The Ataa Center in Cooperation with the Galilee Society and Adalah: Conference on “Security – A Collective Right for a National Minority”
On 19 October 2007, the Ataa Center, in cooperation with the Galilee Society: The Arab National Society for Health Research and Services and Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, held a conference on the subject of, “Security – A Collective Right for a National Minority”, at the el-Meidan Theater in Haifa. The opening remarks were presented by Muhammad Khatib, the General Director of the Galilee Society.
The speakers on the first panel gave presentations on the activities of the Ataa Center, the Arab Center for Emergencies and the Society of the Directors of Welfare Offices in States of Emergency during the Second Lebanon War during the summer of 2006. The speakers stressed the importance of creating a mechanism to raise awareness among and offer direction to the Palestinian Arab community in case of future emergency situations in Israel.
A recent report issued by the Ataa center entitled “The Palestinian Community in Israel during a state of emergency” was also presented, by Mr. Ahmed Sheikh Mohammed of the Galilee Society. The report documents the damages sustained by the Arab community during the war in the summer of 2006. Among the report's findings were: the state's failure to deal with the repercussions of its attacks on Lebanon and the rockets fired from Lebanon on Arab towns and villages in Israel; the absence of facilities and services in Arab towns and villages to deal with crises and emergencies of this nature; the unpreparedness of the Arab population in Israel to deal with emergencies; and the difficulties of the local authorities and civil society organizations to provide services to Arab citizens living in areas hit by missile strikes. Dr. Basel Ghattas, the former General Director of the Galilee Society, spoke about the experience of founding the Ataa center during the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, and underlined the importance of establishing a system to provide guidance to the Palestinian community in states of emergency.
In the second panel, the speakers discussed security as a collective right from academic, legal, and psychological perspectives. Professor Marwan Dwairy, a clinical psychologist and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Adalah, spoke about the psychological and social characteristics of conditions of psychological stress among the Arabs in Israel in the various security conflicts that have occurred over the years, and described the psychological state of Arabs in Israel during the second war on Lebanon.
Dr. Hala Khoury-Bisharat, a lecturer on international criminal law and a Board member of Adalah, examined the collective right to security under international law, focusing on the newly-adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which stipulates that indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples. Dr. Yousef Jabareen, a lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion, presented his latest research on the behavior of Arab citizens of Israel during the attacks on Lebanon. The research examined the extent of trust held by Arab citizens in various institutions and bodies, and revealed that Arab citizens have a high level of trust in the Arabic language satellite television channels, and in particular the Al-Manar channel broadcast by Hizbullah (44% of the participants in the research expressed trust). However, most Arab citizens lost trust in the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, the Arab local authorities, the government and the police. Dr. As'ad Ghanem, a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Haifa University, discussed Israel's violations of the right of Arab citizens to individual and collective security via its plans to control, pressure and fragment the Arab community and by severing the ties between the Arabs in Israel and the rest of the Arab world. He also called for the election of a national leadership capable of initiating strategic changes to guarantee the security and rights of Arab citizens.
The final panel dealt with the possible ways of providing individual and collective security to the Palestinian minority in Israel. Members of Knesset Dr. Jamal Zahalqa and Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour participated in this discussion.
Dr. Zahalqa of the National Democratic Assembly-Balad party stated that the Arabs in Israel have not managed to internationalize their issues, in contrast to other national minorities, and argued that they have been subjected to racial discrimination in the field of civil and political rights since the Nakba (1948). Dr. Zahalqa called on the Arab world to take a greater interest in the Arab minority in Israel and to place their issues on the Arab agenda.
Sheikh Sarsour of the United Arab List party discussed the internal factors that harm the national security of Arab citizens in Israel, and contended that it is necessary to strengthen the local Arab community from within before turning to the external and confronting the racial discrimination of the state, which still views them as “enemies” and not citizens.
