In DC, Arab MK blasts Israel’s ‘systemic’ discrimination

Ahmad Tibi of the Joint (Arab) List held talks with senior American officials at the White House Thursday and spoke out against “systemic” Israeli discrimination against its Arab minority.

During meetings with White House and State Department officials, Tibi slammed Israel’s plan to demolish the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev desert and replace it with a Jewish town.

“The objective of the Joint List is to fight discrimination and racism, and exclusion on a civil and national level in order to improve the standing of the Arab community in all aspects of life in the absence of equality between Arabs and Jews,” Tibi said, according to a statement put out by his office.

“Systemic discrimination against Arab civilians reaches all aspects of life,” Tibi’s spokesperson, Ahmad Muhana, said after Thursday’s meetings.

The Joint List, a coalition of the Arab parties in Israel, was formed in the lead-up to elections in March last year and is now the third-largest faction in the Knesset.

Tibi also told US officials that not a single minister in the cabinet — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu has pledged his support in principle for a two-state solution but affirmed on multiple occasions that he did not think it would be feasible in the foreseeable future.

Tibi said Israel Arab lawmakers were the only legislators in the Knesset who actively worked toward that “vision.”

“We will continue to raise the issue of discrimination against the Arab community in every relevant international forum. The discrimination is worsening, and we will therefore amplify our international efforts to fight it,” he said.

At the White House Thursday, Tibi met with National Security Council Senior Director Robert Malley; the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Frank Lowenstein; and Senior Public Diplomacy Advisor Chris Hensman.

He also met with a number congresspeople, his office said.

Tibi is the second prominent representative of Israel’s coalition of Arab parties to engage in high-profile diplomatic talks in Washington.

In December last year, Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh visited Washington in order to raise “issues that matter to Israel’s Arab citizens that are hardly represented in the international conversation.”