Day-to-day Israeli-Palestinian relations

Great Debates
1

I posted this in curwin’s thread about Israel, but never received an answer, so I’m throwing it out to everyone.

My question is about Israeli-Palestinian relations in general. Not so much the political stuff or the bombings, but day-to-day interactions between Israelis and Palestinians. Are there even day-to-day interactions between Israelis and Palestinians?

The impression that I get is that it’s a bit like the Jim Crow South. Not in the sense that there are separate water fountains, but in the sense that Palestinians tend to do the low-paying, dirty jobs, that they can’t vote, that Israeli schools are much better, and that social interaction is generally frowned upon. This may not be the best analogy and I may be completely off-base, but I’d appreciate your take on it.

Thanks, y’all.

2

The Jim Crow South is a relatively bad analogy. I prefer to think of the occupied territories as chunks of land that Israel is sitting on mostly for defensive reasons. They were used as bases of attack in 1967, which forced Israel into a war. Israel occupied the land and has never annexed it, so it is in some kind of limbo. If all of this banter about “God given land” and “necessary for our defense,” was 100% believed, Israel would have annexed the land a long time ago. The fact that they haven’t says something about their views on future Palestinian statehood.

Increasingly, over the past 10 years of Palestinian nationalism, the occupied territories, especially the sections which are controlled by the PA, have come to seem like another country, complete with checkpoints and border crossings.

So, a better analogy may be like Mexicans coming over to work in the farms in the Rio Grande Valley. They are not entitled the US vote because they are not American. They are cheap labor from an exogenous source. Sad, but true.

To answer your OP fully, during times of peace there is quite a lot of interaction. Many Palestinians work for Israelis, as Israeli industry (like American industry) is always looking for a source of cheap labor. This says nothing about what Israelis think of Palestinians – it says more about the education level and infrastructure and domestic economy of the PA. It is the PA’s job, not Israel’s (at least since Oslo) to provide education, infrastructure, economic support, etc, for their people.

In Israel proper, there are Israeli Arabs who constitute 12% of the population. While I can’t sit here and claim that they are sitting at the same socioeconomic level as the Jewish Israelis, I will say that they are afforded the same education, health care, governmental rights and protection as any citizen of Israel. There are many in all levels of Israeli society, including parliamentary representation. It is true that they tend to be poorer than Israeli average, but IIRC Israeli Arabs are better off in most ways (freedoms, economic status, education, health care, religious tolerance) than their neighbors in Arab countries.

3

From my limited knowledge of the subject, I have to agree with edwino’s assessment.

I dod hear an interesting interview with an Israeli settler regarding Palestinian relations. Although this settler was absolute in his belief that he had a right to be where he was, he expressed his view of the Palestinian people as neighbors, while saying the Palestinian leadership were murderers. He had Palestinians working on his farm, and pointed to a worker in the background as he spoke. It’s obvious that the relationship was a very strained one (who knows after the latest events if it will exist at all), but it seemed as though there was some understanding between people, if not between governments.

When I was in Israel for several visits, (latest was mid-eighties) I saw many Arab Israelis in Tel Aviv during daily activities, and at that time the relations did not seem strained. More like everyday U.S. big city interaction between peoples.