 |
| In this photo taken on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012, Israeli Jewish activist
Aharon Attias poses for a photograph in front of new housing project
for religious Jews in Israel's mixed Arab-Jewish town of Lod, central
Israel. Religious Jews who are the bedrock of the settlement movement
have marked Israel's mixed Arab-Jewish cities as the new front to
"reclaim," pushing into Arab neighborhoods to cement the Jewish presence
there. The migration of several thousand devout Jews to rundown areas
of Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Acco has had a divisive effect far outweighing
their absolute numbers, with Jews celebrating _ and Arab activists
eyeing with mistrust and resentment _ the construction of Jewish
seminaries and housing developments marketed exclusively to Jews. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) |
ACRE, Israel (AP) — Orthodox Jewish Israelis,
the driving force of the West Bank settlement movement, have begun to
turn their attention inward to Israel itself, moving into Arab areas of
mixed cities in an attempt to cement the Jewish presence there.
Activists say that in recent years, several thousand devout Jews have pushed into rundown Arab areas of Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Acre,
hardscrabble cities divided between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods.
Their arrival has threatened to disrupt fragile ethnic relations with
construction of religious seminaries and housing developments marketed
exclusively to Jews.
"Israel
has to act as the state of its citizens," said Mohammad Darawshe,
co-executive director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a nonprofit group
that promotes co-existence between Jews and Arabs in Israel. "Ethnic
preference is clearly inappropriate, violating the principles of
democracy."
About 20 percent
of Israel's citizens are Arabs. Most live in Arab towns and villages,
with some notable exceptions, especially Haifa, the port city that is
Israel's third-largest.
Before
Israel's establishment in 1948, these mixed cities were populated by
Arabs. Many fled or were expelled during the two-year war that followed
Israel's creation. Arabs commemorate that as a "catastrophe."
The
Jewish move into Arab neighborhoods for ideological reasons echoes the
nationalistic fervor of the first Israeli settlers in the West Bank in
the late 1960s and early 1970s. They set up trailer camps and squatted
in unoccupied houses, determined to hold on to the territory for
religious and security reasons.
The
settler movement has grown into a huge enterprise that, with government
backing, has attracted more than 300,000 Israelis into the West Bank.
While
the settlements are seen as an obstacle to peace talks and considered
illegal by the Palestinians and most of the international community, the
current campaign is taking place inside Israel's borders.
Still,
the movement of religious, nationalist Jews into the mixed cities is
promoted along the same pioneering lines as the original West Bank
settlements. The settlers themselves don't make the distinction between
the two sides of the line, claiming it should all belong to Israel.
The
Israel Land Fund, one of the organizations promoting the move, helps
Jews buy property in both Israel and the West Bank with the goal of
"ensuring the land of Israel stays in the hands of Jewish people
forever."...
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