Although many on the Israeli left talk about promoting Jewish-Arab “coexistence” and complain about right-wing “racism,” they have few concrete or practical proposals for ameliorating the real problems facing many of Israel’s Arab citizens. Avi Woolf proposes some ways the right can do something about these problems while remaining faithful to its principles:
[Both] the Zionist and anti-Zionist left are promising minorities the moon, while [the right can] offer something realistic and achievable. . . . This means government investment in education, infrastructure, and whatever else is needed to allow minorities to thrive and prosper as law-abiding citizens. . . .
There are two areas which the right often emphasizes and which would benefit the Arab community in particular. The first is law enforcement. . . . Violent crime of all kinds is far more prevalent in the Arab sector than the Jewish one. . . . Drug gangs are a plague [for Arab communities], as are lethal family feuds and domestic violence. It is not for nothing that Meretz’s Arab candidate ran on an anti-crime platform.
Our failure to deal effectively with these . . . problems sends all the wrong messages. We are effectively telling the average law-abiding non-Jewish citizen that the state will not provide the minimum protection necessary for him to live and prosper, as Israel is only interested in enforcing the laws [insofar as they] affect Jews. . . . If a right-wing government cracked down on all law-breaking in the Arab community, it would demonstrate that its enforcement of law is for [the community’s] benefit and not just for protecting the state or Jewish predominance. . . .
The second important thing [the right] can offer to minorities is expansion of the free market. Poll after poll has shown that Israeli minorities are far more concerned with economic issues this election than political or national ones. . . . It’s hard enough for Jews to legally set up and maintain a business in Israel, so you can imagine the extra difficulty an Arab or a Druze faces.
Read more on Mida: http://mida.org.il/2015/03/26/a-minority-report-for-israels-right/