Building cooperation and understanding between Jewish and Arab citizens.

Background

After 50 years of Israeli statehood, the dream of peaceful coexistence, equality, and mutual understanding among Jews and Arabs is still far from fulfilled. While Arabs constitute nearly 20% of all Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs still live in segregated neighborhoods and towns, send their children to separate schools, and have little personal contact with one another. As a result, stereotypes about 'the other' abound in both communities.

For twenty years, the New Israel Fund has been at the forefront of efforts to promote equality and coexistence. Our work is based on the premise that Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens has profound implications for Israeli democracy and the long-term stability of the state. When, in October 2000, internal violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis threatened to extinguish fragile progress towards coexistence, NIF took immediate and comprehensive steps in order to establish a new level of partnership with Arab citizens.

NIF is working to:

• Reduce mistrust through dialogue between Jewish and Arab Israelis;
• Promote an educational model to bring Jews and Arabs together.
• Facilitate cooperation among Jewish and Arab women; and
• Train Jewish and Arab activists to foster coexistence;
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Recent Accomplishments

• UNESCO awarded its Prize for Peace Education 2001 to Givat Haviva's Jewish-Arab Center for Peace. The center supports coexistence programs that bring together Jewish and Arab junior high school students. The prize was awarded to the Center in recognition of its exceptional efforts in the areas of peace education, the promotion of peace and non-violence, and for the work done for the resolution of conflicts through dialogue.

• NIF grantee Community Advocacy: Project Genesis has come up with a first in Israel: a community food co-op run by and for Jewish and Arab residents of low-income neighborhoods in Jerusalem. A group of neighbors from Beit Safafa and Katamonim decided to join together to provide goods at wholesale prices to members of the local community. They received training from Project Genesis, while learning practical management and budgeting skills. Today the thriving co-op is 110 members strong. It is being hailed as a model for coexistence.

• As part of SHATIL's focus on Arab-Jewish relations, 30 Arab activists met late in 2001 to discuss the nature, pattern, challenges, and goals of cooperation between Jewish and Arab NGOs in the wake of the October 2000 crisis. It was the first in a series of meetings aimed at reassessing the possibility of renewed ties between Jewish and Arab social change organisations. Two additional sessions of this Arab assembly took place in 2002, and a series of three meetings were held in the Jewish sector as well. This parallel work will culminate in a series of joint meetings scheduled for the fall of 2002, to establish a stronger, more stable and effective Arab-Jewish partnership for social change.