Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority

By Ian Lustick, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1980 385 pp. $10.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by John Ruedy

This book on the Arab minority in Israel, in addition to providing a much needed update, is by far the most systematic and incisive study yet to appear on the issue. The author attempts to discover why this large Arab community has produced virtually no independently operated industrial, commercial, or financial institutions and no independent political parties, and has remained politically quiescent for most of the more than 30 years since it was incorporated into an overwhelmingly Jewish state. He rejects out of hand the official Israeli explanation that quiescence and the failure to mobilize for a greater share of the country's power and wealth result from Arab satisfaction with a government policy which, the Israelis say, provides equal treatment to all its citizens. Instead, Mr. Lustick argues that the failure of Israel's Arab minority to "organize itself" is due to a highly effective system of control, which has operated over Israeli Arabs since 1948.

The Components of Control

Lustick identifies the three components of Israel's control system as segmentation, dependence and co-optation. Segmentation refers to the isolation of the Arabs from the Jewish population and to the internal fragmentation of the Arab community; dependence means the forced reliance of the Arab population upon the Jewish sector for economic and political resources; and co-optation refers to material, social and political enticements to elites to elicit their cooperation. Thanks to this "sophisticated system of control, it has been possible for the Israeli regime and the Jewish majority which it represents to manipulate the Arab minority, to prevent it from organizing on an independent basis and to extract from it resources required for the development of the Jewish sector..."

In the area of segmentation, the writer demonstrates how the military government and other authorities acted systematically to maximize the geographic isolation of Arab communities by using Jewish settlements to break up the most compact of them and by systematically limiting the size and continuity of Arab neighborhoods in the cities. The authorities also strengthened segmentation by manipulating rivalries among traditional families and maintaining divisions among Druse, Muslims and a variety of Christian sects. Organizations designed to meet needs of Arabs on a community-wide basis—even sporting and scouting organizations—were forbidden, while similar organizations designed to serve specific sects, towns or districts were permitted.

The most important aspect of the "dependence" component is the enforced reliance of Israeli Arabs on the Jewish sector for jobs, permits, status, and other economic, social and political resources. Overwhelmingly rural at the time its remnants were incorporated into the Jewish state in 1948, Palestinian society soon found itself compelled to contribute its land to the development of Jewish agriculture and Jewish rural settlement. While 29% of agricultural land inside Israel in 1948 was owned by Arabs who were still in the country, nearly half of that land was confiscated for uses of the dominant community over the next 25 years. The great majority of displaced peasants were forced into unskilled or low-skill jobs with Jewish firms or organizations, because Israeli policies saw to it that little industrial or commercial development in the Arab sector took place. Educated Arabs in Israel have long since learned that if they aspire to white collar positions, in government, education or business, they will be working for Jews.

Co-opting Leaders

Co-optation has involved Israel's maintenance of relations with traditional, community leaders by allowing them to become the conduits for permits, patronage and other favors. Through co-optation the Israel government has often promoted the most regressive element of the elite and punished the progressive. It has also drawn selected elites into existing Israeli political parties with accompanying privileges in return for delivering quantities of Arab votes to Zionist parties at election time. Bringing cooperative young Arabs into the bureaucracy of national organizations is a third method of co-optation.

In the light of a new militancy among Israeli Arabs, Mr. Lustick thinks the government will have to adapt and refine its methods of control. If the occupied territories were annexed, giving Israel an Arab minority of 40% to 45%, pressure would grow toward the progressive assimilation of the Israeli Arabs into the much more sophisticated political culture of the West Bank, and control would become extremely difficult. If, on the other hand, a peace settlement resulted in an independent Palestinian entity on the West Bank and Gaza, the existence next door of a state where Palestinians enjoyed economic, social and political opportunities far more attractive than those in Israel, would surely alter the Israeli Arab's traditionally accepting attitude. Ian Lustick seems to be saying that whatever happens, the future of the Arabs of Israel is still a very uncertain one.

Professor Ruedy is Chairman of the Program of Studies, Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.