Israel is threatened by civil war

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When the war has ravagedin Gaza, the Palestinians in Israel have largely remained calm. This is not the case this time.

Cities with Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants such as Acre (Acre), Lod, Bat Yam, Haifa and Beersheba are ravaged by riots. Around 400 people, several of them Jews, have been arrested. Cars, shops, offices and hotels have been attacked. In Lod, a synagogue has been set on fire and a mosque has been stormed.

In Bat Yam, a Palestinian was pulled out of a car and beaten. The assault continued while he was seriously injured on the ground. In Acre, a Palestinian mob beat up a Jewish man with sticks and stones, leaving him seriously injured. In Tiberias on the Sea of ​​Galilee, a Jewish mob threw stones at a hotel where there were Arab guests. In Acre, several Palestinians went in and searched a Jewish-owned hotel.

The unrest started in Lod on Monday when a 32-year-old Palestinian who was demonstrating was shot down and killed by a Jewish civilian. There was a curfew on Thursday night – while the mayor said there was a civil war in the city. And he is not the only one who has used this word. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is one of those who warns that Israel could go to civil war.

The violence seems to largely strike randomly on both sides. There are many indications that the clashes are mostly between extremist Jews and relatively young Palestinians.

What’s happening now has come as a surprise to both Jewish and Palestinian leaders in Israel. A couple of videos showing Palestinians being abused have shocked Israeli politicians – including people far to the right.

Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the extremist religious Zionist party, says he was shocked to see one of the video clips.

– I am ashamed deep in my soul. We are in difficult times, we are under attack and we are frustrated. But heck, how can Jews be so evil? Terrible, he wrote on Twitter, reports NTB.

When the right-wing politician Tzipi Livni, former Minister of Justice, says that what has been below the surface has now exploded, she is unfortunately so far too right.

Arabs make up about twenty percent of the population of Israel. The vast majority identify themselves as Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Over 80 percent of the Arabs in Israel are Muslims, around eight percent Christians and just over eight percent Druze. The number of Bedouins in Israel is just under 200,000. Many of these live in villages that are not publicly registered and therefore lack infrastructure such as water and electricity supply. Several Bedouins are also raising the rebel flag now.

The Arab minority has full citizenship, and several hold higher positions in the bureaucracy and in other public institutions. But they suffer from several discriminatory laws. Fearing that they might be fifth colonists, it was already decided upon the establishment of the state of Israel that they would not be allowed to serve in the military. That law still exists. This means, among other things, that they lose several social benefits that accrue to Israelis who have been soldiers. The Druze have been exempt from this law, but have rarely reached high in the military hierarchy.

A controversial law about Israel as a Jewish nation state, adopted in 2018, provoked the Arab minority. Among other things, Arabic as a national language was weakened. The Druze were extra cursed because the law put an end to a system in which they had felt more equal than the rest of the minority population.

Many towns and villages, such as Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm, have a purely Arab population. Other cities have mixed populations. The purely Arab cities receive generally fewer government subsidies than the Jewish ones. This applies not least to Nazareth, where the inhabitants feel discriminated against in relation to their neighbors in the city of Nof HaGalil, where the majority are Jews.

In any case, the Palestinians in Israel are far better off materially than their brothers and sisters in the West Bank and Gaza. But it is smoldering beneath the surface, which is clearly visible these days.

It takes good political leadership to put out the fire that is now lit. Israel does not currently have that leadership. Acting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of corruption, is unable to put a new government in place after the elections in March. Palestinian leaders are currently shining with their absence.

Saturday is the so-called Nakba Day, a Palestinian day of mourning in memory of the creation of Israel and the flight of around 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. In the past, there has been unrest on this day.

What happens then can be absolutely decisive for whether Israel goes to civil war.

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