Last year Merakh Karah, 23, from the Druze village of Dalyat al-Karmel, achieved a childhood dream and became the first Druze Arab flight attendant for the Israeli El Al airline, a position that had always been blocked to the Arab public in Israel. This was a burning issue for many years, and was the subject of a 1999 Knesset debate under the heading “The employment of an Arab flight attendant at the El Al airline.” It came up again in 2005 when it was revealed that Nasrin Abu Rabia had been removed from the El Al flight attendant course because she is Muslim.
Despite this grim picture, it seems that the normalization agreements Israel recently signed with two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, will open a new era for the Arab Israeli community, as I discussed in a previous article, in building bridges and connections with the Arab world. This time the news comes from the Israeli airline Arkia, which decided to train Arab flight attendants for flights to Dubai, following the formation of the air train from Israel to Dubai, which includes several daily flights from Ben Gurion International Airport to the Persian Gulf.
