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Alternative `national song' to accommodate Arabs |
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September 16, 2000
JERUSALEM, SEPT 15 (AP) - An alternative to Israel's national anthem, a paean to Jewish longing for Zion, is needed to accommodate the aspirations of the country's Arab minority, a highly respected establishment figure said Thursday. The proposal by Miriam Ben-Porat, a retired Supreme Court justice and former state comptroller, drew immediate fire from nationalists - and praise from Arabs. Ben-Porat said discriminatory attitudes among Israel's Jewish majority to the Arab minority pose a danger and that having a national song devoid of Jewish imagery would make it easier for Israeli Arabs to celebrate Independence Day together with their Jewish neighbors. "If they want to celebrate, together with all of us, the Independence Day of Israel where they were born and grew up, they should be encouraged to do so," Ben-Porat said at a convocation ceremony for Reform rabbis. She described the alternative as a "national song" that would complement the official anthem. "There are precedents for the addition of a national song alongside the anthem," she said. She did not cite examples, but there are well-known songs in the United States, Australia and Britain that sometimes substitute for national anthems. Arabs have long said there is nothing to attract them in "Hatkivah" - "The Hope" - the Israeli national anthem that begins, "As long as a Jewish soul beats deep in the heart" and expresses the ancient longing for a return to Zion. Some Israeli Arabs say that national symbols - including the blue Star of David emblazoned on the flag - remind them of the tragedy of the Palestinian people who lost their country and fled or were driven into exile during the first Arab-Israeli war. "I welcome her courageous position," said Arab legislator Ahmed Tibi. "Anyone who wants us as full partners and citizens and as part of Israeli society must also address our position, which is that all the symbols and ceremonies of the state of Israel have to be changed." One ultranationalist legislator, Rehavam Zeevi, walked out as soon as Ben-Porat completed her speech. Zevulun Orlev, of the hawkish National Religious Party, suggested that Ben-Porat had was losing her grip. "What happened to her?" he told Channel Two TV. "Is she ashamed that the state of Israel is a Jewish state? It's illogical, irresponsible, even!" Another hard-line lawmaker, Limor Livnat, said Ben-Porat's suggestion that the Arabs are justifiably aggrieved threatens Israel's future. "I think that anyone who has not grasped the fact that a minority can live here - with equal rights of course - is wrong, is misleading and is causing enormous damage to our future here," Livnat said. The proposal comes at a sensitive time. Israeli police said this week that they uncovered a widespread network of Israeli Arab terrorists, almost unprecedented in Israel, where Arab citizens have mostly avoided the violent uprisings of the Palestinians in disputed lands. Arab leaders have blamed the radicalism on the wide socioeconomic gap. Ben-Porat's proposal of an alternative to "Hatikvah" is the latest establishment nod to complaints of historic marginalization by Arabs, who comprise a sixth of Israel's population. Last year for the first time, the school curriculum included references to the flight of Palestinian refugees in Israel's 1948 war of independence. Ben-Porat was overwhelmingly popular as state comptroller during her term, which ended in 1996. She was equally ferocious in rooting out corruption and mismanagement under Labor and Likud governments. At one point, she was favored to become Israel's first women president. |