“Who can honestly believe that God sanctioned the democratic right of a non-Jew, who is totally alien and outside the Jewish society and who is free of its religious obligation, to have the slightest say in [Israel’s] workings?”
Those were the words of Meier Kahane, referring to Arab citizens of Israel. Because of such sentiments, Kahane was ruled ineligible by the Israeli Knesset to serve on that body. Those Israeli Arabs have now become the focus of a related controversy within our local Jewish community.
A number of local Jews are unhappy that our Jewish Federation is funding programs for those Israeli Arabs, some of whom rioted against Israeli authority a year ago. The critics say that such funding does not make sense for Israeli security. Others disagree. But intersecting this debate about security is the proposition Kahane loved to exploit: By their eventual numbers, the Israeli Arabs will endanger the Jewish nature of Israel.
A group critical of this funding of Israeli Arabs writes “the fallacious ideology behind this approach is that all people are eventually materialistic and will feel love and gratitude to anyone who presents them with a higher standard of living.” If this were the rationale for funding welfare programs for the Israeli Arabs, it would indeed be fallacious.
In dealing with the Arab nations in general and the Palestinian authorities in particular, we have learned that reasoning together, kindness, concession and bribery will not in themselves lead to peace.
In themselves, they will only lead to an image of Israeli weakness, and spur further Arab and Palestinian aggression.
The real advances in Middle East peace have been made, first of all, on the basis of Israel’s military strength and its willingness to use it against aggression. In the first break in the Arab rejectionist front, Anwar Sadat came to Israel to sue for peace only after he became convinced that Israel was too strong to break — and that it was not about to be abandoned by America.
That combination of military strength and will is all that has prevented a major invasion by surrounding Arab states since the 1973 war.
On the other hand, Sadat, no fool, would not have come to Jerusalem if he did not understand that Israel was also interested in peace and reasonable negotiation. In other words, two messages have to be out there simultaneously. One is that Israel is strong and will not accede to either force, riots or unreasonable demands. The second is that Israel is open to reasonable accommodation.
Of course, that double message is rational in nature, requiring a rational partner, and such rationality has become shorter in supply. Under the gun of radical Islamist groups, Palestinian leadership has become increasingly deaf to Isaiah’s appeal to “reason together.” The radical Islamist leaders have fully rejected the uses of reason, negotiation, or accommodation.
A further refinement of the strategy is then necessary: to try to separate the radical Islamist from the rest of the Arab or Palestinian populations. That is exactly what today’s international crisis is all about. The United States is trying to make that separation within the Muslim world. And that is the only hope for Israel in dealing with the Palestinians. That requires the same double message: resolute strength and a genuine interest in helpful negotiation.
Using about two percent of the Federation funds to help Israel support educational and economic programs for its Arab citizens is only a symbolic gesture, but one that serves the second message. In May of last year, almost eight out of 10 Israeli Arabs said that if a Palestinian state were established, they would still prefer to remain in Israel as Israeli citizens.
Then, there is the overhanging issue of Israel as a Jewish state. The Israeli Arabs now represent about one fifth of the Israeli population, but if their birth rate remains as high as it is, that proportion will grow and eventually threaten the Jewish majority. Kahane’s solution was to forcibly strip the Arabs of citizenship and deport them. The Israelis specifically rejected this action because it would degrade Israel’s basic laws as well as some of its cherished Jewish values. However, there is this strong lesson from history: Whenever the economic and social position of a group improved, its birthrate dropped and stabilized.
It turns out, then, on all counts, that allotting funds for the educational and economic rehabilitation of the Arab citizens of Israel, when coupled with an iron fist, is one highly practical way to advance the security of Israel both as a nation and as a Jewish society.