Mapam will hold a national Arab-Jewish congress here next month. Victor Shemtov, secretary general of Mapam told a press conference here yesterday that the congress will promote Arab-Jewish cooperation in the wake of the deteriorating relations between the two peoples.
He said the congress would seek to “renew the dialogue between the two peoples” which have suffered in recent years as a result of growing extremism among Arabs and Jews. The congress, Shemtov said, would be followed by a Jewish-Arab public council whose function would be to deal with the pressing problems of the Arab community in Israel. Later this year, Mapam plans to hold a “spring congress” which would mark a new phase in the relations between Arabs and Jews, he added.
Shemtov stressed that the proposed congress next month was not intended as a substitute for the banned Communist Arab congress which was to have been held last month in Nazareth, nor was it linked to the upcoming national elections.
By Gil Sedan
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