Peacecamptalks

The Israeli Arabs

I am proud of my self and I am proud to be an Israeli Arabian.
Also Israel is a very attractive country and we find a lot of things that we
don't find them in other countries.
Well, Israel is a beautiful country and there are a lot of main cities in
Israel and the most symbolize thing is that in these cities are living Arabs
and Jewish together "they are mixed nation cities".
I love my life also if there re no adventures and there is nothing in my
life, I live in a small city in the middle of Israel in my city are living
just Arabs.
Sometimes it is hard to live in a mixture country like Israel because every
one have his traditions and habits and sometimes we Jewish can influence on
our selves and the opposite is the right.
I don't know what I should say about our life in Israel; sometimes we faced
a lot of difficulties, I think that every one of us if he is living in
Israel or in another country he is facing problems and difficulties in his
life.
Now I am 16 years old after 2 years I will finish school and I will enter
the university, if I want to study a high subject I have to wait until I am
21 why? Because the Jewish have to be in the army for 3 years I don't think
that it is bad for the Arabs I think that it is a good way because we can
have high marks in the psychometric exam and we can work and save money.
Arabs can't participate in the Israeli army because they can't fight against
there brothers "the Palestinians" and in the university there are a lot of
subjects that connected to the army, I mean that you cant study this subject
if you are not graduated from the army.
In Israel there are a lot of varied nation cities "Arabs and Jewish are
living together in one city", and in some of these cities Arabs can't build
houses, like Jaffa and Lod why? Is that a discrimination?
From the political side we faced a lot of problems in the government; the
main problem in the government is that the Arabs members can't present them
selves to be the president of the country, because the president of the
country must be graduated from the army and Arabs don't enter the army.
I think that we can't live all of our lives by this way and I don't think
that we will live in fighting all the time so I think that we have to live
with out fighting and we have to live like brothers and sisters because all
over Europe are living many people from different nations together and why
we cant live in Israel like them?
I think that we must have 1 government and the members of the government
must be Arabs and Jewish and I think that Jewish must stop going to the
army, and Palestinians too.
We must live like brothers and we must change some of the government's laws
and the people have to have the same laws.
I hope that we can make some changes, and if we want to make changes and
live like brothers we must start changing from the small things then we can
successes in every thing.

Written by: Reem Matani
Arabian participant

I've really enjoyed reading this too. You seem to have great awareness of your identity and grasp your generation as a change agents. GREAT.