The Fate of the Arabs in Israel

Abstract

T HE results of the last municipal elections in Nazareth, December 9, 1975, and the general strike on Land Day, March 30, 1976, are two of the most important events in the history of the Arabs in Israel. These two events ushered in a higher stage of awareness, unity and struggle within the Arab masses who today comprise half a million people or 15 percent of Israel's total population. These two events echoed across the world; they were reported on radio, television and on the front pages of world newspapers, arousing interest and concern for the fate of the Arabs in Israel who had remained in their homeland under the most adverse conditions of national oppression and racial discrimination. It became obvious that the Arab population in Israel have an important and natural role which can no longer be neglected, in the struggle for a just peace in the Middle East, and in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab people to restore their national rights. The most important of these are the right to self-determination, the right to a sovereign state, and the right to return to the homeland of their fathers and forefathers from which they were evicted by a criminal blow of the sword in 1948. These two events, the Nazareth elections and the general strike, created a considerable stir in Israel. Through them the rotten foundation upon which rulers of Israel have built their relationship with the Arab populationa relationship based upon privation, humiliation, coercion and national oppression-has been exposed. As a result of the qualitative development in the role of the Arab masses in Israel, many people rightly came to the conclusion that a radical change in