Democratic Palestine : 21 (ص 19)
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- Democratic Palestine : 21 (ص 19)
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military service. There is intentional neglect of the industrial,
agricultural and service sectors in Palestinian Arab regions;
only small amounts of money ere allotted for these purposes.
In agriculture, the Zionist authorities control cultivated
areas, the kind of crops raised and the amount of irrigation. The
authorities force the Palestinian Arab farmers to cultivate crops
that are needed on the Israeli market and have a low marketing
price. More profitable crops are reserved for Jewish farmers.
The areas cultivated by Palestinian farmers are constantly being
reduced by confiscation. Special laws are issued concerning
crops that the Palestinian Arabs commonly cultivate. In Sep-
tember 1985, a new property tax law was issued imposing high
taxes on olive groves. At the same time, the authorities prohibit
Palestinian farmers from cultivating quality olives with good
returns. There are other forms of harassment as well. The
Department of Archaeology warned the Palestinian farmers of
Sakhnin and Arraba villages not to raise trees or use big plow-
ing machines on the pretext that these villages are in an area of
archaeological value. They asked them to cultivate grains only.
Until the end of 1985, Palestinian Arab farmers were not repre-
sented in the Israeli Agricultural Center of the Histadrut’s
Union of Farmers’ Cooperative Associations where aid is given
from which Palestinian farmers don’t benefit.
In the most obvious form of harassment, the Green Patrol
regularly confiscates dozens and sometimes hundreds of cows
and sheep on the pretext that they have entered a military area or
other area where grazing is prohibited. The animals are then
transported to a distant place. To recover his livestock, the
Palestinian farmer or shepherd must pay a high price for ship-
ping them back, in addition to a heavy fine.
In mid-October of 1986, the police and border patrol took
over Jaffa port and closed it in the fishermen’s faces on the pre-
text that it would be turned into a tourist harbor for yachts; this
led to the loss of livelihood for dozens of families.
In industry, Palestinian Arabs are usually given low-level
jobs in heavy industry where great physical effort is required
and the work is hard and often dangerous. More than 65% of
Palestinian Arabs work far away from their homes due to the
absence of development and job opportunities in their villages
or towns. When a factory suffers financial problems, they are
the first to be fired. They are also vulnerable to attacks by the
Zionist terrorists such as the gangs of Kahana and Levinger.
The latest economic plan adopted by the Israeli national unity
government had grave repercussions for Palestinian Arabs.
There were mass dismissals as part of the efforts to ease the
economic crisis and cut down expenses. As a result of this plan,
thousands of Palestinian construction workers were discharged.
Half the contruction workers in the Zionist state are Palestinian
Arabs; they are most often hired without contract, and can be
discharged at any time.
Racist discrimination in hiring and firing has left its mark on
the number of unemployed. According to the estimate of the
Labor and Social Welfare Ministry, there are 10,000 unem-
ployed Arabs. When workers registered at the employment
offices are selected for new jobs, Palestinian Arabs are sent to
jobs far away from their homes and with no consideration for
their skills; they usually get jobs in sanitation and road cons-
truction. If a Palestinian refuses such a job, his unemployment
benefits are reduced. In the case of two such refusals, he is con-
sidered unwilling to work and loses his right to unemployment
benefits totally. To show the scope of the unemployment tra-
gedy in the Palestinian Arab sector, we draw attention to the
fact that in February 1986, 20% of the work force in Nazareth
was unemployed; in some villages, unemployment was at 35%.
The unemployed have demonstrated at the employment offices
and the Prime Minister’s Office. At a demonstration in front of
the National Insurance Institution’s office early in 1986, one
citizen, Yousef Odeh, burned himself in protest of the desperate
situation.
In the service sector, there is clear discrimination between the
Palestinian Arab citizen and the Jewish one in terms of insu-
rance facilities, exemptions, education, health, welfare, and the
provision of facilities for sports, cultural clubs, parks and thea-
ters. There is a vast discrepancy between the budgets allocated
for Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities, which is one of
the roots of this discrimination. The other is difference in access
to the existing services. Palestinians are usually regarded as
second-class citizens, if not tenth-class. They are forbidden
from entering some public places, including hospitals and res-
taurants, only because they are Arabs. Hadashot, the Israeli
newspaper, published an obvious example of how Palestinian
Arabs are treated. On August 22, 1986, the paper reported that
Leumi Bank in Beer Sheba (in the Naqab) receives Palestinian
Arab Bedouin customers outside the bank building, where one
employee handles their transactions. The bank’s manager ans-
wered the paper’s question about the reason for this procedure
by saying, «Receiving Bedouin customers inside the bank would
make Jewish customers escape because of the Arabs’ smell and
their destruction of the furniture and artificial plants.»
Of 11,600 public telephones in occupied Palestine, only 176
are in the Palestinian Arab domain. Communications Minister
Amnon Rubenstein justified the discriminatory policy of his
ministry by saying that Arabs don’t take care of these phones
and quickly destroy them. Shmuel Toledano, former advisor to
the Israeli prime minister on Arab affairs, summarized his
experience of 12 years in this post, after he retired in 1977:
«With great sorrow, one can say that the Arabs in Israel are
second-class citizens.» Ezra Weizman, minister without port-
folio, summarized his experience with the Arab domain by
saying, «There is much negligence towards the Arabs, and no
One can deny that there is a problem in Israel called the problem
of the Arab citizens.»
THE POLITICAL, SYNDICAL AND POPULAR
FIELD
It is the policy of the Zionist state to prevent the emergence of
any independent Palestinian Arab political or social formation,
and to thwart nationalist aspirations. Accordingly, the Zionist
leaders have blocked the establishment of any independent
Palestinian Arab political party, or popular or syndical organi-
zation. They have forcefully suppressed all attempts to form
such organizations. The Zionists have relied on the same tools as
did the Ottoman and British occupiers, such as the mukhtars
and other traditional figures who care only about their own
personal and class interests. All the people’s demands for
improvement were dealt with by the Zionist authorities through
these figures. Thus, the Zionist occupiers attempted to force the
Palestinian Arabs to accept the status quo.
Continuing the British Mandate’s policy of divide and rule,
the Zionist state tried to divide the Palestinian Arabs based on
their religions (Muslim, Christian and Druze), even going so far
as to consider the Druze faith a new nationality, separate from
Arab nationality. In line with this, they forced the Druze to do
military service in the Israeli army. However, these attempts
have ultimately failed, for the Druze insisted on adhering to
their Arab identity. Over the years, many have refused to do
compulsory service and demanded that the government cancel
this decision. In 1956, Sheikh Farhood Farhood and others
refused to do military service,declaring adherence to their Arab
nationality, and insisting that the word Arab be written under
the nationality category on their identification cards, with
Druze designated as their religion. (Druze is written as nationa-
lity on the Israeli identity cards.) On January 10, 1972, the
Druze sheikh of Al Raha issued a statement calling for an end to
drafting Druze. He questioned the reasons for drafting them as
they are true Arabs who share their destiny with their Arab bro-
thers. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Davar on May
18, 1972, Farhood Farhood, leader of the Druze Initiative
Committee, said, «We are Arabs in every aspect. Therefore, it is
a shame to be drafted. I don’t want history to misrepresent us.
We have noright to separate Druze from Arabs.»
The Zionist enemy has also resorted to encouraging the
Palestinian Arabs to emigrate. To this purpose, several com-
panies have been formed, that offer immigration to the US,
Canada and European countries, with enticements such as paid
travel and accomodations, an insured job, etc. However, these
attempts failed to tempt our people to leave their homeland.
As Palestinian Arabs increasingly articulated their demands
in the face of the discriminatory Israeli policy and their own lack
of political rights, they turned to the Israeli Communist Party
(Rakah) which has an Arab majority in its membership and is
the first defender of Arab interests among legal parties. Other
progressive nationalist movements grew up and tried to form
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