90% Increase In Number Of Arab-Israelis Volunteering For National Service.

From YNetNews.com:

A report published by the Shlomit - National Service Placement Organization indicated that the past year has seen a 90% increase in the number of Arab-Israelis volunteering for National Service.

In 2009, 1,400 Arabs joined the National Service program, compared with only 580 in the previous year.


Every Israeli citizen who is not obligated to serve in the army has the option of volunteering for National Service, which involves assisting staff at schools, hospitals and other institutions.

Haya Shmuel, director general of Shlomit, told Ynet that the figures are indicative of the Arab youngsters' desire to integrate into Israeli society. According to her, this trend began in 2006, when the recruitment of Arabs to National Service was made possible following a High Court petition filed by Shlomit to that end.

An obvious question is--just what does the Arab leadership think about this:

"One of the factors that had prevented Arabs from volunteering in the past was the objection voiced by Arab politicians and the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, but during the past year we have not heard from the committee on this matter," Shmuel explained. "They understood that when it comes to (National Service) they cannot suppress their people's will."

Which of course is not to say that all Arab Israelis approve:

However, many Arab-Israelis still disapprove of National Service. Amdad Darawsham, 18, who resides in a village near Akko, began his volunteer work at Magen David Adom emergence services this year.were those who called me a traitor; I don’t know why, and I don't care, because I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing," he told Ynet.

This parallels the story from earlier this year that among the most eager to build Israeli settlements are Palestinian Arabs:

The last thing that Abu Mohammed al-Najjar wants is for Israel to succumb to US and European pressure and halt construction in the West Bank settlements.

As far as the 58-year-old laborer is concerned, freezing the construction would be a disaster not only for him and his family, but for thousands of other Palestinians working in various settlements in the West Bank.

Of course, this does not mean that they support Israel's policy of construction in the settlements. But for them, it's simply a matter of being able to support their families.

The phenomenon of Palestinians building new homes for Jewish settlers is not new. In fact, Palestinian laborers have been working in the construction business from the first day the settlements began in the West Bank.

Today, Palestinian Authority officials estimate, more than 12,000 Palestinians are employed by both Jewish and Arab contractors building new homes in the settlements.

And as is the case with Arab Israelis, so too Palestinian Arabs who work on building Israeli settlements are allowed to do so without opposition by the Palestinian leadership:

He and most of the laborers interviewed by the Post over the past week said they had never come under pressure from fellow Palestinians to stay away from work in the settlements.

"If they want us to leave our work, they should offer us an alternative," Abu Sharikheh said. "We don't come to work in the settlements for ideological reasons or because we support the settlement movement. We come here because our Palestinian and Arab governments haven't done anything to provide us with better jobs."

...He said that during the first intifada, which began at the end of 1987, some Palestinian groups tried to stop Palestinians from heading to work in the settlements.
"In the beginning there were threats and physical assaults on some workers," he noted. "But the leaders of the intifada later realized that depriving the laborers of their livelihood would have a boomerang effect on the Palestinians. That's why they allowed the workers to go to the settlements."

Even today the PA does not object to Palestinians working in settlements, although its representatives say they would like to see the Palestinians work elsewhere.

"We can't tell the workers to stay at home without providing them with solutions," admitted a Palestinian official in Ramallah. "We're talking about thousands of families in the West Bank that rely on this work as their sole source of income."

And when it comes to Palestinian Arabs who find work in helping to build Israeli settlements, it is not just members of Fatah who are doing this:

He [Jawdat Uwaisat] added that even Palestinians known as supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are employed as construction workers in settlements.

"I know some people from Hamas who work as construction laborers in Ariel," he said. "When people want to feed their children, they don't think twice."

While most of the laborers told the Post that they were opposed to the settlements, they nevertheless stressed that they would continue to show up for work every day.

No one is saying that this is going to result in the complete assimilation of Israeli Arabs into Israeli society--in neither its positive or negative sense--but it does tend to suggest that those who make a point of painting a dark picture of relations of Israelis with Arabs both inside and outside of Israel should take a look at the facts.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israeli Arabs.