A new documentary examines the many ways Arabs are discriminated against by the government and Israeli society
Of all the myriad tags used to define Israel's Palestinian population, "targeted citizen" has to be one of the more appropriate. It's the title both of a track by the "Arab-Israeli" rappers, Dam, and a short film in which they and others expose the persistent double dose of discrimination and suspicion meted out to "Arabs of Israel".
Produced by Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, Targeted Citizen spells out the core contradiction that informs such treatment in its opening frames: "As non-Jews living in a self-defined 'Jewish state', discrimination against them is institutionalised and intentional."
The film then runs through some of the more glaring instances of this inequality for Palestinian-Israelis, who comprise 20% of the population: the discriminatory and unequal allocation of state funding and resources and, as an inevitable consequence, higher unemployment, fewer university degrees and many more people living below the poverty line. Throughout, various Adalah professionals explain how the Israeli state consistently ignores its own equal opportunities objectives.
Then there's the curtailment of rights routinely dished out to a population that is viewed as a potential fifth column. Israel started its relations with the "Arab minority" population by putting them under direct military rule for around 20 years and, since then, "Arab citizens of Israel" have experienced the hostile glare of state scrutiny, the dull provocation of heavy policing and the grinding routine of mass arrests at demonstrations in Israel (such as during the Gaza assault of December 2009).
And sanctioning all of that is the sort of ambient, casual racism – and the accompanying blindness to it – that runs through contemporary Israeli society and is revealed through some of the street interviews featured within Adalah's film.
Released a few weeks ago to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, this work comes at a time when rights for "the Arab sector" seem at risk of further erosion, to a growing chorus of approval among Israel's Jewish population. Last month, the Nakba bill, which would criminalise commemoration of the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, passed its first Knesset reading.
At around the same time, a poll showed that 50% of Jewish-Israeli school kids believe "Arab-Israelis" should not be granted equal rights.
In this context, Adalah's film is an urgent exposure of a problem that's routinely dismissed as fictional, or lost to the louder, deadlier cries of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a plea to cut the bogus talk of equality or inclusion and a reminder that it is long past time for Israel to face up to the distinctly non-democratic treatment of its targeted citizens.