For years I have been yelling from my op-ed pages that Israel is aiding and abetting a homegrown Arab Fifth Column. Sadly, my yelling fell on deaf ears and now my warning is in play. Israel is now a democracy on a suicide path.
What is there to do about the young Arabs who feel that the State of Israel is crumbling in front of their eyes?
This op-ed, in Hebrew, by Mordechai Kedar, PhD, was translated to English by Nurit Greenger | May 4, 2022
Anyone who sees young, age 20-25, Arabs citizens of Israel, in the Israeli public space, cannot ignore the drastic change that has taken place in the last two years in the behavior and conduct of some of them. These are some of the young people, mostly men, studying at universities or working in pharmacies, construction, hotels and many other places who, until a few years ago, usually behaved in a polite manner, respectful to those around them, spoke in a calm tone of voice and behaved in a dignified and respectful manner.
In recent years I have seen a great change in the behavior of some of the young driver Arabs in the public space: they are driving in an unprecedented wild manner and demonstrative violence, and this is not a new issue; during Yom Kippur fifteen years ago, the Arab Assad Shibli, a 20-year-old ATV driver, ran over the girl Tal Zino who was walking in the village of Tavor’s street, and during Yom Kippur, two years ago, the Arab drug dealer Amir Abu Laban, from Ramle, drove over the boy Itai Margie, from Tel Aviv. These cases are not the only ones that have ended up in death, as a result of the wild and dangerous driving manner of young Arabs.
Young Arabs, traveling by bus and train, talk with each other on their cell phones, in a loud voice, and the impression they create is that they treat the public space as if it belongs to them. In recent years, more and more Arabs demonstrate on Israel Independence Day waving Palestinian flags. This behavior began in the local Arab communities, then moved to the Jew-Arab mixed cities and in recent years such demonstrations are seen in Tel Aviv, especially at Tel Aviv University. The young Arab demonstrators know exactly what waving the Palestinian flags mean – a hope for the elimination of the Jewish state – and this exact message they want to convey loud and clear.
A construction site manager told me that recently Arab workers have been making unprecedented and illogical demands on vacation days and working conditions, and when their demands are not met they are damaging the building and work equipment. The examples of the change in the behavior of young Arabs are many and varied, and it is sufficient to mention here the behavior of hundreds of them during Operation “Guardian of the Walls” events, in May 2021, in the Jewish-Arab mixed cities: Jaffa, Acre and Lod, etc.
The reasons for this change in young Arab behavior are many; some are in-depth reasons and some are reasons that have come up recently. The main reason for the in-depth is the release of the young Arabs from inhibitions that characterized the previous generations.
In their Hebrew language book, “The Upright Generation,” published twenty years ago, sociologists Danny Rabinovich and Khula Abu Becker discuss the changes that have taken place in the Arab sector in Israel since 1948: the first generation was a humble generation that experienced the 1948 military defeat; their first-degree relatives became refugees in Arab countries and they survived under military rule until 1966.
The second generation began to stand upright: they were born within the State of Israel social fabric, received health services, education and work, learned Hebrew and integrated into the economy. The third generation, already upright, walks with the feeling they deserve to enjoy equal rights – in education, work, paycheck – what they teach them in school and university. The girls of the third generation rebel against their society’s patriarchal hegemony and came out against the national characteristics of the Jewish state. Former member of Knesset (MK) Hanin Zoabi, now 53, faithfully represents the girls of the upright generation.
The Arab youth of today, the generation after Hanin Zoabi’s generation, are the takeover generation. They identify what is in front of them; a conflicted Jewish public that is incapable of forming an orderly government, led by a hedonistic Prime Minister (Netanyahu) to whom the State Attorney’s Office invented felony cases who was replaced by Prime Minister (Bennett), who has no control over the government and public whose resilience is repeatedly neutered by the judiciary, frightened by media that cause panic, engrossed in the pursuit of the pleasures of life, who removed Jewish and Zionist content from the education curriculum and supports left-wing political parties that have erased Zionism from their ranks, constantly reduces their sons’ spirit to volunteer to serve in military combat units and government that confiscate guns from licensed gun owners in Jewish-Arab mixed cities.
The young Arab sees the extensive destructive activity of “Jewish” associations/foundations such as the Abraham Fund Initiatives, Ir Amim, Emek Shaveh, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, Rabbis for Human Rights (as long they are not Jews of course), Doctors for Human Rights (as long they are not Jews of course), and others, funded by foundations such as the New Israel Fund (NIF) and he/she concludes from all of this that the Jewish public has given up the Jewish state.
The young Arab sees how the state of Israel allows European countries and American funds to support hundreds of anti-Zionist bodies in Israel and Judea and Samaria and does nothing to stop the flow of this money and he draws the one and only conclusion: the Jewish state is committing suicide.
The government of Israel’s reliance on RA’AM, the Islamic Movement and its party, in the current Knesset is the highlight of Zionism weakness. Every Arab in Israel knows that the goal of the Islamic Movement is to eliminate the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. And its membership in the Knesset and in the government’s coalition is designed to cultivate its image in the eyes of the Jewish public. That would allow it to act against their state, within the state’s House of Representatives, while the Movement’s elected representatives and their action against the state are protected by parliamentary immunity.
The Islamic Movement could not hope for a better achievement than this one, all thanks to the stupidity of the Israeli legal system that does not [want to] understand the Islamic Movement’s goal, therefore, allows it to run in elections for Knesset.
The fact that the Balad Arab Political Party is in the Knesset is also a proof to the young Arab that the state of Israel is proudly marching on its path to doomsday, since this party also declares, from every possible platform, that its goal is to change – that is to abolish – the Jewish-Zionist character of the State of Israel. And in spite of this, already in 1996 the High Court allowed it to run for Parliamentary Knesset membership, to act against the state with parliamentary immunity and to award salaries to its members from the state’s coffers that they want to eliminate.
A young Arab who sees all of this draws the only possible conclusion that the State of Israel is a suicidal democracy, and all he has left to do is to help it commit suicide and push it to its demise.
The young Arab sees that the state is allowing thousands of illegal homes that nomad Bedouins built on state land that they stole from the state, in the Negev, southern Israel, to remain standing, and it even connects them to the electricity grid. He also sees how the National Insurance Institute (Social Security) funds polygamous families even though polygamy is illegal in Israel. He sees how many of the young people in the Arab sector are in possession of illegal weapons with which they often rattle their neighbors’ homes with gunfire that occasionally even claim fatality victims. He sees how crime families extort protection money from contractors and farmers without anyone taking serious action against them. He sees how the Jews are afraid and tremble from Hezbollah, Hamas, the youth of Sheikh Jarrah, the Islamic Movements Murabiton and Morabitat of Al-Aqsa. He sees how Israel, with its folly, enables the jihad media channel, Al-Jazeera, to work freely inside the country and incite against the state constantly.
From all this the young Arab concludes that the Jewish state has lost its way and it is deteriorating into an abyss without the ability to stop this process.
The social media, led by groups on WhatsApp, give young Arabs a “consciousness of togetherness” that unites them with each other, north with south, Bedouin with peasants and city dwellers, young people in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and wherever else. This sense of togetherness empowers them and gives them the sense that no one will be able to stop them while they push the country [Israel] towards great danger and the brink of the abyss, without any unease and or fear.
And who will remain here [in Israel] after the country commits suicide? That would be the young Arab and his friends who would become the new homeowners of the land and of everything the suicidal Jews built in it. The Jews, the “new crusaders,” came, did what they did and are on their way to disappear as a Jewish entity. What will be here is an Arab state with a frightened Jewish population that will do what they are told to do. Hence, the Lordy behavior of the young Arabs who externalize their feelings and express them with growing self-confidence and they do not at all try to hide their inner confident mental state.
The Illusion of Partnership
The current government has tried to convince us, the Israeli public, that a coalition with the participation of the Arab RA’AM Party is a real partnership with the Arab sector, which, through this party, becomes a serious and full partner in running the country. These are nice words, stemming from the way the Jewish side of the government sees – or rather and more precisely wants to see – the face of things.
The problem is that in the Middle East, the situation is completely different. In the Middle East, if you have property you are not looking for partners, because, when you are the sole owner then the property belongs to you in full, all one hundred percent of it belongs to you. If you put in a partner you give up some of the property’s ownership and now you cannot say it is only yours.
More than that, if you have a business and you cannot run it, you are looking for a partner to help you run it. However, from the day the partner arrived, went to work and put the factory on a healthy and profitable track, the factory actually belonged to him [the partner] because you could not run it and under him it would have been liquidated, while the partner managed to cure and save it and therefore the now successful factory belonged to him.
The parable is clear: the current Israeli government cannot get up and act freely without its Islamist partner, and it is this Islamic partner that allows the government of Israel to act and survive. And because the government depends on its Islamic partner it in fact belongs to it.
When a young Arab sees this, he realizes that the government of Israel is working for the Arab RA’AM party, and the proof for him/her is the over bloated and unprecedented allocated funds this party managed to squeeze out of the state’s budget. And it is clear to anyone who has eyes in his or her forehead that these budgets be channeled – at least in part – to the Islamic Movement’s “people of peace,” those who work day and night against the State of Israel, its sovereignty and its control of Jerusalem, in general, and the Temple Mount in particular.
This is how a young Arab interprets the “real partnership” of the Arab RAAM party in the government of Israel, so why should he or she not act as the lord of the land, as the new landlord of the state?
What Should Be Done?
The majority of the Jewish people in the State of Israel must elect to the Parliament – Knesset – only representatives who will undertake to sit with each other and not boycott each other. Our strength is in our unity, together we will stand or split we will fall.
The majority in the Knesset who are committed to a Jewish and democratic state must put an end to the legal dictatorship that abolished parliamentary democracy after it hijacked and took it over. The Knesset is the sovereign body of the state and must be able to act freely, without the threat that “it will not stand in the High Court.”
The Ministry of Education must return to educating the values of Judaism and Zionism because without such education the next generation will not be committed to the state, the people and the Jewish heritage.
The Israeli public must radiate Zionism and Judaism, in order for the near and far to see the true character of the Jewish state, and those [Israeli Arabs] who do not like it can take advantage of the Israeli passport that opens the gates for him or her to most First World countries.
The law enforcement agencies must put an end to the proliferation of illegal weapons in Israel as a whole and the Arab sector in particular, in all sectors and publics.
Law enforcement agencies must deal with a harsh hand, or better yet, with a bulldozer, in any and all cases of illegal construction, according to a state governed by the rule of law.
Israel must refrain from acceding to and joining any international treaty (such as the Istanbul Convention granting the right for asylum to all the women of the world threatened by gender) that could harm the Jewish majority of the state of Israel. Israel was not founded in order to solve the problems of the peoples of other nations and their daughters.
The Nation of Israel must say in every way to everyone in the world, without shame and without apology, that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, for which it was founded. That is the way it was recognized by the United Nations organization (UN) and by the nations of the world, and this is how she lives and this is how she will remain forever and ever.