life. He has worked as a senior reporter and commentator on Arab affairs for Israeli television and spent many years working in New York, first in the Israeli Consulate and then as a delegate to the United Nations.
Author of “Druze and Jews in Israel: A Shared Destiny?” (International Specialized Book Services, 1996), Atashi describes himself as a Druze by religion, an Arab by nationality and an Israeli by citizenship.
Atashi said that he and the Israeli Druze community support the State of Israel and ardently desire that it remain a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.
Citing several clashes between the Jews and the Muslim Arab minority in Israel and a laundry list of conflicts between Islamic fundamentalists and Christians around the world, Atashi asserted that these conflicts “were a political signal that the Islamicists could form separatist movements.”
“There have been huge public meetings [in Arab communities] to Islamicize the world,” he said.
Arguing that “there are no permanent settlements in the Middle East;” that “the Jews still do not know the mentality of the Middle East;” and that “the only measure that works in the Middle East is power,” Atashi explained his “personal thesis,” based on what he has observed in these conflicts. “Whenever any Islamic minority reaches 20 percent or more, there will be disagreements with the majority and demands for participation and sovereignty that are designed to destablize that country,” he said.
Atashi noted that 18 percent of Israel’s population consists of non-Jewish minorities, 16 percent of whom are Muslim Arabs. Almost 22 percent of Israelis under the age of 20 are Muslim Arabs.
Atashi said that Israeli and American Jews must understand the implications of these statistics as they face the danger of a disaffected Israeli-Arab minority being influenced by Islamic fundamentalists.
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