Ahmed Tibi has a great op-ed in the International Herald Tribune today entitled The Other Citizens of Israel. Too bad it didn’t run the Times. It’s really worth reading the whole thing, but here are some highlights:
Is there no limit to what the American government will accept from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman?
With Netanyahu’s backing, the Israeli cabinet voted in support of Lieberman’s loyalty oath for non-Jewish immigrants, which requires allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel. It was as if Mexican immigrants to the United States would have to swear allegiance to a United States that is white and Protestant, while immigrants from Europe would face no such oath.
In response to an international outcry, notwithstanding silence from American officials, Netanyahu has called for an amendment that would impose the oath on all immigrants, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
But there is far more wrong with the loyalty oath than simply the original intent of applying it only to non-Jews. Swearing allegiance to an Israel that is Jewish and democratic is logically inconsistent and an attempt to relegate Palestinian citizens of Israel to inferior status.
Palestinian citizens of Israel comprise 20 percent of the population. The insistence of some Jewish leaders on the state being “Jewish” is a punch in the gut to Palestinians who for more than 60 years have struggled to achieve equal rights in Israel.
At a time when there are over 35 laws that discriminate against Palestinians, and with more working their way through the Knesset, it is long past time for Americans to ask their political leaders what their tax money is funding in Israel.
Tibi continues:
American mediators such as George Mitchell and Dennis Ross, rather than pushing the supremacist notion of a Jewish state, should be pressing Israel to provide equal rights and fair treatment to the Palestinian minority in its midst.
For instance, the Obama administration could insist the Israeli government allocate funds proportionately between Palestinian and Jewish citizens. Flagrant funding discrimination against Palestinians, particularly our students, sends the message that we are lesser citizens.
Eroding infrastructure in Palestinian communities is in urgent need of attention, but settlements get national resources while open sewage runs through some of our neighborhoods.
The international community could address our situation by calling on Israel to recognize us as a national minority. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress should invite Palestinian citizens of Israel to testify about the discrimination Palestinians face at the hands of this close American ally.
One reason American moral authority has fallen so far in this part of the world is that Arabs do not believe they are inferior to Jews. We are equals — or should be. And the unwillingness of the United States to push its Israeli ally to uphold the equality of all its citizens is not only a grave disappointment, but a strong reason to challenge the United States as the leader of the free world.
The United States will not be regarded as such a leader so long as it is content to back and encourage an Israeli leadership recklessly racing to enshrine the legal superiority of Jews over Palestinians.
To get a sense of what Tibi is referring to, check out this new report from Mada Al-Carmel: Arab Center for Applied Social Research, a think tank based in Haifa that “aims to enhance the human and national development of the Palestinians in Israel, advance the cause of democratic citizenship, and become a hub of knowledge and critical thinking about Palestinians in Israel, equal citizenship, and democracy.” They just issued their latest Political Monitoring Report on the situation of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
