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Introduction

In order to collect various versions in the self-definition of our entity, our relation with the rest of the Palestinians and our relation with the State and to connect them to create a firm integral homogeneous vision, we, the Arab Palestinians in Israel, should have a clear self-definition that includes all the political, cultural, economic, educational and social aspects.

As the chairman of the High Follow up Committee for the Arabs in Israel, I have invited a group of Arab intellectuals (see attached list of names) to a discussion aiming at crystallizing a strategic future collective vision of the Palestinian Arabs citizens of Israel.

I express my gratitude to this group for its efforts and commitment in the march that lasted for more than a year during which four long meetings were held.

Documents attached to this paper are the outcome of this march. They are also the outcome of a collective effort during which its content was discussed and ratified. The core of the work was subject to summaries of researches written by some participants in the group, proposing general trends for a change required in the future of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel .

This outcome is a property of the group, the High Follow-Up Committee and the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel.

These documents focus on affiliation, identity and citizenship of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel. They also focus on the legal status, land and housing, economic and social development, educational vision for Arab education, Arab Palestinian culture and on the political and national work of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

It is worth mentioning here that the group did not have the chance to discuss other major issues in detail.

The importance of this work lies within the discussion which will follow, as a publication of this document. It is not necessary for all representatives of political streams and parties, represented by the Follow-Up Committee, to approve of this document. Rather, the main goal is to spark the public discussion concerning the future of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

Shawqi Khateeb, Chairman

The High Follow up Committee for the Arabs in Israel
The National Committee for the Heads of the Local Arab Councils in Israel

View

We are the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the indigenous peoples, the residents of the States of Israel, and an integral part of the Palestinian People and the Arab and Muslim and human Nation.

The war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the Israeli state on a 78% of historical Palestine. We found ourselves, those who have remained in their homeland (approximately 160,000) within the borders of the Jewish state. Such reality has isolated us from the rest of the Palestinian People and the Arab world and we were forced to become citizens of Israel. This has transformed us into a minority living in our historic homeland.

Since the Al-Nakba of 1948 (the Palestinian tragedy), we have been suffering from extreme structural discrimination policies, national oppression, military rule that lasted till 1966, land confiscation policy, unequal budget and resources allocation, rights discrimination and threats of transfer. The State has also abused and killed its own Arab citizens, as in the Kufr Qassem massacre, the land day in 1976 and Al-Aqsa Intifada back in 2000.

Since Al-Nakba and despite all, we maintained our identity, culture, and national affiliation; we struggled and are still struggling to obtain just, comprehensive and permanent peace in the Middle East region, through achieving fair and lasting resolution concerning the Palestinian refugees’ status according to UN resolutions and for reaching peace through the declaration of an independent Palestinian State.

Defining the Israeli State as a Jewish State and exploiting democracy in the service of its Jewishness excludes us, and creates tension between us and the nature and essence of the State. Therefore, we call for a Consensual Democratic system that enables us to be fully active in the decision-making process and guarantee our individual and collective civil, historic, and national rights.

In light of this modern complex history, we are moving towards a new era of self–recognition, where it is necessary to create our future path, crystallize our collective identity and draw up our social and political agenda. The establishment of the High Follow up Committee for the Arabs in Israel was a pivotal point in the history of our community where such committee became the highest representative body for all other public and political organizations.

Based on this reality of collective internal changes, the project presented by this document is a continuation of our struggle towards crystallizing clear strategic future vision for the Arab Palestinians in Israel. The project aims at answering the question, “who are we and what do we want for our society?”

In order to obtain this goal, the future vision will be followed by tangible practical steps and a concrete action plan with specific goals. We recommend such document to be a public reference. This document includes all streams of the Arab society, as this vision is an independent Palestinian rhetoric. We hope this future vision would yield unity between different and sometimes contradicting viewpoints and beliefs on the basis of our national collective principles and interests.

The National Committee of the Local Arab Authorities in Israel is responsible for implementing this project, a project which was presented to the High Follow up Committee of the Arabs in Israel.

This project was implemented in two stages:

1. A Steering committee was created. It contributed to the objectives and strategies of the project to include its actual implementation and check the scope of conformity of the goals with the mechanisms of the program.

2. A future vision was crystallized by meetings of Arab intellects and activists throughout the year. This stage is concluded by holding a general conference and a presentation of a conference book that will include the final and complete version of the future vision.

We hope that our vision would contribute to change our reality and to impact the Israeli agenda, in an effective and positive way. This is a continuous process of the public action that the High Follow up Committee had been implementing since its establishment. We also hope to enrich the public discussion amongst us, Palestinians in the Diaspora, the Jewish society in Israel and the international public opinion.

Work Process[i]

This future vision complements the works of a group of activists and researchers that met, during one year, in order to discuss the political, social, economic, and cultural reality of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

The work process has two stages: preparation of the program and articulating the future vision.

The preparation stage:

A body was created to boost the program and steer its work. The steering committee has supported the track of development of the program from two aspects: the public aspect and the planning aspect. The committee met every month, since June 2005, to prepare the activities of the program.

The articulation stage:

After the preparation stage, the committee asked a number of intellectuals and community activists to attend four long weekend meetings held in Jerusalem. The Steering committee ensured that the members of the group represented different political beliefs and thought schools

The group had to determine the frameworks of discussion and dialogue agenda and to move from philosophical and ideological discussions to practical and applicable discussions.

The first meeting, held in September 2005, aimed at discussing the future vision of all participants and looking for points of connection between them.

The second meeting was held in December 2005. It discussed the points of strength and weakness of current situation for the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

Mr. Shawqi Khateeb, Chairman of the High Follow-up Committee of the Arabs in Israel, and the steering committee met with seven researchers in order to develop a strategic plan concerning 8 subjects:

      1. The relation between the Palestinian Arabs and the State of Israel.

      2. The legal status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel

      3. Land and housing.

      4. Economic development.

      5. Social development.

      6. Strategic vision for Arab Education.

      7. Arab Palestinian culture in Israel

      8. Institutions and political work.

The steering committee asked the researchers to present their work plans to be reviewed by academics and experts, before submission for approval within the group .This step aimed at reinforcing and enriching the work plans.

The writers of the research presented a review of the strategic plans that were discussed and approved during the third meeting which was held on April 2006. During this meeting, the group wrote the future vision introduction. At the forth meeting on June 2006 the group was gathered to finally approve all written texts.

The program aims at having tangible results, that is, to conclude and publish the future vision in a conference book.

Members of the program aspire that political, journalistic and academic groups promote and develop these action plans provided.

The future vision provides also basis for future uses including:

      − Think tank groups discussions for strategic development

      − Media campaigns in the Arabic, Hebrew and international media

      − Pressure means on the State ministries and institutions

      − Implementation development strategies to change the reality of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

The Palestinian Arabs in Israel and their relation to the State of Israel[ii]

Israel is the outcome of a settlement process initiated by the Zionist–Jewish elite in Europe and the west and realized by Colonial countries contributing to it and by promoting Jewish immigration to Palestine, in light of the results the Second World War and the Holocaust. After the creation of the States in 1948, Israel continued to use policies derived from its vision as an extension of the west in the Middle East and continued conflicting with its neighbors. Israel also continued executing internal colonial policies against its Palestinian Arab citizens.

Israel carried out the Judaization process in various forms, beginning with the expulsion of the Palestinian People back in 1948; the demolition of more than 530 Arab villages; massive confiscation of Arab land and the creation of more than 700 Jewish settlements aiming the absorption of the new Jewish immigrants. This has led to the judaization of the land and erosion of the Palestinian history and civilization and the building of political and economical system that marginalized and weakened the Palestinian People especially in Israel.

Israel can not be defined as a democratic State. It can be defined as an ethnocratic state such as turkey, Srilanka, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia (and Canada forty years ago). These countries have engaged their minorities in the political, social and economic aspects of life, in a very limited and unequal way. This comes amidst a continued and firm policy of control and censorship which guarantee the hegemony of the majority and marginalizing the minority.

The principles of an ethnocratic system include:

            1. The control of an ethnic group on the State system.

            2. Focusing on ethnicity (and religion) and not citizenship, as a basic principle of the distribution of resources and abilities and undermining the “people” (citizens in general).

            3. A gradual ethnic process of politics based on ethnic classes.

            4. A permanent state of instability.

         5. The ethnocratic logic provides tools for understanding societies that prefers one certain group over others; it also dominates the dynamics between different ethnic groups.

To maintain the ethnocratic system, Israel has implemented several rules concerning the Palestinian Arabs in Israel:

        A. Cutting all identity relations between the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the rest of the Palestinian People and the Arab and Islamic Nation. Israel has tried to create a new group of “Israeli Arabs.”             

           B. Preventing Palestinian Arabs in Israel from keeping relations with their brothers in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and, the Palestinians refugees.             

          C. Opposition of organizing the Palestinian Arabs in Israel in any form that can be of a contradiction to the aspirations of the Jewish majority and the state in terms of parliamentary representation and preventing them from exercising any non parliamentarian political activities of public struggles.             

            D. Opposing the Palestinian Arab leadership attempts to building a vision adverse to consolidate the Status of the Arab minority in the Jewish state which ultimately accepts the Jewish control of the state, its resources and abilities.

                  E. Forcing the Palestinian Arabs in Israel to accept resource allocation on a basis of ethnicity rather than citizenship. This aims at maintaining the Jewish superiority and the Palestinian Arab inferiority in Israel.

The Palestinian Arabs in Israel are in need of changing their status. While they are preserving their Arab Palestinian identity, they need to obtain their full citizenship in the State and its institutions. They also aspire to attain institutional self-rule in the field of education, culture and religion that is in fact part of fulfilling their rights as citizens and as part of the Israeli state. They also seek to obtain full equality with the Jewish majority. 

Such self-rule within the State poses a system based on Consensual Democracy. A system embodies the presence of two groups, the Jews and the Palestinians. Such system would guarantee real resource, leadership and decision making participation. 

The Palestinians in Israel should demand the following, from the State:

          • The State should acknowledge responsibility of the Palestinian Nakba (tragedy of 1948) and its disastrous consequences on the Palestinians in general and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel in particular. Israel should start by rectifying the damage that it had caused and should consider paying compensation for its Palestinian citizens as individuals and groups for the damages resulted from the Nakba and the continuous discriminating policies derived from viewing them as enemies and not as citizens that have a right to appose the state and challenge its rules.           

          • The State should recognize the Palestinian Arabs in Israel as an indigenous national group (and as a minority within the international conventions) that has the right within their citizenship to choose its representatives directly and be responsible for their religious, educational and cultural affairs. This group should be given the chance to create its own national institutions relating to all living aspects and stop the policies of dividing between the different religious sects within the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.           

          • The State has to acknowledge that Israel is the homeland for both Palestinians and Jews (the Israeli future constitution and state laws should reinforce this point by adding an introduction paragraph). The relation between the Palestinians and Jews in Israel should be based on attainment of equal human and citizen rights based on international conventions and the international relative treaties and declarations. The two groups should have mutual relations based on the consensual democratic system (an extended coalition between the elites of the two groups, equal proportional representation, mutual right to veto and self administration of exclusive issues).

            • Israel should acknowledge the right of minorities in line with international conventions. It should admit that the Palestinian Arabs in Israel have a special status within the institutions of the international community and are acknowledged as an indigenous cultural national group enjoying total citizenship in Israel. It should also acknowledge that the Arab minority in Israel has international protection, care and support according to international conventions and treaties.

       • Israel should refrain from adopting policies and schemes in favor of the majority. Israel must remove all forms of ethnic superiority, be that executive, structural, legal or symbolic. Israel should adopt policies of corrective justice in all aspects of life in order to compensate for the damage inflicted on the Palestinian Arabs due to the ethnic favoritism policies of the Jews. The State should cooperate with representatives of the Palestinian Arabs to search the possibility of restoring parts of their lands that Israel confiscated not for public use. Israel should also dedicate an equal part of its resources for the direct needs of the Palestinian Arabs.

            • Israel should acknowledge the rights of the Moslems to run their affairs concerning the Waqf (Islamic endowment) and the Islamic holy sites. Israel should no longer be in control of the Islamic and Christian holy sites and acknowledge their right of self-rule the as part of the collective rights given to the Palestinian Arabs.

            • Israel should acknowledge the right of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel of social, religious, cultural and national continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic Nation.

The legal status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel[iii]

There are two facts that must be taken into consideration in crystallizing the legal status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel: 

          1. The Palestinian Arabs in Israel are the indigenous people of the country and their historic and material relations with their homeland emotionally, nationally, religiously and culturally.

                    2. They are an integral vital and inseparable part of the Palestinian People.

The reality of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel reveals two basic dimensions concerning Israel’s relation with its Arab minority:

                    1. The official–legal dimension: Since the establishment of the State back in 1948, Israel has taken a discriminating policy towards the Palestinian Arab citizens, through implementing discriminatory laws and legislations (canonized discrimination).

                    2. The economic-social dimension: represented by economic dependency of the Palestinian Arabs on the State. Such dependency negatively affects the living conditions of the Palestinian Arabs.

 These two dimensions are closely related. They determine, arguably, the collective Arab experience.

The official dependency:

The Israeli legal system includes a number of core laws that produce and reinforce inequality between the Arabs and the Jews in Israel (de jure). It is biased open to the Jewish majority. This official bias is not restricted to symbols such as the Israeli flag, but also to deeper legal issues concerning all Palestinian Arabs living fields specially citizenship, immigration, sharing of political decision making, land ownership, language, religious places and other.

This official dependency leads to an open official classification of the Israeli citizenship: the mentioned canonized citizenship, second and third citizenship. The first citizenship is held by the citizen who enjoys priority. It goes without saying that this ethnic superiority fundamentally contradicts the principles held by those deprived of this democracy such as equality and combat of ethnic and national discrimination ratified by the international conventions pertaining to human rights and the rights of the minorities.

This official discrimination on a national basis is the core of all forms of discrimination against the Palestinian Arabs in Israel. It is the root cause from which Palestinians in Israel suffer, individually and collectively. Thus, the official definition of Israel as a Jewish State created a fortified ideological barrier in the face of the possibility of obtaining full equality for the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.

The social-economic dependency:

Therefore it is impossible to talk about obtaining full equality in light of discriminatory laws that consolidate a hierarchical relationship between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian Arab minority, characterized by superiority of the ruling national group. The certainty of these discriminatory laws in the public life in Israel pose an inescapable core question: is it possible to guarantee real equality to the Palestinian Arab citizens even in the societal spheres in which, theoretically, there is no discriminatory classification? We claim that the Israeli legislations and laws negatively affect the status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, including the areas where—theoretically—the principle of quality is valid.

In addition to the official dependency mentioned above, there is a continued historic injustice in the living standards (de facto) of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, which is reflected by official and public social–economic data. In addition to the official inferiority of the status of the Palestinian Arabs, a socio-economic dependency is added. This dependency is reflected in the various aspects of life including poverty, unemployment, low study average, etc.

In light of this discriminatory framework, the Israeli Supreme Court failed to provide legal protection for the Arab citizens. The Supreme Court turned down appeals of central issues concerning the Arab citizens, including land confiscation and official budgets allocation. The rulings of the Supreme Courts in favor of the Arab citizens (such as the case of Qa’dan family) are very few. Still, these rulings do not carry any collective dimension that affects the reality of the life of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

There is a genuine need to articulate legal strategies that match with the future collective visions of the Palestinian Arabs in this country. There is a need to develop a legal discourse that go beyond the boundaries of the Israeli legal and jurisdictional system and present fundamental legal alternatives that can preserve the historical, national and civil rights for the Palestinian minority.

Towards group Transformational Equality:

Our legal vision concerning equality of the Palestinian Arabs depends on the transformational group perspective of equality. Through this principle we seek to obtain practical equality and partnership on the national-collective level, and, opposing economic dependency from which the Palestinian Arabs suffer. This is to achieve a comprehensive structural societal change that fulfils living conditions for the minority not less in its social and economic level than those of the majority. We seek to obtain total freedom of national dependency, exploitation and oppression.

On the basis of this broaden democratic vision we seek to crystallize our collective future vision of the legal status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, so it is based on equality, partnership and mutuality.

1. The shared citizenship rights:

In order to guarantee the desired legal protection of the shared citizenship rights in Israel, the legal system should adopt the anti-discrimination laws in all aspects of life individually and collectively. This legal system should also include the creation of an independent commission (or commissions) for equality and human rights. Such commission should focus on guaranteeing the implementation  and surveillance of anti-discrimination laws. It should also adopt the international conventions pertaining to the protection of human rights and be obligated to them, such as the international convention combating all forms of discrimination, and those pertaining to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and those calling for equality of women and child, so that the terms of these conventions would become an indivisible part of the internal law enforced in the country.

2. The collective-national rights:

Concerning collective national rights, we believe that Palestinian Arabs in Israel, as a collective and as individuals, should have equal participation in all public resources including the political ,material and symbolic resources .Such participation would be the cornerstone of building an equal and just society, where this society would include equal relevance and opportunity for each group on the basis of democratic principles of consensuality and power sharing .On the level of legal protection of the national collective rights we note a number of basic legal axes that must be guaranteed in order to crystallize the desired legal status of the Palestinian Arabs: 

            • An official recognition of the collective Palestinian Arabs existence in the State, and their national, religious, cultural, and language character, and recognition that they are the indigenous people of the homeland.             

    • Recognition of the Palestinian Arab rights of complete equality in the State on a collective-national basis.             

            • Guaranteeing dual language system of both Arabic and Hebrew.             

      • Guaranteeing effective representation and participation of the Palestinian Arabs in decision making procedures within the official institutes and the activation of the veto right in matters concerning their living.             

            • Guarantee of self-rule of the Palestinian Arabs in the fields of education ,religion ,culture and media and recognizing their right to self-determination with respect to their collective life complementing their partnership within the state.             

            • Equal distribution of resources, such as budget, land and housing.             

            • Appropriate representation on a collective basis in the state system.             

            • Guaranteeing the right of the Palestinian Arabs to have open and free relations with the rest of the Palestinian People and the Arab Nation.             

            • Guaranteeing the rights of the Palestinian Arabs in issues obliterated in the past such as the present absentees and their right of return; the Islamic waqf (endowment); unrecognized Arab villages and land confiscation.             

            • Official acknowledgment of the historical injustice against the Palestinian Arabs in this country and against the Palestinians in general and to guarantee for ending this injustice and correcting its continuous disastrous consequences.

 In order to obtain the desired legal status of the of the Palestinian Arab citizens and to face challenges that associate us during our struggle we propose to reinforce the existing efforts and further develop the legal, cultural, and social-economic status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel .This is to be actualized by crystallizing and developing legal and strategic policies to serve and push our causes on the short and long terms. We can have a clear future vision in order to obtain equality and partnership and combat national discrimination and negligence within the state.

 Land, Planning, and Housing Policy of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel:[iv]

There is no doubt that struggle for land was and is still the core of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict since the inception of the Zionist movement by the end of the nineteenth century. The Zionist movement used religious and secular terminologies to convince the Jewish people and the world of its right over historic Palestine. Terms from the torah such as the “holy land” and “land of Israel” were and are still used. These were mixed with secular sayings such as “a land without a people for a people without land.” They were like a fuel that operates the Zionist cart and unite the “Jews of the Diaspora” and link their future to Palestine.

The land day in 1976 was a turning point in the struggle over land between the Israeli state and the Palestinian Arabs. The possibility that the Arab minority would influence on the planning system in the country was nearly absent. The system was and is a Jewish non-democratic system.

The problems facing the Palestinian Arabs are many, but the issue of land planning and housing remains the main difficulty for the Arab minority in Israel. There are around 1.15 million Arabs living in Israel which is about 18% of the total population of Israel and will double in the year 2020. The geographic space of the Arab citizen (650 meters square per person) will shrink to 375 meters square per person.

In line with this reality, it is difficult to talk about development of the Arab villages and towns without solving the issue of land sovereignty and widening its jurisdiction boundaries. The Palestinian Arabs possess less than 3.5 of the size of the State land and 1.5 of it is out of their local authorities` jurisdiction boundaries.

Land and Planning policy adopted by Israel since 1948 leaves no room for doubt that judaization of the land was one of the most important characteristics of the modern State. Israel, which refers to itself as a democratic state, does not offer free land market. Israel is the only state in the world that possesses more than 93% of the land, under the definition “state land.” Land in Israel is not for sale, but for mortgage for 49 years.

The basic issues the Palestinian Arabs face in Israel are the racial and legal discrimination; judaization of the Arab land property; demographic increase; diminishing space; administrative division of the country space (areas of local authorities jurisdiction); no participation in the decision making; improper structural planning and demolition of Arab houses.

The basic components of the Israeli land and planning policy:

            • Elimination of the Palestinian historic and geographic features to prevent the return of then Palestinian refugees.             

            • Transferring Arab land into a Jewish property, through the use of force and adopting a central collective, comprehensive and not individual land system.             

            • Preventing “state land” of being allocated to the Arab towns and villages in Israel.             

            • Adoption of administrative division (areas of local authorities jurisdiction) that guarantees control over Arab land.             

            • Marginalizing the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and preventing them from taking part in the decision making process.             

            • Demolition of Arab houses and threatening of the Arab demographic danger in order to expand Jewish settlements.

 
Recommendations;

             • Adoption laws of Distributional justice between the Arab citizens and the Jewish citizens within the consensual democracy. To cancel all laws of confiscation and the regulations and measures that discriminate against the Arab minority.

            • Changing the Israeli policies within the fields of land and planning starting with recognizing the historic oppression that inflicted the Palestinian Arab minority. The boundaries of the Israeli land must conform to the boundaries of citizenship and not to the boundaries of the Jewish people. Adoption of the use of the term “Israeli land” instead of “Jewish territory” or “State land.”

            • Administrative reconstruction of the Israeli institutions that work in the fields of land planning and housing so that participation of non-Israeli intuitions and representatives are cancelled (Non Israeli Jews) especially the Jewish agency and the Jewish national fund. Accordingly, permitting the Arab minority of the necessary and genuine representation in these institutions.

            • Expanding the area of jurisdiction boundaries for the Arab villages and towns so that public land (state land) becomes part of this sovereignty.

• Adoption of a new public rhetoric concerning land and planning. So that it includes a demand to stop the implementation of the current law of planning and housing that discriminated against the Arab citizens. There is a need for a new structural planning and housing plans within the Arab communities based on consensual democracy and distributional justice principles conforms to the needs of the Arab minority.

These plans should settle issues historically stalled such as the issues of the internally displaced, the Waqf (Islamic endowment), the Arabs of the Negev and the Palestinian Arab participation in possessing and management of this public property.

In order to obtain desired goals mentioned above, the following points must be taken into consideration:

   • The issue of land is the most sensitive of issues concerning Arab Jewish relations in Israel. Palestinian Arabs in Israel can obtain full equality only if Israel becomes a real democratic State. Full change towards implementing real equality for the Arabs in Israel, concerning land and planning issues, is connected to a change of the objectives of the State and its identity as a Jewish State. Such change should bring Israel towards adoption of democracy. Hence, there is no one tool towards obtaining such objectives. This paper suggests the adoption of various struggling methods, with having clear time schedule.

            • There are issues which we can obtain in the short term through the use of available and allowed (within the Israeli laws) tools of struggle such as the political and legal struggle .This issue depends also on raising an educational awareness track. In order to reach the strategic goals and structural change new work mechanisms should be adopted such as enhancing public activism and international advocacy. This will never be obtained without organized public work and without empowering Arab professional and political cadres.

            • Changing the Arab and the Arab-Jewish struggles characteristics would pose new questions about the status and conditions of the Palestinian Arabs in the Israeli ethnocratic system.

 Economic strategy for the Palestinian Arabs in Israel[v]

The problematic economic status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel is reflected in:

            1. Low educational and professional level of the Arab working force and low participation in the civil working force.

            2. The distorted participation in the economy of the State and the work market reflected on the following:

            • Low level of life quality in comparison to the Jewish society. In addition, high living standards and consumption levels are rising rapidly more than the rise of income and the economic development.

            • Distinguished cultural and structural social characteristics that affect the level of consumption. In addition to the adoption of saving methods that do not necessarily contribute to the economic development.

            • Economic dependency on the political positions of the State and the Jewish society and the permanent reliance on the national social insurances, add to the enormous influence of the political and military developments on the economy.

Through conducting a study on the current situation of economical activities and its revenue, we have found out that the Arab citizens in Israel should merge with a new economic system through a development plan based on activation of the economic resources. This will promote implementation of a social welfare system that includes the basic services and provides work opportunities for all.

As for the relation between Arab economy and general Israeli economy, the choice is relatively clear:

The size of the market in Israel and geographic distribution of the Arabs and the level of economic development in the Arab cities and villages do not allow the creation of an ethnic economy akin to “Enclave.” Furthermore, the Jewish majority-Arab minority relation does not allow such development. The development of large economic interests and intersection by the economic interests with the Jewish society pose an important factor in affecting the policy exercised against the Arabs especially as the economic chances provided by the Israeli market for the Jewish majority are much more than those provided for the Arab minority.

In addition, the State has gone a long way in the process of privatization and made tangible achievements of globalization in which it merged as a strong and developed producer in the most important economic branches in the world economy. The situation in international relations is not different from that within the state. Thus, the group that merges in that process as a strong working force attains economic successes and raises its political and social status.

In line with the previous analysis, the best choice for the Arab citizens in Israel is to adopt a two-fold development: First, merging in the Israeli work market as a legitimate right of equal opportunities in employment and investment market being citizens of the state, second, creation of internal momentum within the economic movement that would lead towards an increase in the chances for the Arab society and relatively free from dependency and attain social unity and equality.

The higher objectives:

            1. Creating a new society to be able to deal with major economic operations (production, distribution and consumption).

            2. Ending economic dependency especially the social allowances that have been decreasing since 2001.

            3. Decreasing the percentage of deprived population (the difference between the level of income and the poverty line) and providing aid for those who are unable to guarantee an acceptable life standard.

            4. Minimizing the influence of the market change due to slow economic activity, merging numbers of foreign workers and changes of supply and demand levels aiming to limit unemployment and part time jobs.

            5. Creating an atmosphere of social security and sense of belongingness and equality.

Mechanisms of achieving the plan:

The strategic plans require the creation of a special association for economic development created by the High Follow up Committee. The association should include a steering committee with representatives of the High Follow-Up Committee; the National Committee of the Heads Arab Local Authorities; the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education in Israel; the forum of Arab Businessmen; and economists.

The tasks of the committee include:

1. Specifying the methods and means of obtaining specified objectives for economic development and follow-up of implementation of the drawn up plan.

2. The proposed association should initiate the creation of institutions for economic development, coordination between the various existing institutions in order to guarantee integration between the various activities.

We have detailed the activities and institutions in the following fields:

Political activity, education and the working force, economic research, the role of the local Arab authorities, utilization of women in economy, aiding the deprived population. In all, any development plan should be steered according to the population’s needs. We have specified that the two issues important to development are infrastructure and education.

Executive Activities:

1. These activities require the joint efforts of the High Follow-Up Committee, The National Committee of the Heads of Local authorities, the local Arab authorities, and the Arab members of parliament and Arab businessmen.

2. The political work is a vital precondition to implement the suggested strategic work plan.

3. There is a need to dedicate many years in order to implement the work plan and until the infrastructure work is done, already existing institutions, such as the Education Counseling Center, can provide guidance for students, concerning technical and economic professions. The creation of technological and professional rehabilitation centers requires convincing investors and international funds to create special institutions to support such centers financially.

4. There is an immediate need to create a research center for conducting social and