The Jewish State of Israel and Its Arab Cousins

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Set of pictures for a number of famous Arab citizens of Israel from various fields

In 1948, almost all of the 160,000 Palestinian-Arabs who remained within Israel's borders became citizens.  By 2010, Israeli-Arab citizens had equal civil and human rights as all other Israeli citizens. 

There were 1.3 million Israeli-Arabs by 2010 living in Israel making up almost 20% of the population.    According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, the Arab population in 2019 was estimated at 1,890,000, representing 20.95% of the country's population. 

                                                                                  

Abram's first son was Ishmael, son of Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid of Abram's wife and niece, Sarah.  Arabs themselves trace their origin to Ishmael.  They are the 158th distant half-cousins of the Jews, or would that be 1st half-cousins 158 X removed.  That's figuring that a generation=25 years and that Abram was born about 1948 BCE, so its been 3, 969 years since Abram was born.  As it stands they are our distant cousins!  

Not only that, but geneticists are showing that they are connected to us by some distant DNA as well, so that proves the line in Genesis about Ishmael and Isaac being half brothers. In the year 2000.... 

New York University Medical Center And School Of Medicine

If a common heritage conferred peace, then perhaps the long history of conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved years ago. For, according to a new scientific study, Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, and they all share a common genetic lineage that stretches back thousands of years.  Maybe they would have followed Emir Feisal's lead and welcomed Jews back to their homeland. 

Hebrew and Arabic have been Israel's 2 official languages.  As of today's new government, that has changed.  

                                                   

Today, the 2 official languages are Hebrew and English.  This says: Geveret Mordechay, and Geveret means Mr. The Basic Law states that Hebrew is the “state language,” whereas Arabic enjoys a “special status,” and that “[n]othing in this article shall affect the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into force.” (§ 4.) 

          Mansour Abbas, Israeli Arab politician and leader of the Ra'am Party  in a meeting at the Israeli president’s residence in Jerusalem on April 5, 2021. Abir Sultan/Pool/ AFP/Getty Images    Historic change: Arab political parties are now legitimate partners in Israel's politics and government.  It is ironic that the prime minister of this government would be Naftali Bennett. Bennett is the leader of the radical right-wing political party Yamina, whose ideologies and interests contradict the Arab party’s interests, and which has opposed Arab participation in the coalition or government. His national-religious political movement, which represents many Jewish settlers, signed the coalition agreement with Ra’am, the Islamic Arab party.  

 A woman walks past a Joint Arab List campaign billboard. Four Arab-Israeli political parties have united for the first time, making the group the third-largest political faction in the Knesset.                               

There were 5 official Israeli-Arab political parties by 2010.  Today, there are the Joint List :(Arabic: القائمة المشتركة‎, al-Qa'imah al-Mushtarakah, Hebrew: הָרְשִׁימָה הַמְּשֻׁתֶּפֶת‎, HaReshima HaMeshutefet) which  is a political alliance of 4 of the Arab-majority political parties in Israel: Balad, Hadash, Ta'al, and the Arab Democratic Party.  The United Arab List was previously a member, but left the alliance on 28 January 2021.

Three Israeli-Arabs were elected to the first Knesset.  Israeli-Arabs have held as many as 13 of the 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament at one time. Of an estimated 5.8 million citizens with voting rights, 16 percent are from Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up around a fifth of Israel’s total population. During the previous Knesset elections in March 2015, a broad alliance of four Arab or joint Arab-Jewish parties, the Joint List, became the primary representation of this minority. This alliance won 13 out of the Knesset’s 120 seats, one of the highest levels of Arab representation in Israel’s history, even with Arab turnout at 63.7 percent compared to the national average of 72.3 percent (some 76 percent of eligible Israeli Jews voted). 

                                                                    

All Arab municipalities receive government funding for education and infrastructure.                             

Many Israeli-Arabs hold high-level position such as:

                                            

 1. Salim Jurban:  selected a permanent member of Israel's Supreme Count (2004)  Born in 1941-Died at age 71 in 2012.

                                                   

2. Nawaf Massalha:  deputy Foreign Minister, born 26 November 1943, first Muslim Arab to hold a ministerial position in the Israeli government when he was appointed Deputy Minister of Health by Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.

                                                              

3. Ali Yahya, Ambassador: Ali Yahya (Arabic: علی یحیی‎, Hebrew: עלי יחיא‎; born 1947, died 11 September 2014) was an Israeli Arab diplomat. He became the first Israeli ambassador of Arab descent in 1995 when he was appointed ambassador to Finland, a post in which he served until 1999. In 2006 Yahya was appointed Israeli ambassador to Greece.                      

Meet Walid Mansour the first #Druze #Arab Israeli ambassador. He served as ambassador in #Vietnam and #Peru . In the photo with his wife Jwahir.

 4. Walid Mansour, Ambassador: Former colonel, , a Druze, appointed ambassador to Vietnam in 1999,  from 2005-2009, in Peru. "It is impossible to explain how this accident happened in one of the safest places on earth to drive," Walid Mansour, Israel's ambassador in Peru and Bolivia, told The Jerusalem Post Sunday. Mansour, Israel's envoy to the area for the past two and a half years, rushed on Thursday from Lima, the capital of Peru, to the Bolivian capital, La Paz, where he found the five dead backpackers' friends in a state of distress. "In the past year and a half, most of my trips to La Paz have been under upsetting circumstances, and in that time, we have worked to send home 13 bodies of Israelis who died during their trips," Mansour said. Mansour said he had hoped the information he first received - that five Israelis had died in a terrible car accident in the Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia, also known as El Salar de Uyuni - was wrong or at least exaggerated. 

5. Reda Mansour, Ambassador: , also a Druze, a former ambassador to Ecuador.  Reda Mansour is an Israeli Druze poet, historian and diplomat. He has published three books of Hebrew poetry and received the University of Haifa Miller Award as well as the State President Scholarship for young writers. Mansour was born in the Druze village of Isfiya in northern Israel.                                 

6.  Mohammed Masarwa, Ambassador: an Arab Muslim, was Consul-General in Atlanta. In 20… 

7.  Major General Hussain Fares:  commander of Israel's border police

8. Major General Yosef Mishlav: head of Homeland Security as Israel's Home Front Commander.         

A 21-year-old Arab has made history by winning a beauty contest to be named Miss Israel. Rana Raslan, who will be Israel's representative in the Miss World contest, said she hoped to "represent Israel as well as possible".She said: "It doesn't matter whether I am an Arab or a Jew, we must prove to the world that we can live together. "There is no difference between Arabs and Jews, we are all human beings.  The new Miss Israel was born in the northern city of Haifa and works for a law firm. She wins a car, a modelling contract and the chance to represent Israel in the Miss World pageant.  This took place March 16, 1999.  

Israel has enacted affirmative action policies to help its minority citizens achieve full social and economic equality.  

                                               

Israel's National Anthem is Hatikvah (The Hope).  Arabs do not have to sing if they don't want to.  It is understandable.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DPqNHkm1bM. Hatikvah

Jews living in Arab countries before 1948 were 2nd class citizens, called Dhimmis,  they know what it's like and has striven to not treat Arabs in that way. However, Jews never fought against the law of the land, and here in Israel, the Arab youth and others have not been as compliant.  It's a new situation.  East Jerusalem has been extremely problematic.  

Resource:

Magazine: ISRAEL101, 2010 ISSUE, p, 38

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_citizens_of_Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_List#:~:text=The%20Joint%20List%20(Arabic%3A%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%85%D8%A9,and%20the%20Arab%20Democratic%20Party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkYgtvS38DQ more Israeli music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence

https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-07-27/israel-supreme-court-affirms-constitutionality-of-basic-law-israel-nation-state-of-the-jewish-people/

https://theconversation.com/historic-change-arab-political-parties-are-now-legitimate-partners-in-israels-politics-and-government-162461

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/arab-minority-israel-and-knesset-elections

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/294051.stm