Arab official faces identity crisis

By Mohammed Ass'adi

JERUSALEM (Reuters): The highest ranking Arab official in any Israeli government, Deputy Foreign Minister Nawaf Masalha is torn between his Palestinian identity and Israeli citizenship.

The 56-year-old member of Prime Minister Ehud Barak's left- center Labor Party drew criticism from Arabs and Jews alike when he took the job in the Labor-led government which Barak formed last July.

"Masalha is in a dilemma between his Palestinianism and his contradictory Israelism," said Palestinian political analyst Ghassan al-Khatib.

But like the shifting sands of the Middle East, sentiments change with the political climate of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, Masalha said. "Sometimes the feeling is complimentary and sometimes it is contradictory."

Many of the Arabs who make up more than 20 percent of Israel's six million population have accused Masalha of joining an establishment they say treats them like second-class citizens and subjects them to racism.

"How can you be in a government that you originally opposed for its discriminatory policies against Arabs?" asked Azmi Bishara, an Israeli Arab who last year became the first non-Jew to campaign for the prime minister's job.

"This appointment is meant to beautify the face of Israel and its foreign policy," said Bishara, who withdrew his candidacy on a promise that Barak would act to rectify historical injustices against Arab citizens.

Some analysts say Masalha is fighting a futile battle trying actively to change Israeli policy while at the same time representing it abroad, especially with Arab countries.

Masalha views his role as "a bridge for genuine peace", ensuring the passage of nationwide public votes Barak has promised on the peace accords the prime minister intends to forge with both the Palestinians and Syria.

Masalha, from Kufr Qara in Galilee, represents an Arab constituency that has long complained of under-representation in government institutions and of being short changed when it comes to health, education and other government services.

Arab citizens of Israel, once isolated from the rest of the Arab world, have been fired up by contacts with Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Israel captured the areas in the 1967 Middle East War.

Israeli political analyst Menachem Klein said Barak was forced to take Masalha, a former Labor Party deputy health minister, into the government in response to an outcry for representation from Israeli Arabs.

But Klein said: "It's a symbolic act that means absolutely nothing." As the prime minister makes most foreign policy decisions anyway, Masalha and Foreign Minister David Levy had been rendered largely irrelevant, Klein added.

He called the foreign ministry an "unimportant ministry" and said, "This is why Masalha is in that position...

"Masalha has to express the official policy of his government and at the same time he has to meet the needs of his constituency. This is contradictory," Klein said.

Levy's media adviser Odelia Karmon said that despite historical tensions between the foreign ministry and prime minister's office, "in this government the relationship is good". Masalha had his "own independent agenda," she said.

Born in 1943, five years before Israel's creation, Masalha insists he is a Palestinian Arab whose family resisted threats and enticement to abandon his home in Israel's Galilee during the battles at the time of Israel's creation.

A teacher by profession, Masalha said he would not be part of any Israeli delegation to peace talks with Arabs. He is critical of Israel whenever it is party to a peacemaking deadlock.

"I cannot be the person to tell Palestinians, 'You have no right in Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees have no right in the land'," Masalha said between sips of coffee in his office at the Knesset, Israel's parliament in which he holds a seat.

His idol is the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of Arab nationalism who overthrew Egypt's monarchy in a 1952 coup. In his younger days, Nasser fought against Israel. Masalha keeps a portrait of him in his house.

"It may be easier for me to represent Palestinians, or for a Jew to represent Israelis, but we (Palestinians) are a part, not a parcel, of the Arab nation," Masalha said.

After five wars with Arab neighbors, Israelis remain reluctant to place Arabs in political positions where they can have much of a say on sensitive security issues. But that does not deter Masalha.

"There should be Arab ministers representing their people," he said.