What life is like for Arab citizens of Israel
Historic buildings in Haifa, Israel. (Credit: Heritage Conservation Haifa)
Around 20% of the population of Israel is Arab. The opportunities and lived experience of the Israeli Arab community is significantly different from that of Israel's Jewish citizens. Embrace’s partners in the community often speak about challenges to their identity, culture and history, as well as higher rates of poverty relative to the population as a whole – one symptom of a widespread sense of structural injustice within Israeli society.
One partner we support, in association with the Pontifical Mission for Palestine – Baladna Association for Arab Youth – works with young people to better understand why they may become involved in a gang culture associated with over 150 deaths already in 2023. The project aims to develop grassroots interventions to prevent yet another generation of teenagers falling prey to a life of crime and violence.
Baladna Director, Nidaa Nasser, shares here what it means to her to live as an Arab citizen of Israel.
"This used to be my father's shop, right under this mosque," my grandmother told me as we made our way through Haifa. She spoke with a cold and emotionless tone, as if she had become accustomed to the system of oppression and injustice, accepting it as normal. She continued, "As a result of the many bombs they threw on our neighborhood, we packed our belongings and fled. We walked and walked until we reached Lebanon and continued to Homs in Syria. We stayed in a refugee camp for a year, where one had to thank God for every morsel of food. Then, by God's grace, we were able to return. We walked through the mountains during the nights and came back to 'Ablin, where we settled, but we had nothing there. Our homes, our lands, and everything else were taken away from us."
My grandmother's story is not unique; it is the story of thousands of our people who were displaced during the Nakba, witnessing their destroyed villages and properties now owned by others within arm's reach.
My name is Nidaa Nassar and I am 38 years old. I was born and raised in the village of Arraba in the Galilee region in the north of the country. I am part of a family that can be described as ordinary - my parents were both secondary school teachers and my dad is also a film maker. I studied community social work and conflict studies at university and now manage the Arab Youth Association (Baladna).* Unlike 45.3% of Arab families in Israel who live in poverty, I was fortunate not to be born into difficult family circumstances. I also did not grow up in social circles threatened by escalating violence and crime in our towns where some are dying on the streets every day (although there is no immunity for anyone from random gunshots fired in every street).
This standpoint might seem to have privileges – but only if we ignore the surrounding context and power equations. In reality, being a Palestinian in the areas that became the state of Israel in 1948 is a daily struggle for your existence, your story, your right to have a history, your right to dream, and your desire not to be a mere machine, only valued for survival – to eat, drink, and sleep.
We are crushed due to our difficult social situations. For instance, looking at the Arab youth in Israel, 40% of people aged 18-24 do not belong to any educational or work framework, and they are likely become the victims of violence and crime, which affects them 30 times more than the Jewish community in terms of injuries and fatalities from gunfire. There is a scarcity of resources, infrastructure, and opportunities. For example, the budget allocated to Jewish students in Israeli schools is three times that of Arab students. These are examples of the stark discrimination in all aspects of our daily lives as Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.
However, it is not just about budgets, or opportunities. The issue is not the typical discrimination and racism towards minorities (although we are not a traditional minority) found anywhere in the world. Rather, it is about deeper and fiercer power relations, about an imbalance that cannot be settled or nullified as long as this state [Israel] defines itself as Jewish.** It tells me and all of us Arabs, "There is no place for you here." The resources, future, and concern of this state are reserved for an exclusive and closed group. We are not part of it. At the same time, our other Palestinian brothers will not collaborate with us, claiming that it is normalisation with Israel. But we are not "Israel”.
I was born into this Israeli reality. I did not experience the Nakba firsthand, like my grandmother did. But I can’t see Haifa without seeing the evicted houses, including my grandfather's shop. I will continue to remember the once-thriving Arab neighborhoods in Haifa before the Nakba, with its people, intellectuals and traders, that have now been turned into marginalised areas on the outskirts of the city. I can't find satisfaction with Haifa’s cafes and shopping centres – or with a good job and salary; something always feels missing.
When the Israeli government teach us their version of events in schools, they imply that we, as Palestinians, did not exist as a nation. What's worse, they try to convince us that our living conditions are better than those of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza, and that we should be grateful to Israel for these conditions and blessings – these crumbs of unfulfilled rights.
One of the things that angers me the most in my grandmother's story, is how the old houses in the central streets of Haifa have been turned into cafes owned by Israeli Europeans who claim to be left-wing and love Arabs – while they reside in our houses! These shops are expensive, truly expensive, and highly invested. Every time I see these places, including my great grandfather's shop, my naive imagination takes over. I imagine myself as an independent girl in Haifa, working hard to live an average life and pay the high rent in this pricey country. I wonder what my quality of life would be like if this house, which once belonged to us and still belongs to us, was mine.
If we put what was taken from us on one scale and our living conditions now (which we are supposed to be thankful for) on the other, which side would tip the scale?
While I dream and play with the circumstances of life, which were imposed on us, my mother's cousin Saliha is preparing to travel to Denmark. Saliha is not like my grandmother Amina, whose family succeeded in sneaking into the country and returning to their homeland. She came back alone, while her entire family was, and remains, in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Why is Saliha travelling to Denmark? She (and we, to remind you) are Israelis and so forbidden to enter Lebanon – the country that provides us with most of the songs and culture that we identify with. So, the entire family have to meet in Denmark, in neutral waters without weapons!
Israel may improve our living conditions, education, work opportunities, and infrastructure, but it will not fully improve them. They might change everyday things like education and work and such things, but the scales are not balanced. We will still see our refugee relatives, unable to reclaim homes or land, and there will be no room for communication and building normal family relationships with the West Bank (Israelis who marry people from the West Bank are not able to bring them to live with them in Israel). To address and resolve these issues, one must possess the fundamental assumption that all humans are equal and have the right to live with dignity and freedom. In our context, this assumption is absent. Israel already defines itself as the state of the Jews. In simpler terms, they have the right to take my grandmother's house and open a luxury pastry shop in it, and they also have the right to decide who I love and who I am connected to.
Despite this, we will continue to dream, work, strive, and organise to uphold the fundamental principle that we are all equal as human beings. Any cosmetic improvements in our living conditions will not undermine the current power dynamics. Nothing short of access to our full rights is capable of achieving the fundamental principle of equality.
* Baladna, Association for Arab Youth, is a developmental and capacity building agency for Arab-Palestinian youth in Israel. It is committed to empowering youth to overcome discrimination and marginalisation while advancing their individual and collective rights.
** Israel’s Nation State Law defines Israel as the “national home of the Jewish people”. The Israel Democracy Institute looks at the constitutional implications of this law in their article “Nation State Law Explainer”.
