Richard Miron (BBC): Contradictions of Israel's Arabs

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Friday February 6

Contradictions of Israel's Arabs
By Richard Miron
BBC Correspondent in Israel

Zaki Agbarya is a man used to living with contradictions: he is an Israeli citizen but describes himself as a Palestinian Muslim; he is also deputy mayor of Um al-Fahm in Northern Israel, the most populous Muslim town in the Jewish State.
"It is problematic here to be Palestinian and Israeli. Sometimes it doesn't sound good in the Islamic world," he says.
Israeli Arabs are also viewed with suspicion within Israel . . . .
Eighteen per cent of Israel's population is Arab. They are the descendents of the Palestinians who remained in the country during the first Arab Israeli war of 1948 - others fled.

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