"Sulha" against Arab society

The discussion about "sulha" (reconciliation) committees usually begins with the wrong question: whether or not they succeed in restoring "quiet." "Quiet" is a convenient metric for those who look at Arab society from the outside. It tells how quickly the headlines disappeared, but not who holds the power now and at what price. A street can be quiet because a compromise was reached, and it can be quiet because everyone is afraid. From the outside, both situations look identical; from the inside, this is the difference between quiet based on justice and quiet imposed through fear.

In public discourse, a dangerous blurring has been created around the concept of "sulha." "Sulha" can serve as a mediation and reconciliation process in family and community disputes, preventing deterioration and restoring relationships. But murder, shooting, extortion, threats, and the takeover of organized crime are not a "dispute" between two equal sides. They involve an offender and a victim, a crime and a public interest. A community reconciliation process can exist alongside the criminal process, but never in its place.

When the state mixes these worlds, language itself does political work and creates a reality: a crime becomes a "dispute," the victim is required to "compromise," and the state's failure is presented as "cultural adaptation." Sociologist Dr. Manar Hasan already showed in her article "The Politics of Honor" how the use of the concept of "family honor" helped present the murder of women as an internal and cultural phenomenon of Arab society and blur the state's responsibility. The same mechanism of intentional blurring repeats here: instead of talking about abandoning the security of citizens, they talk about culture; instead of asking why the law is not enforced, they ask why the community is not doing a "sulha."

The state's attitude toward "sulha" has always been instrumental. It opposes it in the name of the rule of law when it is convenient, and allows it to exist and even grants it legitimacy when it is convenient. Directly and indirectly, the state uses these mechanisms to manage the consequences of crime instead of fighting those who cause it, a continuation of the historical pattern of managing Arab society through interest groups that serve the state, instead of through functioning state institutions and principles of liberal democracy. Our "culture" interests the state only when it can serve as an excuse for retreating from responsibility.

This institutionalization does not exist only in language. It is also expressed in meetings and interfaces between the police and "sulha" committees and projects, and in moves to establish an alternative "sulha" council in the Negev. When the state grants recognition and status to these mechanisms—mechanisms into which criminal power-holders have also penetrated—a dangerous deal is created: the state receives temporary calm, and the power-holders receive legitimacy and launder their image. The price is paid by the citizens, who are forced to live under an order they did not choose and have no real way to challenge.

When the state recognizes these mechanisms, it not only ignores the path paved by Arab society and intervenes in the social change processes occurring within it. It strengthens the power of "notables" and those in authority, pushes women and youth to the margins, and grants legitimacy to a patriarchal and chauvinistic order. The true complexity of life in the shadow of crime is that for many, this is the only immediate option left to them to protect their family. They are forced to turn to mechanisms that do not represent them, and some of which have been captured by criminal power-holders. This is not a free choice and not a tradition—it is coercion born out of the retreat of the rule of law.

I do not need the state to protect me from my culture, I am proud of it. I demand that the state stop using my culture to justify abandoning me. It has no right to place me before a choice between living under the auspices of mechanisms that do not represent me and death. It is my right to live in security, under egalitarian institutions and a uniform and clear rule of law.