Social work development in the Arab indigenous minority society in Israel at the turn of the millennium (1996-2006)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article traces the development of social work in Israel's Arab society at the turn of the millennium (1996-2006) based on semi-structured interviews with Arab social workers who worked in the profession at the time. The findings show that Arab social work developed under the shadow of an establishment that adhered to a long standing ‘politics of contempt’, which recognised the needs of Arab society but provided it significantly fewer resources than to its Jewish counterpart, failed to recognise Arab narratives in the training for and implementation of professional praxes, and refrained from including Arab representation in policy formulation. The primary result of these policies was the maintenance of two parallel social work structures – one for the country's Jewish citizens and the second, far poorer, for her Arab citizens – that evolved against the backdrop of the on-going Israeli-Arab conflict and the definition of Israel as a Jewish state.