We accompanied Max Blumenthal to the Knesset today to interview Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu about his party’s proposed law to make public commemoration of the Naqba punishable with a year in jail. For a detailed account of the interview please see Max’s post on Mondoweiss which will be out later today. As we were leaving, we ran into MK Tibi of Ta’al (the Arab Movement for Renewal) who was kind enough to have a coffee with us and talk about the situation in Israel from the Arab-Israeli perspective. I asked what his feelings were regarding Israeli peace activists in the West Bank and about the general situation in the Palestinian territories.

“In Israel you have three systems of law. One is democracy for eighty percent of the population, the Jewish population. The second is racial discrimination for twenty percent of the population, the Israeli Arabs. The third is apartheid for the population in the West Bank and Gaza. This includes two sets of governments, one for the Palestinians and one for the settlers. In the occupied West Bank there are two systems of life. There are two road systems, two judicial systems and two ways that the IDF deals with people. If you are Palestinian or an Israeli activist then you are treated on the second system of life which basically means that you have no rights.”

Tibi

Do you feel that the settlers have power over the Israeli government?
“The settlers are not as strong as they seem. They are merely a tool of the IDF and would not be there with their vigilantly justice if it were not for the IDF”

Do you have hope for coexistence in Israel?
“I want co-citizenship. I want Israeli Arabs to be equal citizens and not just live with coexistence. It is hard to have coexistence when one party is the horse and the other is the rider. The truth is, Israel is a Jewish democracy: democratic towards Jews and Jewish towards Arabs. In Israel’s basic law, Jewish comes before democratic. This is not coexistence. We are the victim of the victim. Racism is not allowed in the Western world except when it is Israeli racism towards Arabs. We are paying the price. The problem is that they (the Israeli government and population) are dealing with us like enemies and not as citizens.”

What is your feeling about the current administration in the United States?
“I think that the US should make its financial support of Israel conditional and that twenty percent should be allocated to the Arab community in the form of development money. This is a very easy thing to do and it is rational. The United States helps minorities throughout the world but has been neglecting the Arab-Israeli minority, because they are in Israel.”