Israeli-Arab extremism
Evelyn Gordon
April, 16 2002
Israeli Arab activists called a press conference last Wednesday to protest the arrest of five members of their community on suspicion of incitement and sedition. The arrests stemmed from a demonstration two weeks earlier at which some participants called for "liberating Palestine with blood" and "blowing up Tel Aviv."
Based on videotapes of the event, police believe the five detainees - who include the head of a movement for Bedouin educational rights, the head of the Rahat sports and culture center and the head of the Arab student union at Ben-Gurion University - are the guilty parties.
That such violent statements came from respected community leaders rather than the lunatic fringe is deeply disturbing. That many other community leaders, though claiming to oppose such statements, nevertheless defended them at the press conference as legitimate political speech is even more so. Yet most disturbing of all was the rationalization offered by Arab MK Taleb a-Sanaa (United Arab List): The police, he told reporters, are persecuting leaders who did nothing more than express views shared by all Israeli Arabs.
What makes a-Sanaa's statement so frightening is that one need only accept one not implausible premise - that Arab MKs truly represent the public that elected them - to find it irrefutable. For over the last few years, statements praising violence against Jews have become standard fare among these MKs.
MK Abdul Malik Dahamshe (UAL), for instance, told the Or Commission of Inquiry in January that Israeli Arabs convicted of murdering Jews were "prisoners of conscience," because murder, even of noncombatants, is "something so noble and so right" if selflessly committed to further the Palestinian cause. Hashem Mahameed (UAL) told the same panel in November that throwing rocks at Jews is a legitimate form of democratic protest.
Azmi Bishara (Balad) gave a speech in Syria last summer in which he urged Arab countries to "expand the sphere of resistance against Israel" - and, lest anyone imagine he meant peaceful resistance, cited Hizbullah as the model of what resistance should be. Bishara also told the Or Commission in December that Israeli Arab leaders would have shirked their duty had they urged Israeli Arabs not to attack Jews during the October 2000 riots.
Mohammed Barakei (Hadash) gave a speech in November 2000 in which he urged Israeli Arabs to participate in Palestinian violence against Israel. A-Sanaa himself, in an interview with the Nazareth-based newspaper Kul al-Arab last year, described the head of Hamas - the organization that pioneered suicide bombings against women and children - as an "exalted" figure comparable to the Dalai Lama. He said that Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah - who continued military attacks against Israel even after it acceded to his demand for withdrawal from every last inch of Lebanese territory - "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize." And these statements are merely a representative sampling.
THE ARAB parties have 10 seats in the current Knesset, representing roughly two-thirds of the Arab electorate. Part of the remainder boycotts the polls at the behest of the Islamic Movement, whose leaders also routinely advocate violence. Thus if statements by Arab MKs indeed reflect the opinions of their voters, the inescapable conclusion is that an overwhelming majority of Israeli Arabs actively or tacitly supports violence against Israeli Jews.
This conclusion is particularly significant given the recent reemergence of the doctrine of "transfer" (expulsion of the Arabs) into Israeli public discourse. Today, an overwhelming majority of Israel's Jews find this idea fully as repugnant as do Israeli Arabs. Yet in the long run, it is impossible to imagine Arabs and Jews living together in one state if a majority of the former condone and even encourage violence against the latter. Thus the growing support for anti-Jewish violence among Israeli Arabs should be of paramount concern to all those who reject "transfer" as a solution - and first and foremost, to Israeli Arabs themselves.
Ironically, one of the few Israeli Arab leaders to have understood this is MK Mahameed ("rock-throwing is legitimate"). In an interview with Ha'aretz in January, Mahameed warned his fellow MKs that when they cast their struggle as being "against the Jews or against the state" instead of merely as against government policies, this lends credence to transfer advocates.
"I don't want us to wave around radical slogans today and cry tomorrow over the results," he said.
A similar awakening is desperately needed among other Israeli Arab leaders - and even more so among the Israeli Arab public. While a few Israeli Arabs have publicly expressed dismay over their elected representatives' extremism, the jury is still out on whether they represent the silent majority.
The acid test will be the next Knesset elections, when Israeli Arabs will have the choice of reelecting or rejecting the current crop of extremists. They may well be voting on the future of Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel.
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ILA razes `illegally-planted' Bedouin crops in the Negev
The Israel Lands Administration yesterday destroyed some 12 square kilometers of crops planted by Bedouin in the Negev. The ILA claims the crops were illegally planted on state-owned land. Planes sprayed chemicals on the fields, as large numbers of security forces were deployed in the area to head off expected protests by the Bedouin.
The destruction of the crops took place early yesterday morning, without prior warning, in the fields surrounding the Bedouin settlements of Rahat, Tel Sheva, Keseifa, and Laqiya. The operation did not meet any massive opposition since the Bedouin did not have enough time to get organized.
The plan for destroying the crops was disclosed in Ha'aretz on January 23, after Opposition leader MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz) found out about it and warned the ILA against carrying out such an operation. Even if the crops had been planted illegally, he claimed, videotapes of planes destroying crops would evoke international outrage.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel also vehemently criticized the plan and tried to prevent the ILA from carrying out the operation. At the end of January, the group sent a message to the director-general of the ILA, Yaakov Efrati, saying that the destruction of the crops would severely undermine the rights of the Bedouin - most of whom live below the poverty line - to property and livelihood. The act had been all the more crude for the brutal, unfair manner way in which it had been carried out, the association said yesterday.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, also appealed to Efrati, claiming that the operation went against the basic principles of a law-abiding state. Salam Abu Madiam, the Adalah representative in the Negev, said the planes had sprayed the chemicals close to population centers. "Babies, elderly people and pregnant women breathed in the toxic chemicals. Even if there is no direct effect, who knows what kind of health problems the chemicals may cause in the future?" he charged.
The ILA also said that the chemicals that had been used were not harmful to humans, animals or the land itself, but only to the crops. He added that the pilots had been issued orders to stay away from populated areas. With regard to accusations that the operation had been illegal, the ILA contended that the Justice Ministry had been aware of the plans.
And not just anywhere in the Negev. The main Land Day rally is slated for one of the unrecognized villages in the south, Al Arakib, at the request of the new Bedouin leadership, mostly young men from the Islamic Movement.
The decision reflects not only the mounting interest in the Bedouin issue on the Arab political agenda in Israel, but also the rapid politicization of the Bedouin community, which for years stayed away from politics and preferred to rely on the good will and decency of the Israeli establishment.
But in recent years, the main element characterizing Bedouin politics is deep and bitter disappointment with the powers that be, anger at its neglect and the contempt the establishment appears to have for the Bedouin - in short, the lack of good will and decency. Bedouin politicization, therefore, is mostly confrontational, antagonistic, the result of the deepening crisis of confidence.