Israel 101: Umm Al Fahm - أم الفحم - אם אל-פחם‎

48,000 Palestinian Israelis (or Israeli Arabs, choose your semantics), an immense majority of Muslims, most street and shop signs in Arabic - welcome to (one of) the (many) other side(s) of Israel!

The largest Arab city in Israel, established in 1265, Umm Al-Fahm has always been a “thorn in the side" of Israeli nationalists (to quote one of them) who would want nothing better than to kick it deep into the West Bank (or, better, exchange it for a couple of large West Bank settlements and the aquifers they sit on).

Throw in some serious Muslim brotherhood influence, the complete absence of any sort of logical urban planning in the city, the lack of parks and child care services, add a zest of high poverty (30%) and unemployment, and you can see what it’s all about.

While before 2000, Jews would go to Arab towns (as well as to the West Bank) - especially on Saturday for shopping, when most shops are closed in the Jewish areas - the Intifada brought this to a complete halt, and now Jews (or whites...) are a slightly unusual sight.

Now most Israeli Jews would avoid going to the city out of fear (Aaaaah! the Ay-rabs!). Some others would drive a few hundred metres up the main road to reach the first Knafeh shop - a sugary reward for their bravery.

There have serious demonstrations and rioting around there - including in October 2000, when 13 Arab Israelis were killed by security forces - and I have personally heard the story of the husband of a friend, a news photographer, who got roughed up and his camera taken away by an angry mob (that was in 1987 but still... and yes, he got his camera back. They took the film though).

I went this weekend to attend a photo exhibition at the Umm Al-Fahm gallery (yes, there is one) - with some Israeli friends, it is worth mentioning - titled “The Photographic History of Wadi Ara, 1903-2008”, about the region and its origins.

Despite the messy exhibition - too many photos for such a limited space, and the absence of a chronological succession of the exhibits - you can see that the city has been through a long history, both unique and very representative of a microcosm of the lives of Palestinian Israelis: from a quiet sleepy village, to resisting the Zionist occupation, to submitting to the force of arms, to the civil fight for equal rights within the State of Israel.

Yet another struggle is far from being over: the identity one. How can you be a proud citizen of your country when you know that your father had to forcibly submit to a foreigner’s authority over his land? When images like that one...

(the village chief submitting to the Israeli army authority, 1949)

... constantly remind you of a past that once was, and you’re somewhat torn between respecting the living memory of your family and your people on one hand - and putting history behind and become simply a young man in the country whose passport you hold and language you have learned to speak since you were a child.

Add to it that the fight for equal rights within the State is far from being over. A simple example: Umm al-Fahm doesn’t have a single bomb shelter, despite bombs landing very close to it (most recently during the 2006 Lebanon war). The government has barely paid any attention to the needs of the citizens, and some local NGOs and citizens - Arabs and Jews, as a matter of fact - have tried to fill the gap.

It is true that Palestinian Israelis have it overall far better - in economic and social terms - than those in the occupied territories. But holding an Israeli passport brings another set of worries.

This banner says "Opening Soon" - in Arabic -- followed by the name of the store in Hebrew (Amina Centre). I find this linguistic dichotomy very representative of the lives of Palestinian Israelis, divided between two worlds...