Arabs in Israel stay on sidelines of raging political battle

JERUSALEM — As thousands of Israelis blocked roads and scuffled with police over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul, Arab citizens shared online memes of themselves watching the crisis unfold as unfazed spectators.

They make up a fifth of Israel's 9.7 million people and could be among those most impacted by the religious-nationalist government's controversial push to curb the Supreme Court, but they point to deeper concerns than the debate over the balance of powers.

"We are in a constant battle for our existence," mused retired teacher Adnan Haj Yahia, 67, in a coffee shop in Taybeh, a central Arab city abutting the occupied West Bank.

Looking at a protest ad covering the front pages of leading Israeli newspapers with the words "a black day for democracy," he said that described the daily reality for his community.

Most Arab citizens in Israel are descendants of Palestinians who stayed in the new Israeli state after the 1948 war. 

While others hotly debate the state's identity as Jewish and democratic, Palestinian citizens "have no place in this formula," said attorney Hassan Jabareen, founder of the Haifa-based Adalah rights group.

An aerial view shows protesters during a demonstration following a parliament vote on a contested bill that limits Supreme Court powers to void some government decisions, in Jerusalem on July 24, 2023. (Credit: Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters)

Jabareen, who has more than two decades of experience petitioning the Supreme Court on minority rights cases, said the court had traditionally been the last line of defense in cases of "extreme, unreasonable discrimination." He cited protecting Arab participation in elections, fair allocation of budgets and rights to live in towns denying Arabs residence.

Still, he said Palestinians, whether they hold Israeli citizenship or live under military occupation, have little hope in an increasingly conservative court that has backed bills such as the 2018 Nation-State Law, which declares that only Jews have a right to self-determination.

"Discrimination in Israel is official," said Jabareen. "This is the only state in the world that rejects the idea that the state should be a state of all its citizens."

'Top priority is to live'

While Israel claims it grants equal rights, many Arabs face structural discrimination and hostile policies.

A 2021 report by the Israel Democracy Institute found significant social and economic gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens, with poverty among Arabs more than three times higher.

Arabs are mainly employed in low-income industrial jobs, the report said. They tend to live in overcrowded towns and villages with infrastructure deficiencies and poorer-funded schools.

The danger of weaker oversight on the executive is clear to Palestinian citizens, particularly under a government that has expanded settlements in the occupied West Bank and is made up of senior ministers who whip up sentiment against them, lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman of the Arab-Jewish Hadash party told Reuters.

Earlier this year, the US condemned as incitement to violence comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that a Palestinian village in the West Bank must be "erased" by Israel.

But many are remaining on the sidelines, Touma-Sliman said, as they do not see themselves reflected in a protest movement infused with nationalist and militaristic symbols.

Instead, Palestinian citizens have for months been mobilizing to address a different crisis: record levels of criminal violence rocking their communities.

At least 130 Arab citizens have been killed in crime-related shootings since January, twice the fatalities over the same period last year, according to data gathered by an advocacy group campaigning against the violence.

Community leaders and members have urged the prime minister to take action, accusing the government and police of systemic neglect.

Netanyahu, in a rare statement following the killing of five people on a single day in June, said the government "was determined to fight organized crime and restore quiet."

"The Palestinian community is trying to fight for survival," said Touma-Sliman. "The top priority for Palestinians at this point is to live."