Al-Zaytouna Centre: Palestinians in Israel

Palestinians in Israel
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alzaytou on 16/05/2011 19:01:00


Book reviewed by Dr. Adnan Abu Amer for Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and
Consultations
Introduction:
This book just published in Tel Aviv presents an extreme Israeli vision of the
future of the 1948 Arabs inside Israel, through the national, religious,
political and demographic considerations that it puts forward. This is
especially significant, as its author is known to have become a serious
“whisperer” in the ears of many decision-makers during the last few decades,
warning them against what he calls the increasing “threats” of the 1948
Arabs to what he describes as “the Jewish nation-state.”
Moreover, Professor Dan Schueftan, the book’s author, has invented a new name
for the 1948 Palestinians in the world of Israeli politics, when he says,
“Israel´s Arabs are a special case. We are not dealing with just a majority
and a minority, but rather, a minority with the mentality of a majority
vis-à-vis a Jewish majority with the mentality of a minority.”
Schueftan believes that even after fully disengaging from the Palestinians in
the future, one issue which he describes as “central, painful, bloodier than
ever, and unresolved” will remain, which is “Israel´s Arab citizens.”
This prompted him to turn, in less than ten years, into an advanced
information-gathering machine, as described by the Israeli journalist “Roni
Shaked.”
Relating to Schueftan's meticulous methodology, Middle East analyst Asaf
Romirowsky described his work environment as follows, “His study is crammed
with crates filled with relevant documents.” And every drawer is packed with
material relevant to a secondary issue on the subject.
“He has collected every word published in newspapers, both in Israel and
abroad. He has documented every Knesset speech. All televised documentation from
1990 and onward are found in his personal library. To the degree that the
material he gathered about Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi alone can fill a room!”
Title: Palestinians in Israel (In Hebrew)
Author: Professor Dan Schueftan
Publisher: Zmora-Bitan Publishers– Tel Aviv
Year of Publication: 2011
Physical details: 844
A Minority with the Mentality of a Majority:
From this meticulous gathering, this book was born with its main title
“Palestinians in Israel” and its subtitle “The Arab minority’s struggle
against the Jewish State.” It sums up the author’s stance vis-à-vis the
future of the 1948 Arabs in his saying, “They are unwilling to accept a
solution that is less than what is perceived as the Jewish nation-state's
suicide. We are dealing with an especially difficult branch of the complete
rejection of the Jewish state in the Arab world.” This is because they are a
growing part of the Israeli society. Furthermore, he expressed his doubts about
their ability to be integrated into this society.
He says that his book was published two weeks after Land Day and one month prior
to Nakba Day; the two days that represent sad dates for the 1948 Arabs.
Regarding these days, the Knesset has passed the Nakba Law and the Citizenship
Loyalty Bill. The Arab minority is the party clearly wronged by them; and in his
view, these Arabs have become “the enemies of the Jewish State.”
The author believes that the “preferred process for maintaining Israel as a
Jewish, democratic state is to secure a historic compromise with the Arab world.
This requires difficult compromises on the security front.” He adds that this
“process raises the need to contend with a large minority of more than a
million Arab citizens, who are fighting from the inside against Israel's Jewish,
democratic character and identity,” and this “will be Israel´s great
dilemma domestically,” Schueftan says. “Even if a solution is found to the
conflict with the Arab world and with the Palestinians, this will be the next
area where they will try to de-legitimize Israel.”
The Destruction of the Jewish Enterprise
It is precisely the proximity to Israel´s top echelon that grants Schueftan
considerable weight in what he says regarding the threat of the 1948 Arabs.  He
alleges that “the Jewish nation-state is illegitimate in the eyes of the main
camp within Israel's Arab minority, even if an Arab-Palestinian state is
established alongside Israel in the same land, between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean.” Israel’s Arabs want instead “recognition as a national
minority granted a recognized status, while eroding the state of Israel's
national Jewish aims to the point of annulling them.”
He expresses his view regarding the nature of the actions taken by the
Palestinian Arabs in Israel to realize what he describes as “their
strategy,” which “is to attack the Jewish establishment from within, using
the democratic means of the State and of society.” He strongly rejects the
mottos raised inside Israel, saying, “the use of universal messages such as 'a
state of all its citizens' hides a wholly different notion: An attempt to
establish a bi-national state on the ruins of the Jewish state that will
gradually change its demographic balance (between Jews and Arabs) by rejecting
the (Israeli) Law of Return and adopting the (Palestinian) right of return.”
The book raises a number of harsh opinions with respect to the 1948 Arab, among
them, “As a collective, they have tried to bring about the destruction of the
national Jewish enterprise. This conflict is not ethnic, but rather, national.
Two peoples are fighting for the land. The Arabs feel that they are a separate
people and are emphasizing it. For that reason they reject the notion of
becoming increasingly Israeli.”
The Enmity of Generations
This radical doctrine, Schueftan says, is not only endorsed by the older
generation, which experienced the Nakba or heard about it from its parents,
“the younger and more educated the generation, the deeper it was educated in
line with the perception that the struggle against the Jewish nation-state is
part of its identity,” he says. “We´ve reached the point where an
overwhelming part of the Arab public has already internalized this identity”
with the hope to return to the country its Arab character.
Schueftan expresses his conviction that in spite all of this hostile culture,
the Arab Israelis did not turn to terrorism, as he describes it, meaning armed
struggle, for the most part, because they understood that the “domestic
political struggle against the State´s Jewish character is the only effective
means still left for them.”  What worries the Israelis is that their elites
are committed to the “more radical version of the struggle against the Jewish
state.”
Schueftan expects a repeat of the October 2000 riots; still he finds that the
threat level of this phenomenon is less than that against the social, political
and value fabric. That is because the first challenge has a violent armed
character, which Israel has the tools to confront in a manner more effective
than the tools it has for confronting the value challenge.
He considers Israel’s most important achievement is its disengagement from the
Palestinians in 2005, by unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. He called
this “its independence from the Palestinians.” In spite of the fact that the
Palestinians need to gain their independence from us, from a practical aspect,
the Israeli agenda is subject to what he describes as “the Palestinian
occupation,” which is Israeli-made, when Israel forced it upon itself by
letting its national agenda be dependent on the “peace myth,” which depleted
the greatest part of the “national energy.”
He sees that Israel’s main problem does not lie in the Palestinian political
leadership such as Yasir ‘Arafat or the Hamas Movement, but rather in the
entire Palestinian people, whom he does not consider as “partners” in the
historic peace settlement. For the Palestinian people do not recognize the
Jew’s national state and hold an anti-Semitic view. This also applies to the
1948 Arabs, who believe that time is on their side; but this is more of a
supposition than a belief. What probably encourages them in that regard is
seeing the cracks in Israeli society.
Schueftan claims that the saying that the problems of the 1948 Arabs will be
solved if Israel provided them with a good deal of civil equality is a “mere
dream,” if we rely on what their spokesmen say. This is because the core of
the conflict is represented by the existence of a Jewish national state, which
they are not ready to recognize. Today, it looks like the situation is far more
dangerous than it was during the first days of the state’s establishment.
The author ends his book by demanding that the Israeli decision-makers follow a
strategy of “disengagement from the Palestinians” to minimize the expected
damage, specifying that this separation be similar to the “Separation Wall”
in the West Bank and Jerusalem. For this disengagement track “will make it
more difficult to turn elements within the Green Line into agents of the
Palestinian struggle against Israel.”
Systematic racism
Schueftan, the book’s author, is 68 years old. For 43 years he has been
pursuing contemporary Middle Eastern studies. He is the director of the National
Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, where he also serves as a
senior lecturer in the School of Political Sciences.  He has also taught at the
Israel Defense Forces National Security College and the IDFs Command and Staff
College. He also delivers lectures at security colleges in London.
In spite of the fact that his opinions are “eccentric” and not liked by
everyone, he has become close to many decision-makers in recent decades;
starting in the seventies and including all the prime ministers, defense
ministers and heads of intelligence agencies; beginning with David Ben-Gurion,
passing by Yisrael Galili, and ending with Tzipi Livni and Dan Meridor.
The red-haired Schueftan is known for his quick-temper. Once, in a scientific
conference, the famous Israeli historian Professor Anita Shapira jokingly
introduced him to the audience, as he was about to deliver a lecture, and
described him as an animal. He was very pleased with this introduction, in view
of the fact that he does not hide his extreme Zionist positions.
Currently, he works as a consultant to Israel’s top political echelon,
particularly in the prime minister’s office, and in the defense and foreign
ministries. He has published a number of important books and articles related to
the Arab-Israeli conflict; foremost among them: Disengagement: Israel and the
Palestinian Entity,  Attrition: Egypt's Post War Political Strategy 1967-1970,
and A Jordanian Option - Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians.”
He also cooperated in a number of research projects that reverberated in the
academic and political arenas in Israel; among them: The New Identity of the
Arab Members of Knesset, Is There a Partner to us on the Palestinian Side in the
Peace Agreement? and Israel’s Mistake in Compensating for Those Killed in the
October Riots.
He had previously issued a number of racist statements that received extensive
reactions inside Israel; among them: “The Arabs are the greatest failure in
the history of the human race,” “There is nothing under the sun more screwed
up than the Palestinians,” “When Israel sends a sophisticated satellite into
space; the Arabs come up with a new kind of hummus.”
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Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, 17/5/2011
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