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Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 24, 2006 / 26 Iyar, 5766

Arab Israelis' major gains & growing pains

By Richard Z. Chesnoff


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Here's something of a shocker: Twenty percent of all Israelis are Arabs!


I'm not talking about the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, I'm talking about Israel proper. More than 1.3 million Israeli Arabs live in major cities, as well as scores of their own primarily Arab towns and villages.


Some are Christian, most are Muslim, all are full citizens of Israel. They are the children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of Palestinian Arabs who were smart enough not to run during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Instead of becoming refugees living off an eternal United Nations dole, they stayed home, became citizens of the new state of Israel and for almost 60 years have enjoyed freedom and prosperity unknown to most other Arabs in the Middle East.


Israel's Arab population also represents a growing problem for both the Jewish state and itself. Despite their relative prosperity, despite the fact that they vote and have 10 members in the Israeli Parliament, Israeli Arabs are increasingly convinced that they are discriminated against — notably in state financial aid (which tends to be 50% lower in Arab towns than it is in Jewish ones).


This has resulted in a growing militancy among Israeli Arabs, who increasingly elect Islamic fundamentalists as their town officials. There have even been Israeli Arab citizens caught openly helping Palestinian terrorists.


While the link to suicide bombers is frighteningly new, estrangement is not. The proximity and accessibility to Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Gaza have raised Arab doubts about their status and triggered new Israeli fears about their Arab co-citizens. According to a recent human rights survey, 48% of Israeli Arabs said they don't trust Jews, and nearly 58% of Israeli Jews said they don't trust Arabs.

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A recent Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding a controversial Knesset security ban preventing Palestinians who marry Israeli Arabs from moving to Israel has not helped. To help fight this deterioration in relations and conditions, a broad coalition of American Jewish groups, including the UJA Federation of New York and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, has formed a new task force on Israeli Arabs. Working with both Israeli Arabs and Jews, they hope to bring the two communities closer to one another — and to convince the Israeli government to abandon its policies of economic neglect of and often de facto discrimination against its Arab citizens. "Israel will not be at peace externally," says Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents, "unless it has security internally."


Israel's Arabs themselves must make their own efforts, make their own choices. When a suggestion was made as part of peace negotiations that, in exchange for several West Bank settlements, some Israeli Arab villages become part of a Palestinian state, the first and loudest objections came from Israeli Arabs!


Still, they must come to grips forcefully with the fact that while Israel is their home, it is and will remain a Jewish state.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

CHESNOFF'S LATEST
The Arrogance of the French  

Sean Hannity
This book will open your eyes!

Bill O'Reilly
Why do the French hate America? Richard Chesnoff has figured it out and informs us with entertaining clarity.

Dennis Miller
France sucks, but this book doesn't.

Michael Barone, Co-author, The Almanac of American Politics
Americans-and the French-will learn a lot from this book.

Clifford D. May, President, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Richard Z. Chesnoff insightfully-and entertainingly-explores America's most dysfunctional relationship with America's least reliable ally.

Sales help fund JWR.



JWR contributor and veteran journalist Richard Z. Chesnoff is a contributing correspondent at US News & World Report, a columnist at the NY Daily News and a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Demoracies. A two-time winner of the Overseas Press Club Award and a recipient of the National Press Club Award, he was formerly executive editor of Newsweek International. His latest book, is "The Arrogance of the French: Why They Can't Stand Us & Why The Feeling Is Mutual". (Click on cover above to purchase. Sales help fund JWR. )

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© 2005, Richard Z. Chesnoff

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