From the Palestine Note:
Unlike the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, the situation of the non-Jewish minority in Israel is not receiving enough of the world's attention, so in a sense it's even more important to follow it closely.
About a week ago, Sikkuy, The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel, published its annual report. The report is an Index measuring the socioeconomic gap between Arab and Jews in Israel
In short, the situation is not good - and it's getting worse. Out of the five elements the 2008 Sikkuy report checks, in four - housing, health services, welfare services and employment - the gap between Arab and Jews has widened. In education there has been a slight improvement, but it was more due to a decline in the Jews' achievements.
The socioeconomic gap is not the result of a lack of effort on behalf of the Arab population, like some people like to think, but of government policy, dating back decades
More Arabs go to university than ever - but they can't find jobs, neither in the private sector nor in state agencies (the number of Arabs employed by the state is much lower than their proportion in the population). Arab unemployment is much higher than the Jewish rate, especially unemployment among university graduates. And these figures are just the tip of the iceberg.
The 2008 Sikkuy index will soon be uploaded to the association's English site. The reports from 2006 and 2007 can be found there as well. It should be noted that preliminary data from 2009 is even worse. It shows, among other disturbing figures, an unusually sharp drop in the number of Arabs entitled for a high school diploma. LINK
