In May 2021, Arab Israelis fully participated in Hamas’ war against Israel. This week former housing minister and Brig. Gen. (retired) Effi Eitam joined me on “Mideast News Hour” to explain what is happening with the Arab Israeli community. Our critically important discussed focused on how and why Israelis are organizing militarily and socially to advance the cause of Israel’s destruction.
Effie Eitam and I recalled that as Hamas rained its missiles on Israel, Arab Israelis rioted in mixed Jewish-Arab cities countrywide. Arab Israelis violently attacked their Jewish neighbors. They burned and looted Jewish businesses and homes, and destroyed synagogues. Arab Israelis rioted at key traffic junctions to block military traffic. Arab truck drivers working for the IDF didn’t show up to work.
A wake-up call
May 2021 was a wake-up call that Israel’s leadership simply couldn’t ignore. (At least until Naftali Bennett formed a government with the Muslim Brotherhood party Ra’am and pretended the whole thing away in order to serve as prime minister with the backing of a mere 5 percent of voters.)
As Israel goes towards new elections in November, Arab Israelis again are increasing their violent actions against their Jewish neighbors on various levels. Once again Eitam sounded the alarm: Arab Israelis are building an army under Israel’s nose.
“They train themselves,” he says, adding that they travel to remote places at night to practice shooting. “This is my old soldier ear which can hear that this is not a fantasy, it is not just shooting at weddings.”
“They are trained, they are committed, they have experience in killing,” Eitam also adds, referring to the high rate of violent crime within the Arab sector. “Slowly, step by step, an army is emerging.”
A nexus of progressivism and Islamism
Eitam and I discussed how the nexus of progressivism and Islamism has hamstrung Israel’s progressive politicians and jurists and caused them to side with the Israeli Arabs in their efforts to dismantle the Jewish state.
“The central campaign issue today as we move closer to the November 1 elections is whether Israel is going to remain a Jewish state or to become a post-Jewish state subsumed into an Arab nationalist narrative that rejects Jewish rights to the land of Israel,” I explained, after hearing Eitam’s description of the reality in the Arab Israeli community.
Finally, in my closing remarks, I focused on the legal fraternity’s key role in facilitating the current crisis. The restoration of the rule of law – rather than of lawyers – is the first step that Israel must take to secure its national survival in the coming years and for posterity.
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