In exchange for shutting down parts, or even all of the pro-Netanyahu freebie newspaper, Israel Hayom, media tycoon Arnon Mozes, owner of the competing Yedioth Ahronoth, promised that Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu will remain prime minister for as long as he desires. The…
Tag: Arabs in Israel
Israel: Economic reality trumps racist ideology
The words “historic decision” spill forth across Israel’s political spectrum, including the Arab leadership. Yesterday, the most right-wing government in the country’s history passed the largest aid program ever to its Arab sector: NIS 15 billion (ca. $4 billion). How…
The Smell of Apartheid: Israel’s Citizenship Law
The government has approved the proposal for an amendment to the Citizenship Law, according to which anyone requesting Israeli citizenship will have to declare loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state. This amendment is perceived by many to…
The Arab Sector: Israel’s Springboard into the OECD?
Assaf Adiv is the National Director of the Workers Advice Center (WAC-MAAN). A briefer version of this article was published in The Marker on April 15, 2010. Every few months politicians and economists beat their breasts over the fact that Israel’s 1.5…
Israeli Arab women march through Tel Aviv demanding jobs
By Noah Kosharek, Haaretz Correspondent Dozens of women, most of them Israeli Arabs, marched through the streets of Tel Aviv Sunday, calling on the government to find them jobs in agriculture. Wafa Tayara from Kafr Kara worked for a contractor…
Unconquered: Illegal Palestinian Workers in Israel
One day in 2005, Jonathan Ben Efrat of Video48 noticed Palestinian laborers waiting for jobs at a busy junction on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Stopping to talk, he learned that they were shabahim, illegal sojourners. To get around the checkpoints…
1948 Haunts the Haifa Art Museum
DR. RONA SELA, curator of the Haifa City Museum, is known for her public courage. As a research historian in photography, she has launched exhibits and written catalogues for museums in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Herzliya and elsewhere, as well as…
Women Hidden from the Eye
On the Status of Widows in Arab-Bedouin Society in Israel Excerpts from a lecture to the Convention on Widowhood in Mediterranean Societies, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, December 3, 2007 Khittam, a 47-year-old widow and mother of three daughters, has no…
The Price of Olive Oil
ABU AL-ABED COULD not believe his eyes when he went down to his olive grove in the Deir Hana Valley. It was early November, but the trees were naked of fruit, as if they’d forgotten that it was harvest time…
On National Service for Arabs
FOR DECADES ISRAEL has justified the unequal status of its Arab citizens, who now compose 19% of the population (1.4 million), by pointing out that they do not serve in the army. This claim is easily dispelled. Many Bedouin do…