In Israel Discrimination against Arabs citizens by the state of Israel is a well known policy; Arab schools receive lower budgets than their Jewish counterparts, and so do the Arabic municipalities. This leads to lower education levels in the Arabic sector, and poorer infrastructure in and around Arabic towns.
Yet the state and the majority of the Jewish public consider this a justified discrimination. What is there justification? The military service. Jewish citizens in Israel do between 2-3 years compulsive military service, starting at the age of 18, while Arab citizens don’t. The Jewish citizens thus have more duties, and thus deserve more benefits from the state. Sounds like a reasonable argument, yet when examined more closely, this argument does not hold water.
First not all factions of the Arabic population refrain from military service, namely the Druze youth must also do theri military service, and many Bedouin youth volunteer as well. So does the Druze and Bedouin receive benefits equivalent to those of the Jewish population. The answer is categorically NO.
Druze villages still receive lower budgets than neighboring Jewish town, and there is a growing resentment there for the establishment. The confrontations with police in the village of Pki’in, was a demonstration of the growing disgruntlement of the Druze citizens with the state. Many Druze who did their military service now feel disillusioned with the establishment. I met one such disillusioned Druze in a local barber shop, he told me had served in the army, where he had a training accident, in which he lost a few limbs and his eye sight. They say that when he was brought to the hospital in critical condition, he asked to hear ‘Hatakeva’, the Israeli national anthem, before he dies. But he servived and now he is full of hurt and disillusionment with the establishment; he told me that he learned that he will always be an Arab in their eyes. Military service also did not make the Druze villages immune to the policy of land confiscations; many Druze villages had land taken away from them and allocated to the development of the near by Jewish settlements.
A look at the Bedouin sector reveals an even grimmer reality; many Bedouins still live in unrecognized villages, villages which had existed for tens of year now, yet the establishment still refuses to give them official status, on the other hands Jewish settlements near by continue to be established by the state. The result is that this year only 500 Bedouin youth volunteered to the army, down from 2000 the years before. I guess they realized that the establishment has no intentions of keeping its part of the deal; i.e. to bring the level of infrastructure and education in the Bedouin sector to that of neighboring Jewish towns.
Secondly not all Jews serve in the army, namely some religion Jews refuse to the serve in the army and considers their prayers a sufficient contribution to the state. Does the state punish them for their choice? No at the contrary they are paid to sit all day in a Yeshiva (a religion school) and just pray all day. Other none religious Jews skip military service, because it’s against there believes, or because they just don’t want to do it. They usually employ tricks in order to be exempted by the army: They act as if they have mental issues, come up with a medical cause, or just join a ‘Yeshiva’ and pray. Neither do they suffer consequences for their choice.
The issue of school budgets raises another moral issue, is it fair to discriminate between children? Basically the establishment allocates less education money for an Arabic kid than for a Jewish kid. Is this fair? Certainly not. First the allocation is based on pure racial classification, i.e. if the kid goes to an Arabic school he will receive a poorer education, they don’t check if the kid’s father served in the army or not. Secondly basing these kids education benefits based on their parents actions is an abhorrent idea, how do you what these kids will contribute to the state once they grow up, they might still do a valuable service for state, yet the state starts to discriminate between them from birth, before giving them a chance to make a choice. Such discrimination creates a gap between the education levels between the Jewish and Arabic sectors, and later a gap in the income of the two sectors. It is worth noting thought that the supreme court of Israel, after long campaigning by human rights groups, has recently issued a resolution prohibiting the state of Israel from discriminating between children when it comes to education budgets, based on race or religion. Yet the discrimination still continues as the state of Israel declared it needs five years in order to implement this resolution.
The issue of military service maybe one of the causes of the divide between the Arabs and the Jews in the state of Israel, for the Jews the military is considered their sacred cow, more so than any other symbol in Israel, on the other hand the majority of Arabs see it an a whole different light, they see it as an occupation army. Yet I clearly showed that the argument that military service justifies the discrimination holds no water, in reality the discrimination is based on pure racial classifications.
So what should the state of Israel do: First, any benefits given by the state to its citizens should not be based on race or religion? If the state would like to provide a reward for those who do military service, especially ones who serve in combat units, and endanger there lives for the state, then be it, but these benefits should be provided on personal bases, not based on racial or religions classification, and by no means should they extend to benefits for the children, an example of such benefits could be free education, or even financial reward. Secondly provide ways for citizens to contribute to the state other than military service (and in this matter the Arab community should show more initiative). Those who do not wish to serve in the army for ideological reasons should be able to do a civil service instead, e.g. volunteer for service in community police, or as national park ranger, etc, etc.
