I ask in advance for the forgiveness of some of Israel's Arabs, whose hearts do not feel bad for us, the Jews. That they are good seekers, who are disgusted by the Palestinian massacre perpetrated by Hamas in the envelope, and who see their personal and national future as intertwined with the future of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. There are those: Nail Zoabi and Yusef Haddad, or brother Hamudi Amash from Kiryat Shlomo Hospital. Not about them and to them I write here.
But there are also many others. These days, they choose the side of Hamas, and move on the scale between sick joy over the massacre and admiration for monsters from Gaza, and identification with the Palestinian narrative in the Gaza context. The thousands of posts and statements, both implicit and explicit, that the authorities or ordinary citizens documented during the last month of the war are enough to understand that their number is not insignificant.
Reserve Division maneuvering: Documentation of the activity of the 252nd Division in the Gaza Strip // Photo: IDF Spokesperson
The hundreds of hearings to which Hamas sympathizers were summoned at their workplaces throughout the country – employees of hospitals, universities, factories and soccer teams, bus drivers, cleaning workers, kindergarten assistants, and workers in the hotel and food industries – are enough to understand that this is not a marginal phenomenon (in some cases it was decided to fire the workers or put them on vacation, N.S.).
The State Prosecutor's Office filed only 53 indictments against those dancing on the blood of the slaughtered, because a certain evidentiary threshold is required to take action. But there are hundreds and thousands of other expressions of satisfaction and satisfaction over the "Hamas victory" – reported and unreported – that have not passed this threshold, and it is quite clear which side they are on. For them - the law should and can be changed. These words are not said to kindle a fire, God forbid, but to extinguish it; Not to mark and tarnish an entire public, but to ensure that we can continue to differentiate between the fifth column and the others. Not to generalize, but to make it clear that in this event and others like it, "dual loyalty" is out of the question.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, who described the "exemplary behavior so far" of Israeli Arabs, was wrong twice: the first time, because factually his remarks are nothing more than wishful thinking, and the second time, because he avoids putting on the table the possibility that during or after the war the internal front will again ignite, fire will again be set in the mixed cities and on the seam lines, and Jews will again be attacked there as in May 2021. By implication, Saturn's approach also assumes that a reward or commendation is due to those who do not break the law, and who do not cause riots and violence in wartime.
"Living with the problem"
This thought, like the working assumption of security officials that the problematic part of Israeli Arabs is deterred, is dangerous in itself, but even more dangerous is the fact that the State of Israel refrains from thoroughly addressing the combustion potential of the internal front, and continues to live with the problem. We have Hamas and Hamas sympathizers among us, almost visible. These are members of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were outlawed eight years ago, but continue to operate in um al-Fahm, Kafr Kanna and other places in the country, under other names.
Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai, Photo: Mark Israel Salem
One of their leaders, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, once called Israelis Nazis, advocated the establishment of an "Islamic Caliphate" with Jerusalem as its capital, and likened Israel to "a louse that nests in the body of the Arab world and sucks its blood and resources." Now he says to his people: "Wait, the time will come. Rescue is coming." Other activists instruct their public in the same spirit how to publish ambiguous content that will not be interpreted as incitement.
We must never again fall into the trap of false silence and "deterred", especially when it comes to the internal front. We must not underestimate any information, just as we disparage, for example, the phenomenon of Hirak al-Fahmawi, an organization affiliated with the northern branch of the Islamic Movement. Its operatives were documented in the Megiddo area conducting paramilitary training with paintball rifles, convoys of off-road vehicles and horses, and according to the Jewish Voice, they even "conduct combat training in one of the clubs in the area."
After October 7, such phenomena should no longer be treated as "child's play." Not when it comes to the residents of um al Fahm, nor when it comes to the residents of the Shuafat refugee camp, who, since the beginning of the Iron Sword War, have been rioting every night on the fence, only dozens of meters from the homes of residents of Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, firing in the air, throwing Molotov cocktails and chanting "Atabah al Yahud."
After October 7, it is also impossible to ignore the activities of the Arab Monitoring Committee, a body that in May 2021 inspired rioters in mixed cities, and which has now managed to blame Israel and its "crimes" for the situation in Gaza. This committee, which has already established a legal department to protect Israeli Arabs arrested or interrogated following expressions of support for Gaza, is headed by former MK Mohammed Baraka. Baraka is the man who described the riots in the mixed cities more than two years ago as "the center of resistance against Zionist oppression," and made it clear that cities like Jaffa, Haifa, Lod, and more were and will remain Palestine.
Weapons for "bird hunting"
But above all there is the issue of weapons in the Arab sector. Show me another public in Israel that the state treats with such indifference the fact that it keeps tens of thousands of unauthorized weapons in its homes, under protrusions, slicks and hide-and-seek. There is no other public in Israel that illegally possesses such an arsenal of ammunition.
Still, security officials believe in a kind of blind belief that these weapons will be directed only inward, that is, against Arabs (a terrible racist belief, by the way), and will only be used at weddings, joyous parades or bird hunting.
This eclipse is ostensibly based on the assessment that Israeli Arabs who see themselves mainly as Palestinians, some of whom are Hamas sympathizers, are indeed deterred, but after the massacre in the envelope, we must not continue to make such assumptions. After the massacre, there is also no need to seek legitimacy in order to carry out the root canal treatment that has long been required, and to collect weapons from house to house, street to street and city to city. Even if it takes years. You don't have to wait for another failure and catastrophe to do so.
The danger of an internal front igniting, therefore, stems from three elements: anti-Semitic and murderous ideology in concentrations of Hamas sympathizers in Israel, such as the Northern Branch; means to implement this ideology, in the form of huge stockpiles of concealed weapons; and explicit calls by the enemy for the "internal Arabs" to rebel and rise up.
That potential may not be realized this time. He may wait for the next opportunity. In any case, we must prepare for the worst-case scenario on the internal front, which may be the most painful of all. Let's not fall into another concept.
Awarding grades of "exemplary behavior" to a public that considers itself committed first of all to the Palestinian ethos and narrative, and only then, if at all, to the country in which it lives is a mistaken and bad choice of direction.
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