“We are all moving targets,” MK Aida Touma Sliman told 103FM Wednesday morning. “Yesterday, at an emergency meeting of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel, several mayors said they were being threatened, and it may reach MKs as well. We conduct ourselves with the understanding that our lives and security are at stake.”
The High Follow-Up Committee was established sometime between 1982 and 1984 and has been calling since then for Israel to be transformed from a Jewish State with exclusive privileges for its Jewish majority into “a state of all its citizens.
מחכה לשר ״הביטחון הלאומי״ איתמר בן-גביר לבחור לאיזו זירת אירוע רצח הוא יילך.
בטירה נרצח מנכ״ל העירייה ד״ר עבד אלרחמן קשוע באירוע ירי בעיר, עוד 2 נפצעו בהם אחד במצב אנוש, בריינה גבר נורה למוות.
בתמונה: הנרצח בטירה מנכ״ל העירייה. pic.twitter.com/yrXv4DVQWj
— Heedo Abu Laban | عبد الحميد | חידו אבו לבן | ? (@HeedoAbuLaban) August 21, 2023
On Monday night, the CEO of the Tayibe municipality, Abdel Rahman Kashua (image above), was murdered by gunfire near the police station in his city. The Shin Bet announced that it will investigate the murder, for the first time since the start of this year’s murder wave in the Arab communities. The reason: Kashua’s murder involved a “symbol of government,” meaning it is a threat to the very sovereignty of the country.
In the past, the Shin Bet refused to investigate rank & file murders of Israeli Arabs, mostly by members of Arab organized crime, because many of them acted as informants against PA Arab terrorists.
One hand washes the other.
Touma Sliman added angrily: “It is time for the government to consider whether it wants to act against the criminal organizations or not. As far as we’re concerned, it’s not doing its job. It’s looking for ways to punish the Arab public. Must there be a massacre for them to make political decisions instead of deciding to catch the murderers?”
Here’s a curious note: on Tuesday night, “Patriots” panelist Yotam Zimri made exactly the same point regarding the reluctance of the IDF to go out of its way to curb terrorism in places like Huwara and Jenin. “The security establishment is waiting for another Park Hotel massacre,” Zimri said.
The Park Hotel Passover massacre was a suicide bombing carried out by Hamas at the Park Hotel in Netanya, on March 27, 2002, during the Passover seder. Thirty civilians were killed in the attack and 140 were injured. It was the deadliest attack against Israelis during the Second Intifada, and it provided the security establishment with an excuse to launch a massive attack on the terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.
Without such a massacre, goes Zimri’s argument, the IDF is afraid of being condemned for disproportionate violence. The world counts Jewish bodies, and if there aren’t enough of them at one time, all the IDF can do is raid Jenin for three days and kill 10 terrorists.
On Tuesday, a quadruple murder in Abu Snan in northern Israel included Ghzai Sab who is running to head the local council. It was the second political murder in Arab society in two days.
159 Arabs were murdered in the Arab sector in Israel since January 1, 2023. The number of Arab murder victims in the past four years is close to 800.
On both fronts – Arab on Arab and Arab on Jewish Settler, Israel’s security apparatus must move with great force and inflict great harm on the enemy. Nothing short of that will restore security for Jews or Arabs.
