The popular image of the Israeli soldier is that of a proud, Hebrew-speaking Jew. While generally an accurate description, there are exceptions to the rule.
Ishmael Khaldi is one such exception. Formerly a border policeman in the Israeli Defense Force, Khaldi, 31, is also a proud Arab and Muslim.
“My people are Bedouin,” explained Khaldi to an audience of about 40 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Feb. 3.
Khaldi said that Bedouin, who number about 170,000 in Israel, are nomads and in most cases not Arab nationalists
“We are proud to be part of Israel. I personally consider myself to be multi-lingual and multi-cultural.”
Khaldi’s speech, entitled “My Life as an Israeli Bedouin,” was the third event in the semester-long Peace for Israel campaign, a series of pro-Israel, pro-peace programs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The series, sponsored by the Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee and the Campus Organization for Israel, aims to inform students and faculty about Israel and to promote peace between Arabs and Jews.
Khaldi’s home is the Galilee village of Khawalid, where some 400 members of his extended family live. The village name is the pluralized form of “Khaldi.”
Khaldi said that he grew up in a traditional Bedouin nomad tent until the age of eight. “My family finally left the tent for a shack, to get more settled,” he said.
Giving up a nomadic existence has not been easy on the family, but Khaldi believes it is necessary if his people are to compete in modern Israeli society. The Israeli government agrees.
“Since Israel was created in 1948 the government has tried to settle the Bedouin,” he said. “Various Israeli governments have tried all kinds of solutions, but it will take time before we can relate to modern society.”
While Khaldi pointed out that there are inequities between the Jewish and Bedouin communities in Israel, he did not put the blame squarely on the Israeli government or society.
“There is a saying in Hebrew: ‘The shepherd cannot be a hi-tech engineer overnight.’ It is a long, tough process.”
To help ensure that Bedouin youth learn the value of higher education, Khaldi currently heads the non-profit Israeli organization Etgar (Challenge), which encourages university education among Bedouin.
Khaldi is the only member of his family to attain a higher education. At the behest of one of his teachers, he applied to a prestigious Israeli-Arab high school in Haifa. Later he studied at Haifa University and then at Tel Aviv University, where he earned a master’s degree in political science.
During a brief question and answer period, audience members asked about Bedouin voting patterns. Khaldi said Bedouin were not ideological but rather voted for whichever party courted their community.
When one audience member asked Khaldi how many old Palestinian women he had “humiliated” as a border policeman, he replied, “Why don’t you ask me how many old Palestinian women I helped?”
Another audience member found it incredulous that an Arab Muslim could find Israel to be a good place to live, but Khaldi retorted: “I am not saying Israel is like the angel Gabriel, but we are a part of Israel. You don’t have to be Jewish to be a part of Israel, and I think that tells you something about Israeli society.”
Zak Mazur is Jewish Student Life Coordinator at Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee.
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