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Analysis

Fathom Journal: Ron Gerlitz on the Arab Economic Development Plan

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The Israeli government has approved an ambitious $3.85 billion plan for the social and employment development of Israel’s Arab citizens. Ron Gerlitz, the co-executive director of Sikkuy: the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, explains how and why the plan was passed and why it is a historic move that shows it is possible to transform Israel into a more just society.

WHY THIS DECISION IS SO IMPORTANT

The main reason is that the core of this decision is an adjustment to public budgeting mechanisms. This is not a decision that increases a particular budget to close gaps temporarily, on a one-time basis. Rather, this decision determines that 20 different budget mechanisms, some of which are significant, will allocate budgets to Arab citizens according to their proportion in the overall population. These include budget mechanisms in fields such as infrastructure, employment and industry, transportation, some components of the educational budget, housing and others. In addition, affirmative action – of up to 30 per cent – will be taken in order to compensate for the discrimination that has existed until now.

Out of all of the investments in infrastructure in Israel (with the exception of metropolitan areas) the government will allocate 40 per cent for road infrastructure development in Arab communities; 20 per cent of the informal education budget will be allocated to Arab citizens (to be precise, according to their total number in the population); at least 25 per cent of the construction budget for new day care centres will be allocated to Arab communities; 42.5 per cent of the budget for industrial parks will be allocated to industrial parks that yields income to Arab communities; and 40 per cent of the budget of the Ministry for Development of the Negev and the Galilee Periphery will be allocated to the Arab society; and there are many other examples.
The process of correcting budgetary mechanisms is the high road towards equality. Merely increasing external funds that barely close any gaps, while the regular budget mechanism continues to discriminate, and even leads to more discrimination, is simply not the way to end unequal budgeting.

HOW MUCH MONEY IS BEING ALLOCATED?

It depends on how you count. However, there are two billion NIS (about 500 million USD) that will go almost directly to Arab local authorities. But this is only the small money. The larger amount is the budget that will be allocated to Arab communities following the correction of the budget mechanisms. This is about 10 billion NIS ($2.5 billion dollars). The Ministry of Finance claims that there’s more than that, and in total there are at least 12 billion NIS. This is a very significant amount. Knesset member Ayman Odeh wrote that the plan will close one-sixth of the gaps between the Jewish and Arab citizens. In my opinion this is a pessimistic interpretation, and I believe it will close more than one-third of the gaps.

IS THE PLAN PERFECT?

No. There are fields of budgetary discrimination that are not addressed at all. The most critical being the failure to correct the budgetary discrimination against Arab high schools, which is not included in the decision. Overall, the plan does not adequately deal with the financial distress from which Arab local municipalities suffer. We at Sikkuy argued endlessly with the Ministry of Finance about this. The Association of Arab Local Authorities insisted on this, Knesset members intervened and there was a huge argument on the subject. In the end, the Ministry of Finance allocated some money; but not enough. In this specific matter, I believe the Ministry of Finance is totally wrong. I hope that the Arab leadership will continue its struggle on that issue.

SO ARE THERE MORE ADVANTAGES OR DISADVANTAGES IN THE PLAN?

It depends if you want to the see the cup as 80 per cent full, or 20 per cent empty. I know that the right-wing ministers of the Likud were much less ambivalent. When they figured that this plan was to bring billions of shekels to the Arab citizens, they went on a rampage the entire week, in an attempt to halt the plan. They would not have fought against this if this was just a five-year plan that allocated a few hundreds of millions of shekels to the Arab citizens. I cannot remember a single time that the government convened twice in the middle of the week for unscheduled meetings besides during times of war. And last week was indeed a war – because it was clear to them this decision meant billions for the Arabs.

Read the article in full at Fathom.