On Rosh Hashanah 1982, Christian Arabs massacred Muslim Arabs in Lebanon in what became known as the Sabra and Shatila massacre. (Before then, it was Muslim Arabs who massacred Christian Arabs.)
That’s how the Arabs behave. It’s their time-tested way of solving problems. Just take a look at every Arab country on the map today and see what’s happening in each one of them. Read history.
In 1982, Israel was on the verge of expelling the murderous PLO from Lebanon as the IDF battled its way to Beirut. Israel launched this military operation to free its citizens along its northern border from constant PLO attacks. Ridding Lebanon of PLO terrorists was in the interests of Israel and Lebanon’s Christian population, which had suffered years of torment by the same people.
In midst of this operation, Christian Arabs – following the playbook of Mideast rules (or no rules) – took advantage of a weakened PLO and killed a few hundred of “Palestinian” civilians in the Sabra neighborhood and adjacent Shatila refugee camp.
Because Israeli forces were near the scene of this typical barbaric action, Israel was placed in the corner by “enlightened” world opinion, which suddenly realized that Arabs were butchering each other in Lebanon. “Israelis are just like Nazis!” screamed the enlightened German press.
Menachem Begin sardonically observed, “Non-Jews kill non-Jews, and the Jews are at fault.” But he then proceeded to agree to an investigation of the massacre.
I recall these events now for two reasons.
1) The 37th anniversary of this massacre just passed.
2) Current events today match Begin’s observation from so many years ago. In Israel, over 50 percent of homicides involve Arabs (who only comprise 20 percent of the population). The same is true of road fatalities. Reports of children being run over by vehicles in Arab villages and neighborhoods are commonplace. Arab women are also regularly slaughtered to save their family’s honor.
Arabs in Israel may live in a first-world country that affords them opportunities and freedoms that other Arabs can only dream of, but their culture has not been significantly affected by the values of Jewish culture. They still commonly solve their personal and family problems in the Arab tradition.
Tons of illegal weapons are found in the Arab community. They use them to celebrate at weddings and solve disputes. Possessing a weapon has always been a mark of Arab manhood.
Today, the Arabs of Israel are protesting the intolerable amount of violence and murder in their community. Their rage, of course, is directed at the Jewish state. We just don’t care enough when Arabs kill Arabs, they say.
The police, however, say the Arabs don’t cooperate with their efforts and sometimes attack them when they enter Arab communities. When I once complained to the police about being woken by the call to prayer from mosques in the middle of the night, the police told me “its dangerous to enter those areas.”
But even if there is an unacceptably low police presence in the Arab sector: Is that a reason for people to kill each other? I rarely see police in my own neighborhood. We don’t kill each other. In my brother’s charedi neighborhood, one never sees a cop. Zero homicides. No illegal weapons.
So what’s the problem? Culture. Values. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan observed this week that Arab culture is “very, very violent.” In the Jewish community, we take our adversaries to court; the Arabs solve their problems with weapons, he said.
Boy, did that get the attention of the Arab “leadership,” which naturally called him a “racist” and a “fascist.” Be careful, Mr. Erdan.