Israeli schools build bridges between Jews and Arabs
Howard Epstein – LETTER FROM ISRAEL – Israeli Arabs
Last week, in case there were readers who had been unaware, I dwelt upon the huge contribution to Israeli society of its Moroccan community. This week, having just returned from a couple of days in Jerusalem, where the burden of this week’s Letter was borne in on me, I refer to another societal group that has a greater involvement in Israeli life than is normally acknowledged – Israeli Arabs.
I was prompted to write on this subject because, staying in a certain Grand Old Lady of the capital’s hotels I saw that, as has traditionally been the case, its staff are to this day predominantly Arabs. The management have long known that if you wish guests to receive unfailingly courteous, not to say indulgent, service, they cannot go wrong by continuing to employ our Semitic cousins. Indeed, other epithets I have been seeking are “charming” and, equally apposite, “gentle”. This is the proper way to reflect on the vast majority of the Arab citizens of Israel.
There is another dimension to this, also. The country could not function without their widespread engagement at all levels of commerce and society. Enter a “SuperPharm” (think “Boots” or “Walgreens”) and you are much more likely than not to be attended to by an Arab. Go for a vaccination, be it against Covid-19 recently or influenza over the years, and some sweet-natured Arab girl or boy (you can tell there is a great age disparity between them and me) is likely to treat you. A blood test? The same. Be seen by a doctor in A&E? Attend a consultation with a surgeon? Probably, especially in Jerusalem, but also at Tel Hashomer (one of the premier hospitals in the world) or Ichilov (another centre of medical excellence) both in or about Tel Aviv, the same.
This is only the beginning. Once I was stopped for a random breath-test in the centre of Tel Aviv. The policeman was an Arab, and completely courteous. Go into one of the major professional firms in Tel Aviv and you will see several female members of the professional staff with sufficient head covering to confirm their Arabic provenance. In every supermarket chain you are likely to see the same at the check-out – and amongst your fellow shoppers, too.
To say “there are Arabs everywhere” is an expression of gratitude, for the country cannot run, or rather be run, without them. It is a complaint in one sense only: no brownie points. The world beyond our shores does not have a clue about what really goes on here.
Admittedly, the security forces prevent around 100 terror attempts a year (ie two each week, year in and year out) thanks to our most effective form of protection, Intelligence; but the fundamental fault here is that of the Palestinian Arabs’ greatest enemy – their leadership.
So, whilst Israeli Arabs become ever more integrated in Israeli life, and beg the government to do much more about violence in Arab towns – to which the government is responding at last – and they surrender escaped convicts to the police, and join the IDF in greater numbers – those Arabs in Samaria and Judea (often referred to as the West Bank) continue to be fed the lie that Israel will one day collapse and they may then do as Hamas did in Gaza: destroy all our works. (The leadership has its own interests of course. It was Arafat’s widow who, in the past year, identified the capital of Palestine – as being in the offshore bank accounts of its leaders.)
Why all this now? Simply because, at the British Labour Party annual conference a couple of weeks back, contrary to the received wisdom about Starmer suppressing anti-Jewish racism in the party, a motion was passed that shows that he has not yet begun that task.
Conference defined Israel as an apartheid state, quoting human rights groups as saying “unequivocally that Israel is practising the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN.” Plainly, very few of them have exercised their rights as Brits to fly to Israel without the need of a visa to see for themselves how far removed from reality is their group-think.
Ah, they will say, but on the West Bank there is “The Fence”, and there are road blocks, and body checks, and humiliation for Arabs.
Well, we may remind them that that is a fair description of Northern Ireland during “The Troubles”, and that is how it may soon be again if the UK government does not resolve its row with the EU over the island of Ireland, Eire and Northern Ireland. That is how small is the distance between civilisation and barbarism. Between Belfast and Dublin. Between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This last is 20 kilometres – and 24 years since the Six Day War. It was then that Jordan lost control of the West Bank, before which nobody claimed the territory for the Palestinians.
So that’s the situation amongst the Left in the UK. In the US Democratic Party, there are many who agitate likewise.
In the meantime, Israel diligently ploughs its own furrow, content in the knowledge that it is building an integrated society as far removed as can be imagined from pre-Mandela South African Apartheid.
© October 2021 – Howard Epstein
