Social Revolution of Arab Women in Israel

 The status of Arab women in Israel is improving significantly. Hadas Fuchs, a researcher at the Taub Institute, published a study in 2018 on the integration of Arab women in the labor market in Israel. 

The most striking detail of her research relates to a revolution in the education of Arab women: 15% of students in higher education in Israel are Arab women, even though the proportion of Arab women among the general population is only 10%. In fact, the number of female Arab students in higher education has doubled since the beginning of 2000. 

As a result, women in Arab society are much more educated than men. Female students at Arab high schools comprise 52% of students studying computer programming and sciences, 55% in electronics, 59% in mathematics, and 70% in chemistry. The employment rate of Arab women jumped from 35% to 40% in the past year alone.

Israeli-Arab captain of women’s basketball team. 

Shahd Abboud, who plays for the Hapoel Petah Tikvah women’s basketball team in Israel, opened the 2018/19 season as their new captain, making history as the first female Arab captain of a professional Israeli basketball team in the top league. 

Bedouin woman joins Israeli police rescue unit. 

Rana Jaboua, a resident of the Bedouin Negev village of al-Fara’a has become the first female Bedouin in Israel to join the Israel Police Rescue team, Jaboua is part of a unit that helps hikers in the Judean Desert if they become lost or injured.

 Rana Jaboua

Israeli Bedouin Policewoman Blazing Trail  

Recently, Israel dedicated new police stations in the Arab villages of Jisr azZarqa and Kafr Kanna. Four days later, a short video on Facebook showed Sabrin Saadi, a young and also the first policewoman from the Bedouin village of Basmat Tabun, making her way to the Kafr Kanna station in her uniform wearing a hijab, walking past a group of Arab demonstrators. 

Saadi's father, Ali Saadi, said, "We are part of this society, so we should serve it. The people attacking her are a gang of wild kids with nothing better to do with their lives. They should go find themselves and think about what, if anything, they have actually done on behalf of their community." 

Muslim, Christian and Druze Israelis Spread Truth about Jewish State

A diverse delegation of Israelis will arrive in the US next week with the Reservists on Duty organization to expose audiences to the reality on the ground for Israelis of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.

While the number of organizations dedicated to smearing Israel’s image on American college campuses remains at an all-time high, a special group of Israelis, some of whom are IDF veterans, has taken it upon themselves to expose the lies and half-truths that pass as “facts” in the world of higher education.

This group, called Reservists on Duty (RoD), has been challenging gatherings in America to question the slanted narrative about Israeli society, which demonizes both the government and people of Israel.

Next week, RoD will send a unique group of Israelis to the US, composed of Muslim, Christian and Druze citizens.

The group, which has cleverly dubbed itself “Arabs Breaking the Silence,” “want to talk about their personal experience in Israel. … to refute the claims that BDS organizations are spreading against us,” said the group’s spokesman, Jonathan Elkhoury. “They use us, Israel’s minorities, to slander Israel and say that it is racist and discriminates against its minorities, and we will say otherwise,” Elkhoury explained.

Elkhoury, an Israeli Christian who was born in Lebanon, is no stranger to real discrimination and hate. On a previous trip to the US with RoD in May, the man was subjected to verbal abuse from anti-Israel demonstrators at the University of California-Irvine which became so severe that the police were required to escort the speakers from the facility.

Hate-filled demonstrations such as these have not phased RoD speakers. In 2017 alone, 50 volunteers traveled to over 15 campuses throughout America “to educate and give truth to the lies BDS activists spread about the IDF and State of Israel,” explains RoD’s website. During these activities, RoD groups “visited Jewish and Christian communities and forged personal connections with community leaders.”