Background and Location
Baladna Association for Arab Youth is on the second floor overlooking a busy corner in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, where Derech Allenby meets HaBankim Street.
The small but dynamic nongovernmental organization (NGO) is a leader among NGOs promoting grassroots activism to Arab youth (i.e., 15-25 years old), citizens of Israel, in nonviolent resistance practices.
In April 2017, the Central Bureau of Statistics released an updated Israeli census estimating over 1.8 million, or 20.8% of the population, identify as Arab or Palestinian by nationality, and Israeli by citizenship.
Arab citizens in Israel have all the same rights as their Jewish counterparts, such as the opportunity to be gainfully employed, voting enfranchisement, and reduced tuition at post-secondary institutions; however, Arabs citizens are often subjected to increased ethnoracial slurs and remain disadvantaged by stringent university entrance exams. Such limitations often lead to diminished career prospects, given the inability to access premier academic programs in Israel. The census illustrates these drawbacks by highlighting the disparate wage gap between Jewish and Arab citizens, with the latter male and female groups, respectively, earning lower than their Jewish counterparts.
The education system (i.e., kindergarten through 12th grade) in Israel is a centralized institution administered by the Ministry of Education whereby Jewish and Arab students attend segregated schools. Under the current structure, the Arab school system often is provided with less funding for extracurricular programming, thereby limiting the achievements of Arab students. Moreover, historical lessons in the Arab school system teach students about the Jewish connection to the land; however, they fail to address the sociocultural reflections based on the Palestinian narrative, ultimately whitewashing Arab heritage.
An Opening for Baladna
Baladna was established in 2001 shortly after the start of the second Palestinian intifada to educate, empower, and engage Arab youth around a platform of nonviolent resistance. Over the years, thousands of Arab youth have taken part in Baladna’s inaugural project, the Youth Leadership Program (YLP).
YLP has evolved into a movement endowing Arab youth leaders with the ability to confront issues related to their identity by organizing discussions around topics such as democracy, feminism, and human rights, as well as the historical Palestinian narrative with the hope of promoting sociopolitical activism at the local, national, and regional levels.
Through workshops focused on building long-term capacity, navigating cultural identity, and engaging in social media activism, the founding lessons on democratic principles, gender awareness, and combating human rights violations has grown to explore concepts such as self-determination, grassroots activism, and freedom of expression.
The tools YLP graduates possess at the end of the program leave them equipped to become instrumental community ambassadors spreading the message of participation to future Arab generations. The evolution of Baladna’s work has expanded with the assistance of generous intergovernmental funding to decry the horrors of honor killing, promote the inviolability of digital freedom of expression, and advance the networks of sectarian alliances.
However, despite evolution, Baladna’s core mission continues to include the promotion and empowerment of Arab youth at the grassroots level – a program centric view that remains unchanged after 17-years.
Even though citizenship allows the Arab minority in Israel to cross borders with ease, Arab Palestinians do not enjoy the same freedom given an arduous permit system and a protracted occupation (now in its 53rd year as of 2020).
Arab citizens in Israel face a host of structural violence issues that often leave them caught between two communities.
