In addition to high-ranking officials from government ministries, there were also senior representatives from the Union of Local Authorities, Shatil, the Altufula Center, Mossawa, Women Against Violence, the Monitoring Committee for Arab Education, the Forum of Directors of Welfare Bureaus, the Association of Arab Psychologists, the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, Kol Haoved, the Abraham Fund Initiatives, the Council of Arab Local Authorities, and Shira Herzog from the Kahanoff Foundation.
Prior to the conference, Sikkuy worked on two levels: vis-a-vis the Prime Minister's Office and vis-a-vis the Mayors' Committee.
Vis-a-vis the Mayors' Committee, representatives of Sikkuy (Ali Haider and Ayman Odeh) played a central role during the war in organizing the institutions of Arab society to make services accessible to residents during and after the war. This further strengthened the trust of the Mayors' Committee in Sikkuy.
Vis-a-vis the Prime Minister's Office, in recent months Sikkuy (Shuli Dichter, Ayman Odeh and Rachela Yanay) intensified its lobbying for an equal allocation of resources for post-war development in the Galilee. The actions in recent months were the climax of several years of efforts directed at the National Security Council as the Prime Minister's Office's staff organization for policy planning related to Arab citizens. These efforts included a great many meetings, exchange of documents and, in particular - pressure to change the policy of discrimination. In June 2006, the function of policy planning related to the Arab community made a welcome move from the NSC to the prime minister's office and Udi Praver, the head of this department In P.M. office, has led the move on the government's part.
The activity in those two tracks developed to the point that Sikkuy proposed bringing the two parties together immediately after the ceasefire in order to ensure a fair and equal distribution of state resources (NIS 4.26 billion) earmarked for developing the Galilee after the war.
About a third of this sum comes from the Jewish people (overseas), and this source is traditionally allocated to Jews only. At the conference, the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office promised that the government would take responsibility for equal distribution of the resources from this source too. It should be noted that during the past two years, Sikkuy has also been very active in raising awareness among world Jewry about the issue of discrimination in Israel.
The objectives of the conference:
1. To present the government's plans and deployment for repairing the war damage in the Arab local authorities.
2. To ensure fair and equal distribution of state resources allocated in the wake of the war.
3. To make the special resources more accessible to the Arab local authorities and Arab public.
4. To establish an unmediated connection between senior officials in government ministries and the heads of Arab local authorities in the Haifa and northern region.
5. To present the demands and needs of the Arab authorities, to identify ways of responding to them and to expedite treatment of these needs and demands.
The conference program:
First session: Meeting of Arab mayors with a representative of the Property Tax Authority, moderated by Sheikh Hashem Abd al Rahman, mayor of Umm al Fahm
Second session: The meeting with the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, Ra'anan Dinur and representatives of the other ministries
This session was introduced and moderated by Ali Haider, the co-executive director of Sikkuy. Shawki Khatib, the chairman of the National Committee for the Arab Local Authorities, began by describing the situation in the Arab local authorities and listing their immediate needs. Mr. Khatib said: "No one belittles the sums and the intentions of the government to invest, but it must be understood that the local authorities are on the verge of total collapse. There is a need to channel a sum of money immediately, as a vital infusion to rescue them." Later, the mayor of Nazareth spoke, followed by Prof. Yitzhak Galnoor, co-chairman of Sikkuy, who emphasized the importance of dialog between the leadership of the Arab public and government officials. He said nothing can succeed without this dialog and also stressed the importance of keeping commitments because the Arab public has already heard many promises, including from prime ministers - promises that were not fulfilled.
Next, the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, Mr. Ra'anan Dinur, presented the government's plans in each of the government ministries, and said that NIS 4.26 billion would be distributed during the coming year. Dinur asked the Arab mayors to present their priorities to the government because local leaders are the only ones who know these priorities. Dinur added that the government is mobilizing additional funds from the Jewish people and will also allocate some of this money to Arab authorities. According to Dinur's remarks, which were prominently quoted in the media, the budgets for Haifa and the north for the coming year will be divided into thirds - a third for the Jews, a third for the Arabs, and a third for major infrastructure projects. The responsibility for carrying out the development and budget allocations will be assigned to Vice Premier Shimon Peres's Office (the Ministry of the Negev and Galilee).
After the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, the following officials presented the plans of their respective ministries: Mr. Shmuel Abuav, director-general of the Education Ministry; Mr. Moshe Sion, director-general of the Ministry of Social Welfare; Mr. Haim Poliakov, deputy director-general of the Housing and Construction Ministry; Mr. Udi Shental, deputy director-general of the Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry; and Mr. Yossi Rousso, from the Vice Premier's Office for the Development of the Negev and Galilee.
At the end of the meeting, attorney Ali Haider turned to the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office and asked him to make a commitment to return in six months to meet again with the same mayors, report on progress in implementation and hear their views. The director-general of the Prime Minister's Office acceded to this request to come to another conference of the same forum.
Media coverage:
The conference received extensive coverage in the Hebrew and Arabic media, in both electronic and print media: Channel 1, Israel Television in Arabic, the HOT channel in Arabic and Hebrew, the Voice of Israel in Arabic, All for Peace radio, Haaretz, Ynet, NRG, Kul al-Arab, Panorama, Hadith, al-Nas, al-Badr, al-Shams radio and other media.
Initial insights and conclusions following the conference:
1. This was the first time that several directors-general of government ministries have jointly come to the offices of the National Committee for the Arab Local Authorities and met directly with the mayors and listened to their needs. It was a public and professional work meeting and not a political meeting where empty declarations are made.
2. It was the first time in which the guiding principle for allocating government resources was explicitly defined as equality between Jews and Arabs, in accordance with their percentage of the population. And even affirmative action was taken into consideration. (In the north, 40% of the population is Arab and the development budget within the communities is divided fifty-fifty, with the rest for major infrastructure.)
3. In the dispute between the development approach (development of Arab communities in relation to themselves) and the equality approach (development of Arab communities in relation to their Jewish neighbors), there was considerable progress in the direction of the equality approach. The director-general of the Prime Minister's Office accepted this principle emphasizing it in the allocation of the development budget. Accordingly, the principle of equality conspicuously appeared in the presentations of other government ministries.
4. We found out again that it is very important to establish a direct connection with senior officials, who remain in their positions for a long time (as opposed to ministers who change places quite often). These officials have the practical power to make decisions and allocate budgets. On the government side, this process was led by Udi Praver, who worked in the framework of the National Security Council and recently moved to the Prime Minister's Office. We have maintained a steady and regular connection with him for about three years. We also have ongoing contacts with Udi Shental and Uri Keidar (Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment), Uzi Shamir (Housing Ministry) and other conference participants.
5. Bringing together government representatives and the National Committee for the Arab Local Authorities at the Sikkuy conference boosted the organization's reputation with both sides and enables Sikkuy to pursue its advocacy activities more effectively than ever. Sikkuy is now preparing a plan to enhance advocacy activity vis-?-vis the various ministries after the conference. This plan for 2007 will be presented soon and will include a proposal for a new framework for activities.
6. The commitment of the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office to return in six months and give an accounting and to conduct smaller work groups is a positive and new step in the government's work.
7. The media showed interest in the conference and this presents an opportunity for Sikkuy and its efforts to help define the public agenda. This underlines the strength of Sikkuy's thinking and implementation, reflected in the serious way Sikkuy is regarded by the leaders of Arab society and senior ministry officials.
8. The conference took place six years after the "October events" and three years after publication of the Or Commission report. Therefore, it placed the Or Commission recommendations and their lack of implementation in the spotlight.
