Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv are among the most well known of Israel’s “mixed cities,” defined as cities with significant populations of both Arabs and Jews. According to a conference held earlier this month, more Israeli municipalities are on their way to becoming mixed cities, and more work is needed to ensure positive coexistence between Israelis from different backgrounds.
The 2024 Mixed Cities Conference was held in Haifa under the theme “Between Civil Partnership and Tense Quiet.” That theme reflects the complicated relationship between Jewish and Arab Israelis throughout this ongoing war. Unlike during the 2021 Gaza War, when Palestinian citizens of Israel violently clashed with their Jewish neighbors in numerous cities, Arab Israelis have for the most part not allied themselves with the Gazan cause during this war.
“The quiet heard in mixed cities does not always reflect mutual partnership,” Bashaer Fahoum Jayoussi, cochair of the Abraham Initiatives, said at the conference opening. “We saw and experienced intimidation and political persecution, we saw that there was an attempt at protest or resistance. We need to see whether the tense calm reflects real stability or hides something.”
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav also addressed the conference, announcing his plan to implement spoken Arabic studies in all Haifa schools. “Part of the failure is that we didn't understand the language, the basic things of the other side,” he said.
Yahav, himself a native of Haifa, said that Haifa’s Arab population, about 10% of the city’s residents, helped bring him to power. He noted that several neighborhoods in Haifa have become de facto mixed as Arabs become better off and move into majority-Jewish neighborhoods.
Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, coexecutive director of the Abraham Initiatives, explained that the increase in mixed cities and mixed neighborhoods has to do with municipal planning. “Since the establishment of the state, the Arab population has doubled and not a single new Arab settlement has been established,” he explained. That reality has led to a housing shortage that has pushed people out of their communities and led such cities as Be’er Sheva, Harish, and Eilat to become mixed.
Demographic changes can be complicated, especially when they occur as the result of housing shortages rather than intention. “There is no public policy that says what it means to be a mixed city,” Be'eri-Sulitzeanu said. “We didn’t discuss what a mixed city means, or even what is expected of the police.”
According to a 2021 report from the state comptroller and ombudsman, about 1.5 million Jews live in mixed cities, accounting for about one out of every five Jewish Israelis. Around 500,000 Arabs, a quarter of the Arab Israeli population, live in mixed cities, more than half of whom live in Jerusalem. The report found that municipal services provided to Arab residents of mixed cities are significantly worse than those provided to Jewish residents.
The relative calm in Israel between Jewish and Arab citizens during the ongoing war has been praised, especially in contrast to the violence of 2021. But Abeer Baker, director of the Human Rights Legal Clinic at the University of Haifa, said that that calm reveals a chilling effect. Since the outbreak of the war, dozens of Arab Israelis have been arrested, often violently, for speaking out against Israeli military action.
“Restricting freedom of expression is suppressing my identity,” Baker said. “Because a Jew who expresses his opinion is not oppressed. What created the silence that stemmed from fear was not just the arrest, it was the general spectacle. I see the oppression of my people in Gaza and there is no one to turn to.”
The ongoing war and the uncertainty regarding its implications for Jewish-Arab relations have put civil society organizations in a position of increased relevance. Dr. Shany Payes, director of research and evaluation at the Abraham Initiatives, introduced Guardians of Partnership, a coalition of civil society organizations to prevent violent escalation in mixed cities. One of the initiatives in the coalition is a technological tool for identifying inciting discourse in neighborhood WhatsApp groups, a development of the organization Fake Reporter.
Knesset member Dov Khenin of the Joint List similarly highlighted groups that have worked to promote solidarity and prevent anti-Arab racism. He pointed to the Solidarity Guards in Tel Aviv, a joint organization of Jews and Arabs with the goal of defending against nationalist violence on both sides.
Khenin also warned of increasing racist trends in Israeli politics, noting that the delegitimization of Arab parties could be a precursor to expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel. The difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultranationalist Meir Kahane, whose party was eventually banned for inciting racism, is that “Netanyahu does not say openly, but rather covertly promotes the same reality,” Khenin said.
He characterized the current moment as a “struggle against facism.” “In such a struggle, the question is who will isolate whom,” he said. “Either the extreme right will isolate the Palestinians or vice versa, we will succeed in isolating the extreme right.”
This article was translated from Hebrew and edited for context by Paul Weissfelner.
