Givat Haviva and the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace are deeply concerned about
the recent rapid deterioration in Jewish-Arab relations, which threatens the
entire Israeli society. The dangerous combination of long term institutional
discrimination, as it was described in the conclusions of the Or Committee,
with economic distress, rising racism, a sense of political persecution, the weakness
in the treatment of the "Price Tag" terrorists, the threat to the
status quo at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, and the feeling that there is a
separate law for Arabs (as it was manifest in the latest incident in Kafr Kanna)
– all contribute to the present situation where any incident could ignite the
already volatile field.
We support the local leadership of the Arab society and our partners among
the civil society organizations that have been making great efforts to calm
down emotions and minimize the damage to the fabric of shared life in Israel.
But this is not enough!
We call upon the Israeli senior leadership, under the responsibility of the
Prime Minister, to engage in a different discourse regarding the Arab citizens
of Israel, to clearly condemn the inciting calls for exclusion, and to lead a
move for making Israeli citizenship more significant for these citizens through
a consistent and continuous dialogue with the local Arab leadership, providing
a long-term response to the needs of the Arab society.
We call upon his Excellency the President of Israel, in his honorable
position and with his widely accepted personality, to invite the members of the
Government of Israel and the heads of the Arab population (the High Follow-Up Committee) to gather for an emergency joint meeting in an
attempt to open channels of communication and prevent a full decline of the
situation.
We call upon the Minister of Internal Security: Take back your inciting
words that might damage the proper rule of law in Israel.
We call upon the Chief of Police to clarify the instructions regarding the
equal treatment that the police must show all citizens and residents of Israel,
regardless of nationality, gender or race, and to suspend, until the end of the
investigation, the team that was involved in the incident in Kafr Kanna.
We call upon the Minister of
Education: It is time to act upon your
promises and immediately adopt a national program for education towards shared
living, based on the recommendations that were submitted to the Ministry in
2009. Children in Israel who are educated in a separate system and are exposed
to the media that emphasizes mostly the conflict between various parts of
Israeli society, grow up to become racist. In order to avoid it there should be
a significantly increased investment in Jewish-Arab encounters, to provide students
with more of them, not less, as has been the case.
We call for expanding partnerships between neighbors, creating extensive
mechanisms of communal partnerships based on common interests, making
connections between neighboring Jewish and Arab communities. The successful model
created and implemented by Givat Haviva proves that this can be the basis for
building a shared society in Israel, on both the regional and the national
levels.
We call upon anyone who is as concerned as we are, not to stand aloof but
to join hands in our struggle to maintain the democratic and humane character
of the shared society in Israel.
Sincerely,
Yaniv Sagee Riad Kabha Mohammad Darawshe
Executive
Director The Jewish-Arab Director of Planning, Equality
Givat Haviva Center for Peace
and Shared Society, Givat Haviva
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