Do all Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs hate each other?

Through examining Rosenthal’s book, The Israelis, the Pew Religious Forum website, and two articles in Haaretz, “Hundreds of Arab and Jewish Architects Call for End to Arab Home Demolitions” and “Thousands of Jews and Arabs March Together Against Racism and House Demolitions in Tel Aviv”, it is clear that not all Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs hate each other. It can also be seen that there are many mixed opinions, on both sides, supporting and against the Israeli government.

Rosenthal presents several first hand accounts of Israeli Arabs with mixed opinions on this matter. Through her evidence she supports a theory, that the more religious observant the person is, the more intolerant they will be of others. The first example she gives, is Yasser Mansour, who is an extremely progressive Israeli Arab doctor who happily works with and treats, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. (Rosenthal 263) Yasser Mansour is not religious and likes his diverse lifestyle. Another example, on other extreme of the spectrum, is the Muslim religious leader Sheik Salah. Sheik Salah is the leader of The Islamic Movement and is strongly against favorable relations between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. Also seen throughout the chapter Rosenthal presents Salah’s distrust and disdain of the Israeli government. (Rosenthal 271) The last example Rosenthal gave, was the moderate perspective from Tarik. Tarik was a simple Israeli Arab that wanted to live peacefully without dealing with the extremists on both sides. What was interesting, is that he was upset at the Israeli government not because they treated Arabs unfairly but because they were too soft on them. (Rosenthal 277) All these examples show the vast differences in opinions of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, towards each other and the Israeli government.

Palestinian women yelling at IDF solider.

Another example from Rosenthal, is how Bedouins also disagree in this. The Northern Bedouins, in Galilee and the Jezreel Valley “not only do they have very different backgrounds and speak different Arabic than the Negev Bedouin; they are more prosperous and urbanized… They generally have closer ties to the state than the Negev Bedouin.” (Rosenthal 290) Other then their opinion on the Israeli government the Bedouins also differ in their relations with Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. The Northern Bedouins have a tradition of serving in the IDF and because of this are mistreated by other Muslims. Serving in the IDF also causes them to be treated better by Israeli Jews. (Rosenthal 290) As for the Negev Bedouins, “The Islamic Movement and other militant anti-Israeli Islamic groups are also strong in six other Bedouin towns and villages (Rosenthal 289).” This shows the distrust of Bedouins in the Israeli government.

The Pew Religious Forum Website, presents detailed statistics showing both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs opinions. In a survey it shows that sixty-four percent of Israeli Arabs generally do not think Israel can be a Jewish state and a democracy at the same time. This shows that even though it is the majority, still are large portion at  at twenty-seven percent belief  Israel can be a Jewish state and a democracy at the same time. Another example, is that “Israeli Jews are divided on the question of whether Arabs should be allowed to live in the Jewish state.” The website shows a distinct split with forty-eight percent agreeing Arabs should be expelled and forty-six not agreeing. Once again, this shows that not all Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs hate each other and also have mixed opinions about the Israeli government.

The last source supporting this is from two Haaretz articles, “Hundreds of Arab and Jewish Architects Call for End to Arab Home Demolitions” and “Thousands of Jews and Arabs March Together Against Racism and House Demolitions in Tel Aviv”. Both of these articles present strong negative opinions of the Israeli government from Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, while also showing them working together. The first article has a quote from Prof. Oren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev saying, “I found that only one or two percent of state land that has been allocated for planning has gone to the Arab community, despite their being a much larger part of the population.” This represents the common opinion of Many Israeli Arabs and some Israeli Jews who excuse the government of criminal negligence. The other article similarly paints this picture of Israeli Arab and Israeli Jewish activists working together against the Israeli government. Amal Abu Sa'ad, a Bedouin widow who recently lost her husband in a housing demolition incident, spoke to protesters saying, “you will not succeed in dividing between the country's citizens. All of you, who are standing here today, you are proof that Jews and Arabs can and want to live together and with equality." This is a prime example presented by Haaretz of this radical view.

Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs holding their nations flags.

The sources used by the Pew Religious Forum website, and the two Haaretz articles seem extremely reliable. The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan organization and based on Wikipedia does not take explicit policy positions. Although the Pew Research Center is highly renowned, statistics from polls and surveys can only mean so much as the results can often be misleading based on several different factors. The Haaretz articles are a little less reliable, mainly speaking about the second article. The author of the first article, Naama Riba, accurately presents several officials opinions. When the second article’s information is a little lacking, such as the information on how many protestors participated, which was based on the subjective hearsay of the event organizers. In spite of this, the first article accurately quotes the letter from the Arab-Jewish Planners Forum, which is directly relevant to the article. Although the lacked links to most of their sources the information came from officials quotes.

As stated earlier based on Wikipedia, The Pew Research Center does not take explicit policy positions. When reading through their section titled, Israel’s Religiously Divided Society, the reader gets a sense of how factual and objective it is by how it is written. Naama Riba’s, author of the first Haaretz article mentioned, point of view is against the Israeli government but in favor of cooperation between Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab activists. This is made evident by sub title stating “Jewish and Arab planners band together to fight what they decry as discriminatory housing policy in Israel.” and the picture of a sad young Bedouin on a demolished building. Jack Khoury, also shares a similar point of view against the Israeli government and in favor of mixed group cooperation. An example of this point of view is when he states at the end that, “the harsh attacks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government against the Arab public and democracy.” The most clear evidence is also seen in the articles the sub title when the author expressed “a new stage in the civil struggle of Jews and Arabs.” As both articles share the same point of view, they link to each other in an effort to strengthen their stance. Lastly, the point of view of Rosenthal is, naturally, pro-Israeli. Throughout her book she glorifies Israeli thought and paints the plight of Israel as the worst in the world. On the other hand she provides a large variety of Israeli ethnic groups opinions and perspectives. This diversity of sources provided by Rosenthal allows for a more accurate perspective of Israel.

Russia Recognizes West Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

The Jerusalem Post article, “Jpost Exclusive: Moscow Surprisingly Says West Jerusalem is Israel’s Capital” published on April 6, 2017 and written by Herb Keinon, covers Russia's decision to recognize west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The key takeaway from this article is that Russia’s move is controversial because no other country in the world recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The reason for this is because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The article starts by giving some perspective to the situation, stating that the Trump administration has been struggling to decide whether they should move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement about acknowledging the Israeli capital as west Jerusalem and the Palestinian capital as east Jerusalem, and plans to immediately put this into effect. Continuing to give context, the article says that this move is vastly different from Russia’s past policies, where they believed Jerusalem should be under permanent international regime. Alexander Shein, Russia’s Ambassador to Israel, does not plan to move the Russian embassy to Jerusalem and plans to discuss the recognition with the Israeli  Foreign Ministry in more detail. Israel is proceeding cautiously to release a statement and the author believes that this is because they annexed the entire city of Jerusalem in 1980. The Russian statement directly contradicts this claim. Moscow’s statement discusses a continuation of the Middle East peace process, and that Russia supports the two-state solution. They also believe that Israel and Palestine “could live in peace and security with each other and with their neighbors.” Finally, the article closes with a diplomatic official’s response to the situation. This official believes Russia’s actions are attempting to divert attention from the recent chemical attacks in Syria, and show that Russia wants to play a proactive role in the future diplomatic process between Israel and Palestine.

President Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu 

The authors qualifications come into question, when assessing the reliability of the sources provided. The author, Herb Keinon, has a BA in political science from the University of Colorado and an MA in Journalism from the University of Illinois. He has published two books about Israel, and writes for the Jerusalem Post about a wide variety of topics pertaining to Israel. Most of the article’s information comes from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement, and as the author said, it can be found on their website in English. This is an extremely reliable source, since the author often simply quoted it, without altering the context. For other pieces of data, like Moscow's recognition to go immediately into effect, the author assures the reader that it was information that the Jerusalem Post verified. This data seems reasonably reliable, and other news outlets, such as the Daily Sabah, cite this information to the Jerusalem Post. The reliability of the data on  Russia’s Ambassador's plan, Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry provide no links and their statements are not public. As this information is believed to be gathered by the author, or the Jerusalem Post, it is only as reliable as their trustworthiness. Once again, other new outlets cite this information back to the Jerusalem Post, which speaks to its veracity. The final  piece of data is probably the most questionable, as it is an unnamed source and not quoted. The diplomatic official’s stance leaves room for doubt, but does not mean it should be disregarded. The reliability of this data stems from the credibility of the author. The information presented are either from the Russian Foreign Ministry or gathered from the author and the Jerusalem Post. The article has almost no links to support its claims but, as stated, the Russian Foreign Ministry has data on their website.


Herb Keinon’s point of view is fairly factual, yet cynical of Russia’s true intentions. Most of the information that was given came directly from the statement the author was reporting on. The quotes the author presents from this statement are all about Russia’s aims and concerns, which were not taken out of context or contained any outrageous stances. In the article, the author also makes an attempt to get Israel’s official position, but they were not ready to release it. This reinforces the author's attempt to be objective. Keinon’s opinion, “Israel may be wary of applauding such a move,” shows an understanding of the larger issues involving Israel’s claim to all of  Jerusalem. Although he fairly states all the facts given by the Russian Foreign Ministry, he questions their intent with his final paragraph. The unnamed diplomatic official’s stance tries to ascertain what Russia’s motives are, which is merely speculative. Therefore Keinon’s point of view appears to question Russia’s goals.

David Friedman’s Support of the Beit El Settlment

The blog I will be analyzing is the Haaretz article published on December 16, 2016, “Fund Headed by Trump's Israel Ambassador Pumped Tens of Millions Into West Bank Settlement”, written by Judy Maltz. This article goes over David Friedman’s, America’s ambassador to Israel, actions and positions on settlements and the two state solution in Israel.

David Friedman

Judy Maltz starts the article by presenting background information about David Friedman. She states how he is the president of a fundraising organization, American Friends of Beit El Institutions, which “According its tax forms, ...raises about $2 million in tax-deductible donations each year from supporters of the settlement movement in the United States.” This money is raised for the Beit El settlement, which the author says is one of the most radical and oldest of West Bank settlements. A benefactor of this money, is a yeshiva in Beit El, that is lead by Rabbi Zalman Melamed. A yeshiva combines traditional Jewish learning of religious texts and army service. Rabbi Zalman Melamed is the founder of the Tkuma party, which is a political party in Israel that tends to favor right winged and Orthodox Jewish policy. On top of the money going to the yeshiva, it goes to different educational programs and also to Arutz Sheva, which is a Israeli online news network.

The article continues by going over David Friedman's connection to President Trump and how he was his adviser on Israel, during his campaign, and his lawyer for 15 years. In addition to raising money for pro-settlement organizations, David Friedman has also started a new campaign in American college campuses to promote opposition of the two-state solution. The author also states that David has be known to write for Arutz Sheva, which the American Friends of Beit El Institution funds. On top of this the article briefly presents who has backed the organization, such as Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and John Bolton, Republican and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Rabbi Zalman Melamed

Towards the end, the last key issue the author presents is how Rabbi Zalman Melamed, showed resistance of the Oslo agreement in 1995, by joining rabbis in protest against the evacuation of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers in occupied territories. Also in 2005 he promoted that IDF soldiers should disobey orders to evacuate the Gush Katif settlements in the Gaza Strip. This is relevant because David Friedman has shown support of Rabbi Zalman Melamed through funding. Finally the article closes with a few quotes from the organization’s website as evidence of their core values that the article previously discussed.

The author, Judy Maltz, has written hundreds of articles as a Haaretz correspondent. She seems to be a reliable writer on subjects involving Israeli politics because of the numerous articles she has written on the subject. The primary concern about the article, was that it lacked links to sources and made assessing the reliability more changeling and doubtful. Although it lacked links, finding the information she used about American Friends of Beit El Institution was simple because it was taken directly from the organization's website. For example the website clearly lists John Bolton as a speaker and the quotes she used. Another point to bring up is how the author listed a quote of David Friedman, which did not seem out of context but used fairly to show his stance. Overall there weren't any generalizations made but there was a lack of links for supporting her information.

The viewpoint of the author is seen in favor of liberal policies. This can ascertained by how she presents her information and her background. Looking at Judy Maltz’s other previous works and her Facebook profile, the reader can see that she tends to lean liberal and against the Trump organization. Haaretz is also a liberal news organization, and even promotes on their homepage to protest the occupation of settlements. This gives an idea the angle the work will be presented in, as it written about someone who is pro-settlement. Interestingly the author does not seem to make many, if any, assertions about the claims she presents but she does seem to unfairly present Rabbi Zalman Melamed. At the beginning of the article she introduces him by saying he is, “militant rabbi who has urged Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate settlements and who has argued that homosexual tendencies arise from eating certain foods.” Even though it seems out of place she puts it there to undermine his credibility by showing how ridicules anyone would be to support this person.