JERUSALEM, March 22 (Reuters) - Israel plans to invest $214 million over the next five years to boost economic activity in its Arab towns, whose residents complain of second-class treatment by the majority-Jewish state. The money will be used to create jobs, address housing and transport problems and boost law enforcement in 10 Arab, Bedouin and Druze towns, Minister of Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman told reporters in Jerusalem on Monday.
A cabinet debate on Sunday highlighted the divergent attitudes in Israel towards the Arab minority, which makes up some 20 percent of the population.
All four ministers of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party voted against the plan. The party accuses Arab citizens of being disloyal to Israel and has proposed legislation requiring that all citizens swear loyalty to the Jewish state.
Voting in favour were 18 other ministers of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition.
"The Arab population’s potential is not being realised," Netanyahu told ministers. "It is vital to us that … there be equality of economic opportunity in employment, infrastructure, education and quality of life in the non-Jewish sector."
Braverman, a former senior economist at the World Bank, said the plan would contribute some $536 million to the economy.
Mohammad Darawshe of the Abraham Fund, a group advocating co-existence between Arabs and Jews, called the plan "very positive", but added: "The problem so far has been not in the approval of such plans but in their execution."
He also said the plan was "a recognition by the government of the gaps that exist between the Jewish and Arab sectors".
Economists say that reducing those gaps in living standards is key to ensuring long-term growth.
Those concerns were echoed in a report last January by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Israel hopes to join next month.
It pointed to an unemployment rate of 40 percent among Israeli Arab men and 80 percent among women.
The OECD also said evidence suggested public spending on education per child in Arab areas was about one-third lower than in predominantly Jewish municipalities.
The towns that will benefit from the plan are Umm el-Fahm, Nazareth, Sakhnin, Shfaram, Kalansawa, Maghar, Tamra, Tira, Kfar-Qasim and Rahat.
