About Mada:

Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research provides information, critical analysis, and diverse perspectives on the social and political life and history of Palestinians, with particular attention to Palestinians within Israel’s 1948 boundaries. Mada also advances research on Israeli society and politics in order to further understanding of its undercurrents, particularly in relation to policies toward Palestinians and Palestine. Mada offers a home for Palestinian and other scholars to develop critical approaches, exchange ideas, and develop their own research.

Period of Internship:

Six month (minimum) beginning in March 1, 2016 until September 1, 2016.

Application deadline:

January 29, 2016

Locations:

51 Allenby St, PO Box 9132, Haifa, Haifa District, 31090, Israel

Qualifications:

Candidates should hold a B.A. in a relevant field and have a minimum of one year work experience in a relevant field. Excellent native English writing and editing skills, computer skills, and the ability to take initiative and work independently are required. Research experience and familiarity with Arabic and/or Hebrew are also helpful.

Responsibilities:

Interns at Mada are involved in editing research reports, writing grant reports and proposals, conducting international public relations and outreach, website upgrading and maintenance, and providing research support.

Compensation:

Interns are provided with health insurance, a living stipend, and a housing stipend.

How to apply:

Please send a letter of interest, CV, 3-5 page writing sample, and contact information for three references to robin@mada-research.org and CC mada@mada-research.org. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

For more information:

https://www.idealist.org/view/internship/XNfcm7GwmB3p/

The ’48 Palestinians and the Palestinian National Project: Role and Status’ held in partnership with the Institute for Palestine Studies on November 7 – 9, 2015.  The first two days of the conference were held at Birzeit University while the third day was held in Nazareth. Eight sessions were held during the three-days and ranged  in topics/issues such as ‘The Palestinian National Movement and the ’48 Palestinians: Perspectives and Historical Dynamics’, ‘The Experience of the Joint List: a Model of Collaborative Work’, ‘Internal Constraints to Strengthening the Role and Status of the ’48 Palestinians in the Palestinian National Project’ and a Roundtable on ‘The Stances and Visions of the ’48 Palestinian Political Streams regarding the Role and Status on ’48 Palestinians in the Palestinian National Project’. The conference was attended by over 300 individuals representing a diverse group, including academics and researchers, university students, politicians, representatives of civil society including NGOs and grassroots organization, journalists and representatives of consulates and diplomatic missions. In terms of recommendations, participants overwhelmingly noted the importance of the conference and the continuation of discussions on the subject matter; aligning priorities of the Palestinian national project in Israel and the oPt with that of Diaspora Palestinians; furthering research on critical theory of nationhood, indigenous populations, the role of women in the Palestinian national agenda and the impact of forced fragmentation of Palestinians on the national agenda; further documentation on the experience of the Joint List and its impact on policies and legislations in Israel; further documentation on the impact of the Oslo Accords and Agreement on Palestinian unity; and further documentation on the role of youth in the Palestinian national agenda. It is important to note that the seventh panel, ‘Experience of Collaborative Work’ which included four young women panelists was commended as the most significant and critical/key panels throughout the workshop.

The article was originally published on Electronic Intifada, to view it click here.

Most Palestinian citizens of Israel fear attacks by Jewish extremists, according to a new survey.

The poll by the Haifa-based research center Mada al-Carmel indicates a climate of fear faced by the Palestinian minority in present-day Israel. Of its 307 respondents, 72 percent reported a moderate or high fear of violence by Jewish extremists against Palestinian towns in Israel.

Palestinian citizens’ concerns about violence by right-wing extremists are not misplaced. A spate of anti-Palestinian attacks have been committed in recent weeks inside Israel.

In Dimona, a town in southern Israel where racist graffiti is abundant, a Jewish teen stabbed four Palestinians in October, stating that he committed the act because “all Arabs are terrorists.” Meanwhile, in the city of Netanya, Jewish Israeli assailants attacked three Palestinians while chanting “death to the Arabs.”

Others have been attacked after being mistaken for Palestinians.

(Israeli police arrest a Palestinian protester in Nazareth on 8 October. Faiz Abu Rmeleh ActiveStills)

A 29-year-old Eritrean refugee, Habtom Zarhum, was shot and beaten to death by an Israeli mob in the central bus station of Bir al-Saba (Beer Sheva). A security guard reportedly “misidentified” him as a “terrorist” shortly after a Palestinian had shot and killed a soldier before opening fire on others.

Unlike Palestinians allegedly involved in violence, Jewish attackers are not shot by authorities on the spot, but rather apprehended or even granted impunity.

The Dimona attacker has been sent for psychiatric observation, while the only individual to be immediately detained and questioned by police after the Netanya attack was its victim. It took several days after Zarhum’s slaying in Bir al-Saba for any Jewish Israelis involved to be arrested, and so far no one has been charged.

Such lax treatment for Jewish assailants adds to the sense of insecurity felt by Palestinian citizens.

“You feel scared because there is no implementation of the law. If anyone assaulted me, no one would intervene, the state won’t intervene,” said Alhan Nahhas-Daoud, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a research assistant at Mada al-Carmel.

Firearms in public

Further increasing fear, officials such as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat have made appeals for Israeli Jews to carry firearms in public and act as vigilantes.

After this call was echoed by the Israeli police, 66 percent of Palestinian citizens of Israel reported feeling a high degree of insecurity, compared to only 13 percent who felt highly safe, according to the Mada al-Carmel survey.

“They feel that they are the targets – that the guns will be pointed at them,” explained Ameed Saabneh, the director of Mada al-Carmel’s survey research unit, adding, “The politicians are supposedly making these calls to make the public feel safe. But in fact, they are causing fear among the Arab public.”

In addition to violence by vigilante extremists, Palestinians have also been shot by police in present-day Israel.

In the northern city of Afula, the Palestinian woman Israa Abed was shot six times by police while supposedly holding a knife, although video evidence suggests that she posed no threat to anyone when she was hit.

“The incidents that we have seen in Israel recently and the way that the police are responding to them are very similar what is occurring in the West Bank,” Saabneh said.

Avoiding Jewish areas

Palestinians living in Israel say there is popular support among Israeli Jews for calls made by politicians to shoot and kill the perpetrators of alleged stabbings. No less than 64 percent of respondents to the Mada al-Carmel survey said that such calls find high or moderate levels of support from within Israeli society.

As such, many Palestinian citizens feel unable to openly express their views to Jewish Israelis, for fear of retribution.

“If I meet Jewish friends, I prefer not to talk about the situation with them. I find that it is hard to express my feelings,” said Nahhas-Daoud. “They don’t talk about the occupation and dehumanization of other people – they are closed off and focused on national security.”

In the survey, 70 percent of Palestinians in Israel also reported avoiding Jewish towns and areas to various degrees in recent weeks for fear of their safety.

“As a result of fear, people avoid being in Jewish areas even when it’s important for their work or daily lives,” Saabneh said.

Many Palestinians also feel unsafe on Israeli public transit.

“My wife used to go to Tel Aviv for work on the train, but lately she has been using the car instead, because of recent events,” Saabneh added.

Others avoid speaking in Arabic while taking public transportation.

“I get afraid when talking in Arabic to my kids,” Nahhas-Daoud said. “If I take the train to Tel Aviv, I won’t speak at all.”

Crackdown on dissent

Though all Palestinian citizens are affected, Israel is particularly intent on fostering fear among those who speak out against state policies.

Hundreds of Palestinian protesters have been arrested inside present-day Israel in recent weeks, with many finding themselves subject to “preventive arrests” by police before even attending demonstrations.

At a small, nonviolent demonstration in Akka (Acre) in mid-October, more than 20 protesters were arrested and detained overnight with no apparent cause, according to the Haifa-based activist known as Yoav Haifawi, who was present on the scene.

The intent of such arrests is clear: to create a chilling effect that discourages others from demonstrating in the future.

“The very fact that you go to a quiet demonstration, you don’t do anything against the law, and you spend the night with the police deters people from attending demonstrations,” Haifawi said. “It will cause people to think twice before they go.”

In other instances, Israeli authorities have arrested bus drivers who transported demonstrators to protests. At an early October demonstration in Tamra, a city near Haifa, three bus drivers were detained overnight and later put on house arrest for five days.

“The drivers were sitting quietly in the buses – they were not even taking part in the demonstrations,” Haifawi said. “The authorities also kept the buses in police custody afterwards, preventing the drivers and their families from making a living.”

Such repressive policies further Israel’s ultimate goal of keeping Palestinian citizens quiet, obedient and fearful. In this sense, they resemble tactics of control implemented by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“The methods of policing and repression used in the West Bank and Gaza are also used here,” Haifawi said. “The difference is quantitative, not qualitative.”

Fear for the future

While the West Bank and Gaza Strip have undoubtedly been hardest hit by recent violence, Israel’s state ideology and policies have violent implications for all Palestinians.

Many Palestinian citizens fear for their future as a community within Israel, according to the Mada al-Carmel survey.

Nearly half of the poll’s respondents reported feeling a low sense of security, or none at all, about the future of the Palestinian community in Israel. Only 15 percent feel that a future Palestinian presence in Israel is highly secure.

Such findings give lie to the claim that Israel is a normal democracy where minorities feel safe. In reality, Palestinians in Israel are not seen by the state as equal citizens deserving of rights, but rather as a security and demographic threat.

“The government is basically speaking about Palestinians in Israel and Palestinians in the occupied territories in the same way,” Saabneh said.

“They are all the same Arabs,” he added. “Everyone is a suspect.”

Robin Jones is an intern in Haifa at Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research.

On 24-25 July 2015, Mada al-Carmel — Arab Center for Applied Social Research hosted an academic workshop on Zionism and settler-colonialism at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah. This workshop, run by Mada General Director Professor Nadim Rouhana, was the first of six training and research events to be held on Zionism and settler-colonialism for Palestinian graduate students and recent post-doctorates. The workshop took place as part of Mada’s PhD Program, a project launched in January 2015 aiming to help develop the next generation of critical Palestinian scholars by creating a space for Palestinian PhD students and postgraduates to share their ideas, advance their work, and receive feedback from experts in their respective fields.

Professor Nadim Rouhana opened the workshop with a lecture presenting initial questions and observations on Zionism and settler-colonialism. He remarked that the Palestinian national movement viewed the Zionist project as a colonial project on a political and intellectual level from its outset, but at a certain stage, particularly after 1971, the terms of debate gradually shifted from anti-colonial liberation to statehood and sovereignty. The dominant Palestinian leadership, operating in complex circumstances in both the Arab world and internationally, played a role in this shift. However, he added that Palestinians, internationals, and even anti-Zionist Israeli researchers are returning to the framework of settler-colonialism today. Rouhana also offered an explanation of what distinguishes settler-colonialism from colonialism in general. Classical colonialism involves the exercise of economic, political, and military control and improves the geopolitical situation of the colonizer through the subjugation of the colonized, operating remotely through local agents; settler colonialism, on the other hand, aims to create its own political entity and settle the land as its new homeland, maintaining the same standard of living as in the metropole. He noted that while the logic of colonialism depends on subjugation, the logic of settler colonialism depends on the replacement of the indigenous population. Settler-colonialism does not intend to rule the “natives,” but to take their place without recognizing it as the homeland of its indigenous residents. Rouhana then identified various features of settler colonialism, arguing that they are fully consistent with the Zionist project. These features include:

1.       Dispossession of land and space, creation of a new geography and history beginning from the date of the colonizer’s arrival, and receipt of support and legitimacy from the academic sphere.

2.       The elimination of the indigenous population: initially through massacres and later through various other means.

3.       Structural violence – in which violence is not an event, but a continuous process occurring in the political, legal and cultural spheres. However, colonialism does not see itself as violent, but ruthlessly uses violence which is justified as a means of defending its land.

4.       A logic of justification distinct from that of colonialism, which justified its existence by bringing development and urbanization to the colonized. Settler colonialism uses other justifications, such as divine right and arrival into a virgin land.

Rouhana added that each instance of settler-colonialism is accompanied by a permanent state of fear as a result of acts of violence that were committed throughout its history.

Rouhana argued that settler-colonial projects could result in “victory”, through the total or near-total elimination of the indigenous population (as in the cases of Canada and New Zealand), or “defeat”, through either reconciliation (as in the case of South Africa) or expulsion and the return of the settler to his/her country (as in the case of Algeria).

Rouhana then attempted to consider where the Zionist project stands, pointing out three things that distinguish it from other settler-colonial projects:

1.       The Zionist project is ongoing.

2.       The Zionist movement is also a nationalist movement and has succeeded in building a nation.

3.       The Zionist project is grounded in religious justifications that are different from the justifications given for other settler-colonial projects. Religious justifications were not only used during the establishment of the project in its infancy, but remain salient today and are growing in importance.

In the second session, researchers and students discussed Zionism from a settler-colonial perspective. Participants raised a number of questions, including: What is our position as Palestinians in relation to victorious settlement projects? How do we define the Zionist project’s defeat? Would the removal of the state’s colonial nature and its conversion to a state for all its citizens be considered a victory? Participants also discussed the phenomenon of mental or epistemological colonization, debating whether it could be applied to the Palestinian case. Moreover, researchers and students considered the significance of the colonizer’s increasing violence and racism as a manifestation of force or fear, particularly in the Zionist case. They noted the possible role of a joint Palestinian and Mizrahi Jewish movement in resisting the Zionist project. Additional proposals were put forward on the need to consider security and military studies in order to understand the relationship between violence and the colonial project; the production of fear in the colonial project, which is necessary for its survival; and the colonizer’s success in producing forms of Palestinian subjectivity that are not conducive to resisting Zionism.

The second lecture was given by Dr. Munir Fakher Eldin, a lecturer at Birzeit University. He reviewed Palestinian historical readings of the Zionist project, considering how the analytical framework of settler-colonialism could be used productively by researchers and historians. During his lecture, he emphasized the importance of reconsidering the study of British colonialism, which established institutions and practices that formed a precursor for Zionism. By examining the case of the Bisan (Beit Shean) valley, however, he argued that the dynamics of the relationship between British colonialism and Zionism are complex, and cannot be reduced to the fact that British colonialism enabled Zionist expropriation through land laws. He ultimately contended that British colonialism should not be reduced solely to an enabler of Zionism. Fakher Eldin added that three explanatory frameworks have been used to consider the history of Palestine—the clash of civilizations (which implies a conflict between Palestinians and Jews); the framework of modern national civil society; and settler-colonialism—arguing that Palestinian academia is in conflict between the first and second paradigms.

The second day began with a lecture by Dr. Abdul Rahim Sheikh of Birzeit University. In this lecture, he presented a critical intervention entitled “Towards a liberal approach in Palestinian cultural studies,” arguing that in the local Palestinian epistemological context, there is no specialized field of “Palestinian cultural studies” situated within the colonial setting, but noting that there have been many attempts to create such a field. Accordingly, his intervention sought to provide a theoretical introduction to the field, its limits and conceptual problems, and the possibilities of using critical contemplation of the experience of the colonized to inaugurate methods that are free from colonial influence, in light of the lapse between the theoretical and the applied as witnessed in Palestine today. The intervention consisted of four segments. In the first segment, Dr. Sheikh presented a series of methodological questions on how cultural studies can serve us in developing better academic approaches to Zionism. In the second segment, he presented a cultural theoretical reading of the emergence of Zionism in a colonial context and the status of the Abrahamic faiths within that context.  In the third segment, he presented a cultural application of the theoretical intervention made in his upcoming book, “The Columbus Syndrome and the Exploration of Palestine: Zionist policies of naming and cultural engineering in Palestinian space,” to be published by the Institute for Palestine Studies at the end of 2015. In the last segment, he presented critical conclusions, a contemplation of the function of criticism, and criticism of criticism itself, noting that criticism can become merely a form of posturing in a post-colonial context.

The second session, entitled “Daily life under settler-colonialism in Palestine,” was opened and moderated by Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, and also involved the participation of doctoral students Rami Salameh and Maysa Eshkirat.

In her remarks, Shalhoub-Kevorkian argued that scholars under colonialism write about their lived experiences rather than theorizing abstractly. She noted that daily Israeli policies of colonialism are structural in nature rather than isolated events, and that these policies are attempts by the settlers to demand for themselves the status of the indigenous. She added that the theorizing of daily practices of intimidation is essential in understanding the Zionist colonial situation. She also spoke about Palestinian practices of maneuvering that challenge the violence of colonialism, such as smuggling the bodies of the dead, using alternative routes to avoid checkpoints and soldiers while going to school and returning home, etc.

Rami Salameh, a doctoral student at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, highlighted colonial policies that limit and restrict Palestinian freedom of movement, force Palestinians to undergo everyday practices of maneuvering in order to pass through checkpoints, and impose different spaces of movement on different groups of Palestinians. He noted that those who have a blue Israeli ID pass through a different checkpoint from those who have West Bank IDs, even in cases where two partners or a father and his children have different IDs. He added that it is difficult to analyze this context based on literature that refers either to hegemony or to resistance, arguing that states of command and control are also productive of subjectivities. This requires a review of space in a colonial context, where the colonial project has succeeded in producing various Palestinian subjectivities, distinguishing between Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel on the basis of their ability to move from place to place, as restrictions on movement are inscribed onto the Palestinian body. He added that civil society also reproduces these colonial contradictions. In his research, Salameh is rewriting the history of colonial space through people’s stories by conducting an ethnographic study to examine and analyze how the colonized Palestinian maneuvers within this system.

The second intervention was made by Maysa Eshkirat, a doctoral student at SOAS in London. Eshkirat addressed the body and sexuality in light of daily Israeli policies of colonization. She noted that existing research does not adequately address the violence of the Zionist project – a colonial project aiming to expropriate all of historic Palestine and the Golan Heights. Eshkirat claimed that resistance to colonialism at the level of everyday life is absent from existing academic literature and argued that research should be part of the process of liberation in the Palestinian case. Eshkirat added that through her research, she aims to deconstruct or problematize the relationship between knowledge and colonialism. In the Zionist context, she noted that colonialism itself is imprinted onto the body of the Palestinian women in patriarchal terms. She ended her intervention by stating that what distinguishes Zionist colonialism from other cases of settler colonialism is that it faces strong resistance in spite of the fact that it represents the ultimate culmination of the European colonial mentality, delegitimizing the “other” and using quasi-religious justifications for its actions.

In the last session, each of the participants stated their future expectations from the workshop series, and the areas which they were interested in addressing in subsequent workshops. Participants proposed to consider the issue of indigeneity, the distinct articulations of settler colonialism in the 1967 and 1948 regions, and internal violence within the Palestinian community in the context of colonialism. Some participants also suggested inviting Jewish lecturers who oppose Zionist colonial thought.

At the end of the workshop, the group agreed to write research papers on the various issues that will be addressed in coming workshops.

The Institute for Palestine Studies and Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research Cordially invite you to attend a conference about

The 48 Palestinians and the Palestinian National Project: Role and Status

Which will be held on the 7th and 8th of November 2015 at Birzeit University, Faculty of Law, hall no. 243 from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm
and on the 9th of November 2015 a round table will be held at the Golden Crown Hotel, Nazareth, at 5:00 pm

For the conference program, click here.

For registration of attendance
please call IPS office: (02) 2989108, Mada al-Carmel: (04) 8552035
or by email to: info-ijs@palestine-studies.org or mada@mada-research.org

To confirm your attendance, please RSVP via Facebook.

On 17-18 October 2015, the Palestine Society at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) held its 10th annual conference under the title “Settlers and Citizens: A Critical View of Israeli Society.” The conference, which aimed to situate the current trend in Israeli society and state policy toward the political right within the framework of settler-colonialism, featured participation from various researchers affiliated with Mada al-Carmel.

Professor Nadim Rouhana, Mada al-Carmel’s founding director, served as the conference’s keynote speaker. His lecture, entitled “The Israeli Settler State: Zionism Between Triumph and Defeat,” differentiated between Israel’s success as a state according to various economic, military, and educational indicators and the outcome of Zionism’s settler colonial project, which as of now is not determined. He then discussed four main features of Zionism – being a settler colonial project, a national movement, a project in which religion and nationalism are fused, and a project in which the inherent violence has the ingredients of escalation to mass atrocities – and how these features impact the dynamics of Zionism’s conflict with the Palestinians.

Following the keynote speech, conference attendees took part in a series of six panels, several of which included speakers from Mada al-Carmel.

In a panel considering the relationship between the Israeli military sector and the public image of the state, Mada Director of Research Programs Dr. Mtanes Shihadeh presented a talk entitled “The Political Economy of Israeli Military and High-Tech Industry.” He focused on the diplomatic functions of the Israeli military and high-tech industries, tracing the history of the Israeli arms trade across various continents. He argued that these industries are used by Israel to influence other nations and garner international support.

In a panel dealing with the spatial policies of the Israeli state, Mada researcher Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury gave a presentation entitled “The Zionist Left, Settler-Colonial Practices and the Nakba in Marj Ibn ‘Amer, 1936-1956.” In the talk, she argued against the notion that Israeli ethnic cleansing began or ended with the 1948 Nakba, considering Jewish immigration and the expulsion of Palestinians prior to and after its occurrence. She focused on the region of Marj Ibn ‘Amer, which saw significant Zionist settlement prior to the Israeli state’s existence.

In a law-themed panel, former Mada researcher Dr. Nimer Sultany gave a lecture entitled “The Legal Structures of Subordination.” Contrary to portrayals of the Israeli legal system as a progressive force, he argued that Israeli law subordinates Palestinians and advances state colonization. However, he also proposed that the Israeli state derives legitimacy by portraying itself as operating within the “rule of law.”

Through its researchers’ contributions to academic and policy debates at institutions like SOAS, Mada al-Carmel advances its goal of generating informed and thoughtful public discussion on key issues affecting Palestinian society.

The majority of the Palestinian community in Israel, 78%, holds the Israeli government responsible for the recent outbreak of violence; 66% report that they do not feel safe after Israeli police appealed to the public to carry guns; and only a minority, 15%, feels a high sense of security regarding the future of the Palestinian community in Israel

Mada al-Carmel: Arab Center for Applied Social Research (Mada) in Haifa, conducted a public opinion survey through Stat Net Institute regarding the recent outbreak of violence to gauge Palestinian public attitudes toward Israel and to ascertain the extent to which Palestinian citizens feel safe or unsafe. The survey was conducted on October 18 and 19, 2015 with a random sample of 307 adult respondents representative of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The poll results indicate that the majority of respondents, 78%, hold the Israeli government responsible for the recent outbreak of violence. With regards to the cause of this outbreak, 26% of respondents make reference to Israel’s attempt to impose a temporal division in Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem; 24% cite lack of progress in the peace process; 17% refer to the continued Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank; while 16% attribute the violence to the free reign and support given by the Israeli government to the settler movement. 3% of respondents blame the Palestinian Authority for the outbreak in violence, and 7% feel that both parties bear responsibility.

The survey finds that recent events have led to a decline in the levels of security experienced by broad categories of Palestinians in Israel. 66% of respondents report feeling a high degree of insecurity in the wake of the appeal by the Israeli police for the Jewish Israeli public to carry guns. Only 13% of respondents say that they feel a high degree of security after this appeal, while nearly 21% report that they feel moderately safe.

In response to the question, “Do you fear the possibility of armed attacks by Jewish extremists on Arab towns as a result of the current situation?”, 43% of those surveyed report a high degree of fear of such attacks; 29% report moderate fear; while the rest, 28%, say that they fear the occurrence of such attacks either to a low degree (11%) or not at all (17%).

Regarding levels of popular support in Israeli society for calls made by politicians, government officials and police to shoot and kill the perpetrators of stabbings, a plurality of respondents (36%) say that these statements find support from the majority of Israeli society; 28% say that they are moderately accepted by Israeli society; 16% say that they find minimal support within Israeli society; and 14% say that such calls find no support within Israeli society.

A clear majority of those surveyed (70%) report avoiding Jewish towns, cities, and areas to varying degrees for fear of their safety: 39% report that they avoid being present in Jewish communities at all times, while 31% report that they sometimes avoid Jewish communities.

When asked to what extent they feel a sense of security regarding the future of the Arab community in Israel, 45% of respondents say that they feel a low sense of security or no sense of security at all, 40% report feeling a moderate sense of security, while 15% say that they feel a high sense of security.

Assessing the results of the survey, Mada Survey Research Unit Director Dr. Ameed Saabneh noted, “The results of the survey indicate that the Arab public in Israel holds the Israel government responsible for the recent events. The results also clearly indicate a sense of fear among the Arab population about violence by Israeli security services or the Jewish public, leading to an increased separation between the two communities.”