NAZARETH MAYOR PESSIMISTIC ON POSTWAR JEWISH-ARAB

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 003729

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KPAL IS
SUBJECT: NAZARETH MAYOR PESSIMISTIC ON POSTWAR JEWISH-ARAB
RELATIONS


Classified By: DCM Gene Cretz for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) In a September 13 meeting with Emboffs, longtime
Nazareth Mayor Ramiz Jaraisy painted a bleak picture of
postwar relations between Israel,s Jewish and Arab
communities. He argued that Israel had chosen &force over
peace8 in its invasion of southern Lebanon, and that Israeli
Arabs felt betrayed by the government,s failure to build
adequate bomb shelters in their communities. At the same
time, he acknowledged a widespread Israeli Arab pride in the
ability of Hizballah to damage Israel. He feared that calls
for the expulsion of Arabs from the West Bank and/or the
Israeli political system were on the rise, and complained
about what he sees as a unique level of discrimination
against Nazareth.

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JEWS AND ARABS IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR
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2. (C) Jaraisy argued that while Hizballah launched the
first salvo in the recent war in Lebanon by kidnapping two
Israeli soldiers, the GOI had planned the war in advance and
was simply waiting for an excuse to invade Lebanon again. He
claimed that before the war, PM Olmert,s government had two
options: to make peace by accepting the Arab League
Initiative (i.e. full Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967
borders),or to &rely on the U.S. and a position of force
and power8 to achieve its goals. According to Jaraisy, the
war in Lebanon demonstrated that the GOI had chosen &force
and power8 over peace.


3. (C) In response to questions about Arab-Jewish relations
in Israel in the wake of the war, Jaraisy acknowledged a
deepening animosity and suspicion on both sides. While he
claimed that &ninety-nine percent8 of Israeli Arabs still
value their Israeli nationality and are loyal to the state
even as they struggle against its policies, he also confided
that &Israeli Arabs felt some dignity that an Arab side can
(inflict) pain on Israel.8


4. (C) On the Jewish side, he worried that religious
nationalists were gaining ground and would become
increasingly vocal in their calls to expel Arabs from the
West Bank and/or swap Arab communities in Israel for Jewish
ones in the West Bank. The September 10 comments by NU/NRP
MK Effi Eitam (leader of the party,s Religious-Zionist
faction) advocating the expulsion of &the great majority8
of Palestinians from the West Bank and the exclusion of
Israeli Arabs from the Israeli political system showed that
the topic was no longer even taboo, Jaraisy claimed. He
added that religious extremists on both sides were hijacking
the peace process and Arab-Jewish relations, and that the
chances for a peaceful resolution to the conflict were
receding as a result.

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ARABS LEFT UNPROTECTED DURING THE WAR
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5. (C) Jaraisy said that the government,s longstanding
neglect of Arab communities in the north was highlighted
during the war as Arabs realized that their towns lacked
protection from incoming rockets. (NOTE: Israeli Arabs
suffered 18 of 39 civilian deaths from rockets strikes during
the war, according to reports by Yediot Aharonot). He said
that after the first Gulf War in 1991, Arab municipalities
had asked the Home Front Command to construct bomb shelters
for them, but nothing was done. He added that only about
fifteen percent of Nazareth,s (population 70,000) structures
were constructed after the 1992 law mandating that all new
structures built in Israel have reinforced safe havens that
could provide some level of protection during an attack.
Consequently, most Arabs in the north had nowhere safe to go
once the rockets started falling.


6. (C) Jaraisy complained that while all Arab municipalities
suffer from state neglect, Nazareth, the largest Arab city in
the country, suffered most. He accused right wing
politicians of deliberately sabotaging the welfare of
Nazareth during the past ten years. As a result, he said,
Nazareth receives every year the smallest (as a percentage of
assessed need) of the annual grants the state gives to all
municipalities to help balance their budgets. He also
accused &right-wingers,8 led by Binyamin Netanyahu, of
sabotaging his city,s bid to capitalize on the millennium
with the &Nazareth 20008 tourism and infrastructure
project. He claimed also that Likud and Shas politicians (in
the governing coalition at the time) fabricated the 1999
Muslim-Christian rift over the disputed Shihab al-Din holy
site in Nazareth. (NOTE: Unlike comments at the time, when
Jaraisy and other Christian Arabs accused Muslim and Jewish
political leaders of conspiring against the Christians, he
now seems more interested in portraying Christians and
Muslims as co-victims of a Jewish right wing conspiracy to
divide them).

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COMMENT: DEEPENING DIVIDE
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7. (C) Jaraisy belongs to Hadash, a staunchly left wing
political party comprised of both Arabs and Jews, which
currently holds three Knesset seats. His comments reflect in
part the political outlook of his party, the successor to
Israel,s Communist Party, and he launches into hyperbole
when discussing his view of Nazareth as a persecuted city.
However, the portrait he paints of an Israeli Arab community
feeling increasingly besieged, neglected and vulnerable in
the wake of the war in Lebanon rings true. While he
described at length what he sees as unwarranted Israeli
aggression, he did not address Hezbollah,s role in the war,
nor did he address the Israeli-Arab backlash against
Hezbollah for launching rockets on their communities. The
war clearly deepened the Jewish-Arab divide in Israel as
Arabs wrestle with their conflicted identities and Jews fear
a fifth column of disloyal citizens.

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