ISRAEL: Municipal elections underscore Jewish-Arab concerns
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On the eve of Yom Kippur, Tawfiq Jamal drove his car into a predominantly Jewish street in the northern city of Acre to pick up his daughter who had been helping with wedding preparations. This sparked riots that went on for four nights (previous post here), getting dozens both injured and arrested and calling into question the viability of this town and others in Israel as mixed Jewish and Arab communities.
Neither side has truly recovered from the October 2000 riots, and most -– though not all -- Jewish and Arab public leaders were quick to get involved to avert long-term damage to the fragile coexistence. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even Hezbollah, for their part, tried to drive the wedge deeper.
There are a number of cities in Israel that are home to both Jewish and Arab communities, such as Haifa, Ramle, Lod and Jaffa. Sometimes the two communities share a common public space and experience, and sometimes the mix is more on paper than on the ground, with clear geographic and cultural divides. It’s not always easy for either, and now other mixed communities are concerned about the ‘Acre Effect’.
Even before the Yom Kippur troubles, the town of Karmiel was wary. A slow but steady trickle of Arab Israelis relocating into town from nearby villages in search of better and more urban services and infrastructure has made this an issue in the campaign for municipal elections, to be held throughout the country in mid-November. For the first time in its history, the town built in the mid-’60s on lands expropriated from the surrounding Arab villages to plant a Jewish anchor in the Galilee, has an Arab candidate atop a joint Jewish-Arab slate running for city council. Attorney Ibrahim Shaaban, a resident of 18 years, is running on the slogan of ‘Karmiel for All.’
But some do not want Karmiel to be for all. The town of 45,000 has an Arab population of around 3,000, and Jewish residents have formed a rival slate named ‘My Home’ and have filled the town with banners reading ‘My home is not for sale.’
Campaigners for Adi Eldar, the town’s long-serving incumbent mayor who also chairs the union of local authorities in Israel, are unhappy with their rivals’ blunt campaign, calling it irresponsible and short-sighted. ‘We all want to live in a town with a strong Jewish character,’ they said, ‘but there is no democratic way to prevent Arabs from moving in.’
The future of the community, with its beautiful landscaping and succesful absorption of immigrants (as well as south Lebanese families after Israel’s withdrawal) over the last decade, depends on attracting a good population, and this may be achieved only with a strong, positive image. The flagrant campaign, they worry, might undermine years of hard work and compromise the town’s future.
-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
Top photo: Peace has a precarious perch -- a memorial in Karmiel dedicated to resident Zvika Golombek, killed in a suicide bombing in 2001.
Bottom: A campaign banner in Karmiel reads, ‘My home is not for sale.’
Photo credits: Batsheva Sobelman / Los Angeles Times