Israeli-Arab youths have more on their minds than politics

These days Israeli Arabs are more interested in what to eat and where to shop than the latest developments out of The Hague.

Like Israeli Jews they’ve soured on the “peace process” and are focused on making a living and getting ahead.

That even applies to their support for armed conflict according to Marwa Atamna an Arab journalist based in Nazareth who writes for the local Hadith Al-Nas newspaper.

“The Arab public in Israel does not accept nor support any form of violent struggle such as that occurred during recent violence” Atamna said.

That sentiment is borne out in polling: a 2014 survey found that 68% of Israeli Arabs oppose terror attacks and 77% reported they prefer to live under Israeli rule than Palestinian.

To be sure Israeli Arabs are still invested in their national aspirations but they now view the Israel-Palestinian conflict in terms of a political and diplomatic struggle not as a violent jihad to be joined. It isn’t that Israeli Arabs have become Zionists but most have become realistic realizing thatIsraelis now too powerful to be destroyed.

Lutfi Isa a longtime Israeli Arab journalist who runs a local website in the city of Kfar Kassem east of Tel Aviv said that the Israeli Arab public does not view the conflict as it did 20 years ago when emotions ran high. “Today Arabs have become complacent ” he says “and are more concerned about local issues and making a living.”

A look at the most popular websites in the Israeli Arab world speaks volumes says Hillel Frisch an expert on Palestinian and Israeli Arab politics at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

The number one and two sites are Panorama (Panet) and al-Sinara (sonara.net) both general interest sites that feature news along with stories about pop culture and the best gadgets to buy.

“Ten years ago the headlines were all about local politics Palestinians and discrimination” Frisch said. “These themes have hardly disappeared but today they are buried deep in small print on the sites behind the features and videos of Turkish and Arab melodrama advertisements where to travel how to eat healthily and raise children and of course sports  — Israeli soccer and even more European.

“And even when you finally get to current affairs the issues you find in the Israeli Arab press are more about driving accidents in the Arab sector shootings at weddings and town-politics squabbles rather than the volatile Middle East ” added Frisch.

Hillel Frisch: “The issues you find in the Israeli Arab press are more about driving accidents in the Arab sector shootings at weddings and town-politics squabbles rather than the volatile Middle East”

However Frisch noted that the attitude of Israeli Arabs is far different from that of Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria.

In the most recent terror wave for instance four Israeli Arabs carried out attacks compared to 300 from Jerusalem and Yesha.

Israeli Arabs you may meet will often talk about their recent or next planned trip abroad or may emphasize the fact that they work with Jews but it certainly seems they are too busy to let the “peace process” get in the way.