Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 10/99) - You might not think that the Western Arctic and Israel have much in common, but Zev Zivan says they certainly do.

A professor from southern Israel, Zivan says the similarities lie in the development of the frontier in Canada and in the relationship between its aboriginal peoples and European settlers and modern-day southerners.

He said his own city, Beer-Sheva, lies on Israel's Negev frontier on the edge of the Sinai Desert, which separates his country from Egypt. Zivan said in Israel's case it is the nomadic, Islamic Bedouin who only recently settled into towns and whose relationship with the Jewish majority mirrors that between the Arctic aboriginal groups and southern Canadians.

Moreover, Zivan's university is named after David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, who he said shared a number of qualities with his Canadian contemporary, John Diefenbaker.

"Diefenbaker raised the flag in the Canadian North," he said, "and Ben-Gurion helped open the south of Israel, the Negev."

But Zivan, a friendly, talkative man, is the first to admit he doesn't know everything and is still exploring these and other theories.

He said he was very happy that, as a professor of geographical history, he received a scholarship from the Council for Canadian Studies to travel to Canada this summer and take a closer look at our situation.

"The council is trying to encourage academic people to come here and get some first-hand experience and to bring this back to our classrooms in Israel," he said. "When you're far away and you're talking about North America, people think about the United States, but when someone comes here they get a different perspective."

Zivan said he's also travelled to Siberia in Russia and to Australia in his studies of the aboriginal-settler relationship. He said he thinks Canada, particularly after the birth of Nunavut, serves as a positive model for other countries to turn to. He said Israel's Bedouin have experienced many of the same social problems faced in the Canadian North -- concerning housing, language, culture and unemployment.

"Even some of the mistakes you've made are the same as ours," he said. "In Israel the state built houses for the Bedouin coming out of their tents and off the land -- regular houses that all Israelis live in -- but they didn't want to live in them because they were simply not right for them."

But Zivan also said that differences exist between Canada and Israel's situations. Beer-Sheva, for example, is a city of 180,000 and the Negev frontier is only three hours from the centre of the country. Zivan also referred to Canada's cosmopolitan and racially and religiously tolerant character -- and said he was delighted on his last visit to meet up with Inuvik residents who had originally come from countries bordering Israel, like Lebanon and Syria.

"In Israel I can sit with a Bedouin from the Negev," he said, "but there's no chance I'll meet someone from Syria."