Israel Affairs

ISSN: 1353-7121 (Print) 1743-9086 (Online) Journal homepage: https://tandfonline.com/loi/fisa20

Israel’s policy towards its Arab minority, 1990–2010

Gadi Hitman

To cite this article: Gadi Hitman (2018): Israel’s policy towards its Arab minority, 1990–2010, Israel
Affairs, DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2018.1554871

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2018.1554871

Published online: 26 Dec 2018.

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ISRAEL AFFAIRS
https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2018.1554871

Israel’s policy towards its Arab minority, 1990–2010

Gadi Hitman
Middle East Department, Ariel University, Israel

ABSTRACT
This article discusses the shift in Israel’s policy towards its Arab minority in
1990–2010 – from a security-based to a civil approach. This shift was reflected
not only in increased resource allocation but also in the initiation of a dialogue
with Arab politicians and public figures. Among the most prominent results of
this policy change have been a reduction in socioeconomic gaps between
Israel’s Jewish and Arab communities, a growing number of Arabs enlisting in
national service, greater integration of Arabs in the civil service, and the
approval of master plans for the development of all Arab settlements.

KEYWORDS Israel; Arab minority; dialogue; integration; policy

One of the most complicated issues in multicultural societies is the inter-

action between majority and minority communities. Israel, as a Jewish and
democratic state, offers a classic case study for analysing such interrelation-
ships. Within this framework, the question of government policy towards
minorities is crucial – not only for the formulation of the national political
system but also for the social, economic, cultural and religious status of the
various groups.
Broadly speaking, studies of Israeli policies towards the Arab minority
can be grouped into four main approaches:

● The modern approach argues that the development of human socie-

ties has moved from the traditional to the modern and that the Arab
population in Israel has been categorised by the Israeli establishment
as being a mainly traditional group that has become radicalised during
the process of modernisation.1
● The political supervision approach claims that the proper way to
analyse the interaction between the parties is to map all the control
mechanisms used by the state.2 This argument suffers from a conspic-
uous drawback since it views the relationship as effectively one-sided,

CONTACT Gadi Hitman gh791966@gmail.com Ariel University, Israel

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 G. HITMAN

ignoring as it does the actions and reactions of the Arab population to

the relationship and their implications.
● The pluralistic approach contends that Israel, as an ethnic democ-
racy, is a special case, in which the Jewish majority has been
favoured at the expense of the Arab minority right from the begin-
ning, as the Arabs, though receiving basic individual civil rights
within the democracy, have not received collective rights as a recog-
nised national minority.3
● The political colonialism approach, which is very popular among
Palestinian scholars, views Israel as a colonial implant at the expense
of the country’s indigenous Palestinian population.4

In what follows this article will focus on Israel’s policy towards the Arab
minority in 1990–2010, in an attempt to underscore the major policy shift
that took place during this period – from a predominantly security-based
approach to a civil-oriented attitude – and its implications.

The 1990s: Israel’s policy begins to change direction

After the violent Land Day clashes in March 1976 (in which six Arab
citizens were killed), all Arab affairs advisors to the prime minister agreed
on the necessity to submit recommendations to the government regarding
the Israeli Arab sector. Some of them thought that the civil integration of
the Arabs, which included absorption of educated Arabs into the public
civil service, the improvement of the Arab education system and joint
Jewish–Arab economic projects, might alleviate tensions between the
parties.5 Although these recommendations were never implemented, all
Arab affairs advisors deemed the promotion of civil equality as necessary,
not least given their fear of growing Arab demands for collective-national
rights, as opposed to civil rights, which would effectively challenge Israel’s
very existence as a Jewish state.
Advisor Moshe Sharon (1978–1979), for instance, proposed opting for full
integration of the Arab community though his detailed position papers were
not discussed in any government forum.6 Sharon’s successor, Benjamin Gur-
Arie (1979–1984), supported the absorption of qualified Arabs into the civil
service, the economic advancement of the Arab sector, the settling of the
issue of the lands and the authorisation of a master plan for the Arab
population centres. His recommendations also received little attention and
there is no evidence of any effective discussion about the way the minority
populations in Israel should be treated during his term in office. Yosef Ginat,
who succeeded Gur-Arie (1984–1988), confirmed that the documents pre-
pared by his predecessor ‘were not accompanied by deeds’.7
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 3

This pattern of advisors for Arab affairs submitting unavailing recom-

mendations continued until 1990. As all of them have attested, the govern-
ment was interested in maintaining quiet in the Arab sector and, as long as
the issue presented no threat to the general political stability and no
negative escalation took place, there was no real need to change the old
policy that was mostly based on security perspectives.8
The first signs of change could be detected in the mid-1980s due to a
string of external and internal factors. Externally, Israeli policymakers took
note of new dynamics within the Arab sector and Palestinian society. To
begin with, the awakening of national feelings among Israeli Arabs since the
June 1967 war was in the process of being translated into political institu-
tionalisation by the Sons of the Village group, then by the Progressive Peace
List (Ramash) and the Arab Democratic Party (ADP) in the 1980s. The
inflexible ideologies of these parties and their assertive public statements
convinced the Israeli authorities that the Arab population was no longer
prepared to content itself with basic civil rights but demanded full equality.
Second, the winds of the new Islamic revival started to permeate Arab
society. The appearance of new sheikhs, some of them graduates of
Palestinian universities, not only led to the establishment of the Islamic
movement, but also changed the public discourse from civil integration and
a two-state solution (as the Arab communist party articulated) into separ-
atism and the annihilation of the state of Israel.
Third, the ‘Land Day’ clashes of 1976 and 1982 and the turmoil in the
Arab community in response to the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon
(September 1982) were clear expressions of the fact that the Arab minority
was no longer prepared to be submissive. A new, young generation inspired
by national (and religious) aspirations was demanding to see rapid changes
in its daily life. The Israeli authorities were targeted by the protesters, who
considered the state culpable for their inferior situation. The constant
increase in protest events such as strikes, demonstrations, conflicts over
civil and national topics from 1982 to 1988 clarified to the Israeli authorities
that some changes had to be made.
Fourthly, the Palestinian intifada, which erupted in December 1987,
intensified the concerns among Israeli leaders that the acts of terror in
the territories might be introduced into the Green Line. The significant rise
in ‘soft’ terror attacks involving Israeli Arab citizens following the ‘Peace
Day’ events (21 December 1987) made the potential threats tangible.
As a result, at the end of 1987 significant process began to take place.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Minister of Finance Moshe Nissim and the
Minister in Charge of Arab Affairs Moshe Arens agreed a programme for
the development of the Arab minority. Agreement were made about the
allocation of special development budgets to the Arab minority and, with
the agreement of all three ministers, the original sums for the project were
4 G. HITMAN

even increased by 11 million shekels. This was the first time the political
level initiated an enterprise that would answer the needs of the Arab
minority, and even put together a wide-ranging development programme
to narrow the gaps. One can see this programme, even if implementation of
its various parts began only in the 1990s, as a turning point.
Following the outbreak of the intifada in December 1987, a change took
place in the government’s policy towards the Arab minority, and the
growing recognition of the need to narrow the gaps in the different walks
of life gave way to a concern about the security escalation in the territories.
The sharp increase in the number of public disturbances and security events
inside Israel in 1988 also made a considerable contribution to this. During
that year, 226 terror attacks were carried out (as opposed to 69 in 1987),
and 507 violent nationalist incidents took place, including rock throwing,
violent demonstrations and flying PLO flags – as opposed to 101 the
previous year.9 The Arab citizens of Israel were involved in some of these
events (not in terror attacks) and their participation, like the general atmo-
sphere that existed in the shadow of the intifada, contributed to the
strengthening of the approach that supported seeing the Arab minority as
a security threat.
The security concerns also influenced the handling of civil issues such as
education, housing and health. At the end of December 1987, Roni Milo, a
deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, sent a letter to the minister of
finance which contained data about the non-Jewish population in prepara-
tion for a government decision to support the allocation of budgets for the
Bedouin population and moderate factors in Israel. Milo’s main argument
was that, because of the process of Palestinisation that was taking place in this
population, there was a national need to assist and strengthen the moderate
factors through substantial allocations of financial resources. He made a clear
differentiation between positive and moderate elements in the Arab minority
and negative factors that represented security risks and the possibility of
active threats of violence.10 When the decision to allocate the money was
carried out, it was the moderate factors that received it, which made it
possible for various civil projects (new schools, sewage networks, road
electricity) to be launched.
As for internal reasons for the policy change, December 1988 can be
identified as the point where one can begin to speak about the deeds of
politicians rather than those of advisors or analysts. During this month, the
government began to deal with the civil issues connected with the Arab
minority. Minister Ehud Olmert believed that providing budgets was not
enough to improve the situation of the minority population and that atten-
tion had to be paid to the deeper problems of Arab society, and solutions had
to be devised to solve them. In June 1990, with the end of his time in office as
the minister responsible for the minorities, Olmert presented the
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 5

government with a long-term programme for dealing with the Arab popula-
tion. Its title was ‘The Advancement of the Minority Population in Israel’
and, among other things, it included the recommendation to allocate a sum
of 850 million shekels over a period of 10 years to solve the main problems
involving the daily lives of the Arab minority. The importance of the pro-
gramme was not only because of the budgetary recommendations made but
also because of its explanatory remarks that included the recognition that the
Arabs did not enjoy equal status with the other citizens of the country
because of historical and political circumstances.
A second internal reason were the developments after the 1992 general
elections, namely the formation of a Labour-led coalition government
headed by Yitzhak Rabin, supported by five Arab MKs who, though keep-
ing out of the government, were promised policy changes towards the Arab
minority. One of the outcomes of this political situation was a change to the
previous policy and a combined effort to advance the civil issues that were
relevant to the Arab population.
A document was presented to the new government by the Bureau for
Arab Affairs and, from a historical point of view this was a document that
would act as the touchstone for the policy that was to be followed from the
end of 1992 onwards. The document included a series of operative policy
recommendations for relations with the Arab minority and was divided
into sections according to a key that referred to government ministries. The
opening section of the document recommended that the prime minister
should bring the following proposals, among others, to the cabinet for
approval: the integration of well-educated Arabs into the civil service; the
appointment of a Muslim Arab to the position of advisor to the prime
minister for Arab affairs; the appointment of an inter-ministerial committee
to work out a solution to the problem of unrecognised population centres
in the Arab sector; and the establishment of a fund to advance the Arab
citizens of Israel
The following sections of the document included policy recommenda-
tions for the ministries of the interior and religion, whose main point was
an increase in the regular budgets to achieve full equality between all Israeli
citizens. Linked to the government decisions were the allocation of the sum
of half-a-billion shekels for the years 1993–1997 (a five-year plan) as a
development budget for the Arab sector, an examination of the possibility
to grant the status of city to Rahat and Sakhnin (a step that was imple-
mented in 1993–1994), and the provision of budgets to renovate and
rehabilitate Muslim and Christian holy sites.
The document also proposed the planning of seven industrial zones
throughout the country in which special encouragement would be given
to initiatives of the minorities; allocation of 7 million shekels to encourage
initiatives in the Arab sector (under the aegis of the Ministry of Industry);
6 G. HITMAN

construction of a maternity hospital in Rahat (five of which were estab-

lished) and the examination of building more post-natal care centres (under
the aegis of the Ministry of Health); allocation of a million shekels for the
development of agriculture; installation of street lighting in Arab villages
(Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure); allocation of 100 million shekels
for the settlement of the issue of lands in the Negev (Ministry of
Construction and Housing); implementation of a five-year plan for the
Ministry of Education and Culture that would include the building of
classrooms and new schools, and the integration of well-educated Arabs
into the ministry. In regard to government ministries that had to deal with
security matters, the document recommended the increased mobilisation of
minority members to the IDF and the police.
For the first time, a wide-ranging programme that included a variety of
subjects that had always concerned the Arab minority was put into action.
It was a multisystem programme that reflected the government’s interest in
providing a response to the needs of the Arab population from the point of
view of integrating it into Israeli society and the state structures as well as
reducing the gaps with the Jewish majority. This was a truly new approach
for the heads of the Arab community and it was only natural that acts of
violence were not considered by it at the time.
The government’s decision of 26 July 1992 provided for the formation of
a committee of directors-general to ensure the implementation of the
integration policy. This decision was quickly translated into action on the
ground and in November 1992 the Ministry of Transport announced that it
would invest 15 million shekels in the rehabilitation of the transport infra-
structures in 14 Arab villages in the Galilee.
Following these decisions, things began to happen. In January 1993, the
heads of the Arab public welcomed the government decision to classify most of
the Arab villages as being areas of ‘national A priority’ and ‘national B priority,’
which meant that there would be an increased flow of budgets into the
industrial zones, as well as benefits in education and tax relief.11 Ibrahin
Nimr Hussein, chairman of the Higher Follow-Up Committee, the effective
national leadership of the Arab community, said that ‘We feel that something
is moving’ and Mustafa Abu Raya, the Sakhnin mayor, admitted that ‘There is
movement with the budgets’.12 It was clear that the presence of the prime
minister at a ceremony in an Arab village was not only the payment of a debt to
the Arab members of the Knesset, but was a sign of his personal commitment
to his promise that the programme that had been put together was actually
taking shape with a view to benefiting the Arab public as a whole.
In June 1995, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was amended to
prohibit, among other things, discrimination on the basis of nationality or
religion as well as prohibiting employers in the private sector from determin-
ing the criterion of army service as a condition for receiving employment
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 7

unless the IDF service was essential for carrying out the particular work. This
improvement continued up to 2000 (including during the Netanyahu govern-
ment, 1996–1999), when the number of members of the Arab sector working
in government service was 2.5 times higher than it had been in 1992 and, in
total, represented 5% of all those employed .Altogether, during this time, 2000
Arab employees were added to the staff of the government services.
The government also prepared a development programme for the Arab
villages at the cost of 4 billion shekels, half of which was earmarked for
investment in the national physical infrastructures of roads, electricity,
water and sewage systems in the local councils of the Arab sector. What
was special about the programme was its presentation to the heads of the
Arab local councils for perusal in order to get their comments and ideas. In
practice, despite the criticism that public bodies and other factors with
political interests levelled at the programme, there were also those among
them who defined it as ‘historic’ and saw its implementation as having the
potential to change the situation of the Arab minority in the country. This
kind of comment was not the only one that attested to the change taking
place in the government’s approach.
These activities from 1992 onward reflected a deep change in Israel’s
policy towards the Arab minority, resulting from several reasons: new
political figures who believed in a policy of ‘closing the gaps’ between the
groups and growing political concern (after the 1992 general elections) that
the war of terror in the West Bank and Gaza (euphemised as the ‘al-Aqsa
Intifada’) would catalyse the Israeli Arabs into terror activities. Obviously,
no one expected an immediate sea change, but, as a number of Arab public
figures acknowledged, the general atmosphere had changed.

1996–2000: narrowing the gaps and integrating the Arab

population still further
During the Rabin government (1992–4 November 1995), the Bureau of the
Advisor on Arab Affairs was closed and was replaced by the office of the
Head of Minority Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office. As far as could be
ascertained, there were no more comprehensive policy documents prepared
regarding the Arab minority after August 1992 and the basic guidelines of
the government that was elected in May 1996 under PM Netanyahu did not
include the goal of achieving equality between the Jewish majority and the
Arab minority.13 Clarification of the government’s Arab policy thus
requires examination of the responses of different ministers to questions
raised by Arab Knesset members. From the different responses it became
clear that the awareness of the necessity to narrow the gaps between the
different population groups was influenced by the above developments.
8 G. HITMAN

About a month after the swearing in of the Netanyahu cabinet, three

discussions in the Knesset (on 2, 9 and 22 July 1996) were devoted to the
government’s policy towards the Arab population. Salah Salim, a member of
the Knesset from the Balad-Hadash faction, demanded full equality between
Jews and Arabs so that Israel could become a ‘state of all its citizens’ (i.e. the
end of the state of Israel as a Jewish state). Minister Moshe Katsav rejected the
demand and made it clear that Israel would preserve its Jewish character as
was laid down in the Declaration of Independence.14
This was a public expression of the change in political consciousness that had
taken place in the Arab sector, which was beginning to express itself in more
emboldened demands being made by their representatives in the legislature.
Minister of the Interior Eli Suissa stressed that the ministry’s policy was
to cease the discrimination that had existed in the past and to narrow the
gaps, as had begun to be done by the previous government in 1992. He even
supported what he said by providing the following figures: a rise of 15% in
development budgets for the Arab sector since 1993 as opposed to a drop of
2% during the same period for the Jewish sector. He undertook to continue
in this direction but at the same time demanded that the heads of the Arab
local councils implement the collection of municipal and water rates. Suissa
presented figures showing a constant and continuous rise since 1991 in the
sums granted by the Ministry of the Interior to the Arab sector. In 1996, the
total amount was 516 million shekels, in addition to which other govern-
ment ministries had transferred a special one-time grant of 70 million
shekels to the Arab local councils. He announced that the projected budget
for 1997 would grow to 566 million shekels but did not hold back the
government’s criticism of the way the heads of the Arab local councils were
handling things and claimed that there had been a drop in the rate of
collecting municipal taxes, a phenomenon that he called ‘unworthy’.15 The
implementation of these projects attests to the fact that Netanyahu’s gov-
ernment did not abolish anti-discriminatory budgets, as some scholars
argue.16 The fact that heads of Arab local municipalities took to the streets
and, from time to time, arranged demonstrations, including in front of the
Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, in order to demand an end to their
budget deficit has various explanations: the low rate of municipal tax
collection, the authentic feelings among some Arab leaders that while
there had been an improvement it was not enough (MK Azmi Bishara
was one of them); and the sense of deprivation when the investments in the
Arab sector were compared to those which were allocated to the new Jewish
(and non-Jewish) immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
In July 1998 Minister Katsav announced that the government did not
consider the Arab citizens of Israel a security risk or an existential threat to
the state of Israel and that: ‘The few that commit security offences they will
be taken care of by the security factors’.17 This statement was made at a
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 9

time when a number of prominent Arab leaders (MK Bishara; Sheikh Ra’ad
Salah, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement) were under-
taking more extreme political activity and had called upon the Arab popu-
lation to be more active (and sometimes violent) against the government.18
He clarified that the government’s policy recognised the need for affirma-
tive action for the Arab minority and informed the Knesset that the
development budgets for the Arab villages would reach the sum of 570
million shekels in 1998, which was an increase of 8% compared to 1997.
At the end of 1998 and during the first half of 1999, the government
continued working towards narrowing the gaps between the different popu-
lation groups together with using governmental power in the cases of security
matters and the control of illegal practices. In November 1998, the govern-
ment decided to invest 614 million shekels into the Bedouin settlements in
the north of the country over a period of five years. The programme included
the building of public institutions, the development of new neighbourhoods
for demobilised Bedouin soldiers, the development of road infrastructure
and the advancement of master plans. As part of the programme the Katz
Report, which concentrated on recommendations made to improve the
situation of education among the Negev Bedouin and to establish additional
education centres, was presented to the government. Awad Abu Freikh, an
educator and one of the senior members of the northern branch of the
Islamic Movement in the Negev, welcomed the government’s decision to
adopt the recommendation.19
In May 1999, the elections for the 15th Knesset took place and a coalition
led by the Labour Party formed the government. In a session of the Knesset
on 23 June 1999 outgoing Minister of Finance Meir Shitrit announced that
his ministry had allocated 700 million shekels for development in the Arab
sector during 1999, which was an increase of 18% compared to the develop-
ment budget of 1998. He summed up the period in office of the outgoing
government and stated that it could lay claim to a series of achievements with
regard to the advancement of the Arab minority.20
In August 1999 a ministerial committee, headed by Minister for Culture
and Sport Matan Vilnai, was established to deal with the needs of the
minority population. In the Prime Minister’s Office, a comprehensive policy
document was prepared for the minority sector. The programme was titled
‘The Long Term Programme for the Economic–Social Development of the
Arab Villages’. Professional factors from the Arab population, such as
urban planners, businessmen, research bodies and associations that were
dealing with the inter-sectoral creation of cooperative enterprises were
involved with writing the programme. The central line that directed its
authors was ‘the obligation of the Israeli government to provide equal and
fair opportunities to Israeli Arab citizens in social and economic areas’.21
The programme’s goal was to find suitable solutions to problems in areas
10 G. HITMAN

such as transport, infrastructure, building, housing, industry, commerce,

education, employment, health and agriculture and the sum that was
allocated for its implementation was 4 billion shekels over a period of
four years. The disadvantage of the programme was the long period of
time that was taken for its approval since, from September 1999, Vilnai did
not manage to get it approved until 22 October 2000 when it was finally
brought up for approval three weeks after the outbreak of the violent events
in the Arab sector.
Minister of Education Yossi Sarid responded to a question from MK
Ahmad Tibi about positions for psychologists in Arab schools and pointed
out that the transition to the five-year plan that had already been put into
operation would provide a special budget for the financing of positions for
psychologists. Sarid also informed the Knesset that it was his intention to
introduce affirmative action to enable there to be an increase in the number
of Arabs who were being employed in senior positions in his ministry.22
Finance Minister Avraham Shohat told the Knesset that his ministry had
adopted a policy of cancelling fines, linkage and the spreading of debt
payments for the minorities. As far as the question of Arab academics
was concerned, the minister replied that on 31 January 2000 a long-term
plan prepared by the Civil Service Commission for the integration of
candidates from the non-Jewish minority into government service had
been presented to the Ministerial Committee for Arab Minority Affairs.
The ministerial committee made the point that the goal of the programme
was to achieve a rate of 20% of non-Jewish members of the minorities in the
total number of people employed in the civil service by the end of 2004.
Shohat went on to say that this was a policy that was obligatory from both a
public and ideological point of view and that the first programme to absorb
300 Arabs into the civil service of the country had already been completed
for positions that had been defined as ‘middle level’ and ‘high level’.23
This new policy was adopted by the Israeli authorities during a period
that was witness to an escalation of security problems in the territories,
which had a direct effect upon the Arab population in Israel. In order to
reduce potential turmoil in the Arab minority the government’s security
agencies continue to carry out surveillance over the Arab population. From
time to time, when an assessment of the situation suggested that there was a
security risk or any sort of activity looming in the Arab sector, a vigorous
policy to frustrate these potential threats was put into practice.24

Post-September 2000 policy of engagement

The outbreak of the ‘al-Aqsa Intifada’ in late September 2000, and the
violent eruption by the Israeli Arabs in solidarity with their brothers in
the territories, deepened the rift between the government and the Arab
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 11

minority. Yet it also created the perception that there was a need to
continue the policy of more actively narrowing the gaps. The government
was seeking channels of dialogue with the leaders of the Arab sector in
order to ease the tense atmosphere that clouded relations between the
parties after the violent events. In this sense, the government’s initiative
to enter into a dialogue with the Arab minority, which began in the
1990s, was a turning point in its policy since, until then, the party that
had taken the initiative for dialogue had almost always been the Arab
minority, trying to improve its situation, while the government had
usually been passive, especially during the first few decades after the
establishment of the state.
The programme to develop the Arab centres of population was put together
during 2000 by the coordination and control unit of the Prime Minister’s
Office and was aimed at all Arab villages and towns in Israel except for mixed
cities. All the relevant government ministries were involved in the plans for the
Arab minority, as were the heads of the local councils, businesspersons and
planning professionals from the Arab sector who contributed their experience
to the work of mapping out the needs of the minority.
The goals of the programme were closing the gaps between the Arab and
Jewish sectors, finding of suitable solutions for the essential needs of the
Arab population centres in areas such as transport, infrastructure, housing
and construction, industry and commerce, education, employment, health,
religion and establishing the foundations for the attraction of additional
financial investments. The government allocated a sum of 4 billion shekels
for the programme, half of which was to be spent on the deteriorating
infrastructure in the Arab cities and villages, including paving roads, laying
down sewerage systems, street lighting, connection to the national water
system, completing the master plans for the Arab centres of population,
establishing new high-density neighbourhoods, accelerating the building of
public institutions and developing internal infrastructures in the centres. It
was an operational programme for all the government ministries, with exact
allocations of sums for each enterprise. The fact that such a comprehensive
project was planned reflected not only the good will and intention of
Barak’s government towards the Arab sector, but also an understanding
that all previous plans were not enough for creating full equality.
Bureaucratic, as well as cultural barriers hindered the full implementation
of various civil projects for Arabs.
The change of government after the 2001 elections did not bring about a
policy change and the guidelines for the new government, headed by Ariel
Sharon, stated that it ‘will ensure full equality for all the Arab citizens of
Israel . . . in education, employment, housing and infrastructures as well as
the correction of distortions that existed in the allocation of resources and
the provision of public services’.25
12 G. HITMAN

Another important programme that the government prepared after 2000

was an increase in the integration of Arab citizens into government service.
The background to this was the amendment of section 11 of the State
Service Law, in which it was determined that suitable expression would
be given to the representation of members of the Arab minority in all ranks
and professions working in the civil service. The amendment was the
legislative expression of a reality that had already begun in the 1990s
when members of the Arab minority began to be integrated into the various
government ministries to a greater degree. Table 1 presents the constant
growth in the number of Arabs employed in the civil service during the
decade between the Rabin governments (1992) to 2013.26
With regard to municipal affairs during 2000–2002, the Ministry of the
Interior authorised a master plan for the Arab centres of population and
there was real progress made in this area.27 In 2000 the master plan was
authorised for 47 Arab villages and in 21 of these the programmes had
already become operational in 2002..In the few villages that had remained
without a master plan, such as the village of Salama, the Ministry of
Housing and Construction acted to advance the detailed development
plans for the needs of the public in areas such as land for housing,
agriculture and industry. In the area of agriculture, which was considered
to be traditional, central and important for the Arab minority, the devel-
opment budget grew to be four times bigger during 1999–2002.
The application of the policy ran into difficulties more than once; in
some cases there were slowdowns in the speed of implementation because
of bureaucratic barriers and in other cases problems also arose as a result of
internal issues such as the lack of readiness of the sector to agree to modern

Table 1. Arabs employed in government service 1992–2015.

Percentage of Arab Total number of Arab Total number of government
Year workers workers workers
1992 2.1% 1,117 53,549
1993 2.5% 1,369 53,914
1994 3% 1,679 55,278
1995 3.5% 1,997 56,183
1996 4% 2,231 56,809
1997 4.1% 2,340 57,286
1998 4.4% 2,537 57,580
1999 4.8% 2,818 58,115
2001 5.7% 3,128 54,337
2007 5.7% 3,429 60,549
2008 6% 3,737 61,938
2009 6.4% 4,092 63,852
2010 7% 4,543 65,366
2011 7.4% 4,852 65,749
2012 8% 5,433 68,520
2013 8.4% 5,937 70,586
2014 8.8% 6,266 71,469
2015 9% 6,440 71,797
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 13

development, power struggles between clans, a lack of belief in the purity of

the government’s intentions, the rapid changes that took place in the
leadership of the local councils and the continued phenomenon of illegal
building.
In August 2003, the ministerial committee for the affairs of the non-
Jewish sector instructed the government ministries to give priority to
members of the Arab minority in receiving employment and advancement
at work for a period of two years. In January 2004, the government decided
to advance equality and the integration of Arab citizens of Israel into
government service as part of the continuation of steps that had been
taken by the previous governments in the 1990s.28 In March 2006 the
government adopted the recommendations made by an inter-ministerial
team that included representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Finance
and the Civil Service Commission about additional ways to advance the
suitable representation of members of the Arab minority in the civil service.
The goal the government set itself was for 8% of all those employed to be
members of the Arab minority.29
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (2006–2009) encouraged direct dialogue
with the leadership of the Arab minority and their direct participation in
decision making about matters concerning quality of life in the country. As
a direct result of this policy, Olmert initiated the Prime Minister’s
Conference for the Arab Sector that took place in July 2008 and, in his
speech before the participants, he chose to emphasise that Israeli Arab
citizens did not constitute a strategic threat, but were equal citizens with
equal rights in the state of Israel. The conference was the zenith of the
direct process of ongoing dialogue that had begun in 2007 when the prime
minister had given instructions to prepare broad programmes for the Arab
population in the areas of education, the economy and municipal matters.
Three programmes in which members of the Arab minority had taken part
in preparing were presented at the prime minister’s conference.30
The government made a series of additional decisions that were aimed at
advancing the minority populations. One of the important ones was the
establishment in February 2007 of the Authority for the Economic
Development of the Arab Sector. This new authority prepared an economic
programme for the Arab minority and presented a vision in which this sector
of the population would become advanced from the economic and social
points of view through the positive exploitation of the economic potential it
possessed and its integration into the national economy. Among the goals of
the programme were: raising the standard of living of the Israeli Arab citizens,
encouraging productive economic activity and raising the per capita income in
the Arab population.31 Aiman Saif, a member of the Arab minority, was made
head of the authority as a concrete expression of the intention to carry out the
policy of integrating the sector into the institutions of the state.
14 G. HITMAN

Conclusion
The way the Israeli authorities have treated the Arab minority since 1990
attests to the policy changes – from the decades-long dominant security
perspective to a more balanced outlook integrating security and civil affairs.
This change was due to several reasons, notably the growing number of
politicians, especially inside the government, who believed that equality for
the Arab minority was fundamental to democracy. They also expected that
closing gaps between Arabs and Jews could reduce security threats, heigh-
tened in 1990 by the Palestinian intifada.
Another reason for this policy shift was the political development that
took place after the 1992 general elections, especially the need of the
Rabin government for the support of the Arab MKs for the Oslo process.
The new policy strove for civil integration of the Arabs and it was
implemented not only by increasing resource allocation for the minority
population but also by carrying on a constant dialogue with Arab poli-
ticians and public personalities. This new policy also had the advantage
of being active and innovative, and not passive as it had been in the early
decades of the state.
The above policy has remained in place to date, though it has faced some
significant challenges. These appeared two decades ago when national
resources were sparse due to the government decision to absorb Jewish
immigration from the former Soviet Union. Despite the relative lack of
resources, all Israeli governments have given top priority to improving the
lot of the Arab minority, and this has been reflected in all civil areas of life,
such as sewage infrastructure, health, education, housing and welfare. This
continued into the first decade of the twenty-first century even when the
public discourse within Jewish society became more hostile towards Arabs
in general due to the outbreak of the ‘al-Aqsa Intifada’.
There are still various difficulties involved in carrying out the new policy.
Cultural, political and bureaucratic barriers have placed obstacles before the
achievement of full equality, and yet the comparison between the Israeli
policy towards the Arab minority until 1990 and after that year makes it
clear that the policy guidelines have changed significantly in the direction of
civil integration, despite different national identities between the parties.

Notes
1. Sa’adi, “Culture as a Dimension,” 193–202.
2. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State.
3. Smooha, “Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy,” 391.
4. Zuriek, The Palestinians in Israel.
5. Mansour and Benziman, Israeli Arabs, 86.
6. Reiter, National Minority, 74–5.
 ISRAEL AFFAIRS 15

7. Shtandhal, Israeli Arabs, 313–14.

8. Mansour and Benziman, Israeli Arabs, 86.
9. Rekehss, “The Arabs in Israel,” 167–9.
10. Roni Milo’s letter, December 24, 1987.
11. Davar newspaper, January 26, 1993.
12. Sikkuy Association Annual Report 1993, 1.
13. The Guidelines of the Government 1996.
14. Knesset minute, July 8, 1996.
15. Knesset minute, January 13, 1997.
16. Reiter, National Minority.
17. Knesset minutes, July 21, 1998.
18. Hitman, Israel and Its Arab Minority.
19. Sawt al-Haqq wal-Hurriah newspaper, January 8, 1999, 5.
20. Knesset minutes, June 23, 1999.
21. A Multi-Year Plan for Developing the Arab Sector 2000, 13.
22. Knesset minutes, January 26, 2000.
23. Knesset minutes, March 28, 2000.
24. In September 1999 there were two car bomb explosions in Israel, one in Haifa
and the other in Tiberias. The investigation revealed that it was activists, who
had been recruited by Hamas, from the northern branch of the Islamic
Movement from a number of villages in the Galilee who were responsible.
The government made a decision to increase the surveillance over the
activities of the branch.
25. Government’s Guidelines, March 6, 2001, 5.
26. Sikkuy Association Annual Report, 2002–2003, 35; Database on Arab
Employment, 2.
27. Nasser, The Housing Shortage, 8.
28. Government’s Decision 1402, January 27, 2004.
29. Government’s Decision 414, August 31, 2006.
30. Prime Minister’s announcement, 2008.
31. A Programme for Economic Development.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Gadi Hitman is lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Middle Eastern
Studies, Ariel University. Main research topics: Gulf States, nationalism, minorities,
Palestinians, GLOBAL Jihad and Arab spring. Already published 2 books
(Lexington, 2016; Sussex 2018) and series of articles in various journals about
these topics.

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