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FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6783
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 TEL AVIV 001081 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/IPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SOCI IS
SUBJECT: MOUNTING TENSIONS BETWEEN ISRAEL'S ARAB AND JEWISH CITIZENS 
 
REF: A) TEL AVIV 1080 
      B) 07 STATE 123763 (C-NE7-01407) 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary and Comment:  Over the past few years, Israel has 
witnessed a slow but steady worsening of relations between its 
Jewish and Arab citizens.  Populist and in some cases extremist 
rhetoric from leaders in both communities has inflamed passions and 
become an increasingly acceptable discourse among both groups, with 
some Jews calling for population transfer and some Arabs calling 
Jews "fascist" perpetrators of a new Holocaust.  Incidents of 
stone-throwing by Arab youth are on the rise, and in mid-March 
Israel Security Agency (ISA) Director Yuval Diskin reported an 
increase of Israeli-Arab involvement in terrorism.  Since the 
violent demonstrations of October 2000, during which police killed 
12 Israeli Arabs, unfulfilled GOI promises to undertake projects to 
improve the status of Israel's Arabs have left wide socio-economic 
gaps between the two societies and a growing sense of frustration, 
particularly among Arab youth.  The Israeli-Arab leadership's 
publication in late 2006 of a series of documents calling for the 
establishment of equality between Jews and Arabs and largely 
rejecting the legitimacy of the state's Jewish character contributed 
to the Jewish sense that Israeli Arabs are a fifth column in the 
country.  Israeli journalists and academics have begun writing about 
the possibility of a third intifada, and despite occasional positive 
signs for the troubled Jewish-Arab relationship, there is a real 
risk that the current environment could become explosive with 
negative repercussions for the Palestinian negotiating track and 
Israel's internal stability.  To prevent current tensions from 
escalating over time, the GOI needs to begin delivering on the many 
unfilled promises of full equality and equal opportunity for 
Israel's 1.3 million Arab citizens, especially the disgruntled youth 
-- 75 percent of whom defy popular wisdom by expressing support for 
the idea of voluntary civilian service in exchange for benefits 
similar to military veterans.  For its part, the Israeli Arab 
leadership -- Knesset members and mayors, activists and clerics -- 
needs to recognize that they cannot have it both ways, and that if 
they value their Israeli citizenship, they need to end incitement 
against the state.  A government-sponsored conference on the 
situation of the Arab-Israeli population is being organized by the 
Prime Minister's Office for June.  It could be the start of a 
dialogue to help promote reconciliation.  End summary and comment. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
The Tension Builds: October 2000 and the Second Lebanon War 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Though far from new, current tensions between Israel's Jews 
and Arabs faced a sharp turn for the worse following the events of 
October 2000, when police killed 12 Israeli Arab citizens in the 
Galilee during riots expressing solidarity with Palestinians in the 
early days of the "Al Aqsa Intifada."  Following the deaths, the GOI 
appointed a commission of inquiry, the Or Commission, to investigate 
the circumstances surrounding these events.  Noting that the 
government's handling of the Arab sector had been "primarily 
neglectful and discriminatory," the Or Commission made a series of 
recommendations to improve the status of Israeli Arabs.  It 
determined that "action must be focused on giving true equality to 
the country's Arab citizens" and said that the state must initiate, 
develop, and operate programs to close gaps in education, housing, 
industrial development, employment, and services.  However, the 
conclusions and recommendations of the Or Commission have remained 
largely unimplemented since the report's publication in 2003. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 served as an 
ominous reminder of the lack of progress in improving the lives of 
Israeli Arabs and the potentially dangerous consequences of the 
radicalization of this minority population.  During the war, with 
Hizballah rockets bombarding communities in northern Israel, Arab 
citizens complained that most of their towns and villages had no 
bomb shelters and said they lacked basic emergency information in 
Arabic.  The Mossawa Center, an advocacy center for Arab citizens of 
Israel, confirmed there was not "a single public bomb shelter in 
Nazareth, while there are 523 bomb shelters in the neighboring 
Jewish city of Upper Nazareth."  The Center also reported that many 
of the Arab villages lacked alarm systems to warn them of incoming 
rockets. 
 
¶4. (SBU) In addition to highlighting Israeli Arab resentment at the 
lack of resources devoted to protecting Arab communities, the Second 
Lebanon War also demonstrated the identification of part of the Arab 
population with Hizballah.  During the war, a small minority of Arab 
citizens directly affected by rocket attacks spoke out against 
Hizballah, while the majority condemned the Israeli war effort even 
as Hizballah fired rockets at northern Israel (killing Arab 
citizens).  Arab students at Haifa University even raised the 
Hizballah flag.  In the Knesset, the ten representatives of Arab 
parties spoke out against Israel's actions in the war, drawing angry 
responses from Jewish politicians and the press, and prompting some 
 
TEL AVIV 00001081  002 OF 005 
 
 
Jewish leaders to advocate depriving them of their citizenship. 
Although some members of Israel's Jewish population have long 
questioned the loyalty of Arab citizens in the abstract, the events 
of the Second Lebanon War contributed to a deeper foreboding that 
Arab citizens were capable of actively betraying the state.  Many 
Israelis' worst fears were confirmed when former MK Azmi Bishara 
(Balad) resigned from the Knesset while abroad in April 2007 
following a police investigation into his foreign contacts and 
accusations that he aided Hizballah during the war.  Bishara is 
widely believed to have provided Hizballah with information 
regarding strategic targets in Israel during the war in exchange for 
money. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
Jews Reject a New Vision for Israel's Arabs 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Since 2000, with the gaps between Israel's Arab and Jewish 
sectors showing no sign of closing, many Arab citizens of Israel 
have begun to lose hope in the possibility of achieving equality 
through the existing legal and political frameworks.  Following the 
Second Lebanon War, in late 2006, a series of documents drafted by 
some 40 Israeli Arab academics entitled "The Future Vision of the 
Palestinian Arabs in Israel" was published by the National Committee 
of the Heads of Arab Local Councils and endorsed by the Arab Higher 
Monitoring Committee of the Arabs in Israel.  This document, plus 
three others that quickly followed,  express Arab alienation from 
the State and attempt to redefine the status of the Arab minority 
vis-`-vis the Jewish majority.  In addition to calling for equality 
and the abolishment of discrimination, the Vision document and its 
successors reject the legitimacy of Zionism and the notion of a 
democratic Jewish state, calling instead for alternative models such 
as "consociational" democracy (which involves guaranteed group 
representation, as in Lebanon), a bi-national state, or a democratic 
bilingual state.  They define the Arab sector in Israel as a part of 
the broader Palestinian national community and refer to its members 
as "Palestinian Arabs in Israel," (rather than "Israeli Arabs") 
contributing to Jewish fears of a fifth column.  Most of the Jewish 
commentators in Israel, including longtime advocates of greater 
equality for Arab Israelis, found the vision documents profoundly 
disturbing.  Although large segments of the Jewish public support 
equal rights and greater opportunity for Arab citizens on an 
individual basis, the call for equal "collective" rights and the 
adoption of the Palestinian narrative, together with the rejection 
of the Jewish character of the state, was considered a negative 
watershed in relations by most Israeli Jews. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
A More Complex Picture:  The National Service Debate and Israel's 
60th Anniversary 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) If the Vision documents indicate a growing rift between 
Jews and Arabs on national issues, the current debate over national 
service offers a more complex picture.  The Arab leadership, 
including Arab journalists and most (but not all) Arab mayors and 
members of Knesset, has largely come out against the idea of Arab 
citizens performing civilian national service in lieu of military 
service.  They tout rhyming Arabic slogans such as "I volunteer for 
my country, not for my hangman," and argue that in light of the 
historic injustices inflicted on Arabs in Israel, the state has no 
right to demand national service from them.  This influential group 
views national service as part of a policy to destroy the 
Palestinian national identity of Israel's Arabs and strongly 
discourages Arab youth from participating.  Arab MK Jamal Zahalka 
(Balad) went so far as to say that "anyone who volunteers for 
national service will be treated like a leper, and will be vomited 
out of Arab society."  However, surveys show a rift between the 
leadership's position and that of Arab youth:  75% of Arab youth 
between the ages of 16 and 22 support voluntary civilian service and 
see it as an opportunity for personal growth and economic 
advancement.  In contrast, over 90% of their elected leaders oppose 
it.  Labor MK Nadia Helou is one of the only prominent Arabs to 
support national service.  In addition to the rift between the 
leadership and the general public, there are also significant 
divisions within the Arab community at large on this issue as 
evidenced by the burning of a store owned by an Arab Israeli in 
Haifa days after he spoke out publicly in favor of national service. 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) In the same vein, among the Bedouin, an Arab minority whose 
members have traditionally volunteered for service in the Israel 
Defense Forces (IDF), military service has recently become a point 
of contention revealing conflicted attitudes within the Bedouin 
community.  On more than one occasion in the past year, the families 
of Bedouin soldiers killed in combat in Gaza have requested that 
their names be withheld from the media so as to avoid reprisals from 
other members of the community who have begun to consider service in 
the IDF as a treacherous betrayal of Arab unity.  In the wake of the 
 
TEL AVIV 00001081  003 OF 005 
 
 
April 16 death of Sgt. Manahash Baniyat in the Gaza Strip, Faisal 
Abu Nadi, chairman of the Bedouin Forum of Discharged Soldiers, told 
Israel Radio that Bedouin enlistment in the IDF had dropped by as 
much as 50 percent - not due to discrimination within the army, but 
due to the State's treatment of the Bedouin, many of whom - 
including Sgt. Baniyat - live in unrecognized villages in homes that 
are often demolished by the State.  These examples, together with 
the national service debate, indicate that segments of Israel's Arab 
population are adopting more extreme, less integrationist positions 
over time, contributing to growing tensions and Jewish fears of the 
Arab minority becoming an enemy from within. 
 
¶8. (SBU) A similar divide exists within the Israeli Arab community 
regarding participation in Israel's 60th anniversary this month. 
Although the collective Arab leadership decided to boycott Israel's 
60th anniversary celebrations, individual Arab citizens, some in 
leadership positions, have expressed different opinions. Sana Elbaz, 
the daughter of a Bedouin family from Tel Sheva who lit a 
celebratory torch at Israel's 60th anniversary ceremony in 
Jerusalem, saw her car set ablaze by unknown persons outside of her 
house.  Ursan Yassin, the Mayor of Shfaram, for example, stated 
publicly in January 2008 that he would like to celebrate 
Independence Day in his city much like Jews in the U.S. celebrate 
the Fourth of July.  He said that "the 40,000 residents of Shfaram 
feel that they are a part of the State of Israel.  The desire to 
participate in the festivities is shared by most of the residents." 
The Arab Higher Monitoring Committee subsequently attacked Yassin, 
stating that he does not represent all of Israel's Arabs.  The 
Committee chairman argued that for Arab citizens of Israel, "Jewish 
Independence Day is our Nakba Day."  (Nakba translates literally as 
"catastrophe" or "blow.") 
 
¶9.  (SBU) In contrast to Shfaram, other Arab communities in the 
Galilee are conducting a series of "Nakba activities" to coiQde 
with Israeli Independence Day, including visits to the sites of 
villages destroyed during and after Israel's 1948 War of 
Independence.  Many Arab citizens of Israel have pointed out that 
although their communities celebrated Israeli Independence Day in 
the past by singing Israeli songs and flying Israeli flags, today 
many Arabs feel that doing so is shameful.  Provocative rhetoric 
surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary is also a source of rising 
tensions between Jews and Arabs.  In December 2007, Internal 
Security Minister Avi Dichter warned Israeli Arabs that "people who, 
year after year, lament the Nakba, should not be surprised when in 
the end, they have a Nakba."  Fortunately, none of these Nakba 
commemorations have resulted in significant violence, although 
tensions will remain throughout the month as both Jews and Arabs 
continue to mark their respective national milestones. 
 
------------------------------- 
Incendiary Rhetoric on the Rise 
------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Israel's 60th anniversary is not the only source of fiery 
rhetoric between Jews and Arabs.  In recent months both Jewish and 
Arab Israelis have been exposed to a vicious public debate where 
radical statements are gaining legitimacy in their respective 
communities.  In the Arab sector, anger over the plight of the 
Palestinians has led to demonstrations in which Arab citizens have 
alleged that Israel is perpetrating a "Holocaust" in Gaza - 
reprising and amplifying the words of Deputy Defense Minister Matan 
Vilnai who threatened that a "Shoah" would be inflicted on the 
people of Gaza in response to rocket attacks.  During one such 
demonstration in Umm el-Fahm in March 2008, Arabs called Jews 
"children of Hitler" and held signs that read "Stop the Zionazi 
massacre" -- particularly inflammatory rhetoric in a country founded 
in the wake of the Holocaust. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) In another strong public statement this March, members of 
the Arab public at soccer matches in Sakhnin and Nazareth refused to 
stand in mourning over Jews killed in the recent terrorist attack in 
a Jerusalem yeshiva.  In the Jewish sector, MK Avigdor Lieberman's 
(Yisrael Beiteynu) ideas about swapping land and people -- Jewish 
settlements in the West Bank for Arab villages near the Green Line 
-- are frequently heard in the Knesset and the media.  The Knesset 
itself has been the battleground for much vitriol in 2008, with Arab 
and Jewish MKs leveling curses and insults at each other.  After the 
attack in the yeshiva, Lieberman told Arab MKs that the current 
government is full of "weaklings," saying, "Believe you me, it's 
temporary, and you're temporary."  Lieberman is not the only MK to 
express these opinions.  Following the Umm el-Fahm demonstration, MK 
Effie Eitam (NU-NRP) told Arab lawmakers, "A day will come when we 
will drive you out of this house [the Knesset] and from the national 
home of the Jewish people."  Arab MK Taleb El-Sana (Ra'am-Ta'al) 
called a proposed amendment to the Basic Law that would bar 
candidates who have visited enemy states without permission from 
running for office "worse than the Nuremberg Laws."  In mid-April 
Arab MK Ahmed Tibi spoke out against Israel at the Doha Forum, 
labeling the country "an apartheid state" while FM Livni was 
 
TEL AVIV 00001081  004 OF 005 
 
 
present. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Though inflammatory rhetoric itself may be worrying to 
many Israelis, the real concern among mainstream Israeli Jews is 
that the heated words may one day lead to violent insurrection among 
Israel's Arab citizens.  This year's Land Day commemorations inside 
the Green Line (when Arab Israelis memorialize the 1976 killing by 
security forces of six Arabs  during protests against land 
expropriations) may have come and gone without violence, but they 
were marked by harsh diatribes against Israel calling for action. 
Arab citizens waved Palestinian Authority and Islamic Movement 
flags, and MK Jamal Zahalka told the crowd gathered at the central 
rally in Arabe that "it remains for the Arabs only to launch a mass 
struggle for their lands and homes."  Many of the demonstrators 
called for Arab autonomy in the Galilee, stating that "the time has 
come for us to stand up for our rights even at the price of fighting 
with sticks and stones."  In what was the most direct call for 
violence, the extremist Sons of the Village movement called for 
terror attacks against Jews, shouting "Our Popular Front, we want a 
terror attack from you." 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
Nightmare Scenario:  An Arab Israeli Intifada? 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶13. (SBU) With Arab-Jewish relations in Israel seemingly worse on 
balance than at any time since Israel lifted military rule over 
Israeli Arabs in 1966, some from among the more alarmist sectors of 
Israeli society are beginning to wonder if a "third intifada" could 
be sparked from among Israel's Arab minority.  The 2007 Arab-Jewish 
relations index published in April 2008 by Professor Sami Smooha, a 
widely-respected dean at Haifa University, determined that more than 
half of Israel's Jewish and Arab populations believe that the two 
communities are not on good terms and that relations are likely to 
continue deteriorating in the future.  The study found that the 
percentage of Israeli Arabs who deny Israel's right to exist as a 
Jewish Zionist state rose slightly over the last year and now stood 
at 64 percent, and the percentage of those who deny Israel's right 
to exist at all rose from 15 to 20 percent.  Support for the use of 
violence to advance the interests of the Arab minority also rose, 
from 9.5 to 10.8 percent.  In other words, if the survey is 
accurate, approximately 140,000 Israeli citizens would say they 
support violence against the state.  In the Jewish sector, a poll 
commissioned by the Knesset Channel revealed that 76 percent of 
Israeli Jews give some degree of support to transferring Israeli 
Arabs to a future Palestinian state.  On a positive note, Smooha 
said that when compared to surveys conducted in previous years, this 
year's results do not show "a trend towards extremism in the 
attitudes of the Arab population or entrenchment among the Jewish 
public."  Perhaps confirming this sentiment, he also found that 75 
percent of Arabs still believe Israel is a good place to live. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Events within the Arab community in the first four months 
of 2008, however, challenge Smooha's optimism.  In recent months, 
police sources have reported "a rising trend" in incidents of 
stone-throwing and other disturbances relating to nationalist 
motives among the Israeli Arab community.  In mid-March police 
officials said that in the past month and a half dozens of reports 
of stone-throwing had been received from the area south of Haifa and 
a considerable number from the lower and western Galilee.  In many 
instances the police subsequently arrested minors who confessed to 
the acts.  Some Arab youth admitted that the Islamic Movement's 
Northern Branch -- headed by the radical Sheikh Raed Salah, who 
regularly tries to incite Arab Israelis to a new intifada -- paid 
them to throw stones.  Two fifteen-year-old residents of a village 
in the western Galilee told reporters they were paid NIS 100 to 
throw stones the first time, and NIS 50 a second time.  It is 
unclear how much of the recent stone-throwing is sponsored by the 
Northern Branch Islamic Movement, but Northern Branch activists 
suggest they are responsible for a great deal of it.  A 47-year-old 
high-ranking member of the movement who was quoted in the press 
confirmed that "we help these children with pocket money," adding 
that "without social frameworks in the villages, many youths fill 
the mosques and realize that if we don't take our future into our 
own hands, the government will keep on taking away our land, our 
homes and our honor."  Anecdotal evidence suggests that such 
sentiments are gaining ground, as the Northern Branch of the Islamic 
Movement continues to make political and religious gains in Arab 
communities, and has recently even become a major force in the 
formerly aloof Bedouin communities of the Negev.  (Note:  Israel's 
Islamic Movement split several years ago into the more extreme and 
confrontational Northern Branch, led by Sheikh Raed Salah, and the 
moderate and tolerant Southern Branch, led by Islamic Movement 
founder and coexistence activist Sheikh Abdullah Darwish.) 
 
¶15. (SBU) Israeli expert on the Israeli Arab community Professor Eli 
Rekhes says he does not believe the stone-throwing incidents will 
lead to an explosion like the October 2000 riots, but is 
nevertheless pessimistic:  "A policy of perpetual disregard of the 
 
TEL AVIV 00001081  005 OF 005 
 
 
Arab community has its price.  If present trends are allowed to 
continue, the question is not if the Arab sector is going to 
explode, but when."  Minister of National Infrastructure and former 
Minister of Defense Benjamin Ben-Eliezer echoed Rekhes' comments, 
saying in a newspaper interview, "I'm worried about the country's 
future. The way we've treated them [Israeli Arabs] since 1948, apart 
from the brief period of the Rabin government, has pushed them into 
alienation and despair. We're in a sociopolitical process whose end 
is predictable. Fortunately for us, it is proceeding very slowly, 
but if we don't stop it, we ourselves will turn them into a fifth 
column." 
 
¶16.  (SBU) In March Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) Director Yuval 
Diskin reported an increase in the involvement of Israeli Arabs in 
terrorism, noting that in the past year 25 Arabs with Israeli 
citizenship had been arrested on suspicion of involvement with 
terrorist activity.  (Ref. A reports on a recent discussion between 
the Ambassador and Diskin on this topic.)  A terror attack carried 
out by an Israeli Arab, such as the one called for on Land Day, 
could spark additional violent confrontations and a further 
deterioration of inter-group relations.  Depending on the GOI's 
response, such an attack could also present a crisis for Israel's 
current government.  In the absence of a terror attack, with 
tensions running so high, even an isolated confrontation, if it 
turns violent, between Arab citizens and law enforcement, has the 
potential to expand into a major conflagration. 
 
------------------------ 
The Israeli Arab Promise 
------------------------ 
 
¶17. (SBU) Although many in the GOI and the Israeli public currently 
consider Arab citizens a liability for the State of Israel, that 
need not be their role in Israeli national life.  A GOI decision to 
narrow socioeconomic inequalities and engage the Arab public 
constructively on issues of national identity could quickly 
transform their national image from that of liability to asset. 
Israel's Arab citizens could serve as valuable players in the 
achievement of a peace agreement with the Palestinians, and 
following such an agreement, serve as a bridge between Israel and 
the rest of the Arab world.  Israel's Arab citizens offer a pool of 
educated, moderate, democracy-minded citizens capable of assisting 
with the social and economic development of the region.  Their 
knowledge of Israeli politics, culture and history could play a key 
role in achieving regional peace agreements with other Arab states, 
and they could serve as Israel's ambassadors to the rest of the Arab 
world. 
 
¶18. (SBU) Comment: To realize such a potential, however, the GOI 
needs to start delivering, in a determined and lasting way, on the 
many empty promises made to the Arab minority over the years.  At 
the same time, the Arab minority, especially its entrenched but 
largely self-serving leadership, needs to recognize that it cannot 
have it both ways -- that it cannot continue demanding the full 
fruits of Israeli citizenship while also inciting against the 
state's existence.  The GOI, because it encumbers the 
responsibilities of democratic governance and because it represents 
the majority, needs to take the first step.  But then, if met by a 
responsible reaction from the Israeli Arab community, the two sides 
could begin to repair their relations by working together in earnest 
to realize the national and regional promise of Israel's Arab 
minority.  The Prime Minister's proposed June conference on the 
situation of the Arab-Israeli population may be the first step in 
such a process. 
 
JONES