Bedouins Are Often Forgotten in Efforts to Aid Israeli Arabs

To the Editor:

It is heartening to know that promoting equality for Israeli Arabs is gaining increasing interest among American Jewish donors (“Wagering on Peace,” February 8). But the otherwise informative piece omitted American philanthropic efforts to help a much-neglected segment of Israel’s Arab population — the Bedouins. This indigenous people have been loyal citizens and even serve in the army, but this has not prevented their relegation to the ranks of second-class citizens.

Many Israelis are blissfully unaware of their country’s less-than-stellar treatment of the Bedouins. But over the past few years, American Jews have designated major gifts to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to help the Bedouins attain the higher education needed for integration into mainstream Israeli society and to enable them to achieve the knowledge and know-how to work within the system to attain their rights.

To accomplish these goals, I helped fund the creation of the Center of Bedouin Studies and Development at the university in 1998. The center’s mission is to support the educational and social development of the Bedouins in the Negev, which is home to some 120,000 Bedouin Arabs (25 percent of the Negev population).

Currently, 350 Bedouin students are enrolled at Ben-Gurion University. Many are there because of the center’s innovative programs that prepare Bedouin high-school students for higher educational opportunities in the fields of science, engineering, and computers.

One alumna of the high-school preparatory program has become Israel’s first female Bedouin medical student. Four years ago, there were only eight female Bedouins attending Ben-Gurion University. Today, there are 120, 22 of whom are studying for master’s degrees. This is a revolutionary step toward equality and empowerment for women in this traditional society. And it has been accomplished primarily through the generosity of American donors who believe that when you educate a woman, you educate a family.

The Bedouin Center sponsors academic conferences, workshops, and visiting scholarship programs all aimed at examining and finding solutions for problems relevant to the needs of Negev Bedouins. The center also conducts vital research, such as its recent development plan for the seven Bedouin towns in the Negev. These towns were built by the Israeli government, which coerced the Bedouins into inhabiting them. They lack almost every urban amenity, including adequate educational facilities, and are, the study concludes, “a national disgrace.”

According to an official of the UJA Federation who was quoted in the article, the speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, is urging Americans to become more involved in the fate of Israeli Arabs in order to get “the fabric of Israeli democracy to move forward.” Fortunately some American donors already had reached and acted upon that conclusion. They have done much, but they, and others, must do more.

Robert H. Arnow
New York

Mr. Arnow is chairman emeritus of the Board of Governors of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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To the Editor:

Not only are there new philanthropic efforts toward meeting the needs of Israel’s Palestinian citizens, but new grass-roots philanthropy is supporting people-to-people peacemaking across the Israeli-Palestinian frontier.

Responding to months of blockades of Palestinian towns and villages and the destruction of thousands of olive trees by Israeli soldiers and settlers, Rabbis for Human Rights — the only Israeli organization in which rabbis of Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist denominations work together — has started a campaign to replant olive trees in West Bank/Gaza villages and to meet the villages’ emergency humanitarian and human-rights needs.

Rabbis for Human Rights sought help from American as well as Israeli Jews. In response, the Shefa Fund agreed to work with the Shalom Center and a network of pro-peace American Jews called Break the Silence to begin a national campaign called “Olive Trees for Peace.” The Shefa Fund, which co-founded and initially administered the Jewish Funders Network, has been a leading funder of Israeli and American Jewish Middle East peace efforts.

The campaign began on February 8, which in the Jewish calendar is Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish festival for trees. The full text of the “Olive Trees for Peace” statement appears on the Shalom Center Web site (http://www.shalomctr.org/html/peace27.html).

Using e-mail to begin with, the campaign has raised thousands of dollars to support the work of Rabbis for Human Rights. Some has come in donations of $1,000 and more; some, in pooled contributions from children in Jewish Sunday-school classes.

The campaign is now raising money for a national advertisement to reach the general American public with the “Olive Trees” effort, and to educate the public about the policy questions involved in the sieges of Palestinian villages and the uprooting of their trees. These grass-roots efforts are an important complement to the types of programs discussed in your article.

Jeffrey Dekro
President
The Shefa Fund
Philadelphia

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To the Editor:

The subject of American Jewish philanthropic assistance for Israel’s Arab sector has attracted a good deal of attention lately, and I am pleased that I had the chance to offer some of my own thoughts on the matter in the piece on the subject that appeared in The Chronicle‘s February 8 issue.

This is, of course, a complicated issue with problems surrounding Arab-Jewish relations in Israel having come to the fore during last September’s riots.

As several people cited by The Chronicle pointed out, primary responsibility for addressing infrastructure and other needs of Israel’s Arab sector belongs with the Israeli government itself.

At the same time, Jewish federations throughout North America’s primary overseas beneficiaries, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, are already engaged in efforts of their own as well, including ones aimed at fostering Arab-Jewish coexistence. For the federations, the issue thus is not whether the American Jewish community has a role to play but whether its funding for projects in this area should now be substantially increased.

This is a time when traditional needs are skyrocketing; when the immigration and absorption which have been the keystone of federation-supported activity in Israel are proceeding apace; and when, with the Palestinian Intifada escalating and Hezbollah operatives threatening Israel’s northern border, human-welfare needs are increasing as government funds are being drained from them.

Frankly, at this time, with the Palestinians turning to violence rather than peace, it is hard to see the American Jewish community being ready to direct large sums of money to Israel’s Arab sector.

The Chronicle‘s article is entitled “Wagering on Peace.” Were peace indeed clearly on the horizon, one could imagine the organized Jewish community engaging in a peace campaign that would have a component supporting programs fostering coexistence between Arabs and Jews along with specific social programs that would positively impact the Arab citizens of Israel.

But while the developments of September indeed have brought extra attention to issues surrounding the Israeli Arab population, until Israel is at last at peace with its Arab neighbors, I believe that most American Jewish donors with a special commitment in this area will address it by directing their additional gifts to single-interest entities like the Abraham Fund or to projects created within the Jewish Agency and Joint Distribution Committee structures. Meanwhile, the bulk of the dollars given through the federations’ annual campaigns will continue to go where the majority of their donors wish them to in Israel, assisting Jews in need while expressing a profound sense of connection with the Jewish state.

Steven B. Nasatir
President
Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Chicago