Hat tip to Ali Eteraz for this story…I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. The first Israeli-Arab woman joined the Israeli Air Force. That’s good, right? Right. Except that she got in through an error.
It seems that Israeli Arabs are not allowed to serve in the air force because of the service’s elite status and because of the fear of their dual loyalty. So I’m guessing the woman didn’t reveal she was Muslim and no one asked. By the time the IAF found out it had a potential nightmare on its hands. Eject her from her unit and you have tons of bad PR, not only in the Israeli Arab community but throughout Israel and abroad. Retain her in the unit and you’ve created a potentially dangerous precedent in case another Israeli Arab seeks to serve. So they retained her.
To tell the truth, the story claims that her commander actually stood by her and enthusiastically endorsed her remaining in his IAF unit. So give credit to an individual officer and tons of demerits to an IAF which so mistrusts certain Israeli citizens that it refuses to allow them to serve in units in which any qualifying Jew can serve.
Contrast this Arab woman’s zeal to perform her duty as a citizen with an ever-expanding number of Israeli Jews seeking to avoid their compulsory army service; not to mention those Orthodox Jews studying in yeshivas who also avoid service.
Now for the crying I alluded to above:
Another Israeli-Arab’s dream of being a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, however, remains a pipe dream. “Soldier C” as he is officially known, and also from a village in the north of Israel, finished high school with top honors and received a certified pilot license before enlisting with the Israeli Defense Forces.
“My dream and ultimate ambition is to become a fighter pilot. I know I have the potential and ability to fulfill my dream and serve as a combat pilot with the IAF,” he wrote. “If deemed physically and mentally fit, I ask that I be able to serve in all of the elite units of the IDF, which are open to all other enlisted personnel.”
The aspiring pilot’s plea was unheeded by the Israeli Defense Forces, however, in spite of a letter of recommendation given to him by his flight instructor, a former major and combat pilot in the IAF, so he was forced to serve with another unit of the IDF where he currently remains.
It appears unlikely that the Israeli military’s ruling against Muslim and Arab Israelis will change anytime soon, especially in light of the deteriorating political situation.
The next time AIPAC (“Israel–the only democracy in the Middle East”) or any other Israel-booster tries to tell you how things are in Glockamora for Israel’s Arabs remember this story and ask them to explain it. Here you have a nation claiming it is a democracy; but which cannot manage to treat 20% of its citizens with anything remotely close to equality or full democratic rights. It won’t even allow them to fully discharge their obligations as citizens: to serve in the army unit of their choice (depending on satisfying qualifications). Such treatment is not just and it makes a travesty of the Israeli Declaration of Independence which boasts that it will accord fully citizenship rights to all ethnic groups within Israel.
This is what is known as an ethnocracy, not a democracy. Ethnocracies are nations which provide vestiges of rights to minority groups within their midst; but full citizenship is only available to the ethnic majority.
So you believe compulsory military service for all muslim civilians of Israel should be law, no matter their feelings about going to battle against fellow muslims? After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander – right?
Perhaps you’ll remember the spat Daniel Barenboim caused when on reception of the Wolf award he read to the Knesset from the Declaration of Independence, with the same subtext as in your post. He was then accused (by Tzipi Livni among others, IIRC) of using that platform to “attack Israel”. So it’s not like the army was the bad apple here, or that Israel somehow “cannot manage” (facing which insurmountable obstacles?) to be what it doesn’t want to be in the first place – a state of all it’s citizens, what we define as “democracy”.
I’d argue that Israeli Jews are schizophrenic about this. Yes, they want to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. But they are afraid in much the same way that Obama said poor whites are “bitter” about what they’ve lost in American society. Jews are afraid of terrorism, afraid of alleged Arab militancy, mistrustful of Arabs as a potential fifth column in their midst. These fears are atavistic & instinctual. It will be hard, but no impossible to overcome them. I wouldn’t argue that the battle for a real Israeli democracy is lost. But the battle to achieve such a democracy will be long and hard.
@Einstein: No, don’t characterize for me what I believe. Be a good boy, go back & read what I wrote & then try to accurately (if that’s at all possible) characterize what I wrote. I know it will be hard. But I have every faith you can do it.
If an Israeli Arab citizen of Israel wishes to serve they should be allowed to serve. In fact, they should be welcomed with open arms. And not just in certain IDF units. But in all of them.
I don’t really have a point, but it is interesting to compare and contrast the treatment of Arabs in the IAF with the treatment of women and gays in the US military. E.g., women are not allowed to serve in the infantry and gays are discharged if their sexuality is made public. Of course, a major difference is that women and gays are not barred for having “dual loyalties”…
Like I said, no real point.
Richard – I assume this means you’d support obligating all Israeli-Arabs to do military service?
I understand Richard meant to make *voluntary* service possible for Israeli Arabs other than Druze. OTOH that would just transform the present injustice to another. The solution IMO would be to make service voluntary for everyone. To those who then feared for their sacred cow security I’d say, let’s see how many Israelis share your fears and indeed join the army. Perhaps, just perhaps this might also provide a little incitement for Israel to actually in good faith pursue peace instead of all those purposefully open-ended “peace processes”.
I’m not sure why voluntary service, which is in effect what currently exists in truncated form for Israeli Arabs, constitutes “transforming the present injustice to another.” On 2nd thought perhaps you meant “transferring” the present injustice to another, which does make sense.
As for voluntary service, I think it’s a good idea in principle. Most Israeli Jews would continue to serve. But it would drastically increase the number who choose not to serve. It would force the IDF to make service more attractive as an option for people, thereby encouraging them to enlist.
There would of course be a major problem w. voluntary service conflicting with the so called democratic nature of compulsory service.
you are a fucking joke. The Israaeli air force is not the boy scouts that anyone who want to can join. The purpose is to protect the country, not to give young people a chance to play around with cool airplanes.
Who pays you, by the way, the Arabian antisemites or the European antisemites?
@sid: Thanks for helping remind my readers who the real enemy is out there…Jews like you (I’m embarrassed to say that you appear to be student at UC Berkeley where I studied for my Phd–how standards have changed since I attended!) who hate. BTW, keep commenting. You do nothing but make me look good in comparison.
I don’t blog for pay. Though I’m pleased to say a variety of Communist, anti-Semitic publications like the Jewish Forward and Haaretz have published my work. Other anti-Israel papers like Seattle’s JTNews and L.A.’s Jewish Journal have profiled my blog. They must be doing this under direct orders fr. the Muslim Caliphate.