RUTHFULLY YOURS

This does not cause left-leaners to rethink their positions, however. On the contrary, if anything, it serves to reinforce their stance.

So, for example, when it turns out that an Arab citizen of the state has knowingly and willingly driven a suicide bomber to his destination at an Israeli restaurant, or when an Arab Knesset Member openly sides with Hezbollah in Syria or proudly sails on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, enlightened pundits place the blame squarely on Israel’s shoulders.

The indictments coming from the Center and soft Left always read the same: If only the government had cultivated the Arabs in Israel’s midst, they would have become loyal citizens. If only the government were to provide the Arab municipalities with the proper budgets, they would have great sewage systems, smoothly paved roads, regular garbage collections and prettily painted playgrounds — all of which would turn them into happy campers, rather than a disgruntled fifth column.

The idea behind this and all liberal logic is that if certain people behave badly toward others, there must be a deep-seated reason which is somebody else’s fault. The solution, then, is not to punish the perpetrators, or even demand they take responsibility for their actions, but rather to understand the source of the personal, financial, social, racial, sexual problems or other factor that elicited those actions — and then to try and force the powers-that-be to “fix” the factor. Is it any wonder this never works?

It boggles the mind how otherwise intelligent people — as the Jews are purported to be — are capable of cleaving to the same old cause-and-effect claptrap, no matter how often it backfires. Basing policies on false premises is as good a recipe for success as the moral relativism that so often accompanies it.

There is one form of relativism that liberals oppose. It is that which refers to the relatively positive living conditions of the Arab citizens of Israel in comparison to those of their counterparts in the rest of the Middle East — including in the Palestinian territories.

Indeed, leftists get really ticked off when it is pointed out to them that no Arab country in the world provides the quality of life for its citizens — let alone its minorities — that Israel does. To this, they say, “So what?”

Nor do they like to hear that it is not for nothing that Israeli Arabs, and even many Palestinians, would rather die than live under Muslim-Arab rule. The Palestinians know very well what it’s like to have Mahmoud Abbas’s mean and motley crew running things in the West Bank, and what befalls residents of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. No amount of new shopping malls in either place can change the fact that they cannot make a decent living, and freedom is as distant from them as a topless beach.

This does not mean that they identify with the Jewish state nor even have a good word to say about it — not publicly, at any rate. But they do vote with their feet, and they do participate in surveys.

The most recent such survey was presented Thursday at a Haifa University conference by Professor Sami Smooha. Smooha, who has released an annual “Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel” for the past 30 years, came up with some interesting findings.

Nineteen percent of Israeli Arabs deny Israel’s right to exist.

Sixty-three percent believe it is not fair that Israel is a majority Jewish state and that the government treats them as second-class citizens.

Eighty percent blame Jews for the Nakba (the “catastrophe” of Israel’s War of Independence and establishment in 1948).

At the same time, a bit more than 68% admit that they prefer living in Israel than in other countries. This, Smooha told Ynet, is because “in Israel there are a lot of benefits and a modern way of life, as well as economic and political stability. You can’t compare the lives of Arabs in the Galilee to that of Arabs in Palestine, Lebanon or Egypt. There is also the element that in Israel there is no concern of an Islamist takeover.”

This would explain why 71% feel that Israel is a good place to live. But it does not clarify why the vast majority still considers Israel’s establishment to be a “nakba.”

Well, it makes perfect sense to Arabs; it’s the liberal Jews who don’t get it. For the former, having a good life may be satisfying, but it’s not necessarily at the top of the priority list, as the latter assumes. It is the worst kind of condescension to ignore the profound ideological and religious beliefs that make whole populations of people tick.

With all their adherence to multiculturalism, liberals don’t actually grasp the concept of culture when it is a different one from their own. They most certainly don’t understand the power of religion, except for when they attack the haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews).

It is entirely possible that Israeli Arabs do not receive the same benefits as their Jewish counterparts — though they also don’t pay the same price in taxes or military service. If there is injustice in Israeli society, it should be rectified.

But it is high time we stop kidding ourselves. If Smooha’s survey proves anything, it’s that the Arabs resent Israel even while admitting that they enjoy what its assets have to offer them.

It is not Israel’s treatment of them that is at the root of their siding with the Palestinians when push comes to shove. It is their belief system that is the cause. And for that Israel can neither accept blame nor legislate change.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” to be released by RVP Press in the summer.