The city of Ramle, 50 kms west of Jerusalem, has 12,000 Arabs among its 65,000 population.
For 45 years, a succession of mayors promised to develop Ramle's Palestinian neighbourhoods on the 'periphery of the periphery' of the town. 'Nobody did anything,' says Michail Fanous, a Palestinian educator, for years one of only two Arabs on the 19-member Council. Schools were so crowded that homes had to be used as classrooms. Roads were pot-holed. Open sewers stank for miles.
In 1993 a right-wing Likud Party ex-army officer, Yoel Lavi, was elected Mayor. Fanous took him to see these Arab neighbourhoods. No previous mayor had bothered. 'Deeply disturbed', he created a new position, making Fanous head of Arab Education and Culture. Fanous had a budget to start tutorial programmes and construct classrooms. Roads were sealed, street lighting put in.
Only four per cent of Ramle's Arabs had voted for Lavi in 1993. In 1998, 95 per cent of them did so.
At that election Yusuf al-Moughrabi, who lives in one of those neighbourhoods, stood with Fanous and was elected. Mayor Lavi appointed him to the Welfare and Finance Committee.
Fanous and his friends debate why the conservative mayor took such action. One factor may have been the visit which Lavi and Fanous made to Northern Ireland, five years ago. Talking with IRA activists in Derry was a mirror for issues in Israel. 'Without secretaries and committees, Lavi and I talked about the hardest things in the most civilized way,' says Fanous. 'At least we could hear each other. We became friends.'
