Sunday, December 8, 1996
by SUSAN BELLOS
(the writer is an education journalist)

The hair-raising thing about the 1994 Ministry of Education report recently publicized is not that 37 percent of Jewish school pupils said they hated Arabs.

Much more disturbing was the chilling statistic that two-thirds of them said they thought Israeli Arab citizens should not have the same rights as Jews. Jews have been fighting Arabs for over 50 years in this part of the world. It's not really mind-boggling that "Arabs" should figure as the enemy in Israeli children's minds, just as millions of other children have traditionally played games against Huns, Boches, Russkies and Japs, not to mention cowboys and Indians.

Arab armies, terrorists and guerrilla fighters have been and may still be the enemies of Israel. You can't really expect adolescents mentally preparing themselves for the army not to dehumanize the enemy.

However, as far as I know, the 30 per cent of Israeli non-Jewish citizens are not the enemy.

It is 30 years since military government imposed by David Ben-Gurion on parts of Galilee following the War of Independence was dissolved. The vast majority of Israeli Arabs are hardworking, loyal and productive citizens. What's more, according to the Declaration of Independence all citizens, regardless of religious and ethnic affiliation, have equal rights. However, as every child knows, this is not exactly the case.

We are of course very far from the former South Africa's policy of apartheid - but you try being an Arab student looking to rent a room in Jerusalem. Even worse, see what happens to you if you have the gall to date a Jewish girl. We don't have officially separate neighborhoods but how many Moslem families moved into Ramot Eshkol recently? We don't have the Bantu Education Act either, but how come nearly all Arab schools are far inferior to those in the Jewish sector?

Most Israeli parents know that we live in a separate, but not exactly equal, society. They know that their children are motivated to learn English because that's what you need if you want to get ahead in life.

Very few Jewish parents are pressuring their highschool children to brush up their Arabic and not many of them shell out exorbitant sums of money for private lessons in the subject.

Israeli Jewish parents also know that their children rarely go to ballet classes, basketball, computer clubs, snappling or swimming with Moslem or Christian kids.

Nor are many Jewish and Moslem mums griping together about problems with their daughters-in-law, or lamenting to each other about how hard it is when a child leaves home to study in a foreign land.

This is because, as every child knows, we don't speak the same languages and we don't live in the same neighborhoods.

I have a good friend who lives in Abu Tor, Jerusalem, who once said: "I just wish I could wake up one morning and they wouldn't be there. It's not that I have anything against the Arabs, it's just that I wish they were somewhere else."

Unfortunately I don't have any good friends in Arab Abu Tor. However, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if many equally nice people there would also like the Jews just to "go away" one fine morning.

But for the time being at least, unless we all want to indulge in a little ethnic cleansing, this isn't going to happen. We are obliged to live together whether we like, love or even hate one another.

I don't think that we need many more of those very well-intentioned but fundamentally vapid programs in "tolerance" or "democracy."

Most people are vaguely uncomfortable with abstractions and with the implication that we all ought to behave in a nicer or more polite way, and then everything would be all right.

You understand really why some of those terribly rigorous thinkers on the right start sneering about "bleeding-heart" liberals and pinkos. Many of us don't really want to be nice, but nearly all of us want to survive. This means living together in real and practical ways rather than mouthing high-falutin' catchphrases.

A first and very obvious step - even if it would mean more work for the security services - is inducting all non-Jewish youth into the army. It also means putting many more Arab citizens into the senior ranks of the civil service, including the diplomatic service.

It means providing parity in social and municipal services in Arab areas, and starting to build mixed neighborhoods.

However, tomorrow's voters will not root for any of the above if we persist in the kind of separatist policies that have characterized Israel's first 50 years.

Young Jews will never acquire respect and understanding for Arab people and Arab culture unless Arabic is placed at least on an equal footing with English in the school system.

A great deal has been made of pluralism in education in recent years. While it may be fine and dandy for children, or rather their parents, to be offered a menu of different types of religious schools, Mizrahi-oriented schools, music and art, and science schools, it would be much fairer if Arab citizens were also offered equal access to some of these facilities.

But it would make far more sense just to open as many regular schools as possible to both Arab and Jewish pupils.

You can make very good arguments for why Jewish pupils should study Bible and Tora separately and why Moslem students should study the Koran separately. But what are the pedagogic reasons for studying math, science, English and geography separately?

Incidentally, I can think of one or two very good pedagogic arguments why both groups should study each other's culture and history.

Jewish schoolchildren can be forgiven for imagining that Israeli Moslem or Christian citizens are not quite as human as the rest of us.

I'm not sure if the rest of us can.