My guest on this week's livestream is Robert Cherry, emeritus professor of economics at Brooklyn College and author of a new book, Arab Citizens of Israel: How Far Have They Come? Bob is a labor economist who spent forty years studying discrimination in the U.S. labor market. But for the last decade or so he’s been researching and writing about a population little discussed in the U.S. media: the two million Arab Israelis who have full citizenship and virtually the same rights as their Jewish countrymen.
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Bob’s book walks us through the history of Jews and Arabs in what would become the State of Israel, beginning in the early twentieth century, when the nascent Zionist movement began to establish footholds in Palestine, through the British Mandate, the foundation of Israel, the 1948 and 1967 wars, the First and Second Intifadas, and the Oslo Accords, up through the present. Bob's point with this historical retelling is to acknowledge past discrimination against Israeli Arabs in the nation's infancy while highlighting the Israeli government’s more recent efforts to integrate Arab citizens, even in the midst of war, domestic resistance, and global pressure campaigns, in recognition that a fully segregated society was good for neither Jews nor Arabs.
In Bob’s telling, these efforts have found great success. For example, he points out that, as a result of the government's concerted affirmative action policies, 20% of the students at the Technion—Israel’s MIT—are now Arab Israelis, which is proportionally representative of the population. He sees the Israeli government’s efforts following the Second Intifada to be a praiseworthy and promising path forward for the country.
Still, I found myself pushing back on Bob’s sunny view of the situation. I have difficulty with Israel’s refusal of the right of return to descendants of Arabs expelled from the country, while Jews, even those with no ancestral connection to Palestine or Israel, have that right. Is that consistent with the claim of equality? I have to say, while I understand why Israel denies the right of return to Arabs, it is not consonant with equal treatment.
I want to share Bob’s optimism about the future of domestic Arab-Israeli relations and the government’s role in fostering them. While I welcome the opportunity to learn more about this population—I knew very little before reading the book—I still have serious reservations.
Note: The livestream was marred by technical difficulties that hampered parts of the conversation. Thanks to the expert work of TGS producer Lukas Sluzar, the video here is relatively seamless.
