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Judaization of the Galilee (Hebrew: ייהוד הגליל Yehud ha-Galil; Arabic: تهويد الجليل, tahweed Al-Jaleel) is a regional project and policy of the Israeli government and associated private organizations which is intended to increase Jewish population and communities in the Galilee, a region within Israel which has a Palestinian Arab majority.

"Judaization" refers to efforts by the Israeli government to create new Jewish communities or to reinforce existing ones within a specific geographical area. Proponents of this policy stress the need to create a Jewish majority in the Galilee to reduce "the Arab threat" and prevent the formation of "a nucleus of Arab nationalism within the Jewish state." According to critics of this policy, it constitutes a deliberate and ethnically-biased effort by Israel to undermine or displace or marginalize communities of its own citizens who are not Jewish.

Background

According to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the Galilee region was to form part of the proposed Arab state. Incorporated into Israel following its establishment in 1948, the Palestinian population, largely decimated by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, still formed the majority of the population there.

Israel's independence meant that the priorities of the Zionist movement shifted from securing a safe territorial base for Jewish immigrants (many of whom were refugees of European persecution), to building viable Jewish communities of the newly created sovereign state and 'the ingathering and assimilation of exiles' (mizug galuyot). According to Oren Yiftachel, Judaization is a policy which aims at preventing the return of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees exiled by the 1948 war and at exerting Jewish control over Israeli territory which still included the 13-14% of the Palestinian population who remained there following the war. The two main areas targeted by the Judaization strategy were the Negev and the Galilee.

History of implementation

The policy to 'Judaize Galilee' was first endorsed by the Israeli cabinet in in March 1949. Beginning in the early 1950s, the Jewish Agency, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Interior Ministry coordinated their efforts to increase the number of Jews living in the Galilee. Primary advocates of the project included Yosef Nahmani and Yosef Weitz who stressed the need to create a Jewish majority in the Galilee to reduce "the Arab threat" and prevent the formation of "a nucleus of Arab nationalism within the Jewish state."

Part of the effort to develop and populate the Galilee with a Jewish majority included the Land Acquisition Law of 1953 that resulted in the confiscation of 1,220,000 dunams of land belonging to Arabs in the first year following its implementation.

Nahmani had advocated that particular attention be paid to settling Jews in the city of Nazareth in a 1953 letter to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion. In the second half of 1954, the Defense Ministry expanded its role in plans for the settlement of the Galilee by setting up the Galilee Development Department which was concerned with, among other things, caring for the new Jewish settlement of Upper Nazareth (Nazareth Illit) founded by the government that year. The creation of the Jewish city of Karmiel on Arab village lands in 1962, which like Nazzaret Illit, serves as a Jewish regional capital, was also part of the implementation of the same policy.

David McDowall claims that an additional reason for the undertaking of the Judaization policy was, "to ensure that there could be no serious discussion of returning any of these lands earmarked for an Arab state by the United Nations to Arab control." By 1964, there were over 200 Jewish settlements in Israel's Northern District, while in the Galilee proper, as a result of intensive Jewish settlement, Jews outnumbered Palestinians by 3:2.

To attract Jewish migration to the areas targeted by the Judaization policy, public resources were marshalled to offer incentives in the form of tax breaks, land and housing subsidies, low interest loans and rent assistance. Direct establishment grants were also offered and regional infrastructure was developed to support the Jewish localities established.

Project implementation in the 1970s involved further confiscations of Arab land by the state, explicitly announced under the banner of the "Judaization of the Galilee" in February 1976. The announcement provoked the calling of a general strike and demonstrations by the Arab population in which 6 Arab citizens were killed and many more wounded and arrested by state forces. These events are commemorated annually by Palestinians on Land Day.

By the mid-1970s, "it was clear that the Jewish settlement drive in the Galilee was a failure." Israel Koenig, author of the Koenig Memorandum, renewed the call for the Judaization of the Galilee in 1977. The continued growth of the Arab population and their continued ownership of land were sources of consternation for Koenig, who advocated adopting measures to compel them to leave the country.

Judaization efforts in the Galilee continued, and by the mid-1990s had changed the demography of the Galilee (and the Negev) significantly, though in the heart of the Galilee, Arabs still made up 72% of the population. A 1995 planning map for the Galilee drafted by the Regional Planning Board and leaked to the press, explicitly called for Judaization via the increase of Jewish settlement there distributed, "in such a way that they would disrupt any Palestinian geographical continuity."

Assaf Adiv states that while the government has avoided using the term "Judaization" to describe its development policies in the Galilee since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, government policy has remained aimed at promoting Jewish settlement in the Galilee.

Kaadan vs. Katzir

In 1995, Adel Kaadan attempted to purchase a home in the new Jewish settlement of Katzir, in the Galilee. When the Israel Land Authority refused to sell him a home on the grounds that, as an Arab, he did not qualify, Kaadan turned to the Israeli Supreme Court.

The court, in a landmark decision, ruled that the Israel Land Authority had no power to discriminate between Arabs and Jews in the sale of new homes. "The decision of the Lands Authority to allocate land... for the establishment of a community for Jews only, undermines the foundations of the authority of that agency, which is based on the realization of equality," wrote Supreme Court justice Aharon Barak

An analysis of the implications of the Kaadan case for the government's Judaization policy by Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar and Oren Yiftachel notes that, "the material implications of this milestone decision are not yet clear: the Court was careful to confine the decision only to Katzir, and not to other Jewish settlements, especially Kibbutzim and Moshavim, which form the vast majority of rural settlements blocked to Arabs." The authors further note that five years after the decision was taken, Kaadan remains unable to move into Katzir, indicating that "the watershed decision about the illegality of discrimination against Arabs in the allocation of state land will not be easily expressed in a new geography of Arab-Jewish relations in Israel."

Mixed Arab-Jewish communities

An unexpected effect of the government's efforts to attract Jewish population to the Galilee has been the growth of mixed Arab-Jewish communities. Some of these communities — such as Ma'alot-Tarshiha and Upper Nazareth — were intended at the outset as experiments in Jewish-Arab coexistence in the region. In most cases, however, the integration occurred in an unexpected manner: while the government built housing units in towns intended for Jewish settlement, Jews did not migrate to the region as expected . Meanwhile, Arabs, whose housing options were increasingly limited by development restrictions in their own villages, bought units in the Jewish towns. There are now substantial Arab populations in several new Galilee towns, including Upper Nazareth (about 20%), Carmiel (10%) , and Nahariya.

With no guiding policy of the national government to deal with this integration, local regional councils have been pretty much left to themselves to deal with the problems and opportunities presented. Municipal workers of the Menashe regional council, in the lower Galilee, are sent to Arabic courses in order to provide services to their Arab residents; the Misgav Regional Council has declared that "cooperation between all sectors... Jewish and Arab" is a development objective, though Jewish-Arab relations have not been without problems

Israeli nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have taken a leading role in developing programs to promote integration and to militate for government development policies. "Promoting a shared society in mixed areas needs to be focused on specific policy planning, and must be managed with a multifaceted approach including socioeconomic, educational, public and governmental considerations," writes Amnon Be'eri-Sulitzeanu, co-executive director of the Abraham Fund. "It is vital to recognize that Israel today is a mixed country. Policy aimed at improving the nature of Jewish-Arab relations in mixed cities and regions is of primary and paramount importance for the future of the state."

See also

• Judaization of Jerusalem

References

1. ^ Firro, 1999, pp. 134-135. Refers to it as "a project".
2. Ben-Ami et al., 2000, p. 249. Refers to it as "a regional policy".
3. Lustick, 1980, p. 129. Refers to it as "an ongoing program of the regime undertaken by various governmental and nongovernmental agencies."
4. Falah, 1991, pp. 69-70
5. Arab leaders on Land Day: We're not afraid of Right, Sharon Roffe-Ofir, Ynet News, 3/30/09. "Thousands of Israeli Arabs marched in commemoration of the 33rd Land Day. MKs warned against Israel's Judaization of Galilee, Negev and vow to propose bill to acknowledge day as national holiday for Arab public."
6. McDowall, 1991, p. 127.
7. ^ Rabinowitz, 1997, p. 6.
8. ^ Yitachel et al., 2001, p. 118-120.
9. ^ Sufian and Levine, 2007, pp. 81-83.
10. Wesley, 2006, p. 29.
11. ^ McDowall, 1991, p. 131.
12. ^ Yitachel, 2001, p. 120.
13. ^ Kimmerling and Migdal, 2003, p. 195.
14. ^ IIED, 1994, p. 98.
15. Kanaaneh, 2002, p. 53.
16. Assaf Adiv. ""Judaizing" Galilee!". Challenge: a Jerusalem Magazine on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
17. Kaadan et al vs. Israel Lands Authority et al, High Court of Justice ruling 6698/95
18. "מסקנתי הינה, איפוא, זו: החלטה שהמינהל היה מקבל להקצות במישרין מקרקעין בטל עירון להקמת יישוב קהילתי ליהודים בלבד, היתה פוגעת בתכלית (הכללית) המונחת ביסוד סמכותו של המינהל, והיא הגשמת השוויון."
19. Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar and Oren Yiftachel. "Land Regime and Social Relations in Israel". p. 149. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
20. Meiron Rapaport, [http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=924636&contrassID=&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0 "Mixed North"}, Haaretz, Nov. 15, 2007 (in Hebrew)
21. ^ Amnon Be'eri-Sulitzeanu , "A coexistence-policy imperative", Haaretz, March 15, 2009
22. ^ Ofer Petersburg, "Jewish population in Galilee declining", Israel Business, Dec. 12, 2007
23. Misgav Regional Council website
24. See, for example, "Jewish town won’t let Arab build home on his own land" Haaretz, 14th Dec 2009.

Bibliography

• Ben-Ami, Shlomo; Peled, Yoav; Spektorowski, Alberto (2000), Ethnic challenges to the modern nation state (Illustrated ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0312230532, 9780312230531 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Falah, Ghazi (1991). "Israeli "Judaization" Policy in Galilee". Journal of Palestine Studies. 20 (4). University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies: pp. 69-85. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Firro, Kais (1999), The Druzes in the Jewish state: a brief history (Illustrated ed.), BRILL, ISBN 9004112510, 9789004112513 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Kanaaneh, Rhoda Ann (2002), Birthing the nation: strategies of Palestinian women in Israel (Illustrated ed.), University of California Press, ISBN 0520223799, 9780520223790 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED) (1994), Evictions - 7010iied, IIED, ISBN 1843690829, 9781843690825 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Kimmerling, Baruch; Migdal, Joel S. (2003), The Palestinian people: a history (Illustrated ed.), Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674011295, 9780674011298 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Lustick, Ian (1980), Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's control of a national minority (2nd ed.), University of Texas Press, ISBN 0292703473, 9780292703476 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• McDowall, David (1991), Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond (Reprint, illustrated ed.), University of California Press, ISBN 0520076532, 9780520076532 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Rabinowitz, Dan (1997), Overlooking Nazareth: the ethnography of exclusion in Galilee (Illustrated ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521564956, 9780521564953 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Sufian, Sandra Marlene; LeVine, Mark (2007), Reapproaching borders: new perspectives on the study of Israel-Palestine (Illustrated ed.), Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 074254639X, 9780742546394 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Wesley, David A. (2006), State practices and Zionist images: shaping economic development in Arab towns in Israel (Illustrated ed.), Berghahn Books, ISBN 1845450582, 9781845450588 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Yiftachel, Oren (2001), The power of planning: spaces of control and transformation (Illustrated ed.), Springer, ISBN 1402005342, 9781402005343 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)

• Politics of Israel