Ra’am head Abbas rejects Amnesty label
Leader of coalition’s Islamist party says he’s focused on bringing people together rather than being judgmental, prefers objective terms to describe ills decried by rights groups
RA’AM party head Mansour Abbas said Thursday he would not use the word “apartheid” to describe relations between Jews and Arabs within Israel.
Amnesty International last week joined two other human rights groups in saying that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians within its borders and in the West Bank and Gaza amount to apartheid. Israel rejects those allegations as antisemitic, saying that, among other things, they ignore the rights and freedoms enjoyed by its Arab citizens.
“I would not call it apartheid,” Abbas said in response to a question at an online event organised by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington, DC-based think tank.
He noted that he was in a governing coalition with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and could join the cabinet if he wanted to.
“I prefer to describe the reality in objective ways,” he added, according to the English translation of his remarks, which he delivered in Hebrew. “If there is discrimination in a certain field, then we will say that there is discrimination in that specific field.”
He did not say whether he thinks the apartheid term applies to the West Bank, where more than 2.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule alongside nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Six-Day war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party made history in June by becoming the first major Arab party to sit in a governing coalition, which includes parties from across the political spectrum.
He has steered the faction toward a more pragmatic approach than Arab parties have traditionally taken, working with the government to secure gains for the Arab community.
Arabs make up some 20 per cent of Israel’s population of nearly 9.5 million. They have citizenship, including the right to vote, and have a major presence in the medical profession and universities, among other fields. But they face widespread discrimination.
They have close familial ties to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and largely identify with their cause. Historically, they refused to join coalitions and were not invited to do so.
The rights groups say Israel only grants citizenship to a minority of the Palestinians under its control in an overarching system designed to ensure a Jewish majority in as much of the Holy Land as possible.
Israel views such allegations as an assault on its very existence, saying its policies are designed to ensure the survival and well-being of the world’s only Jewish state.
Abbas said his focus is on bringing Jews and Arabs together to address social and economic challenges.
“I’m usually trying not to be judgmental, I’m not trying to say you’re racist or the state is racist, or this is an apartheid state or not an apartheid state,” Abbas said.
“My role as a political leader is to try to bridge the gaps.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
AP, TIMES OF ISRAEL
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