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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, today attended the Prime Minister’s Conference for the Arab Sector, which was held in Haifa. The Conference, which was held for the first time this year, is the result of an initiative by Prime Minister’s Office Director-General Ra’anan Dinur, who identified a need for such a conference in order to improve the status of Israeli Arabs in Israeli society. Education Minister Prof. Yuli Tamir, Interior Minister Meir Shetrit Science, Culture and Sport Minister Raleb Majdele, Arab local council chairmen, Israel Democracy Institute members, and additional Israeli Arab figures also attended.
In the Conference’s concluding session, Prime Minister Olmert said: “Israeli Arabs are not a strategic threat. They are citizens of the State of Israel, with equal rights. You have always been part of the State and always will be.”
Prime Minister Olmert referred to the many measures that the Government has enacted on behalf of the Arab sector, including giving preferences to sector communities in the implementation of the education system’s New Horizon reforms and subsidizing the purchase of land for discharged soldiers from the non-Jewish sector who are interested in building homes in their birthplaces. He also noted that he supports moving forward on the establishment of an Arab city in the Galilee.
Prime Minister Olmert said that he is proud that the State of Israel’s first Arab minister serves in his Government and that there has been an increase in the number of Arabs in the civil service.
Prime Minister Olmert said that he hopes that dialogue, such as that being conducted at the Conference, will lead to the disappearance of racist expressions from Israeli society, and will constitute the basis for an improvement in Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. He asserted: “I believe that, today, we have added a significant chapter and I hope that it will be an historic turning point that will lead to an improvement in the status of Israeli Arabs in the country.”
Last night (Wednesday), 9.7.08, Prime Minister Olmert hosted, at his home, a preliminary discussion ahead of the Conference, which was attended by Jewish and Arab academics. The discussion focused on an attempt to find ways to improve the integration of Israeli Arabs in Israeli society, on the question of how to break past existing barriers and on an attempt to create the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue between the various sectors in Israel.
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