Without these captive votes, it would have been difficult for Ben-Gurion to set up his coalitions during his 15 years in office.
AFTER THE Naqba of the 1948 war, the remaining 200 thousand or so "Israeli Arabs" were in a state of shock. They neither had the means nor dared to oppose the government in any way.
The only exceptions were the communists. During the 1948 war, the Zionist leadership was closely allied with Stalin, who provided us with almost all our arms. This alliance continued for some years, until Israel's tightening ties with the West and Stalin's mounting anti-Semitic paranoia put an end to it.
By that time, the Israeli communist party had built up a strong position within the Arab community in Israel. It was in practice an Arab party, though Moscow dictated, for reasons of its own, that the General Secretary be Jewish. The relations between the party's leadership and the government were full of contradictions -- while the party was tolerated because of Israel's ties with Moscow, from time to time it was persecuted by the Shin Bet as a Fifth Column.
Since no other Arab party (except Mapai's aforementioned Arab Quislings) was tolerated at all, the communist party enjoyed what practically amounted to a monopoly in the Arab street. Its hold on the Arab towns and villages in Israel came close to the stranglehold Mapai had until 1977 on the Jewish population. Woe to the Arab who dared to oppose it!
After Ben-Gurion was kicked out by his own party in 1963, the official attitude towards the Arab citizens gradually became more liberal. Military rule was officially abolished in 1966 (it was one of my first votes in the Knesset). Eventually, new Arab parties were allowed to be set up and enter the Knesset. The relations between the Arabs and the state entered a new phase -- a phase very difficult to define.
ISRAEL IS officially defined as a "Jewish and democratic state." Some consider this an oxymoron -- if it's Jewish, it cannot be democratic, if it's democratic, it cannot be Jewish. Official doctrine has it that the state is Jewish in its character, but that all citizens enjoy (or should enjoy) equal rights.
As a matter of fact, Israel has never really come to grips with this basic contradiction: what is the status of a national minority in a state that is totally identified with the national majority? To wit, how can Arab citizens really be equal in a state that claims to be "the nation-state of the Jewish people"?
From the Law of Return, which applies only to Jews and their descendants through the Law of Citizenship, which makes a sharp distinction between Jews and non-Jews, to dozens of minor laws which bestow privileges on people who are defined as "individuals to whom the Law of Return might apply" -- there is no real equality. In practice, discrimination, open or hidden, permeates society.
Many Israelis assert that they abhor discrimination, but claim that other democratic countries do not treat their own national minorities any better.
A THIRD generation of "Israeli Arabs" is now growing up. It is no longer cowed by the government, but lives in a mental limbo. They proudly define themselves as Palestinians and support the Palestinian struggle in the occupied territories, but also are becoming more and more Israeli. Another Zuabi, Abd-al-Aziz, a member of the Knesset many years ago, coined the phrase: "My state is at war with my people." The most prominent Arab Knesset member at present, Ahmad Tibi, once a close adviser to Yasser Arafat, is to my mind the most Israeli of all Knesset members, both in character and behavior.
Actually, Arabs are far more integrated in Israeli society than many people realize. Jewish patients in government hospitals are often unaware of the fact that the doctor and the male nurse treating them are Arabs. In football matches between Jewish and Arab teams, Jewish hooligans shout "Death to Arabs" and their Arab equals shout, with equal enthusiasm, "Allah is Great!"
A few years ago, Lieberman proposed that the Arab towns and villages located in Israel near the border with the West Bank should be joined to the future Palestinian state, in return for Jewish settlements in the West Bank on the other side of the border. There was a storm of protest from the Arab population. Not a single Arab spokesman supported the idea.
However, the growing bitterness of the Arab citizens is driving the Arab members to more and more extreme positions and strident utterances, while the Jewish right-wing politicians become more and more extreme in their anti-Arab racism. Thus the gulf between the two camps in the Knesset is getting wider, not narrower.
So Lapid was shrewdly courting the mainstream when he expressed his contempt for the "Zuabis." Hanin Zuabi, of course, was flattered.
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