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As I walked through the hallways of Ein Mahel, I could feel the students’ eyes following me. They welcomed us into a newly furnished classroom with the sun shining brightly through the windows. The students sat next to us, patiently awaiting the headmaster of the school to speak.
Ein Mahel is a school named after the town in which it is located and serves about 1300 students. This Arab school was one of the first schools to be established in Nazareth. This program was meant to give us the opportunity to speak with Arab students and to understand the youth perspective of Palestinian citizens of Israel. To provide some context, the last couple days had been filled with political tension from our meeting with Jewish settlers in Ariel, to our visit of the Al Amari refugee camp. This was our chance to gain a new perspective on the conflict from a group that represents over 1.5 million people in Israel who are struggling with two national identities.
Each person you ask will give you a different account of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but generally speaking, the critical turning point for both groups was the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which Israel defeated the Arab armies and occupied parts of Gaza and the West Bank, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, leading to what we know today as the Palestinian refugee crisis. For the Palestinians, this event is known as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe”. Many of the Palestinians in Israel today are descendents of those who stayed or were internally displaced during the 1948 war, including the people of Ein Mahel.
At Ein Mahel, a group of us spoke with three students: Shooq Khateeb, Leen Abuleil, and Sara Habiballa, all who were seniors in high school. They talked about wanting to travel to America, their obsession with The Fault in Our Stars, and their love interests. Politics didn’t seem to be on their mind at all, or at the very least, it was not the first thing they wanted to talk about. They did, however, explain some of the hardships they face as minorities in Israel.
The Israeli education system is split up into two broad categories of schools, one for Jewish students and one for Arab students. Studies show that on average, “the Israeli government continues to allocate less money per head for Palestinian Arab children than it does for Jewish children. Arab schools are still overcrowded, understaffed, and sometimes unavailable” (Coursen-Neff). These types of inequalities further exacerbate the social divide between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Furthermore, obtaining Israeli citizenship is extremely difficult for Palestinians, especially for those living in East Jerusalem, an Israeli occupied territory of the West Bank. In order to obtain citizenship, Palestinians have to go through a grueling process in which they submit numerous documents proving residency and undergo lengthy background checks. If they had any previous political affiliation at all to the Palestinian Authority during the first and second Intifada they are not allowed citizenship. Those who do obtain citizenship still face discrimination practices that prevent them from getting jobs.
All Jewish citizens of Israel are required to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. This is not the case for Arabs, since serving in the Israeli Defense Forces is a conflict of interest for many who still identify as Palestinian and sometimes have family ties in the West Bank and Gaza. For the few that do decide to join the IDF, there are still limitations.
Shooq explains how one of her cousins who wanted to be a pilot after graduating was prevented from doing so solely because he was Palestinian, even though he had Israeli citizenship.
Problems arise when employers discriminate based on IDF status, oftentimes only employing those who have served in the army. This practice allows legal discrimination against Arabs and prevents them from getting many jobs, especially ones in the growing technology sector. The IDF provides a network of resources and employers that many Arabs do not have access too, greatly limiting their job opportunities.
Through speaking with Shooq, Leen, and Sara, I started to understand the position that many Arab-Israeli youth are in. Palestinians in Israel not only constantly suffer from discriminatory practices, but also struggle between their two identities, one that represents their heritage, but also one that represents the nation many of them were born and raised in.
“I want to ask you something,” Sara interjected. “You believe this war is going to end right?”
I didn’t know what to say. No lecture or assignment could have prepared me to answer this question.
“I think the greater conflict may end, but there will always be extremists on both sides fighting over whose voice is louder,” I said.
I don’t think they were satisfied with my answer, but neither was I.
Towards the end of our conversation I returned the question to them.
“It can’t end,” Shooq responded. “It’s black or white. There’s no gray. We can’t find a solution because the Arabs want one thing and they can’t change it and the Jews want something and they can’t change it.”
What Shooq said stuck with me well past our visit. It made me question what the media was telling us about the conflict and why there hasn’t been a solution yet. There are talks of peaceful coexistence, security concerns, and settlements, but the media always tends to overlook the bigger picture. The fact that deep down, Jews and Palestinians each have their individual agendas, and those agendas don’t seem to align with each other, or at least not for the time being.