הישראלי לדמוקרטיה- מרץ 2017

Commentary Gilad Malach and Nasreen Hadad Haj-Yahya
Israel’s next
economic miracle?
Haredim and Arabs must be integrated into society and
economy to take the start-up nation to the next level
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION and
material prosperity are the hallmarks of the
start-up nation. However, certain sectors
of Israeli society are not experiencing the
benefits of our hi-tech economy. With Arabs
and haredim on the periphery, Israel is
like a five-cylinder engine running on only
three cylinders.
In order to propel Israel’s economy forward,
we must look inward and take advantage
of these two readily available but hitherto
untapped resources. It is time to stop
treating Arabs and haredim as liabilities
who produce a drag on economic performance
and start treating them as resources
that could vault Israel’s economy into the
top 10 of the OECD.
How? Improved education.
While the haredi and Arab communities
might appear to be very different, they have
more in common than they want to admit.
And the pathways to their success may be
quite similar.
Both the haredi and Arab populations,
which amount to a combined 30 percent of
Israel’s population, are effectively cut off
from the rest of Israeli society. The haredim,
who totaled approximately 1,000,000
people at the end of 2016 (11% of the population),
for generations have chosen to
erect “walls of holiness” to separate themselves
from the rest of society and ensure
the continuity of their cherished religious
traditions.
Similarly, the Arab citizens of Israel, who
totaled 1,800,000 at the end of 2016 (21%
of the population), live in separate, homogeneous
towns and study in separate school
systems from their Jewish neighbors. In
addition, most Jews in Israel do not speak
Arabic, and the level of Hebrew among
many Arabs is relatively low, increasing the
challenge of living shared lives.
It is time to stop
treating Arabs and
haredim as liabilities
who produce a
drag on economic
performance
Today, the majority of haredi students
study in educational networks partially
exempt from Education Ministry requirements.
Only 10% of haredi students earn
matriculation certificates, versus 70% of
their non-haredi peers. Similarly, only
around 50% of Arabs earn matriculation
certificates. The matriculation exam is taken
by high school seniors to determine for
which universities and university majors
they can apply.
When it comes to employment, haredi
men and Arab women find themselves in a
similar position. In 2016, the employment
rate stood at 52% for haredi males and
77% for Arab males, as compared to 87%
among non-haredi males. Among women,
corresponding figures were 73% for haredi
women, 32.3% for Arab women, and 82%
among non-haredi Jewish women.
The proportion of haredim and Arabs living
beneath the poverty line is much greater
than that of non-haredi Jews: roughly 54%
of haredim and 53% of Arabs live in poverty,
as opposed to 10% of the rest of the
Jewish population in Israel.
However, the walls are beginning to crack.
The public, politicians, academicians
and the media are waking up to the need to
ensure haredim and Arab citizens of Israel
integrate into the economy and society,
and have equal opportunities for success.
This is both the moral and practical thing
to do, for the benefit of haredim, Arabs,
and for Israeli society as a whole.
FOR STARTERS, both populations need to
increase their schools’ focus on core subjects,
such as science and math; mathematical
ability is proven to be a major predictor
of students’ future success in the labor market—especially
the knowledge economy.
Likewise, there need to be shifts in the
curriculum to better prepare students for
employment. In the Arab school system,
this might mean changing the Hebrew-lan-
12 DEMOCRACY 3.0 APRIL 2017