Recommendation made in response to Knesset's Plesner Committee, which is seeking ways to integrate Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews into military or civilian service.
By Jack Khoury | Jun.24, 2012
The Council of Arab Mayors has called for the
establishment of guidelines under which Arabs could volunteer for
national service through their local governments.
The recommendation was made at a meeting convened earlier this month in
Nazareth in response to the Knesset's Plesner Committee, which is
seeking ways to integrate Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews into military or
civilian service.
The council represents all of Israel's Arab communities, with the
exception of Bedouin and Druze communities. Members emphasized that as
elected officials, they have a duty to the public that includes
thoroughly evaluating the implications of the issue of voluntary
service.
Nazareth Mayor and council chairman Ramez Jerayssi said he and his
colleagues are willing to discuss expanding existing volunteer programs
in the Arab community, as long as there is full cooperation with the
local governments and the projects are under the aegis of the education,
social affairs and industry, trade and labor ministries and have no
connection to the military establishment.
"We adamantly oppose national or civilian service in its current
format, as a program created in the Defense Ministry that represents an
alternative to military service, and reject any attempt to legislate
mandatory universal service, because civil rights cannot be linked to
what are defined as the duties of Israel's Arab citizens," Jerayssi
said.
"That violates the foundations of democracy," he added, "which is why
we are proposing an alternative that will be acceptable to everyone."
The mayors' council agreed to create a panel, consisting of
representatives from nonprofits that are active in the Arab community as
well as professionals in relevant disciplines to draw up a detailed
program for volunteering in their communities.
The mayors emphasized the importance of closely supervising the goals
and activities of the NGOs, and of providing financial support to the
volunteers, in cooperation with the relevant government agencies.
The issue of national service has been one of the most sensitive and urgent topics within Israeli Arab society in recent years.
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee has come out strongly against Arab
participation in national civilian service and has been actively
fighting it, mainly because of the program's connection to military
service.
At the same time, NGOs in the Arab community have been working hard to
recruit volunteers to national service. The national service
administration reports a huge rise in Arab participation in the past few
years.
Simultaneously, the monitoring committee - an umbrella
organization for the country's Arab political leaders - says opposition
to the program is at 80 percent among Israeli Arabs. It may sound like a
contradiction but it isn't. Only a few percent of young Arabs aged 18
and over do national service.
Nadim Nashif is the director of Baladna, the Association for Arab
Youth, an organization that has been at the forefront of the fight
against national service for Arabs. He told Haaretz the mayors had not
invented anything, since volunteering and social activism has been part
of Israeli Arab society for years.
Nashif said the mayors should focus on obtaining budgets and other
resources for the establishment of social and educational projects for
their youngest constituents, rather than trying to duplicate the
existing framework for volunteerism.
