When No News Is Good News: Israeli Arabs and Israel’s Wars

Human psychology being what it is, a major “flaw” is that we focus far more on what “is” than on what “isn’t”. There are some rare exceptions (e.g., an extended period of no rainfall), but the rule holds almost universally.

Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in “the news.” Nevertheless, on occasion it behooves us to try and focus on “non-events” and their import. Such is the case of Israeli Arab “non-behavior” during the past year and a half of Israel’s intense war with surrounding enemies. In this case, “no news״is [indeed] good news”.

Put simply and bluntly, almost without exception Israel’s Arab citizenry did not get involved physically nor even rhetorically in the war against Hamas or Hezbollah. There are several reasons for this.

First, these enemies’ attacks did not discriminate between Israeli Jew and Arab, several of the latter (civilians) dying along with Israeli Jews.

Second, although Hamas is Sunni Arab (like most Israeli Arabs), it receives most of its support from Shiite Iran, Israel’s mortal enemy that is close to developing a nuclear bomb. That’s a threat to every Israeli, whatever their religious or ethnic background. Moreover, Hezbollah in the north is Shiite; there won’t be much sympathy for them coming from Sunni Israeli Arabs.

Third and probably most prominent among the reasons for their total self-restraint: in the past decade or so Israel’s Arabs have made gigantic strides into Israel’s economy and society. The hospitals today have many Arab doctors and administrators; around half of Israel’s pharmacists are Arab; Jewish schools have started hiring Arab teachers (especially to teach English!!); and socio-geographically, increasing numbers of Arabs have been moving out of their villages and towns to reside in Israel’s several “mixed” cities e.g., Haifa.

Most remarkable about the almost total lack of Israeli-Arab “anti-war activism” is the fact that the recently resigned Minister of Internal Security (Itamar Ben-Gvir) is a notorious Arab-baiter – not to mention that the present Israeli government is not exactly Israel-Arab friendly (see the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, legislated by the previous incarnation of this government). But Israel’s Arabs aren’t taking the bait.

None of this is to deny that most Israeli Arabs sympathize with the plight of their brethren in Gaza or in the Administered Territories (West Bank/Judea & Samaria). But that’s no different than Israel Jews sympathizing with the suffering of Jewish brethren elsewhere around the world. The irony in all this, of course, is that the similar (identical?) danger that Israel’s Arabs and Jews face in missile and other attacks from other Arab countries is precisely what leads the country’s Arab communities to identify more strongly with Israel than with “fellow” Arab enemies.

That’s not the only “paradox” here. Such “pacification” and deep socio-economic incorporation into Israel’s society and economy is precisely what drives Israel’s extreme ultra-nationalists crazy. They feed on inter-ethnic animosity, in large part based on general xenophobia with a dollop of ultra-religious fear of “marital mixing,” or at the least the loss of Jewish cultural primacy and “uniqueness” if Israeli Arabs and Jews become “too friendly.”

Indeed, despite “peace” constituting Judaism’s highest value (“The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace” [Numbers 6: 26]), Israel’s far-Right is extremely wary of any peace with Arab countries precisely because their country is totally embedded in a world region of “Islamic Arabness.” If widespread Arab-Israeli peace were to “break out” tomorrow, their fear of slow but gradual Middle Easternization could come to pass – Abraham Accords notwithstanding, or perhaps because of such peace accords!

Such fears are overblown. Israel is firmly in the Western camp: socially, economically, and politically. The only sphere where “Middle Easterness” has become somewhat dominant in Israel is cultural: popular music, cuisine, and the like. In any case, it’s not as if this is the first time in Jewish history that a Jewish state (or Jewish societies in exile) have taken on several cultural and social elements of their locality. Indeed, among other things, Yiddish, Ladino, and other quasi-Jewish languages are clear evidence that the Jewish People have always known how to “assimilate” foreign elements while keeping the core of their Jewish identity and religious practice virtually intact. It’s enough to look at the Jewish calendar: most months’ names are Babylonian, not Hebrew/Jewish!

That too is an extremely gradual phenomenon which doesn’t make “the news.” But anyone comparing Biblical Judaism (the 613 Commandments) with Talmudic Judaism (especially the Babylonian version) can clearly see a huge transformation of the religion. Yet no one (other than the Karaites) claims the latter to be “false.”

Let the continued socio-economic assimilation of Israel’s Arabs continue apace. Jewish culture and society can certainly flourish “despite” it (more correctly: because of it). Far more important, however, this trend constitutes a further, altogether positive step, on the road to internal peace – whether or not Israel manages to achieve external peace with its neighbors.