Arab victories harbingers of hope

BY URI DROMI

JERUSALEM -- In the midst of bad news coming from our region, concerning Arabs and Jews, three stories give reason to believe that there is hope, after all.

• Last week in the Ramat Gan national stadium, Bnei Sachnin, a soccer team from an Arab town in the north of Israel, became the first Arab team to win the Israeli national soccer cup. The team was trailing 0:1 after its rival, Hapoel Haifa, when, after the halftime break, it went into an amok and in an unbelievable blitz scored four goals and won both the game and the cup.

The scenes at the end of the game were almost surrealistic. Lior Assulin, one of the Bnei Sachnin Jewish players, wrapped himself with the blue and white Israeli flag and danced in joy in front of the 20,000 ecstatic and thankful Arab fans. An old Arab, holding a replica of the cup he had prepared at home, just in case, kissed Ayal Lachman, the Jewish coach of the winning team, for making every Arab in Sachnin six inches taller.

When the spontaneous party at the stadium was over, the huge crowd went back to Sachnin, followed by many Jewish fans and supporters, to celebrate till dawn. A reader in the Haaretz newspaper spoke for many Israeli Jews when he wrote that he had come to the match as a fanatic fan of Hapoel Haifa and left the stadium as a fan of both teams.

• The second bit of good news in the area of Jewish-Arab relations was that the Kaadan family will be allowed to purchase a plot of land in a Jewish community. In 1995 Adel Kaadan, a resident of Um al Fahm, an Arab city in the center of Israel, tried to buy a plot of land in the neighboring community Katzir. Residents of Katzir objected, arguing that because Katzir had been planned as a Jewish community, the Kaadans would not fit there. Kaadan appealed to the Supreme Court and won, but it took him another nine years of legal battle to be able this week to exercise his right.

• Finally, this week Salim Jubran, a judge from Haifa, was sworn as the first permanent Arab judge in the Israeli Supreme Court. From now on, when Israeli Arabs look up to that bastion of human rights, they will probably feel more reassured knowing that one of them is part of that esteemed institution.

These are only small steps in the long path leading to the full integration of Arabs in the Israeli society.

• The Bnei Sachnin soccer team, after the celebrations are over, will return to its own poor stadium. ''How can I possibly host European teams here?'' asked the worried Mazen Ghanaim, manager of Bnei Sachnin. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, eager these days to grab any piece of popularity, promised him -- live on television -- some millions of shekels to renovate the stadium. This of course is a drop in the bucket compared to what the Arabs in Israel need in terms of infrastructure, education and job opportunities.

• Kaadan, through his one-man struggle, managed to provide his family with better housing conditions. But the Supreme Court, in its ruling, urged the government to start drafting development plans for the whole Arab sector, so that others will see a better future for their families as well.

• The nomination of Judge Jubran, while timely and laudable in itself, only highlighted the rarity of Arabs in the highest echelons of the Israeli society. According to a survey conducted by Sikkuy, an organization promoting Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel, Arabs consist only 5 percent of the civil service in the country, while their national percentage is close to 20 percent. Another survey, conducted recently by Professor Sammy Smoocha of Haifa University, shows that while 90 percent of Israeli Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist, 53 percent feel totally disenfranchised.

Israeli Jews should welcome this week's news and take them a step further. Confident of the Jewish nature of the state, they should now work harder to make Israel a better democracy, for the good of all of its citizens.

Uri Dromi is the director of International Outreach at the Israel Democracy Inastitute in Jerusalem.