This week, the Israeli government published its program for the economic development of the Arab community at a cost of 15 billion (approximately). With the aim of advancing the Arab community economically and socially, this community is not represented in the government and is not supportive of it at the political level.
But the most important thing here is that this government program contains major question marks and carries with it reasons for doubt, and it contains many fallacies that justify our skepticism about its sincerity, effectiveness and validity. What requires discussion and opinion on it, based on logic, evidence, proofs, and indicators.
One must first ask: Is the proposed amount on a timetable (five years) an amount that will actually be spent properly? Is it sufficient for the needs of the Arab community? Does it come in the context of a new good news?? Or is it among the budgets that, from the beginning, part of it was allocated to the Arab community through the budget of the various government offices (that is, it is an extension of the existing budgets and a branch from them)? In other words, how much of the extra budget was obtained to invest in the Arab community to bridge the gaps with the Jewish community and not through what is allocated to the Arab community? Why call it the development plan and not the gap-bridging plan, as stated in the negotiating delegation’s demands?
Perhaps the answer to these questions is complex: because the amount required to achieve full equality is much more than this, and in my estimation it amounts to nearly 60 billion shekels over a ten-year timetable.
This amount that I am proposing now (60 billion) is, in my opinion, a reasonable proposition, and it can be saved if we take into account that the government raises the amount of the general product by 22 billion shekels annually. So we conclude from this that in a just society, 6 billion shekels can be allocated from the budget for the Arab community, and this is completely proportional to the percentage of Arabs in the country’s population.
As for the practical and professional level, there is no doubt that talking about a comprehensive program seems important at first glance in the direction of basic treatment, but I believe that this plan in most of its fields is full of gaps, shrouded in ambiguity, and misses the goal at other times. Examples of this defect are:
In the field of education: you find it dealing with improving the qualification of teachers, developing non-formal education, improving the quality of education, and refining the student’s identity. While ignoring the difficult basic problems such as the lack of classrooms in schools, not adding teaching hours, and neglecting the activation of technological education, which in turn establishes the basis for opening workplaces in the future.
In the field of allocating lands for the establishment of industrial zones: The plan refers to joint industrial zones for Jewish and Arab residential communities. This expanded definition of joint industrial zones would increase and reinforce doubts about the extent of the efficacy of the issue of joint industrial zones. We have previous experience, as happened in the (Sakhnin-Misgav) experience, where the most prominent beneficiary of that experience was the Jewish residential communities in Mona through tax collection and the opening of new workplaces. in the Jewish population.
Another example that we can review through the work item in the government plan: it attaches great importance to vocational guidance and rehabilitation centers through the Al-Fanar Company, but the plan ignores the mechanism for creating jobs and job opportunities within Arab villages and cities, bearing in mind that these guidance centers focus their work on directing the Arab community to jobs List and not to create new posts.
In the field of housing from which all segments of Arab society suffer: The plan addresses ten major Arab cities in multi-layered construction, ignores the rest of the Arab regions, and ignores the expansion of the spheres of influence of the Arab local authorities, while completely ignoring one of the most prominent demands of the Arab negotiating delegation, which is changing the formula for the usual gifts granted to the authorities. The Arab local authorities are those donations that still fail to keep up with the socio-economic situation of the Arab local authorities.
It is a plan that did not take into consideration any working paper or plan presented by the Arab negotiating delegation to the government, if we assume that the delegation carried a professional plan and a decent perception of the size of the issue, and it does not suggest a change in the budget allocation devices related to the share of the Arab community.
A major question mark remains hovering over its funding sources, as all items of the plan and its proposed areas are funded through the basic budget of each government office, meaning that the additional amount invested in the Arab community through the proposed plan does not exceed 2.5 billion shekels (approximately).
This proves the existence of deception. For example, the Ministry of Education, through the regular budget, suggests that it is necessary to work on rehabilitating teachers…. So what’s new in the plan about this?
It is not clear whether a party from outside the government will participate in the follow-up of the implementation of this plan and has professionalism and qualifications qualified for that role, because keeping the plan under the control and disposal of ministers will take us back to the example of the one billion plan in the year 2000, which did not bear anything and did not bring any return to the Arab community.
Doubt will remain dominant about the possibility of implementing the plan during the next five years in the Arab community, so we will continue to deal with the proposed government program within two frameworks: Welcoming with great caution. That is, blessing the initiative while not remaining idly by and demanding the actual intervention of the Higher Arab Follow-up Committee and proposing the necessary changes to move to the stage of bridging the gaps and eliminating differences between the two communities and not being content with the idea of developing and overcoming discrimination between the Jewish and Arab communities.
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