Share and share alike
Shuli Dichter
Haaretz, November 18, 2003
Diaspora Jews are here again, attending the General
Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of North
America. This time around, it is imperative that the following item be raised: World Jewry can claim a large part in the building up the state; its fingerprints are to be found everywhere - well, not everywhere actually. The funds contributed by Diaspora Jewry to Keren Hayesod
were poured into the foundations of buildings meant for the Jewish majority. The funds they contributed to Project Renewal helped the state to promote justice, but only among its Jewish citizens.
In most of the tours extended over the years to
representatives of Diaspora Jewry, the map rolled out for
them to see included only about 80 percent of the
country's population. It made barely any reference to the
remaining citizens - Israel's Arab minority. Institutional discrimination has left a rift between Jews and Arabs in Israel. On the surface, it seems to be merely a social rift;
but it is planted deep in the foundations of the state. The state budget is managed by the government; but the tradition of the matching budgets, in the framework of which the state and the Jewish Agency jointly investment in and finance various projects, gives the Diaspora Jews decisive influence on investment objectives, especially in the realm of settlement and society.
For example; in 2002, Diaspora Jewry helped to expand 137 rural settlements and establish 10 new communities in the Negev, the Triangle and the Galilee - all of them Jewish. They contributed $16 million toward the construction of 35 public buildings - from nursery schools
to day centers for senior citizens - in Jewish settlements, of course.
Arab citizens and their communities, which neighbor the communities in which these monies have been invested, have never appeared on the Jewish Agency map. The 56 years of shared Israel/Diaspora efforts in the spheres of
construction and social action have created a huge gap between the physical, occupational, educational and social infrastructure in the Jewish communities and that of the neighboring Arab ones.
The Jewish contributors are not responsible for the situation. To the contrary, as a sovereign state, Israel should be concerning itself with the welfare of all its citizens, in an equitable manner. The role of world Jewry is to help Jews. But the state in Israel did not assume responsibility for the infrastructure of its non-Jewish citizens. It gives voice only to the (natural) priorities of the Jewish people.
Thus, the map of infrastructures in Israel has, over the years, come to represent a uni-national Jewish map. Many of the donors are unaware of this situation, and would not be in favor of it. But their contributions have
helped to put up a wall of separation between the Jewish citizens of Israel and their Arab neighbors.
Some would argue that the discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel stems from Israel's definition as a Jewish state. It is hardly a given that a Jewish state would discriminate against its Arab citizens, although reality
indicates that institutional discrimination against Arab citizens is an integral part of how the world's only Jewish state operates.
Once I told a relative from America about my Arab neighbors. In response, she said: "That's why I contribute to Magen David Adom and to hospitals. There, they don't distinguish between human beings."
World Jewry has the ability to help to achieve equality between Jewish and Arab citizens - even healthy ones - through an equitable allocation of contributions to
infrastructures.
The program for settling the Galilee and the Negev will be presented at this week's General Assembly in Jerusalem. The involvement of representatives of Diaspora Jewry at discussions on this program is critical. This may be the last opportunity to correct the norms that determine the division of resources between the Jews and their Arab neighbors in Israel.
Any plan in which investments are made solely in Jewish settlements and which disregards Arab settlements constitutes a danger to the well-being of all citizens. Conversely, the allocation of financial contributions that
might equalize infrastructures in the Arab settlements is also a direct contribution to the future of the neighboring city and kibbutz.
Equal investment in infrastructures is a necessity, and Jews who contribute to the Galilee and Negev project can demand from the Jewish Agency that this principle be observed. The healing of the rifts we have forged here in the past half-century is an urgent national mission of the highest order, and we do not have all the wisdom and the money needed to realize this goal. To achieve this goal, we also need the cooperation of world Jewry.
The writer is co-executive director of Sikkuy, a non-profit association that promotes civil equality
