‘I am an Arab Palestinian living in Israel with a disability’: marginalisation and the limits of human rights

Abstract

This article examines Arabs with disabilities living in Israel. Centring their experiences and voices, it argues that the group’s marginalisation is predominantly shaped by the ongoing political conflict. Arabs in Israel suffer deep social and institutional marginalisation on the basis of their ethnic identity and perceived threat and opposition to the state. Arabs with disabilities are neither exempted nor alleviated from this discriminatory framework. Therefore, those services, rights, and policies which are in place are not always fully granted, revealing the deficiency of a rights-based model for advancing their cause. Strikingly, however, it is the barriers and limiting normative beliefs within the community of Arabs in Israel where discrimination is most acutely felt. Being seen only through their disability means a battle for acceptance, integration, and participation in Arab society. Again, without a significant shift in social awareness and underlying normative perceptions, a rights-based model will only go so far.

Points of interest

• This article is about Palestinian Arabs living in Israel with disabilities.

• Despite their disabilities, they face ethnic discrimination from the wider Israeli society.

• Being disabled does not alleviate any of their challenges as they are still viewed in the framework of the ongoing political conflict and seen as a threat.

• Within their own Arab communities, they also face challenges.

• Arab communities limit their aspirations either due to low expectations or a lack of implementation of available disability rights/services.

• The overarching finding of this study is that ethnic discrimination and a lack of disability awareness significantly limit the effectiveness of disability rights and policies.

Keywords:

• Israeli Arabs
• Arab Israelis
• Palestinians
• disability
• persons with disabilities
• Arabs with disability
• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Introduction

After the establishment of the modern State of Israel, Palestinian Arabs were divided into three groups (Pappe 2006). First were those who were forcefully displaced and became, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘by far one of the most protracted and largest refugee problems in the world today’ (UNHCR 2006), settling into refugee camps in neighbouring states unable to return (UNRWA 2019). Second were those who remained in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, known as Palestine or Occupied Palestinian Territory, which became a non-member state of the United Nations in late 2012. The term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory’ has been used by many commentators including the United Nations and connected organisations to refer to the geographical area which has been occupied by Israel since June 1967, namely the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Third are the few who remained in the area which became the State of Israel and gained Israeli citizenship – a mere 10% of all Palestinians at the time, amounting to approximately 160,000 persons (Ghanem and Mustafa 2018). While much international and academic attention has been given to the first two groups, until recently very little has been written about the latter (Ghanem and Mustafa 2018; Lamont et al. 2018; Pappe 2011). Yet even within this group of Arabs with Israeli citizenship, there is another sub-population that has received even further marginalisation, namely those with disabilities – the subject of this study.

Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in September 2012 (UNTC 2021) and has taken steps towards implementing disability-empowering policies, yet similar to the vast majority of other countries this remains a work in progress (CSF 2020). Studies that examine disability in Israel focus on the continuous struggles faced by Israelis with disabilities, the persistence of the medical model, and the relationship between disability and national identity, even after implementation of the CRPD (Ben-Moshe and Colligan 2007; Ostrander and Shevil 2007; Rimmerman et al. 2015; Soffer, Koreh, and Rimmerman 2017; Soffer 2020). Although Arabs are the largest minority group in Israel, few studies examine or compare their disability experiences to examine the impact of culture and geographical region (Azaiza et al. 2012, Gur, Hijazi, and Rimmerman 2020; Sarour, Jacob, and Kram 2020). Notably, these scarce studies are conducted through the eyes of social workers, teachers, or guardians, as opposed to giving voice to the effected stakeholders, Arabs with disabilities.

Most scholarship on Arabs with disabilities within this region mainly focuses on the conflict zones in Palestine, and the experiences of Arabs with disabilities as a result of state violence (Jaffee 2016; Neikrug et al. 2014; Puar 2017; Snounu 2019). This body of scholarship is part of a broader trend that appreciates the historical struggle which resulted in the CRPD while also critiquing its human-rights-centred approach. These scholars argue that the CRPD framework does not adequately consider the structural inequalities and power hierarchies embedded within and between states and societies (Connell 2011; Erevelles 2011; Ghai 2015; Kim 2017; Meekosha 2011; Soldatic 2013). Meekosha and Soldatic, for example, describe the CRPD model as too simplistic for understanding the complexity of the disability experience and applied ‘without acknowledgement of the fact that imperialism and colonialism stand as root causes of massive violations of human rights, famines, malnutritions and the ecological degradation of indigenous land and as the root cause of growing impairment’ (2011, 1394). In short, Global North priorities have eclipsed Global South priorities in the CRPD drafting and implementation (Harpur and Stein 2022).

That being said, it is unfortunate to note that even in the Global North and in contexts without deep colonial structural power imbalances, as Shakespeare (2015, 318) puts it, ‘there is a huge gap between having a Treaty [the CRPD] and achieving human rights’. One example is inclusive education, which, although part of the CRPD, has hidden contradictions and conditions (Byrne 2013) that can be exploited to exclude particularly those with intellectual disabilities, especially in a system where schools are continuously competing for higher ranking (Calderón-Almendros 2018). Or, despite being in high-income countries, limited resources due to economic crises or neo-liberal policies stifle the implementation of programmes that aim to give people with disabilities dignity and self-determination, as Biziewska and Palattiyil (2022) have shown in the case of Scotland.

Therefore, the aforementioned focus has overshadowed the everyday lived experiences of Arabs with disabilities from non-conflict causes, and also neglected those living in Israel. This in turn has inadvertently fed into a hierarchy where those disabled as a result of state violence are seen as ‘martyrs’, relatively raising their social acceptability (Khamis 2008). Likewise, international humanitarian aid and community programmes are often geared towards conflict-related and physical forms of disability in these areas (Burton, Sayrafi, and Srour 2013). This study fills a literature gap by focusing on Arabs in Israel with physical, sensory, or psychosocial disabilities not produced as a result of state violence. It centres their voices and explores their experiences both within the wider Israeli society and within Arab communities.

Terminology

A quick note on terminology seems pertinent here. As already described, Palestinian Arabs are one ethnic group with a shared history, language, and heritage. They are divided into three camps based on how they were impacted during the establishment of Israel: first, those who reside in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; second, those who reside in Israel; and third, those who were displaced. The second group, the subject of this article, are labelled and label themselves differently. Some choose the term ‘Palestinian Arabs of Israel’ or ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’ or simply ‘Palestinian’ to emphasise their Palestinian roots. Others choose ‘Arab citizens of Israel’ or ‘Israeli Arabs’ as an attempt to emphasise their demand of equal rights as Israeli citizens above all. How these identities further intersect with disability will be discussed in the following. This article uses multiple terms, ‘Arabs’ or ‘Arabs in Israel’ or ‘Palestinian Arabs’, as an attempt to represent all camps within this second group.

Background of Arabs in Israel

Israel is a panoply of multiple communities. In this mix, Arabs are the largest minority population, representing approximately 21% of the country’s population. The most important determinant in Arab–Jewish relations is the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict (Black 2017). As Peleg and Waxman put it: ‘the growing ethno-national conflict within Israel today between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs should be viewed as part of the larger conflict between Israel and the Palestinians’ (2011, 4; emphasis added). Shavit, in his multiple award-winning book describing the psychological condition of Israel, also began with its relationship with Palestinian Arabs:

For as long as I can remember, I remember fear [of the Arabs] … For as long as I can remember, I remember occupation … On the one hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is occupying another people. On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is existentially threatened. Both occupation and intimidation make the Israeli condition unique … [they] have become the two pillars of our condition. (2013, ix–xii)

Cohen and Klieman (2018, 1) describe the strong stability of Israel by having ‘peace with at least two of their immediate Arab neighbours … a robust high-tech economy … conventional military capability’ as well as ‘nuclear capability … a special relationship with the United States superpower and with world Jewry’. Despite this, the great paradox, they argue, is how Israel has one of the highest levels of ‘perceived vulnerability’ resulting in the ‘coupling in domestic discourse of “security” with almost every imaginable dimension of civilian life’ (2018, 2; emphasis in original). In short, Israel is ‘the most militarized and least secure of the world’s countries’ (2018, 2). Therefore, its relationship with its Palestinian citizens is through this prism of security and perceived threat to Israel, which acts as a justification for discrimination as well as their strict monitoring and restrictions in terms of their movement, land ownership, and political action (Ghanem and Mustafa 2018; Jamal 2018; Olesker 2014).

The vast majority of Arabs in Israel are Muslim (85%) and the remainder are Christians and Druze (MJB 2018). There are significant socio-economic gaps between Arabs and Jews. In short, Arabs are the working class for the modern, middle-class Jewish society. According to 2016 figures, 53% of Arab families live in poverty compared with 14% of Jewish families (MJB 2018). While life expectancy, infant mortality, levels of education, and employment rates have all relatively improved, they are still comparatively lower than that of the Jewish population (Kasir 2018).

Another significant sub-group within the Arab community of Israel are the Bedouins, mainly concentrated in the southern region of the Negev desert. Consisting of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, most Bedouins have undergone a process of sedentarisation (Abu Saad 2014). Approximately 75% were relocated and live in officially recognised state localities, while the remainder live in unrecognised villages thereby not receiving state services or development. Relative to other Arabs in Israel, they have higher fertility and poverty rates and lower educational attainment levels. Yet, similar to other Arabs in Israel, they are experiencing rapid changes (Koensler 2013; MJB 2017).

Therefore, Arabs and Jews despite residing in one country live distinct lives: geographically, in terms of their inclusion or segregation; and mentally in their everyday life experiences, historical memory, culture, language and traditions, and socio-economic status. Some have argued that this distinction is politically manufactured (Mendel and Ranta 2016; Klein 2014; Makdisi 2010). Although some are more optimistic about the future (Maya 2019), Smooha emphasises the role of the state in Arab-Jewish relations in Israel:

If the Jewish state does not enhance equality and integration of the Arabs and does not move forward on peace with the Palestinians, Arab attitudes will continue to harden, and both sides will suffer. (2010, 3)

Disability amongst Arabs in Israel

Most studies conclude that the rates of Arabs with disability in Israel are significantly higher than their Jewish counterparts (CSF 2020; Sandler-Loeff and Shahak 2006). One study, for example, claims that Arabs with disability account for 29% compared to 17% of the Jewish population and the difference is even starker when comparing those with severe disability amongst the Arab population (14%) relative to the Jewish population (5%) (Al-Manarah 2013). This substantial difference is most likely due to the strong correlation between poverty and disability, and the significantly higher rates of poverty within the Arab community mentioned earlier.

In Israel, the most comprehensive and up to date report on the CRPD written by the Civil Society Forum for the Promotion and Implementation of the CRPD in Israel highlights the gaps between the CRPD’s aspirations and the situation on the ground due to a lack of implementation of existing legislation and the need for new legislation in line with the CRPD (CSF 2020). It emphasises the need for extra provisions, interventions, and analysis on ‘doubly marginalised communities’ such as those with disabilities amongst Arabs, ultra-orthodox Jews, Ethiopian Jews, older people, and those living in poverty (CSF 2020, 7 and 26).

Research process

The study was approved by the institutional review board of the School of Social Work at Bar Ilan University, Israel. Participants were recruited through the Masira programme, a local initiative aimed to empower and integrate Arabs with disabilities in Israel (Masira 2017). Masira’s director provided the first author with a list of potential interviewees who had volunteered to participate. The first author, who is an Arab Muslim living in Israel and has worked extensively on disability in Israel, conducted the semi-structured interviews in the Arabic medium from July to September 2020. She has neither a professional nor a personal relationship with any of the participants. Due to COVID-19, all except two interviews were conducted online and each lasted approximately 90 minutes, and those with psychosocial disorders were given more time if needed. The co-authors, an interdisciplinary group of five researchers, developed an interview guide based on four key issues addressed in the literature: first, their multiple identities; second, the intersection of their identities and its impact in different domains; third, societal perceptions of disabilities, their coping strategies, and resources; and fourth, recommendations for improvements and ways forward. While answering these questions, participants were encouraged to give personal examples and experiences in relation to their social (friends, family, wider community) networks, education, work, and institutions they have interacted with. They were also encouraged to speak freely about any related topic they deemed important or related. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and translated from Arabic into English with a Palestinian research assistant – both of whom are fluent in Palestinian Arabic and English. As both are well versed in the language and context, together they finalised the translations and coded all of the transcripts. Within each of the four areas, the data were codified with an inductive, thematic approach to bring out themes from the participants’ lived experiences. Codes and themes were discussed and developed using the Braun and Clarke (2006) six-phase method for qualitative thematic analysis. Hard and electronic copies of the transcripts were used as opposed to any specialist software. The second author, a British Muslim living in an Arab country, conceptualised and drafted the article in consultation with all of the authors, including the third and fourth who provided guidance and edits. The third and fourth authors, an Israeli Jew and an American Jew, respectively, have worked with both Jewish and Arabs populations with disabilities in Israel. To protect the participants’ anonymity and confidentiality, participants agreed on the use of pseudonyms.

The study comprised 15 participants and much care was taken to ensure the group was varied in terms of the type of disabilities, location, gender, marital status, religion, age, and education, including Arab Bedouins (Table 1).

Table 1. Characteristics of the sample.

Characteristic		Frequency
Disability type	Sensory	5
	Physical	7
	Psychosocial	3
Gender	Male	6
	Female	9
Marital status	Single	11
	Married	4
Volunteering	Yes	13
	No	2
Work in the disability field	Yes	9
	No	6
Education	High school	3
	Bachelor’s degree	5
	Master’s degree	7
Religion	Muslim	12
	Christian	2
	Druze	1
Geographic region	North	7
	Centre	4
	Jerusalem	3
	South	1
Age (years)		40 ± 9.7

Results

This article is part of a larger qualitative study examining disability amongst Arabs in Israel.

After codifying the data, seven overarching categories with nine themes and more than 50 sub-themes were found. This article discusses only parts of three overarching categories. First, hybrid and complex identities; second, challenges within the wider Israeli society; and third, challenges within the Arab communities in Israel. This is one of the first articles based on these data; the remaining are currently in process for publication. Other studies examine the role of the family, facilitators, and the dynamics of having different layers of penalty and privilege.

Arabs with disabilities in Israel: hybrid and complex identities

Each of the participants in our study articulated their sense of self and identity in various complex and hybrid ways. For most of the participants a key motif was the assertion of Palestinian and Arab identity. Many of the Muslim participants also identified strongly with religion. Yasmin, a Muslim woman with a physical disability, stated:

I relish that I am Palestinian and Arab – everyone has a name, male and female – but I am first a Palestinian and Arab, and then with disability.

Dalal, a Muslim woman with a visual impairment, went into more detail:

Palestinian identity has a significant influence on me, in the sense that the Palestinian identity is in jeopardy … I find all identity categories except for the Palestinian. You see sex; male, female, religion; a Muslim, Druze, Christian, Jewish, conservative and religious, secular, but a Palestinian category is missing. This identity is that I am afraid to talk about it. It took me a while to write it with academic jobs; I speak about it now easily. It is not easy to say to a Jewish community that you are Palestinian because I see the suspicious looks and questions come to me. My grandparents were displaced from their hometowns; how can I ignore this fact?

The three participants who lived in Jerusalem added a particularly strong affiliation with the city. Waseem, a man with a physical disability explained:

I’m a proud Arab Muslim from Jerusalem. What makes [me] honored the most is the fact that I am a Jerusalemite [resident in Jerusalem] … Even though I was offered a residency in the USA, but I told myself that it’s not worth it, for if people knew the significance of Jerusalem they would all want to come and live here.

Sami, a man with a visual impairment, explained identity in light of the current context:

I am an Arab Muslim with Israeli citizenship. When discussing local issues as Arabs in Israel, I emphasize the Arab side because we, as Arabs and citizens, live in this country, within these parameters and affiliations. If we were in a different country, we would never have these issues or entered such discussions … Our current reality makes it hard to deploy or separate identity from another, and we have to deal with such reality.

Yet, alongside other participants who centred their ‘humanness’ first, Sami also emphasised his humanity and his human rights as an individual when discussing his preferred identity:

Human … as a human at first. I mean, when using international definitions applied in Israel, you say you are a person with a disability, meaning you practically emphasize that in the first, I am a human being. And I have the full rights that I enjoy international and local human rights, and then you step up and mention that I have disability.

However, some participants were frustrated with being fed into the wider political struggle and attempt to overcome segregated boundaries in their daily lives. Laila, a visually impaired woman, stated:

I am an Arab Muslim girl with a visual impairment. This composition is the cause of all my problems. This means that I am not just a girl, but a Muslim and an Arab who also with a visual impairment. I chose them because they exist together. These are impossible to separate them from each other; indeed, you can not at all in any way separate them … I try to keep politics out of my life because I want to live in peace. I have many Israeli and many Palestinian friends, we might not agree on everything but we definitely respect each other.

The unabashedly ‘proud’ sentiments of being Arab, Palestinian, or Muslim that most exhibited, however, faded when it came to discussing the ‘disability’ part of their identity. Here, the answers varied. Those with psychosocial disorders or disabilities that were not prominent preferred to conceal their identity. Ebraheem, a man with a psychosocial disorder described his reasons:

I myself have reservations about my type of disability, I do not mention my disability type fearing societal reaction. Today, I am 35 years old now, although educated and working in high-tech and successful people in society’s eyes. Nobody knows that I have a mental illness, and I am afraid that all these successes will vanish if they know about my mental illness. If I have a different disability, I could have mentioned it, but never a psychological disability. I don’t want society to deal with me because I am less than people but rather as a human.

Those with prominent forms of disabilities felt forced to accept this identity as it is an inevitable part of how they are viewed and treated. As Malak, a visually impaired Druze female, stated:

Disability is always prominent, even if I would like to ignore it in different contexts. Disability is a part of my daily challenges. Such challenges differ from other people who have visual senses, but I am visually impaired and do not have this sight sense.

Likewise, Sami, who is also visually impaired, felt that society defines him through his disability, which acts as a limiting identity marker:

I do not like to overemphasize disabilities issues because they are restricting, limiting, and curtailing to my capabilities.

The main cause for these reservations was dealing with social stigma and wanting to feel and be treated as a full and complete human. Perhaps this also could be the result of being a marginalised minority. Studies have shown that minorities with disabilities tend to give precedence to their devalued identity over their disability (Darling 2019). This is not to say that they do not have positive self-identities overall. Research shows a far more complex relationship between self-identity, self-esteem, and societal treatment in relation to disability (Darling 2019). This is important as the ‘miserable and disabled’ trope feeds into promoting a model of charity, pity, and a devalued life.

Many also expressed benefits to having multiple identities. Dalal, for example, stated how her multiple identities allows her to navigate different spaces:

I have multiple identities that help me think critically. From a theoretical view, you can disentangle complicated things without seeing them as just black and white. Jewish colleagues who live in comfort can’t imagine what it means to live in poverty or what it means that the bus does not get you home. He cannot fathom that I buy spices for Saladin Street then go on Jaffa Street to buy something else. There I speak Arabic among your people, and there, despite two meters, I am using Hebrew and feeling like a stranger. This movement between different areas in different identities is intriguing.

Challenges within wider society

Most official civil society reports evaluating the implementation of the CRPD in Israel highlight prominently among the shortcomings the institutional and social discrimination specifically faced by Arabs with disabilities (Al-Manarah 2013; CSF 2020). These studies underscore the following areas in relation to Arab disability communities: lack of suitable infrastructure, transport, and services; language barriers; cultural differences; and security staff at check points who are not trained for interacting with people with disabilities. These issues result from the wider geographical, economic, and political segregation of Arab society. Within this matrix, Arabs with disabilities are doubly marginalised, both as Arabs and as individuals with disabilities, and the impact of prejudice is felt more acutely.

This study also confirms these inequalities, with participants expressing their frustration and challenges in each of these areas. It adds, however, three key findings: first, institutional and social discrimination is a result of their Arab identity, not their disability; second, there is a strong language of rights and working within the system to exact change, but with limited results; and third, Jewish allies and state benefits alleviate some of the challenges that Arabs with disabilities face.

Institutional discrimination due to their Arab identity, not disability

Arabs with disabilities are still mainly perceived as potential political and security threats and their impairment does not lift them out of this fold. The Palestinian–Israeli conflict is the overarching framework for dealing with Arab citizens even if they have disabilities. As Dalal stated:

You think they may sometimes be soft with you at the airport and your escort, but you go through the inspection brutality like any other Palestinian.

In a similar vein, Mona, a female with a physical disability, added:

My family did all they could to support me, but at some point I had to support myself and then I understood that there’s a Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

Omar, a male with a physical disability, described one incident when a Jewish technician refused to come to his house to fix his respiratory machine for fear of travelling at night to an Arab region:

Many bad things happened to me because I am an Arab. Once, my respiratory system needed repair, so I could not breathe, and I had to wait for 24 hours while sitting in the right angle for all the waiting time. According to this system’s instructions, if it had a particular malfunction, a technician will repair the system. So, I called the adapted vehicle driver around midnight, and he replied that he could not go to the Arab area. Of course, I took his name and the hour and asked him why you want to pick me up. He said that I am afraid to go at night to the Arab region. I answered him, but you are a paid employee to provide services, including those Arab persons with disabled people? He replied that I know, but I am not ready to come. As a result, I was dumbfounded and stayed all night sitting up straight in order not to choke from lack of oxygen. The next morning, I had to be hospitalized at Kupat Cholim (National Healthcare) as my health deteriorated.

Omar took matters in his own hands, and once recovered complained to the director:

Quickly after my recovery, I e-mailed the Kupat Cholim’s director of the equipment unit to install a new respiratory system device and asked for Arab technicians and, in the end, highlighted the racism that an Arab person with a disability endure. As a response to my communication, within a week, he hired two Arabs.

The Jewish technician’s understanding of the health consequences, yet his refusal to come to Omar’s aid, illustrates the deep and tangible fear instilled in the Jewish mind of the Arab. Not just being Arab but, according to some of the participants, also being Muslim further fuels the sentiments of fear. Dalal related an incident at her university:

There is nowhere to go to address the racism we face. My friend who is wearing a hijab, with a disability, and an Arab – police will stop her for inspection. The feeling is awful. When discussing this issue in my university’s classroom, a girl defended this profiling policy under the pretext of state security. By then, I realized this would never change as long as people support this racist policy. To them, this means every woman wearing a hijab is a threat.

Being stopped and searched was indeed problematic, but what troubled Dalal more was society’s relentless perception of Arabs, particularly Arab Muslims, as a security threat, rather than seeing them first as a human with a disability. Almost all participants shared similar stories of institutional combined with social prejudice and stereotypes from the wider Jewish society that prevented or limited them in some ways.

Being aware of their rights

Waseem, aware of the rights allocated to people with disabilities, discussed his experience of getting a specially adapted vehicle.

Like any Jewish person with severe disability, I was eligible to get this van, and I needed to adapt this van to my disability. Other Jewish persons with less severe cases than me were accepted to this expensive car and the additional upgrades. Since an Arab person with disabilities, I had to endure a long period of examinations from three medical committees. Had it not been for other Jewish acquaintances’ help, I would have never got this service, while other Jewish persons with less severe cases than me were easily accepted. In the end, I got the adapted vehicle, but after enduring a long-wait and further intervention.

Waseem’s and Omar’s stories, as well as many of the other participants, reveal a language of rights and an ethic of working within the system to exact change.

Jewish allies

Waseem also appreciated the state’s benefits and talked candidly about understanding this against the backdrop of the political conflict:

Living with a disability in Jerusalem means living under the umbrella of Israeli laws that provide National Insurance benefits and a minimum standard of living. This undeniable fact is part of our reality as people with a disability who feel very safe about this. Although sometimes we are in pain, the [Israeli] occupation is what gives you a lot. It isn’t easy. You feel that this is an occupation. It is an unsettling feeling because you cannot accept it, but its presence makes you live an undeniably reasonably stable life.

Waseem’s experiences reveal how Jewish allies and state benefits alleviate some of the challenges Arabs face. While most mentioned the social discrimination they faced for being an Arab, others also described their more positive experiences amongst Jewish society. Although deep structural and social challenges stubbornly persist, these small glimmers of positivity are indications of possible improvements and slow societal change. Nora, a female with a physical disability, for example stated:

Strangely, I was more appreciated, respected, and accepted as a disabled person while working amongst the Israelis, my rights would be fulfilled the minute I demand them … Amongst Israeli people, nobody stares at the disabled weirdly while walking in the streets, they feel just as normal, they don’t give you those pathetic looks.

Similarly, Mona said:

There are people who supported me because I am an Arab with a disability. While studying, I had an accident on my way to the university and missed class for a while. After two weeks, a Jewish lecturer asked the students about me, and when he knew that I had a car accident, he called me and assured me and was willing to explain the material I missed. I got a good grade in this class.

Hoda, a female with a physical disability added:

When taking the train for work, many Jewish passengers would help me because I am an Arab woman with a disability.

Yosuf, a Christian male with a physical disability, also described:

My disability is severe and visible. When I go to Jewish shopping malls on the electric chair, my disability helps me there because they treat me with great humanity.

Challenges within the Arab society

Notwithstanding what has already been mentioned, one of the striking findings in this study is that for most participants it was their negative social interaction within the community of Arabs in Israel that was more painful than their interaction with the wider Jewish society. Community support and integration were deemed as most important. As Sami explained:

Even though accommodation is a necessity, and mainly meant to simplify the lives of the disabled, and to give them some sort of dependency and self-reliance, but I think societal accommodation is the most important, it comes from within the community and its acceptance of the disabled, because the more community accepts and accommodates our disabilities, the easier it is for us to emerge and get more involved.

Within the community, from professors and teachers through to their own family members, Arabs with disabilities reported facing various forms of limiting and debilitating attitudes. Four different sub-themes themes emerged: first, only being seen through the prism of disability, thereby setting low expectations; second, unsympathetic and unaccommodating attitudes; third, sentiments of pity and being ignored; and fourth, lack of implementation of disability services or rights through either lack of knowledge, poverty, or exploitation.

Most of the participants in the study had a minimum bachelor’s degree, with seven out of 15 holding a master’s degree, yet their impairment consistently overshadowed any of their qualifications, other abilities, or characteristics. As Malak stated:

The problem resides in society, even if in the future I am a professor, they are not going to see me as a professor, they will say with all respect, she did it but she is blind. They squeeze being visually impaired in everything, and they don’t believe other things.

Despite having outstanding and relevant qualifications, most articulated their struggle in employment. For example, Ali related his fight:

I encountered racism from one of the sizeable Arab teacher training colleges. After declaring that I have a mental illness, they refused me under the pretext that the Ministry of Education does not employ teachers with mental illnesses, even though I had high psychometric test scores and excellent Bagrut [high school competency] exam results. My assistant from the Ministry of Health helped me in finding out that their claim is unfounded. And after challenging them from an Association for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, they accepted me. Today I am a teacher, and I am preparing to complete my Master’s degree.

Lack of empathy, understanding, and compassion was common. Mona spoke about an encounter with an Arab worker:

I remember when one time I went to the Ministry of Interior to renew my passport, and I was unable to stand in line because of my crutches. So I asked a woman that’s working there whether they have a special path for the disabled. She answered by asking me if I have a certificate of disability or not. I told her that she can tell my disability just by looking at me, but she answered me back in Hebrew that this is how it works here and she has to see my certificate of disability. I stood aside to look for the certificate then I showed it to her, and only then she pointed at the path … What made me even sadder, was that she was an Arab.

Another common experience from the Arab community is sentiments of pity stemming from a devaluation of their existence. Omar expressed:

People’s feelings of pity for you can be annoying. People think that disabled persons are miserable, poor, and sad, even though he is an ordinary person who has feelings.

Laila related one particularly painful incident when Arab workers stated they would prefer to commit suicide than be visually impaired:

Once I was walking to the university dormitory with my sensory stick. Two Arab repair workers who were working beside the residence commented to each other. If I were in her place, I would have committed suicide.

Misallocation of disability-related services, most probably due to overall poverty, was another recurring theme. Hoda explained how families use disability benefits for the family, rather than investing in the child and his or her future:

Many families for children with a disability take advantage of the financial benefits that their son is entitled to from the National Insurance Institute. For example, instead of using the care for their son or daughter with a disability, they use this car for their personal use or use it for work.

However, small changes are occurring in society through the perseverance and patience of those with disabilities being more visible and active as well as the rise of organisations supporting this cause. With a hint of optimism, Mona explained the changes:

Today’s society has indeed changed its view towards people with disabilities, but this change is minor. This change has become through organizations that work on disability issues and groups of young women and men who have had a disability and have become socially assertive. They have centered the person with disabilities at the public square; they used their social bully pulpit and crossed the social barriers. I worked in the public sphere, and being a woman with a disability made a change.

Discussion

Arabs with disabilities in Israel are neither a static nor a homogeneous group. In recent years, they have been in the midst of a process of change taking place within Arab society, which includes a variety of social, economic, and political changes, as well as forgoing long-held social conventions (Badran 2020). Their unique position between the Palestinian Arab ethnic identity and the civic Israeli identity, as well as responding to the political situation of the time, has led to the development a new kind of political mobilisation and hence new forms of identity vis-à-vis Arabs in Palestine (Ghanem and Mustafa 2018). Some have argued that this has led to growing national sentiments, collective group identity, and shared place identity amongst Arabs in Israel (Harboun, Ben-Porat, and Mizrahi 2020; Jamal 2011; Shdema and Martin 2020).

However, the political conflict is not the only factor shaping identity. There are other complex processes of Israelisation, where dominant Jewish values, culture and tradition, Hebraisation, and globalisation are being negotiated by the Arabs alongside a desire for the preservation of their own culture and tradition (Amara 2018; Shihade 2016). These factors play out differently among various segments of Arab society depending on their religion, education, social capital, personal preferences, and social areas such as retail, restaurants, and sports (Amara 2018; Sorek 2003). For example, the Arab Druze (unlike the Muslims and Christians) are known to eschew politics and, strengthened by the segregation promoted within Israel, some have deconstructed their Arab identity, creating new ethno-linguistic boundaries (Isleem 2015). Higher national consciousness is also more prevalent among the educated strata of Arab society, more in touch with and aware of the global Palestinian liberation movement (Sorek 2003).

Mirroring these wider trends within Arabs in Israel, each of the participants in our study articulated their sense of self and identity in various complex and hybrid ways. Overall, most participants expressed a strong and positive affiliation with Arab and Palestinian identities. In social identity theory, a social identity is a person’s awareness of both belonging to a specific social group or category as well as acknowledging the value in this belonging (Tajfel and Turner 1986). The theory posits that association with a group identity promotes a strong sense of self-esteem and psychological well-being. Members exhibit a positive group evaluation without necessarily viewing other groups in a negative light (Brewer 2007).

The theory suggests further that even if the group in question is marginalised or stigmatised, for whatever reason, groups use various mechanisms to maintain positive mastery and group affiliation depending on the stability and permeability of the group boundaries. If the boundaries and stability of the group are permeable, then individual mobilisation can occur where the person leaves a low-status group for one of higher status. When the boundaries are impermeable, but the lower status is subject to change, social competition in material and legal standing occurs. In cases where the boundaries and status of the group are impermeable, the theory suggests that groups use social creativity as a tool for positive group evaluation by carefully crafting favourable comparisons and rejecting negative ones (Ellemers and Haslam 2012).

In line with this theory, it is clear that the historical conflict has rendered the boundaries and statuses of Arabs in Israel impermeable, at least for the foreseeable future. Thus, they maintain a strong sense of Palestinian, Arab, and for some also a Muslim identity. From the responses, it is evident that these group identities played a positive role for most in their sense of well-being and self-esteem.

The second key finding is that despite being entitled to certain rights, Arabs with disability still faced discrimination based on their ethnic identity. In this study, most of the participants in this study had at least a bachelor’s degree, with seven out of the 15 holding a master’s degree. This is important to note as it limits the generalisability of the results as it does not accurately portray the experiences of those who do not possess this human and social capital. For the majority of the participants, their education led to an increased sense of awareness of their rights and knowledge on how to attain their entitled privileges and services within the state system. Yet this also reveals the extent of the limits of human rights, as even with this privilege they still struggled. Waseem filled out the necessary paperwork and followed procedures but only got his vehicle after an intervention from a Jewish person. Other participants related similar incidents, where they only received their entitled rights when a Jewish member of society intervened on their behalf. While these incidents indicate positive changes in the Jewish society’s awareness of disability and Jewish–Arab relations, it underscores the limits of a human rights framework in a society that is embedded in inequalities and prejudice due to long-standing conflict. The result of Omar’s incident was not the director reprimanding the Jewish technician for not travelling to an Arab area, but hiring two Arab technicians. Although in the short term his quick response was much needed, in the long term it would further exacerbate the segregation in society. Those fleeting moments of contact with the ‘other’, important for humanisation and empathy, were narrowed even further.

However, the third finding is that some of the daily challenges for Arabs in Israel with disabilities occurred within their own communities. The common thread that unites these themes is the resistance by non-disabled Arabs, sometimes even family members, to fully integrating Arabs with disabilities into their society both conceptually and literally. This constant negativity serves as a hierarchal effect whereby people with disabilities are not considered as fully autonomous humans deserving of basic needs – employment, social interaction, life dreams, goals, and achievement – but relegated to suffer or be patient with and accept the inherent ‘limitations’ of their bodies. Hence, the refusal of employment despite policies being in place or the idea that people with disabilities are inherently miserable reflects deeply held beliefs that the lives of people with disabilities are worth less and undeserving of services. These prejudicial notions among non-disabled Arabs are far more limiting for Arabs with disabilities than their own ‘impaired’ bodies and represent the barriers to individuals with disabilities integrating within their society.

The fact that it is members of their own Arab community who are adding to their marginalisation adds to the participants’ distress. Arabs with disabilities in Israel face a unique situation with regard to belonging. They are socially marginalised from the wider Israeli society and most do not wish to belong to the category or community of ‘the disabled’. This leaves only their own Arab community. In Israel, Arabs are not only closely clustered in certain areas but consist of tight-knit clans and tribes (Shdema and Martin 2020). This traditional set-up entrenches the need and desire for having and maintaining family ties, where ‘the family’ is considered to be the wider extended network. Ironically, the political conflict and subsequent collective experience and feeling of victimhood and discrimination significantly strengthens these familial bonds further (Schori‐Eyal, Halperin, and Bar‐Tal 2014). Therefore, not being included and fully integrated into the Arab community in Israel and not having this extended network of support, care, and empathy can be deeply isolating and distressing.

Attitudes towards disability are not confined to specific cultures or religions but are complex products of history, religion, culture, and tradition, as well as education, poverty, and social awareness alongside un/successful implementation of CRPD policies. Although there has been a global disability rights push which resulted in the CRPD, negative attitudes still persist in the Global North, with high rates of education and awareness campaigns, and progress is not always linear nor on a continuum between traditional and modern. For example, looking at the specific case of Israel, historical events led to the modern conception of the ‘strong, able-bodied Jew’ (Rimmerman et al. 2015). Also, studies that examine the implementation of the CRPD in Israel find that these progressive government policies can be hindered by restrictive attitudes of social workers who mediate between the government and people with disabilities (Gur and Stein 2020). Thus, there are many factors that come into play that produce, and continue to reproduce, negative attitudes and experiences for people with disabilities.

During the last decade, many Arab associations have been established to improve the status of Arabs with disabilities. One example is the Masira Fund & Center for the Advancement of People with Disabilities in Arab Society in Israel established by the end of 2011. It provides financial and professional support to associations and institutions working in the field of disabilities in the Arab community by collecting and redistributing funds. Another important initiative is ‘The Art of Rehabilitation’, which was established by two Arab rehabilitation experts in 2011. This association runs several employment projects aimed at integrating people with mental illness in the workplace while reducing stigma among employers and the community at large. At the same time, this association operates a family centre that aims to provide support and guidance to the families of people with disabilities. There have also been projects adapting Israeli laws to better suit the specific needs of Arab communities, in which the first author played a key role. Another important project led by Daas-Iraqi was the Illness Management and Recovery manual in Arabic. This aimed to help improve communication with and understanding of their loved ones’ experience with mental illness and to help families develop ways to better support the recovery process (Daass-Iraqi, Garber-Epstein, and Roe 2021).

Conclusion

Arabs call the 1948 war the Nakba, the catastrophe. Israeli Jews call it Milchemet Ha’atzmaut, the War of Independence. These two labels reflect the stark differences in their historical memory, narrative, and, most importantly, the relationship to the Israeli nation-state. Arabs in Israel are not merely an ethnic minority living in a majority ethnic Jewish population; their very existence, their past, and their narrative are opposed to the state. Arabs with disabilities in Israel are caught in this matrix, indelibly marked by the conflict. The Israeli state is working towards adapting, implementing, and creating new policies and rights in line with the CRPD, but without addressing the underlying institutional and social divisions and segregation, the impact of these policies and human rights are limited. Although conflict resolution is an insurmountable task, at least in the near future, conflict management and creating a shared and equal national culture, identity, and vision are perhaps a more viable goal.

However, it is the attitudes and barriers from within the Arab community itself that can be particularly damaging for Arabs with disabilities. Unsympathetic acts and statements, attitudes of pity, exploitation of benefits, and disbelief in entitled rights all indicate an underlying devaluation of persons with disabilities. Without a significant shift in perceptions and attitudes, human rights will only go so far. That being said, one could cogently argue that more rights and policies would help people with disabilities become more visible, which in turn could be a catalyst for shifting attitudes and accepting people with disabilities as full members of the community. The rise in local disability organisations and activists has made a positive difference. To summarise, Arabs with disabilities in Israel face multiple layers of marginalisation. The main finding in this study is that despite disability-friendly policies, their rights are restricted in the wider Israeli society that for historical and political reasons is based on inequality. To make matters worse, they are further marginalised inside the Arab communities that are unable to see past the narrow prism of impairment.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Qatar National Library for providing funding for Open Access.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.