December 26, 1999

According to the National Insurance Institute's Annual Report for 1998, released last week, 37.6% of Arab families in Israel live below the poverty line; 55% of all Arab children live in poverty. Nationwide, the poverty rate is 16.6%. The disproportionately large number of Arabs living in poverty in Israel is not an aberration; instead, it is a reflection of the economic realities of the country today, where the Palestinian Arab workforce remains predominately unskilled or semi-skilled manual labor, the result of both widespread discrimination and government neglect.

According to the Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1998, 60.4% of the Palestinian Arab workforce are unskilled laborers, or work in industry, construction, or similar fields. By way of comparison, 27.3% of the Jewish workforce are similarly employed. Yet there are relatively few Arabs higher up the employment ladder. For instance, 6.3% of Jewish workers are at managerial level positions, compared with 1.5% of Arab workers. Whereas 28.1% of Jewish workers are professionals (including academic) or technicians, only 15.1% of the Arab workforce are in equivalent positions. This is reflected in the unemployment rate, where unskilled and semi-skilled workers are the most vulnerable. In 1999, the seven cities and towns with the highest unemployment rates in Israel were all Arab; the highest unemployment rate was in Rahat, at 17.7%.

One obstacle facing Palestinian Arab workers is widespread discrimination -- a recent study reported 68% of Jews "object to working under an Arab at their place of work." (Ha'aretz 19 December 1999). This is reflected in both the public and private sectors. For instance, the government has proved remarkably hesitant to hire or promote Arabs -- in 1997, only 4% of the employees in government offices (2,357 out of 56,000) were Arab. According to a recent report from ACRI: Association for Civil Rights in Israel "A considerable portion of Arab government employees are employed near their place of residence in jobs that can only be filled by Arabs. In most government ministries in Jerusalem, where the administrations of the ministries [are] located, there is not a single Arab employee." (Ha'aretz 19 December 1999) The situation in government-controlled companies is even worse, where only 3 of 641 managers are Arab. In the Israeli Electric Corporation, 6 of a total 13,000 employees are Arab -- .000046%.

In the private sector, discrimination is harder to quantify. Although the 1988 amendment to the Employment Services Law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or national group, it does not include any special enforcement mechanisms. It can take years for a case to work its way through the labor courts, which are not well-suited to discrimination lawsuits. For instance, in October 1997, two waitresses working at the Teutscher Café in Tel Aviv were fired when the owner discovered they were Arab. Even though the café manager confirmed that the two were fired for that reason, the issue is still not settled; over two years have passed since the claim was filed, and still the court has not found time to hear the case.

Besides discrimination, government neglect is also responsible for the high rates of Arab poverty -- government investment in Arab localities lags far behind investment in Jewish localities. Of the 429 localities declared National Priority Status A (eligible for tax breaks, investment incentives, etc.) in 1998, only 4 were Arab. National Priority Status has a direct socio-economic effect. For instance, under Rabin, both Nazareth (an Arab town of around 65,000) and Nazerat Ilit (a predominately Jewish town of 42,000) were Priority B, and both were in the 4th Socio-Economic Decile. Under Netanyahu, Nazerat Ilit became Priority A, and rose to the 5th Decile, reflecting higher average incomes. At the same time, Netanyahu revoked Nazareth's Priority B status (in all areas except tourism); since then the city has fallen to the 3rd Decile.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a large discrepancy in government expenditure between Jewish and Arab education. Years of inferior funding have devastated the Arab sector, where 36% of the classrooms are unsuitable for study, and where 37% of the schools lack a library. This lack of funding is reflected in dropout and matriculation rates. Whereas 12% of Jewish students dropout, 42% of Arab students do. 44% of Jewish students matriculate, as opposed to 23% of Arab students. Without an adequate education, moving up the economic ladder is nothing more than a dream; and without adequate government support, only few receive the education they need.

55% of Palestinian Arab children live in poverty -- it would be an even greater crime if their children were doomed to do so as well.


Sources:

- The information on the National Insurance Institute's report comes from Ha'aretz of 21 December (Hebrew) and Al-Ittihad of 21 December. 
- The statistics on employment characteristics come from the Statistical Abstract of Israel, No. 49, 1998 (particularly table 12-14). 
- The statistics on unemployment in Arab towns comes from Ha'aretz 16 November 1999. 
- Statistics on Arab employment in the public sector can be found in Equality and Integration, a 1997 report by Sikkuy: The Association for the Advancement of Equal Opportunity.
- The Ha'aretz feature by Aryeh Dayan (19 December 1999) supplied information about both the Israel Electric Corporation and the court case involving the Teutscher Café. 
- Information on National Priority Areas, and on Nazarath and Nazerat Ilit, comes from Supreme Court petition 2773/98, and from conversations with Ihab Sabbah, head of the Strategical Planning and Information Dept., Municipality of Nazerath. 
- Statistics on dropout and matriculation rates come from the Center for Bedouin Studies and Development, Ben Gurion University: Facts About Negev Bedouin Arab Education, 1998. The other statistics on education were supplied by Dr. Hala Hazzan Espanioly, Chairperson of the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education.

26/12/1999