This week, Avishay Braverman, Israel's minister for minority affairs, is on a four-city tour of North America, making stops in Washington, D.C., New York, Toronto, and San Francisco. A Labor Party liberal, professional economist, and former president of Ben Gurion University, Braverman is responsible for policies affecting Israel's Arab, Druze, and Bedouin citizens. He is advancing an agenda of economic development for the Arab sector in particular, including a plan to use affirmative action to increase employment. Currently, only 6.8 percent of government jobs are held by Arab Israelis, though they make up 20 percent of the population. Though relatively powerless within the conservative Netanyahu government -- Braverman's department does not even have a dedicated budget -- his trip is significant, not least because it opens up a conversation among American Jews about the discrimination facing Israeli Arabs, a population to which few Americans have given much thought. Residential and educational segregation are the norm in Israel. In urban areas, it is rare to encounter an apartment building housing both Jews and Muslims. Arab public schools consistently receive less funding than Jewish schools and are overcrowded, pushing more Arab children into religious private schools. Braverman did not explicitly take on segregation in his speech at the Washington Jewish Community Center Monday evening; especially since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, many Israelis believe separation is the best way to prevent violence between the Jewish majority and an Arab minority that identifies strongly with its brethren in the Occupied Territories. But Braverman did emphasize that the embattled Israeli Arab community deserves more government support. Only 20 percent of Arab women in Israel work, he said, but through better daycare and public transit, he'd like to see that number increase to 50 percent, which would improve Israel's GDP. Braverman also spoke about building new housing in Arab neighborhoods and reforming Israeli national service opportunities for Arab citizens, decreasing the influence of the Jewish religious right over the program. Currently, polls show more than half of Arab Israeli youth oppose participation in national service, which is intended as an alternative to the two years of military service required of Jewish citizens.
