Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Changing Public Sphere of Palestinian Israelis

Abstract

According to some researchers, particularly political economists, cyberspace serves to reproduce the political and social relations of capitalism and while we may very well be moving towards a postindustrial phase, the balance of power remains and will continue to remain the same (Kitchin, 1998). In the past I have shown that the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) may serve as a catalyst in advancing social, cultural and political change, as well as enhancing the public sphere (Dahan 1999, 2000, 2001; Dahan & Sheffer, 2001). While CMC and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had positive catalytic affects among the majority Jewish population of Israel, there have been distinct changes in the use of CMC and ICTs among the Palestinian Israeli¹ minority in Israel which serve to maintain the existing political and social disenfranchisement of this group within the larger Israeli society. In addition, this paper discusses the resulting creation of a regional public sphere, beyond the boundaries of the Israeli State, in part as a result of the violent conflict of the past two years. This regional public sphere, unique to Palestinian Israelis, serves to further distance the Palestinian Israeli minority from mainstream discourse and influence within Israel.

Introduction

Political economists suggest, unlike technological determinists, that technologies are not separate from society. They suggest that the relationship between technology and society is bound within capitalist modes of production and the associated political economic and social relations that underlie capitalism. For the political economist, cyberspace's relation to everyday life cannot be understood without considering these broader relations and dynamics of capitalism of advanced industrial society (Graham & Marvin, 1996). In general, the arguments claim that capitalism is still a dominant shaper of today's society, that cyberspace and technology will help to reproduce the political and social relations of capitalism, and as a result the balance of power within a given society will continue to remain the same (Kitchin, 1998). In the context of this paper, this means that while cyberspatial technologies and ICTs have a liberating and empowering potential, political and social hegemony often prevent this from occurring, and in essence replicate and reinforce existing inequalities between the Jewish Israeli majority and the Palestinian Israeli minority in Israel. This is apparent with both CMC and ICTs in Israel. Social power is thus seen by political economists as a relation between individuals and groups seeking to control either the production of material reality, or the reproduction of the current social order. Power materializes, as a political economy of a given mode of accumulation, in decisions over what is produced, how it is produced through a division of labor, and how production is distributed and accumulated (see Cox, 1987, pp. 11-15; Stewart, 1978, pp. 110-111; Touraine, 1976). Within the Israeli context, CMC and ICTs have contributed to the reproduction of the current social order and balance of power between Israeli Jews and Palestinians Israelis, rather than challenging that relationship. In earlier research I have shown the positive potential of CMC use in Israel for the majority Jewish population, and among organizations of civil society (Dahan 1999, 2000, 2001) - yet this potential has not been realized by the disenfranchised Palestinian Israeli population.

Two events have contributed to this lack of empowerment. The first is the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 and the second is the crash of the so called "dot coms" and technology startups in Israel and the world during the course of 2002. Both incidents have had a negative affect on technological appropriation by Palestinian Israelis. The Intifada and the deaths of 13 Palestinian Israelis shot by police during demonstrations within Israel in October 2000 have served to widen the existing social and political cleavage between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority in Israel, particularly among the Jewish Israeli public and their attitudes towards Palestinian Israelis.²

Palestinian Israelis, CMC and ICTs

Israeli author David Grossman described Palestinian Israelis in his book from 1992 as "Present Absentees" [Nokhakim Nifkadim] in terms of their political and social power. They are present, while at the same time absent, or unfelt. This is also a fair description of the situation in terms of the use and appropriation of communication technologies by Palestinian Israelis. An observer cannot ignore the fact that there is almost no expression whatsoever of local Palestinian Israeli culture on the Internet, in spite of the fact that their identity, while tied to that of the Palestinians living under occupation in the Territories, is distinctly different. The issues that are on the agenda of Palestinian Israelis-whether social, cultural, or political-are unique to them. As such, one would expect a public sphere that serves as an arena for the deliberation of those issues. One would expect a vibrant public sphere within the framework of traditional media and the "new media". Yet, while there are a large number of Hebrew language Internet portals serving the Jewish population, there are absolutely no Arabic language portals created by and serving the Palestinian Israeli minority, and there are scarcely any content-rich sites that deal with the unique issues related to the Palestinian Israeli social and political agenda that are produced locally. Today, an increasing number of young Palestinian Israelis tend to use Hebrew language sites and portals as a result of this vacuum (Goldberg, Ha'aretz, Feb. 19, 2002). This vacuum was recognized by the popular Hebrew language newspaper Yediot Ahronot, which inaugurated an Arabic language website (http://www.arabynet.com) based on translations of articles from the sister Hebrew language site (http://www.ynet.co.il). Yet this in and of itself is somewhat problematic. The language used is a direct translation of Hebrew terms rather than the acceptable terms used by Arabic-language Israeli newspapers. For example, the term for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Arabic is generally "the army of occupation," while the Yediot site uses a direct translation of the Hebrew term, Israeli Defense Forces. In the local Arabic press, attacks against Israelis are often described as "actions," while the Arabic version of Yediot uses the term "terrorist attacks." The perspectives portrayed by original content on the site are those of the Israeli Jewish public, and less so that of the Palestinian Israeli public. This is most notable in the lack of a "forum" option on the Arabic language site: by contrast, a very active, popular and vibrant forum exists on the Hebrew language site at the end of every article. When the author raised these issues with one of the people responsible for creating the Arabic language site, Guy Bechor, a Jewish Israeli academic and Middle East expert, he noted in private conversation that the site is directed towards Arabs outside of Israel rather than the local Palestinian Israeli population. Bechor further stated that one of the driving factors in creating this site was to provide an Israeli perspective of the news in Arabic, and not necessarily to provide local content for the local population. Yon Feder, the director of the Yediot site in Arabic echoes this: "The original idea was to direct this site to Arabs outside Israel, to surfers in the Arab world, to better represent the Israeli position" (Goldberg, 2002). Many Palestinian Israelis thus see this site as an attempt to shape events with a purely Israeli Jewish perspective, particularly in relation to the conflict. As such, it is often seen as propaganda, a point that will be addressed later.

This sense of a "constructed" reality among Palestinian Israelis has been exacerbated by the events of the past two years. It has been noted that the Israeli media-both print and broadcast-have neglected a critical and objective view of events and have adopted a government-oriented position. The media play a dominant role in the construction of opinions and the understanding of any conflict. It is on the basis of these constructs that public opinion is formed. In Israel, in part due the sheer complexity of many of the issues facing the public, senior reporters and analysts³ who appear in the media serve as a sort of "lighthouse" directing the viewers to safe shores (Meital, 2002). Many Palestinian Israelis see reports in the Israeli media as one-sided and unrepresentative of reality, reflecting primarily the views of the political and military establishment. This has served to further distance Palestinian Israelis from the Israeli press and TV news in general.

Two weekly Palestinian Israeli newspapers have websites that are rather limited in content, Kul Al Arab (http://www.kul-alarab.com/) and Al-Sennara, while the only daily paper printed in Arabic, Al Itihhad, does not have an online version at all. One will also note that these Arabic language sites end with the generic American domain ".com," rather that the Israeli business domain ".co.il." In a region where everything is political, this is not an oversight. Palestinian Israelis who prefer to read the daily news and updates in Arabic are forced to turn to the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds (http://www.alquds.com) and Al Ayyam (http://www.al-ayyam.com) which are identified with the Palestinian authority, or the most popular Arabic language website among Palestinian Israelis, Al Jazeera (http://www.aljazeera.com) operated by the satellite TV station of the same name. To this one may add the London-based independent paper Al Hayat (http://www.alhayat.com) that is widely read throughout the Middle East. As such, the local public sphere of Palestinian Israelis is dominated by non-local or non-localized news services and commentary mediated by the Internet.

Not only is there a dearth of unique websites that provide a forum for Palestinian Israelis' views, opinions and discussion, in the current fora in fact serve to minimize and restrict genuine discourse and dialogue. This can be seen in two examples. First, the structure and content of the Yediot website is one that could be viewed as an attempt at cultural and political domination. This pattern is similar to the use of satellite discussed below as a second example.

The Yediot website and Internet use among Palestinian Israelis

Due to the current lack of indigenous Palestinian Israeli websites, it is difficult to judge the future in terms of the possibilities for empowerment and local appropriation of CMC. Lacking sites with local content, Palestinian Israelis are often funneled to Hebrew-language websites, or to regional Arabic sites that do not necessarily address issues particularly relevant to Palestinian Israelis. In terms of the popularity of websites outside Israel, the Al Jazeera website is the most popular by far, followed by Arabic language regional portals like Al Bawaba, Ajeeb, and Maktoob. It is interesting to note that beyond email, the most widely used Internet application is chat, and this is mirrored by the popularity of SMS via cell phone. (Israel has one of the highest penetration levels of cell phone use: 85% of the population have at least one cell phone.) While the diffusion of PCs is relatively low among Palestinian Israelis, cellular penetration is roughly equivalent to that of the Jewish population.

Demographics provide a partial explanation for the low levels of Internet use by Palestinian Israelis. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (http://www.cbs.gov.il/menu-e.htm) reports that there are 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, making up 19% of the population. While it is estimated that there are close to 1.5 million Israelis who make regular use of the Internet (out of a total population of 6.5 million), it is estimated that only 200,000 Palestinian Israelis use the Internet, that is, less than half in comparison to the general population. Moreover, while 92% of the Jewish population who use the Internet are connected from home, it is estimated that only 25,000 Palestinian Israeli households are connected to the Internet. While these statistics partially explain the lack of local content sites among Palestinian Israelis (that is, it could be claimed that there are not enough "customers" to justify the investment in content-rich sites), it pales in comparison to the number of local sites and people who use the Internet among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. This is significant in that while the Palestinians in the Territories are on a significantly lower socio-economic scale then Israeli Palestinians, there is greater and more diversified use of the Internet in the Territories, whether it is simply surfing or the sheer number of sites that exist. In fact, the only sector to show any growth whatsoever during the last two years of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are Internet Service Providers in the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority controlled areas, with an estimated 50% growth over the past two years. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, it is estimated that there are at least 60,000 subscribers and at least 100,000 users⁴ among a population of 3.5 million in the territories. In essence there are more Israeli Palestinians who make use of the Net, yet there is much less local content in comparison to what is available for Palestinians in the Territories. A fuller explanation would take into account the lack of investment by the Israeli government in infrastructure, particularly in the schools, which are severely underfunded in comparison to the Jewish sector, particularly in terms of computers in the classroom, as well as the lack of Internet cafes in Palestinian Israeli areas in comparison to the Territories and in comparison to the explosive growth of Internet cafes in many of the countries in the Arab world. These Internet cafes function as "public" access sites in the Arab world. The lack of funding for necessary infrastructures in schools and training for teachers serves to accent the discrimination that is inherent to the structure of Israeli society.

Satellite TV and the absence of a Palestinian public sphere

This first example of the lack of a truly local public sphere in terms of the Internet is reflected by other ICTs, particularly satellite TV (as my second example). Satellite television is extremely popular and widespread in the Middle East. The most popular stations are Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, Al Mostakabal, based in Lebanon, Al Manar the Hizbullah station, also based in Lebanon, and MBC, based in London. Of these, the most popular is Al Jazeera, due to its relatively open and balanced reporting of news and opinions in the Middle East. In the past months Israel and the Israeli Broadcast Authority (IBA - the public broadcasting authority, similar in structure to the BBC) inaugurated its own Arabic language satellite channel, while at the same time there have been calls on the part of Israeli politicians to prevent the broadcasting of Al Jazeera in Israel. The declared intention of the IBA channel is to compete with other Arabic-language satellite stations in the region. The managing director of the channel is also the general manager of the IBA and the former head of the Arabic broadcasts of Israeli public television, Yossef Barel. As head of the IBA, he has been quoted widely as saying that he will do "whatever Ariel Sharon tells him to do." A number of Palestinian Israeli academics who were initially involved in establishing the channel, in the hopes that it would serve the needs of Palestinian Israelis, resigned one after another as they realized that there was no real intention to do so. Instead, they felt that they were involved in an attempt to establish a channel that would serve essentially as a platform for Israeli government propaganda. There was no attempt to create original programming. In the words of Salem Jubran, who resigned from the IBA over these very issues:

The IBA is an excellent example of paternalism towards the Arab population. The broadcasts in Arabic reflect the attitudes of the security services and not those of the Palestinian Israeli public. Palestinian Israelis do not watch these broadcasts. (Abiri, 2002)

Camellia Suleiman, who was also involved and later resigned, expressed similar feelings:

The channel ignores the needs of Palestinian Israelis and is an attempt to force patterns of thought. I initially saw the channel as a bridge between Jews and Arabs. The channel should have been a way for Jews and Arabs to work together. As it stands, the channel will not compete with the other satellite channels. (Abiri, 2002)

Arab members of the Israeli parliament also reflect this attitude: they prefer to be interviewed on Al Jazeera rather than on Israeli TV, knowing that their constituency is consuming those channels rather than the local ones.

Palestinian Israelis thus see both the public broadcasting in Arabic and the new satellite channel as forms or expressions of political and social dominance. Rather than make use of ICTs to bridge gaps, the paradigm used is one that ignores the needs of Palestinian Israelis and tends to enforce the existing political and social hegemony.

From local to regional public spheres: unrealized potentials and dark futures?

Lacking a locally relevant public sphere, both in terms of broadcast TV and in terms of CMC, many Palestinian Israelis, preferring to communicate in Arabic, have been forced into a regional public sphere at the expense of a local one. This phenomenon is unique to Palestinian Israelis. Participation in a regional as opposed to a local public sphere carries a heavy price: the issues on the agenda of a regional public sphere tend to ignore the unique and pertinent political and social issues specifically relevant to Palestinian Israelis. Thus, Palestinians Israelis lack a vibrant local public sphere that supports deliberation and discourse of the issues relevant to them. One would expect that this vacuum would be filled by the use of CMC, considering the high hopes expressed by commentators and researchers, including this researcher, regarding the function of the Internet as an alternative or additional public sphere. Yet the picture that emerges when looking at Internet usage in the Palestinian Israeli context is bleak: the potential of the Internet in supporting the public sphere and empowerment has yet to be realized by Palestinian Israelis. Thus the political and cultural hegemony of the Jewish majority in Israel is maintained in spite of the democratic potential of CMC and ICTs. In this sense it is important to stress that realizing the potential for empowerment vis a vis CMC and ICTs is dependent on the political, social, and, at times. cultural contexts. While there is still potential for such empowerment, particularly in terms of CMC, this potential has yet to be realized, and if the case of the Yediot Arabic language website is representative, then the future does not seem particularly bright.

Conclusions

Palestinian Israelis indeed find themselves between a rock and a hard place: discrimination within Israeli society towards them has been echoed in the framework of CMC and ICTs. Lack of infrastructure, training and investment in IT in the Arab sector in Israel, compared to a relatively high investment in the Jewish sector, has resulted in a low level of Internet use and appropriation by Palestinian Israelis. Thus the Internet today does not serve as an alternative public sphere for Palestinian Israelis. Further research is necessary, particularly research regarding the use of chat and other synchronous applications that are popular among Palestinian Israelis, such as SMS messaging, yet these do not offer the same potential as other applications, particularly in terms of empowerment. In addition, research is needed that maps actual Internet usage among Palestinian Israelis, as well as attitudes towards the Internet. Further comparative research is needed in order to identify clearly the factors that promote empowerment within diverse social and political contexts. While Internet use does at least offer some potential for empowerment in the future, this is not the case with satellite TV, where the patterns of paternalism and hegemony are blatantly apparent, reflecting the current social order rather than challenging it, while failing to support a local public sphere. Earlier research findings show evidence of empowerment and support of a public sphere among the dominant Jewish sector, yet this does not contradict the theoretical framework developed here. Rather, it is often the dominant sectors that benefit from technological appropriation. In the case of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, there is ample evidence of empowerment, yet for Palestinian Israelis, communication technologies serve to maintain their political and social disenfranchisement. The injection of Palestinian Israelis into a regional rather than local public sphere further distances them from Israeli society and does not bode well for the future.

Notes

1. There are three primary terms that refer to Arabs in Israel holding Israeli citizenship. The first, "Israeli Arabs," is a generic term preferred by the political and social leadership in Israel. Israeli Palestinians reject this as a term that they feel denies their relationship to the wider Palestinian population. They prefer the term "Palestinian Israelis". This signifies two components of their identity, on the one hand proud Palestinians, while on the other Israeli citizens. Arabs outside of Israel tend to use the term "1948 Arabs" when referring to Palestinian Israelis, often in a derogatory context.
2. This cleavage is, unfortunately, but one of many in Israel, which is frequently described as a multi-cleavage society. That is, Israel is a highly fragmented society with cleavages dividing the religious and secular, Ashkenazi (of European background) and Sepharadi (of Arab background) Jews, along political lines (left vs. right) and finally, Jews and Arabs. These cleavages are in turn often multi-dimensional as well.
3. In Israel, many of the analysts of "Arab affairs" are connected in one way or another to the military or to the intelligence establishment. Much of the information and analysis can be traced directly back to the military. Meital (2002) notes that they are thus responsible for the introduction and construction of opinions on the basis of reports and information released by senior military officials and the security establishment. These reports are often offered as objective opinion. Rather than open these assessments to public debate, they are presented as is, a given "fact" not to be challenged. As a result, the analysis serves to strengthen establishment positions, and in the case of the current conflict to maintain the status quo.
4. It is particularly difficult to measure Internet use in the region. Due to economic factors, there are many more users than actual subscribers. In many cases accounts serve more than one person. These figures do not relate to use in the universities and cyber caf�s within the Territories; thus, the number is likely to be slightly higher.

References

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About the Author

Michael Dahan is a Lecturer at the department of Comparative Media, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and the School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center in Hertzelia. He is a cofounder of the Middle East Virtual Community (MEViC), and writes extensively on political issues in Israel. His research focuses on political and social aspects of computer-mediated communication with a particular emphasis on civil society. His current focus is on the use of ICTs in the Middle East. He has a number of recent publications in the field.
Address: Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Media, PO Box 653, Beer Sheva, Israel 84105. Ph. +972 8 6477211; Fax: +972 8 6472855.

JCMC 8 (2) January 2003

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