By Mohammed Azhar Ali
This comment was published in Arab News on 26/11/2010
The first woman to represent an Arab party in the Israeli Parliament brought a stirring plea for human dignity, equality, freedom, democracy, justice and peace to Canada. Those who listened were touched. But those weren’t many — her visit was ignored by most government leaders and the media.
Haneen Zoabi, 41, represents Balad (the National Democratic Assembly) in the Knesset. She champions human rights without distinction on the basis of race, religion or gender. She defends, in particular, women and children whose rights are suppressed the most, she says.
She told her Canadian audience that her party is struggling to bring equality, human dignity and democracy to Israel. If her words are heeded, she feels that peace and cooperation will replace violence and hate in the Middle East. But brutal violation of a people’s dignity and basic human rights will prolong and deepen the conflict.
Knesset hard-liners called Zoabi a traitor because she criticizes the Israeli suppression of the Palestinians’ basic rights and Israel’s siege of Gaza. She and three other Israeli Arabs were on the Turkish relief ship Mavi Marmara which was taking humanitarian supplies to Gaza when Israeli commandos attacked it on the high seas on May 31, 2010.
She called it tragic that Israel imposed an illegal siege on one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza turning them into prisoners who were denied basic needs, including proper food, shelter, education, medicines and jobs. Israel imposed the siege when Hamas won the election in Gaza (according to most observers because of the corruption and spinelessness of Palestinian Authority officials). Zoabi stated that the ship was taking supplies to Gaza to provide much-needed goods to the besieged and to highlight the immorality and illegality of the blockade.
According to Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, the blockade has wrecked the 1.6 million Gazans’ physical and mental health, caused severe malnutrition, especially among infant and pregnant and nursing mothers, destroyed most small businesses, caused hunger and shortages, sent unemployment soaring and prevented the rebuilding of Gaza after Israel’s 22-day assault in December 2008. Israel also prevents Gazan fishermen from fishing beyond five kilometers.
While Gazans are suffering the most, stated Zoabi, the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel are also suffering severe discrimination. Israeli authorities deny basic rights and equality to its Arab citizens. For example, from 1948 till 1966, the Arabs of Israelis lived under military regime. She said that there is no Israeli constitution that guarantees equality to all citizens.
She declared that some 23 laws disenfranchise Palestinian Israelis, especially in land, citizenship, education, construction, etc. A Jew from anywhere in the world can get citizenship in 24 hours, but Palestinians who have lived there for generations cannot get it if they were abroad temporarily for family, health or education reasons. “If I marry a Palestinian from outside Israel proper, I would be banished from Israel,” she declared.
She said: Israeli authorities confiscated 82 percent of our land, Israelis developed 600 Jewish cities but no Arab ones, We cannot study our history, poetry and literature but we must study Zionist literature, There is not a single Palestinian Arab university to teach us our culture and heritage.
Zoabi stated that Palestinian Israelis constitute 18 percent of the population, but 60 percent live below the poverty line because of state neglect and policy. Such Arab Israelis get no more than eight percent of the jobs. Arab Israelis do not like to serve in Israeli armed forces, police or diplomatic services because they would have to defend policies that oppress them.
We became a minority in our own land, she continued, because my people were expelled while Jews from other lands were brought in, she continued. Though we are the victims of discrimination, the media and politicians demonize us as security or demographic threats. When Arab Israelis protest against injustice, they are harshly suppressed. Instead of attaining peace through equality and justice Israel is building walls, imposing a siege and coordinating security with the compliant Palestinian Authority.
Now Israel is insisting that Palestinian Arabs swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, which she said would “criminalize our just struggle for our national rights, equality, democracy and justice.”
Zoabi stated that her party opposes violence and religious extremism. It stands for an Israel where all citizens are equal and enjoy full human rights. But the media and politicians portray them as a threat and now there is very little contact between Arab Israelis and Jews. Seventy percent of Israelis do not want Palestinians as their neighbors.
Zoabi received death threats and was accused of being a traitor when she spoke against Israel’s siege of Gaza. Likud member of Knesset Yariv Levi demanded the removal of Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges. On Oct. 27, 2010, she was shot in the back by Israeli police with rubber bullets during a clash between Jewish extremists and the residents of the Arab town of Umm Al-Fahm.
But the first Palestinian woman to graduate from Haifa University and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, who once worked for the Israeli Ministry of Education, refuses to yield to threats or to bitterness. She remains in the Knesset’s Status of Women Committee.
She doesn’t enjoy the fame of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. But her message of human dignity, brotherhood, justice and equality is the same as theirs. She is calling on all people — Jews, Arabs, others — to support these goals so that Israel becomes a democracy for all of its people. She said a Middle East settlement must be justice and address the problems that began in 1948. She doesn’t distinguish between a one-state or a two-state solution. What she is passionate about is that the agreement must be based on justice, equality, democracy and human dignity and rights, not on one’s faith or race.
It is a message that serves the interests of all parties — Israel, Palestinians, others. It is not a message that many people are paying attention to. But then the words of Gandhi, Mandela and King also fell on deaf ears initially. Zoabi is a courageous woman who articulates the sentiments of many Jews and Arabs. One wishes, though, that there were many more with her courage, integrity and values not only in Israel and the Arab countries but in Canada, the US and Europe as well.
Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a journalist, retired Canadian civil servant and refugee judge.
He has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for his work as a journalist, his leadership of Muslims and efforts to promote better understanding between Canadians of different faiths.
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