What is going on between Arabs and Israelis?

With the on-going murderous attacks by some Arabs on Jews, you may be surprised to discover that there are still many recent examples of co-existence and cooperation between Jews and Arabs both inside and outside of Israel.

Israel continually demonstrates that it values the lives of Arabs.  Israel’s emergency services Magen David Adom recently completed its first training course for 15 young medics who will provide emergency response to Jews and Arabs in Eastern Jerusalem.  The medics are bilingual in Hebrew and Arabic.  Next, the Jerusalem Foundation has opened a home in Abu Tor, for Jewish and Arab children with hearing impairments.  It contains four pre-school classes and an audiology institute with clinics and advanced technology.  And Israel has been showing its “Education Without Borders” photo exhibition to the United Nations in Geneva to highlight that it is the only Middle East country to provide education for all hospitalized children, including Arabs and minorities.

Despite the incitement from the Palestinian Arab leadership, Israel continues to provide medical assistance to PA residents.  Israel’s Civil Administration took Palestinian Arab doctors from the PA city of Jenin to Israel’s Emeq Afula hospital where they learnt the workings of the surgery, trauma, internal medicine and pediatric care departments.  And Israeli humanitarian organization “Save a Child’s Heart” (SACH) is performing life-saving surgery on PA and Gaza children at its Wolfson Medical Center in Holon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIYMOFLtnY0

There is plenty of recent evidence that the quality of life for Arabs in Israel is improving.  The number of university-level degrees awarded to Israelis has increased substantially over the years but the increase is largest amongst Israeli-Arabs.  One of the most popular professions for Israeli-Arabs is pharmacy.  35% of Israeli pharmacists are Arab - up from 20% in 2000. 

And things should only get better, with the Israeli Government pumping a one-time budgetary supplement of 900 million shekels ($230 million) to Israeli-Arab councils. It is designed to “integrate Israel's Arab citizens into Israeli society as equals among equals”, said Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Meanwhile, Israel’s Economy Ministry and the Joint Distribution Committee-Israel (JDC) continue to open Arab-run employment centers. They now serve 63 municipalities in Northern and Southern Israel and since 2012 have placed 9,100 Arabs, including many Bedouin women, in local jobs.

Staying with Bedouin Arabs, young Bedouin siblings Karin, Samar and Shadi al-Touri are among the top Israeli tennis players in their age groups.  And the portable “anaerobic digester” from Israeli start-up HomeBioGas turns kitchen waste and livestock manure into cooking-gas.  It has become popular with Negev Arab Bedouins and rural Palestinian Arabs who previously damaged their health by burning wood or goat manure for cooking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqxCw-6hamg
 

One of the most promising signs of co-existence is just 45 minutes north of Tel Aviv, where Israel is expanding the 1000-residents town of Harish into a city with up to 100,000 inhabitants.  The plans have been praised by its orthodox Jews, secular Israelis, former Soviet and Ethiopian immigrants and Arabs.  Meanwhile, 40 mayors from cities around the world have converged on Jerusalem for the 30th annual Mayors Conference.  The delegation will get a taste of the "Start-Up Nation" when they meet with Jewish and Arab leaders of successful Israeli tech hubs.

Even Arabs outside of Israel are getting to see the benefits of co-operating with Israelis.  Egypt’s Ahmed El Hady - fellow at Princeton University’s Neuroscience Institute - is co-chair of the NeuroBridges 2015 Conference - a scientific meeting of the minds between Arabs and Israelis.  And UK TV station Sky News reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman, wants to buy Israel’s Iron Dome system for its six members.

The international media doesn’t mention that the first contact many Arab migrants have on reaching European shores is with Israelis.   On the Greek island of Lesbos they first meet IsraAID Doctor Tali Shaltiel from Jerusalem and Nurse Majeda Kardosh from Nazareth who treat them for hypothermia, dehydration, wounds, illnesses and trauma.  And we must publicize the rescue by Israelis aboard an Israeli training yacht of 11 Syrian and Iraqi migrants whose boat capsized overnight near the Greek island of Kastellorizo. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPsT4CTXK3w

Here are three more Arab-Israeli stories that you may have missed.  Firstly, Israel's new ambassador to Jordan, Einat Shlain, presented her credentials to Jordan's King Abdullah II at a ceremony at the Basman Palace in Amman.  Einat is Israel’s first female ambassador to an Arab country.  Next, despite sporadic rocket fire from Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, farmers in Israel’s Nahal Oz have been giving agricultural advice to Gaza farmers in Khan Younis.  The Gazans are seeking new varieties of potato suitable for food such as chips.  Israeli farmer Yankale Cohen said, “Maybe they’ll stop shooting at us because of the potatoes?”  Lastly, Amir, Sunny and Muhammad Riad Hamed from the Arab-Israeli village of Muqeible contacted the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel when they found a pelican with a broken wing in their yard.  The bird is now receiving treatment at SPNI’s wildlife hospital.

Finally, I just love this article by Lebanese-born, Canadian Arab Fred Maroun.  He writes “Why do the overwhelming majority of Israelis respond to hate with love?  I believe that Judaism teaches love because love is effective while hate is not.”

Let’s get that message broadcast loud and clear.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com and a searchable archive www.IsraelActive.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

The Israeli Occupation in 2013

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israeli-occupation-2013

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/5103

“Occupation”- Definition: job, profession, line of work, career, calling, walk of life. 

So what work has Israel been doing in connection with the Palestinian Arabs since my last article on the subject earlier in the year? 

In May, doctors at Schneider’s children hospital transplanted a kidney into a 10-year-old Palestinian Arab boy. The kidney came from 3-year-old Israeli Noam Naor who died in a tragic fall and his parents decided to donate his organs to save the life of others.  Following the operation, Noam's mother said, "To see Yakub today is very exciting. I wish him only health, a full and speedy recovery.” In the same month, Hadassah doctors performed an extremely rare operation to deliver the conjoined (“Siamese”) twins of a Palestinian Arab mother. The babies weighed 4.9 pounds and shared a heart.

The Israeli charity Save A Child’s Heart (SACH) performs more life-saving surgery on Palestinian Arab infants than from any other part of the world.  In August, of the 22 children at SACH’s base in the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, seven were from the Palestinian Authority.  SACH works with Christian organization Shevet Achim which funds and transports PA and Gaza children requiring heart surgery to Israeli hospitals such as the Wolfson and to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIRVTZgRMIg

In July, IDF paramedics and Magen David Adom joined together with the PA police and the PA Red Crescent to save a Palestinian Arab who was hit by a car when riding his donkey near Nablus (Shechem).  MDA transported him to an Israeli hospital for further treatment.  And coming right up-to-date, in December an IDF emergency medical team rescued a 10-year-old Palestinian Arab boy whose head was cut open following a car accident and airlifted him to hospital.  The team also treated the boy’s mother, who suffered from shock after the accident. 

In 2013, truck drivers from Israel were fully occupied making 64,783 deliveries of food, medicines, finished goods and building materials (some 1.3 million tons) into Gaza.  Unfortunately for Hamas, their leader Ismail Haniyeh was caught feeding orphans in Gaza with “boycotted” Israeli yogurts.  Meanwhile in July sixty Gaza farmers attended an agricultural seminar in northern Israel.  They completed workshops on cultivation methods, planting schedules, soil preparation, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. In the following video, dozens of Gaza farmers are shown at an Israeli exhibition earlier in the year learning about innovative Israeli agricultural methods and new fruits and vegetables developed in Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtNk22L5erA

When the December storm struck, Israel intervened in Hamas’ quarrel with the PA by rushing in 1.2 million liters of diesel into Gaza to restart its power station.  And when the snow trapped a Palestinian Authority ambulance carrying a very sick woman, Israeli soldiers from the Kfir Brigade were there to help it back on the road.

The PA shuns normalisation of relations with Israel, but the 20,000 Palestinian Arabs working for Israelis in Judea and Samaria (25 percent more than in 2012) illustrate that the reality is quite different.  In August we also read about the hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs who have become business partners and colleagues in joint start-ups. For example Israeli startup Naked Sea Salt partners with a Palestinian Arab company to use eco-friendly methods to harvest salt from the Dead Sea.  And the massive project involving Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority will construct a pipeline from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to produce millions of cubic meters of drinking water for the region, hydroelectric power and replenish the critically dwindling Dead Sea.  Even Al Jazeera broadcast the news of the joint project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55eqD_Ub5Ak

Work by Israel for the PA includes support for a new industrial park, near Bethlehem (so much for the “apartheid wall”!).  Further construction projects, like that of Israeli water treatment company Mapal Green Energy, are recycling domestic sewage and water for Palestinian Arab villages. This could explain why the PA’s many leisure parks managed to keep their swimming pools full throughout the summer.

Despite the PA being constantly occupied with incitement, there are still occasional opportunities for optimism.  In September, five Arab schools in East Jerusalem decided to switch from the Palestinian to the Israeli curriculum so that their students could study for the Israeli bagrut (matriculation exam).  Then as Moslems celebrated the end of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, approximately one million Palestinian Arabs received permits to enter Israel as tourists – 200,000 more than last year.  And we may see more videos of Israelis (hopefully not in IDF uniform) and Palestinian Arabs dancing together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj4Qgj094lw

Before anyone says that this is all new, here is a selection of Israel's "occupational therapy" from previous years.  And here, and here and here.

Finally, future prospects for peace lie with the next generation.  We can only hope that sufficient children remain untouched by PA hate education to achieve this.  Some will have played in mixed teams with Israeli children in the May 2013 Mini Soccer World Cup at Israel’s Kiryat Gat stadium.  It was (UK) Liverpool’s soccer manager Bill Shankly who said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death… I can assure you, it is much, much more important than that.”

More good news will occupy this space in 2014.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com