Hilo: another chance to become first Palestinian female member of Knesset
Israel, Politics, 7/31/1998

Editor's Note: In this story, the term Arab -Israelis is used to refer to Israeli citizens who are ethnic Palestinians for the most part and Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel from such Arab countries.

"I read his remarks and I had tears in my eyes," said Nadia Hilo of Jaffa as she commented on the controversial statements by the Israeli ex-general Uri Orr. Orr had all his Labor Party activities suspended by party chairman Ehud Barak following remarks he made against Sephardi Jews.

Others within the party called for his resignation. Hilo, the 44 year old Arab -Israeli woman from Jaffa, comes next after Orr on the Labor party electoral list of the last elections in May 1996. Should Orr leave the Knesset or be forced out, Hilo will become the first Arab -Israeli woman to become a member of Israel's parliament.

Hilo, however, is not happy at all with the circumstances that would bring her into the Knesset. "I wouldn't like to enter the Knesset in such circumstances and against a background of racist statements which we, the (Arab -Israelis) living in Israel, have become victims of their kind," she said. But she committed herself to act, once she becomes member of the Knesset, to mobilize all Arab -Israeli members of the Israeli parliament in a unified Arab -Israeli bloc that would act to promote demands and rights of the Arab -Israelis in Israel.

"Equality for (Arab -Israelis) is one side of the coin of my parliamentary struggle," she said, "while the other one is to achieve equality for (Arab -Israelis) women as well in a society that not only oppresses (Arab -Israelis) from a national point of view but also suppresses women on social backgrounds."

"I myself come from a group which suffers from this sort of attitude by some of the public. I admire MK Orr as a person, and I was therefore surprised at his comments. It's time we found the ties that bind the different communities in the population, " she said.

Hilo, a Palestinian Christian, grew up in the famous neighborhood of Ajami in Jaffa. Married with four daughters, Hilo has a Master's degree in social work from Tel Aviv University. She wrote her thesis on the effect of family, friends and environment on juvenile crimes in Jaffa. Hilo participated in the Labor primaries for the first time in 1996 and received 30,059 votes that gave her the 37th place of the Labor list which ran for the 1996 elections under Shimon Peres.

Immediately after the Orr affair broke out, Hilo became again the main talk of Jaffa Palestinians who saw in her another chance to bring their hardships to the heart of Israel's legislative council. "She is known as an active, dynamic and diligent woman and there is no doubt that she will concentrate on the issues that she knows such as education and welfare," said Nissim Shukeir, the Arab -Israeli member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council. For Shukeir, Hilo would serve as a strong backup to bring to the attention of the Israeli authorities an endless list of problems faced by Arab -Israelis in Jaffa in particular and all the Palestinians in Israel in general.

Apart from education and welfare, organized crime has become a dangerous factor that has ruined the lives of dozens of Arab -Israeli families living in Jaffa, a hotbed of Palestinian and Jewish drug dealers who found in the town's poverty and lack of government care a fertile land for their activities. Municipal services for Palestinian towns and villages in Israel are much below the standard of services allotted for Jewish towns and settlements. Therefore, it is not hard to differentiate at all between the standard of living among Palestinians and Jews in Israel. Though some nice buildings may appear here and there in Palestinian towns and villages, the poverty rate among Palestinians remains as twice as it is among Jews.

A Palestinian researcher, Amin Fares, who authored a study on the status of Arab -Israelis in Israel, noted that poverty among Arab -Israelis has become an inevitable result of racial discrimination against them in Israel. Fares, holder of a master's degree in economics from the Hebrew University in West Jerusalem, blamed this fact on the failure of government offices and departments to pay enough attention to problems of the Arab -Israeli sector in Israel.

According to Fares, the real problem that Arab -Israelis in Israel face stems from the fact that they form a national minority in a country with a Jewish majority. He said that all Arab -Israeli ad-hoc committees and action groups had been formed to tackle a variety of issues, but none of them addressed the economic crisis the Arab -Israelis face though this is the most detrimental problem they face.

Hilo, for her part, believes that once she becomes a Knesset member, a new platform will be made available for her to promote those issues. Affiliates of Hilo said she is a woman with a steel will, and she would do best if she carries out her fight for Arab -Israeli equality through the Knesset.

Another issue that might occupy Hilo as soon as she enters the Knesset is the lack of appropriate government funding for Arab -Israeli local and municipal councils. In cities like Nazareth, public servants have not been paid their salaries for two months and their municipality keeps demanding that government funds for the council be paid on time.

With the absence of a decent governmental system that would look after the Arab -Israeli local councils, said Hilo, it is extremely difficult to solve those issues, certainly not when civil servants report to their work every day but do not get paid on time at the end of every month.

Previous Stories:
  Israel has new scheme for Palestinian territories   (7/29/1998)
  Syria: Knesset's decision considered an announcement of war   (7/25/1998)
  US Jewish organization exposes East Jerusalem settler funding   (7/22/1998)

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