(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
23. June 1962:
Arabs in Israel: We are beaten with both ends of the stick
By Torild Skard
The houses in the Arab villages of Israel are stuck so close together on the hillsides that it seems like a ladder is the only possible means of access. But as you get closer, you discover that narrow earth paths creep between the house walls and that there is even space for terraces with fields and gardens.
Here is a marvelous mix of old and new: dilapidated stone houses joined in with smooth, new concrete, outdoor bread ovens and gas cans for hotplates, donkeys to pull the plow and inlaid water pipes. Everywhere people crawl: men chopping in the ground or standing in clusters and chatting, children dragging on smaller siblings and running barefoot around and staring at us. No women.
The head of the village (mukhatar) lives in the finest house. His name is Abo Riad, or Riad's father after his eldest son, and is the one who represents outwardly the 1800 people in the village. Everyone belongs to the same family and he is the oldest in the most powerful family in the family. He himself goes in blue cotton sack with leather belt and wears the traditional white headgear. The son is wearing a Western European suit. The living room is dark and cool even in winter: rows of chairs with high, unsteady coffee tables, stacks of embroidered silk pillows. On the wall are glittering clippings from weekly magazines, a woven picture of Mecca and a large photograph of Abo Riad himself.
Fooled by Social Democrats. The welcome ceremony takes half an hour: Turkish coffee, fruits, dates and nuts. Mukhtar explains how it is: most people in the village voted with Social Democrats, Mapai, at the last election because they were promised electricity for all households and life insurance for all men. But now they do not get any of the parts, despite the fact that the village has sent several delegations to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to fulfill the requirements. Mukhtar is angry and bitter. The village is one of the most Jewish-friendly in Israel – and so they are treated this way!
"We have selected to stay here in Israel, we did not want to flee. "
And Mukhtar has several reasons to be bitter. When Israel was founded in 1948, the village owned 6000 acres of cultivated land. Now they only have 3000 goals. The rest have confiscated the authorities without further ado and without consideration to one of the kibbutz's nearby. The inhabitants of the Arab villages are regular Israeli citizens of all rights – except two: the right to freely travel wherever they want and the right to own their former properties. In this way, many of the Israeli Arabs have been "beaten with both ends": they have become unemployed because of the land confiscations and cannot travel to places with better employment opportunities due to travel restrictions in the Arab territories. It is only in the last 3-4 years that a significant number of Arabs have been given new jobs outside the villages.
SEK 5–6000 for a daughter. Only now can a guest arrive his errand, and Mukhtar is happy to interview about his family and village life. In his house lives 12 people: "my mother, myself and my wife, my 2 children and 3 daughters and the family of my one child." He himself owns everything that belongs to the family, from house and land to the members' labor. In return, he provides for them, provides and pays for the wives of the men and provides financial compensation for the daughters who move out. SEK 5–6000 is no unreasonable sum for one of Mukhtar's daughters, and it is the closest male relatives who have the first right to them. Mukhtar proudly states that the village is now self-sufficient with wives and that none of the daughters need to leave.
The village has not long since had its own school with both Arabic and Hebrew teaching, but Mukhtar is not happy with it. Despite being a Muhammadan himself, he sends his youngest child (son) to a Protestant school in one of the neighboring towns. But he is the only one in the village who can afford this. He is also unusual in another way: his daughters attend the village school. Despite the fact that compulsory schooling up to the age of 14 applies children in Israel, only 90 per cent of the boys and 20 per cent of the girls in Abo Riad's village receive so much education. The girls are rather kept at home to learn women's work: domestic and childcare, logging, freight transport, heavy labor in the fields. In the village, there are only 4 in all who have attended high school.
An isolated society. Now Mukhtar is no longer able to dive. He mustn't get back to his burning problem: the relationship with the Jewish community.
"We are an isolated piece of the Arab world located in the middle of Europe," says Abo Riad despairingly. “Every day we see all the glories of modern civilization – but we can't get any of it. We wanted one of the soul binders that we saw in the fields of the neighboring kibbutz. But it turned out that we did not have enough capital, that our pieces of land were too narrow, that the machine took with it all the backbone our animals live from and that there was no work for the people the machine would replace. We are not able to develop a new way of life and we are no longer happy with the old. "
"All the Arabs in Israel just want the 'istakrar' order of things," Mukhtar continues. “Before, families held together and the family's elders decided. Now the authorities want the leaders to be elected, but these leaders have no authority. Only 39 of the 104 Arab villages have any elected local government, and most of them cannot work. Within the same family, the poor now stand against the rich, the young against the old, and those who work in the cities against those who stay in the village. ”
"We have selected to stay here in Israel, we did not want to flee, ”concludes Abo Riad. “But we are not considered full-fledged Israeli citizens. Our friends are in the Arab countries. But the Arab countries look upon us as traitors. How can we prevent being hit with both ends of the stick? "
January 21, 1962:
The leader of the morning magazine
By Sigurd Evensmo
Minister of Defense Harlem received praise from many sides when he recently appeared in the Oslo Military Society and announced that the entire structure of the defense must now be worked through because the material needs renewal "in virtually all areas". But most characteristic, it was again that this morning the newspaper also sent flowers to this minister. In the Norwegian daily press, Morgenbladet is probably the most rabid newspaper in its demand for militarization of Norway – including the requirement for nuclear weapons. So far, Harlem did not go, but Morgenbladet optimistically noted that now the step is not far "to the next realization", ie nuclear weapons. And thus the magazine could state that there was virtually every reason to enjoy Harlem's lecture, which was "flowing with the best will of defense".
Morgenbladet, which under Birger Kildal's editorial staff has represented the far right with an unusual aggression for Norwegian conditions and with strong elements of MRA propaganda, has given Minister Arne Skaug his unreserved tribute for his efforts as Minister of Trade. In a farewell article last Saturday, Morgenbladet stated that with "the typical liberal" Skaug, a significant change took place in the government's
In the Norwegian daily press, Morgenbladet is probably the most rabid newspaper in its demand for militarization of Norway.
politics over the last 6 years. He became "a corrective element of all the doctrinal socialism that has gone like a mockery of Norwegian post-war politics". The magazine praises Skaug's "liberalization line", his great effort for Norwegian connection to the Common Market, and ends with this summit on the wreath cake to the departed: "Through all the changes he has been a good man for the shipping and export industries." No such certificate from that team should underestimate.
