Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Time Runs Out The voices of the Israeli Arab revolution are clearly heard in the land, and, as if cursed from heaven, the Jewish leaders of Israel sit, paralyzed. Events within the Arab sector of Israel daily expose the bankruptcy of Israeli policy toward its Arabs, revealing all the misconceptions, delusions, and error piled upon error. It is a policy woven of many fabrics -- contempt for the Arabs, fearful unwillingness to face reality, guilt. In 1949 correspondent Hal Lehrman, a longtime observer of Arab affairs, visited the new State of Israel and later put down his impressions for Commentary magazine (December 1949). In Nazareth he noted that "the Jewish authorities are apparently making a genuine try for the equality promised in their Declaration of Independence ... keeping the administration as Arab as possible within security limits." Fearful of the threat to that security, the Israelis placed Arabs under a military government. In Nazareth the military governor was Major Elisha Soltz, a kibbutz member of the leftist Mapam Party (today aligned with the Labor Party in a block known as the Maarach). The Mapam people, at the left, liberal end of the spectrum, are of course passionate advocates of theoretical Arab equality. Lehrman's description of Soltz is a description of general Israeli contempt and ignorance vis-a-vis its Arabs. Wrote Lehrman: "Major Elisha Soltz, who looks and sounds like the kibbutznik he is, was troubled only by economic problems. ... 'If I could find employment for 2,500 breadwinners, the Quakers and I could all pack up and go home.' Major Soltz was not worried about the Communist situation, however. 'Yes, they have good propagandists here, and some influence. But they are nowhere near a majority. Their one big advantage was that they had an Arab branch here, underground, which came out as soon as the Arab army left Nazareth.' But he laughed away the possibility that the Communists could keep growing on Arab discontent” Soltz's attitude was matched by the majority Mapai (Labor) Party, which controlled the Histadrut Labor Federation. Said one local Histadrut hack: "Take away the restrictions on Arab travel. Give us jobs for them. There won't be ten Communists left in Nazareth.” A little more than twenty-five years later, the Arabs of Nazareth had everything the Jewish "head-and-stomach" materialists preached as the prescription for the disappearance of the anti-Zionist Communists. The military government had long since been abolished and the Soltzes of Israel had gone home. Travel restrictions were a thing of the past. There
was full employment in Nazareth. And just as the hacks had said, there were not ten Communists left in Nazareth. There were at least 9,653 of them. It was the night of December 9, 1975. "By evening, the automobile horns began to honk. Into the wetness and cold that enveloped Nazareth, rivers of joy poured out. Hoarse throats shouted happily. Emotional eyes cried: We won! Young people clapped each other on the back and kissed. Telephones rang in homes whose lights had not gone out and in stores which had not closed. Mabruk! Mabruk! Congratulations! Congratulations! Voices that we will yet hear again" (Maariv, December 12, 1975). Elections in free and equal Nazareth, where Arab heads and stomachs had been filled by deluded Jews for more than a quarter of a century. The Israeli Arabs of the town had just gone to the polls to elect a town council and mayor of the biggest Arab town in Israel. The result was a staggering landslide victory for the Communist Rakah party. Fully 67.3 percent of the voters cast their ballots for the Communist list. More than two-thirds of the voters - 9,653 of 14,125 - elected a party committed to antiZionism, to hatred of Israel. Given the one way to express their desire to be "Palestinians," the Arabs of Nazareth did so - resoundingly. All this was accomplished despite open and crude efforts at intimidation by the government. Two cabinet ministers were sent on the eve of the election to warn Nazareth against voting Rakah lest it suffer loss of funding. Money was poured into the coffers of the Arab Labor Party puppets. All in vain. The Communists swamped the old hamulla chiefs who had slavishly followed the government line in return for political favors. As usual, the Israeli was "stunned." He could not believe that eleven of the seventeen council seats had been won by Rakah. He could not imagine that the new mayor of Nazareth was Tewfik Zayad. Tewfik Zayad at the time was forty-six years old, a politician and poet. His poetry? To commemorate the first anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, in October 1974, Zayad wrote a poem in praise of the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal: The sun was in the midst of the sky and the black faces fed the soil with their flesh the heavy half-tracks and the metal eagles
chewed the Bar- Lev Line's insides ... and all the eyes wept with joy ... the crossing was holy and holy will be the homeland ... Zayad, already a Knesset member on the Rakah ticket, became a national hero to the Arabs of Israel for his poem and his willingness to incite openly against the state. For, after all, the Arabs did not vote Rakah for its communism, but rather because it was the only successful political group that was anti-Zionist. It was their method of voting against the Jewish state, against the Jewish "occupation" of what was now called "Israel." It was their way of voting for "Palestine," and the only shock that is understandable is that the Jews were shocked by the Rakah win. It was only the venality and corruption of the Nazareth hamullas that enabled the Labor Party to perpetuate an illusion of Arab satisfaction with the Jewish state. The political "boss" of Nazareth for a quarter of a century was Knesset member Seif-E-Din Zuabi. He had been one of the typical "Uncle Ahmeds," a faithful and reliable follower of the government who did its bidding in return for political and economic favors. The Israeli newspaper Ha'Eretz (December 12, 1975) called Zuabi "the man who is precious to the authorities and who for twenty years had behaved as if Nazareth was his own property." He and his large hamulla had ensured the illusion of Arab loyalty and Arab acceptance of the Jewish state. But as the young generation of Arabs rose and, thanks to Israeli educational, social, and economic progress, threw off the yoke of the hamullas, everything changed. They saw their elders as Esaus who had sold their national birthright for economic benefits. The elders would go, the hamullas would go -- and the town of Nazareth voted Rakah, voted Zayad, voted Arafat. Zayad's voice is one of those that leads the Arab struggle against Israel. It grows in shrillness and in brazenness in direct proportion to Israel's fear of acting against him. After his poem praising the Egyptian army for killing Israeli soldiers, the Disabled Veterans' Organization cabled the Knesset Speaker, saying, "It is intolerable that the Knesset would contain a man who hates Israel and who writes words of hatred that pain all the nation." A special Knesset committee was set up to look into the matter. It invited Zayad to appear and explain himself. In a calculated decision Zayad refused to show up. He was proved correct. The committee announced its findings: the poem was "not compatible with the oath taken
by a Knesset member" pledging allegiance to the state. The penalty? Nothing. Zayad laughed. In his first interview following his smashing victory in Nazareth, Zayad told Israel Radio: "We are not alone, not in the country and not in the world." It was a warning to the Jews not to move against him. It was a gamble that worked because of Jewish fear. Nothing Zayad said in terms of hatred, incitement, and sedition moved Israel to take action against him, and so he became an Arab national hero. On March 6, 1976, Zayad told a wildly cheering crowd of 1,200 in Nazareth to fight against government expropriation of land in the Galilee: "The government throws stones at us so it is time to throw stones at it -- and it should keep in mind that it lives in a glass house. ... They wish us to get out -- we say to them: We stay and you will go." Knesset member Yigal Cohen demanded that the attorney take action. No action was taken against Tewfik Zayad. On May Day, 1976, Zayad addressed a crowd of 4,000 Nazareth Arabs. As he spoke, the few Israeli flags were lowered. Said Zayad: "From now on there will be no communities and religious groups but only a single Arab minority, part of the Palestinian nation" And because of this, "the Arabs of Israel will not remain neutral over events in the West Bank. For the Arabs of Israel are Palestinians and the Arabs of the West Bank are our people, our flesh and blood." He concluded by calling on the Arabs to escalate the struggle in the Galilee "and not to spare as many sacrifices as are necessary. If they will take our lands we will lie, by the thousands, under their bulldozers." His call to defy the government was met by wild cries of "The Galilee will return to the Arabs." "The Galilee is Arab, you leave." "We will give our spirit and blood for the Galilee." No action was taken against Zayad for incitement. On May 1, 1978, Zayad had this to tell a crowd of 3,000 in Nazareth's main square: "The war policy of the Maarach [Labor coalition] caused it to lose the election -- but Yasir Arafat is still alive and in existence. The Likud has risen to power -- it too will fall. But Arafat will remain, and Arafat means that the Palestinian people lives and exists. He concluded by saying: "That which was taken by force will be returned by force." No action was taken against him for sedition. In June 1980 a meeting of mayors and local council chairmen met to protest the attack on the two PLO mayors of Shechem and Ramallah (Jerusalem Post). Against a background of cries of "We are all Fatah" and "We are waiting for Arafat," Zayad said, in part: "The government is a
bunch of criminals and animals." "People under occupation have the right to oppose the conqueror with any means they choose." "The Palestinian flag will soon be hoisted all over the country.” Ra'anan Cohen, head of the Labor Party's Arab Department and one of the leading exponents of "head-and-stomach" bribery, was furious. He called Zayad's words "very clearly, subversion of the very existence of the state." Perhaps; undoubtedly. But no action was taken against the Arab. In the face of this utter failure of both the Labor and Menachem Begin government to act -- a failure clearly born of fear of Arab rioting and world opinion -- it is little wonder that the ordinary Israeli Arabs also grow bolder. Thus, on a visit to the Israeli Arab village of Tayba, a Maariv reporter (March 1, 1978) recorded the following open comments by young Arabs: "Yasin, who calls himself Abed al-Naser, says that there must rise a Palestinian state under Yasir Arafat. And what is to be done with the Jews? The Jews,' he says, 'have to return to Europe, from where they came. Those who remain will live in neighborhoods as they once lived, in Germany.' One of the youngsters cries out from the side: 'The Jews into the sea!'“ And so Moshe Sharon, Begin's former adviser on Arab affairs, complained that in certain Arab villages, expressions of joy were heard after the massacre of more than thirty Jews by terrorists on the coastal road. Said Sharon: "Unlike past terrorist massacres when a wave of letters, telegrams, and statements of condemnation of the terror actions were received by the prime minister's office, this time -- after the coastal massacre -- only three telegrams were received." It might be added that after the murder of six Jews in Hebron in 1980, not one Arab body sent a message of condolence. The Rakah Communist Party, at the moment, is the leading organized anti-Zionist group. Well organized and financed by Moscow, it already controls many local village councils. Because of this, well over half the members of the chairmen of Arab local councils -- always considered the most moderate and pliable of the Arab institutions -- met on January 20, 1979, and declared their support of the PLO. The resolution welcomed the struggle of the West Bank Arabs "against the occupation, annexation, and colonialist settlements" and expressed their solidarity with "the struggle of the Palestinian people under the leadership of the PLO to establish its independent state.” The takeover of village after village by Rakah shows that time is running out for Israel in its struggle to avert an Arab uprising. Said 164 Knesset member Amnon Linn, a member of Begin's own Likud bloc (January 1979): "The radicalization of Arab students and Galilee local council heads is far more serious now than it was during the tenure of Maarach governments.” Boldness bred success for Rakah, and success bred more boldness. After the Land Day Rebellion, Israeli Arabs watched with pride and delight as Rakah presented the Knesset a motion of no confidence in the government. Rakah Arab member Tewfik Toubi, an older colleague of Zayad's, rose to thunder: "Why is the government of murderers not here? Why do the cowards kill and then run away from the call of the blood they shed ...? Where is the archmurderer ...?” Time runs out. Twenty years ago -- fifteen years ago -- Toubi would never have dared say such a thing. It is a different Arab Israeli world today. It is a world of groups that challenge Rakah as not being sufficiently radical. Groups such as Bnei Hakfar with their Progressive National Movement and the leftist, nationalist Abna-el-Balad are strong challenges to Rakah for the minds and souls of Israeli Arab youth and intellectuals. That segment is already radicalized, and nothing Israel can possibly do will change the stark fact. Back in February 1978 a group of fifty-six Israeli Arab intellectuals from Nazareth and large villages of the Triangle issued a public statement demanding official recognition of the "Palestinian Arabs living in Israel" along with full political rights. In addition, they demanded the return of all Arab property and declared their recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the "Palestinian" people. It is a new era. Alongside the rapid growth of secular nationalism is a startling return to and growth of Muslim fundamentalism, at least as nationalistic and bitterly anti-Israel. There is little doubt that the rise to power of Khomeini in Iran gave tremendous impetus to the religious insurgence among Arab Israelis. In a January 1979 symposium on Islam among the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael, Moshe Sharon pointed out that "Islam is the outstanding expression among the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael of their national entity." He pointed to a spontaneous religious revival among Israeli Arabs as a form of national identity. This included a rash of new mosques and a large number of young Arabs sprouting beards and traditional clothing (a la the Muslim Brotherhood) and seeking to study in the Muslim College in Hebron.
But religious or secular, bearded or beardless, town or village, the Israeli Arab dreams of his own sovereign Arab Palestine. And in the meantime he shapes his political struggle by stages. Zayad gave one of the most significant Arab speeches on May Day 1976, when he demanded that the State of Israel implement the full equality for Arabs that is pledged by the Declaration of Independence. Specifically, he demanded that in proportion to their (then) population, the Arabs be allotted eighteen Knesset seats and three cabinet ministers, as well as a proportionate number of senior posts in the various ministries. Warned Zayad: "If the Israeli Arabs do not obtain equality of rights within the state of Israel, they shall become citizens of another state.” It is rather frightening for those who have studiously refused, until now, to look at the fundamental contradiction between a Jewish state and one in which the Arabs actually demand political representation that begins to move toward eventual Arab democratic control. There is an intense measure of hypocrisy in the manner in which we fall over ourselves in fulsome praise of the Israeli democracy that allows Rakah to rave against the state when it has five members. Zayad and other Arabs are now demanding their proportionate sliare, and that is quite another thing for all the liberal proponents of democracy. The call for greater Arab representation will be heard, however, with increasing intensity whether we like it or not, and as their population grows, they will sit in the Knesset without our largess. And as they grow in population, the Israeli Arabs will push ever more stridently for return of all their families and fellow Arabs who fled during the 1948 War of Independence - this, and the return of their property which is now in Jewish hands. They will rely on United Nations resolutions giving those "refugees" the right to choose between compensation or return. No matter that the Arabs themselves contemptuously rejected the United Nations' original partition scheme in 1947. Arab cynicism and duplicity are legendary, and when aided by a United Nations of political prostitutes and professional Israel haters, contradictions bother no one. Again, Israel will be faced with the specter of more Arabs entering the land as part of the Israeli Arab program to destroy the Jewish state from within. The population growth within the Galilee and the Triangle will quicken the irredentist call for Arab sovereignty over those areas, first through "autonomy" and then through outright annexation to the "Palestine" that will be called for in Judea-Samaria. Justifications for this are already endlessly repeated. We are a majority, say the Arabs of those
areas, and we wish to control our own destiny. We wish to live our own cultural and ethnic life. This area is Arab by virtue of its population, and we demand an autonomy that gives us the right to procure that which our identity demands. Again, the United Nations will be called down to justify such demands. Under the world organization's 1947 proposal, much of the Galilee and the Triangle (plus many other cities) were supposed to be part of the Arab state. The Arab mind has no patience with the logic of the fact that tfiey rejected the plan and went to war in hope of destroying the Jewish state. The fact that in the war that they began, they lost both the battle and the moral right to talk about the UN plan they rejected is totally irrelevant to the Arabs. It is interesting to note that in 1949, less than a year after their defeat, an Arab official of the Communist Party in Nazareth was asked by Hal Lehrman why the party in Nazareth was called the Arab Liberation League and not the Israel Communist Party, as elsewhere. His reply was: "Nazareth is Arab. Partition said so. It should be part of an Arab state." Nothing has changed. The demand for autonomy will grow into a roar, aided, ironically enough, by the awesome blunder of Menachem Begin's "autonomy plan.” Not only did the Begin plan bury the hope of annexing the liberated lands, it also -- in the words of Moshe Sharon -- "is likely to bring down disaster upon us. I have no doubt that this is the kernel of a Palestinian state which Israel is in effect helping to create." But even worse, from Israel's point of view, is the dynamic effect autonomy in the territories would have on the Arabs of Galilee and the Triangle. Even before Begin produced his incredible autonomy scheme for Judea-Samaria, there was talk of autonomy for the Galilee. Now, when the territories have been offered autonomy, the effect on the Israeli Arabs in the Galilee and Triangle will be explosive. Worst of all is the fact that the two major Arab concentrations in Israel border on the "autonomy in the Galilee and the Triangle but for linkage to the autonomy of their brethren in JudeaSamaria.” From that it is only one short step to the demand for the separation of the Galilee and the Triangle from Israel, and their becoming part of the Palestinian state upon which they border and to which they are tied by race, history, language, and religion. Sharon himself told Maariv (February 2, 1979) that he saw "the dangerous likelihood of the formation of a legal Arab party that will demand that the Arab autonomy. In such a case, the Israeli Arabs will demand a return to the partition of 1947." A similar warning was given by Knesset member Amnon Linn on December 9, 1975, when he charged that elements among the Israeli
Arabs planned to revolt and demand annexation of areas of Israel to any new Palestinian state. Of course, Israel will not agree, and bloody will be the battles and terrible the bombs and bullets. Rebellion will raise its head in the midst of Israel, and the nightly television news will show pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting Arabs in the Galilee. It will be dangerous to travel through the area, let alone live there, and all the while the Arab population growth will mean more Arab legislators in the Knesset and another step toward a "democratically" created "Palestine.” Too late, the Israeli government realizes the danger and frantically attempts to prevent the Arabization of the Galilee by "Judaizing" it, filling it with Jews to offset Arab population growth. Of course, even at this late critical stage of national emergency, there are Jews whose liberal instinct clashes with their Jewishness and their sense of national selfpreservation. And so President Yitzhak Navon absurdly tells Galilee settlers that the term "Jewish settlement" is preferable to "Judaizing," lest the latter be seen as either racist or implying driving the Arabs out. But whether one calls the child by its real name, "Judaizing," or plays games of self-deception and conjures up "Jewish settlement" or even the innocuous "development of the Galilee," the fact remains that the Israelis are desperately attempting to raise the Jewish population in the area that is the focus of Arab nationalism and irredentism. It is a policy that is far too little and far too late. When Moshe Rivlin, head of the Israeli Jewish National Fund and a longtime Labor Party official, cries: "If we fail, G-d forbid, to ... change the Jewish-Arab population ratio in the Galilee to a minimum of fiftyfifty, Israel will soon face a grave danger," one can understand his fears. But in reality, the danger of the Arabs does not end even if we can somehow manage to keep a precarious equality of population in the Galilee. The fact that the Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland are a minority in no way prevents them from demanding annexation to Eire, the Irish Republic. A huge, growing, hostile Arab population of 40 to 50 percent is enough to turn the Galilee into a perpetual bloody scene of confrontation. Furthermore, there is no possible way that, eventually, Israel will find enough Jews to settle in the Galilee to offset the incredible Arab birthrate there. Nevertheless, the thought of a solidly Arab-populated Galilee turns strong Zionists weak, and as early as 1966 Prime Minister Levi Eshkol proposed a plan to settle Jews in upper and central Galilee. Because of the Six-Day War the plan was shelved; only in the aftermath of the Yom
Kippur War and the rise of the Arab revolt did the government revive and embellish it. The key to settling the large number of Jews and building farms, villages, and urban centers is expropriation of lands. Unfortunately, the government's courage does not match its appreciation of the danger. And so, in the face of the bitter Arab resistance (they understood quite well the purpose of the plan) which culminated in the bloody Land Day Rebellion, the government, in fear, backtracked and plucked the vitals out of the program. Instead of an honest presentation of the problem -- Arab population and irredentism, a threat to the Galilee as part of Israel -- the government issued an "information-background" bulletin, built on an apology and defensiveness that was not lost on the Arabs: "It has always been the government's policy to encourage and foster the dispersal of the country's population and to move toward an evening-out of the population-density pattern. ... Certainly it is not a measure directed against any particular population group [sic]. ...” Shades of early Zionist contempt for the Arabs! All the fraud and lies and self-delusion revived! If the project was so good for the Arabs, why the uproar? Why the riots? Why the rebellion? Because, despite the subconscious feelings of the liberals and leftists, the Arabs were not fools. Such absurd Israeli government explanations might satisfy wealthy UJA givers and heads of the Liberal American Jewish Establishment; they did not deceive the Arabs. And so, the Rakah Arabic-language newspaper Al-lttihad, on June 6, 1975, wrote: "We became aware of the existence of this conspiracy about a year ago because of the renewed talk about the 'Judaizing of Galilee.' ... We will not remain silent in the face of this sinister, racist plan. ... This is indeed a question of life.” Voices. If one wishes to understand why the Jews of Israel retreat and face catastrophe while the Arab star ascends, listen to the two voices; listen to the contrast. One, the Arab voice, is shrill, loud, brazen, confident. The other, the Jewish voice, is defensive, apologetic, guiltridden. Between two such adversaries there is no contest. The Arabs have a definite goal, and their programs are unabashedly aimed at it. The Jews, beset by contradictions, set up schizophrenic plans that go rushing off madly in opposite directions. The results are obvious. If Israel would be honest and state the problem truthfully and starkly, world Jewry would understand. But if, on the one hand, it denies a
problem and then takes "anti-liberal" actions to solve it, what is anyone to think? There are Jews who understand the desperate nature of the problem and the need to deal with it boldly. It was this understanding that led General Avigdor Ben-Gal to characterize the Arabs of the Galilee as "a cancer." His reprimand by Begin's minister of defense, Ezer Weizman, was only further evidence of the fearful lack of direction and firmness in Israel today. Perhaps the clearest and boldest perception of the problem was that of Yisrael Koenig, representative of the Interior Ministry in the north. In a secret memorandum sent to Prime Minister Rabin in 1976, Koenig warned that an Arab majority in the Galilee would threaten Israeli sovereignty in the region. As an example of the problem, Koenig pointed out that in 1974 a mere 759 Jews were added to the Galilee population as against 9,035 Arabs! He called for the following actions to be taken: to settle Jews in heavily populated Arab areas; to limit the number of Arab university students and encourage them to study outside the country, then make it difficult for them to return; to cut sharply national insurance payments to Arabs; and to limit employment opportunities for them. Koenig's plan, as good as it was, was unfortunately not nearly the necessary answer. But it was drafted with knowledge of the guilt-ridden lack of a sense of national self-preservation that gripped Israeli Jews and that prevented an even more vigorous and effective plan from being adopted. In the end, even Koenig and his plan were the targets of the disoriented, confused liberals. Thus, the Jerusalem Post (September 9, 1976) called it "a scheme tainted with nationalist fanaticism." Mapam Knesset member Aharon Efrat called for Koenig to be fired. Tourism Minister Moshe Kol called it "a damaging document." Yediot b Aharonot writer Yehoshua Ben-Porat lamented the Koenig report violated all that the State of Israel promised "in the Declaration of Independence and pledges daily ... equal rights for all its citizens - including the Arab minority." He then proceeded to display the contradiction and confusion that must be the lot of all guilt-ridden liberals as he proclaimed the right of all Jews to settle anywhere in Israel "as long as they do not violate the rights of the minority. ...” But, of course, that is precisely Ben-Porat's confusion. The Declaration of Independence, if it grants equal rights, grants the right of the minority to become a majority. Is that what Ben-Porat defends? Will he, like some modern Voltaire, stand and shout to the howling Arab mob that cries for the end of a Zionist state: I will differ with you over this but
will defend to the death your right to become a majority? How difficult it is to be a liberal and a Zionist. And Aharon Meged, one of the intellectual self-haters in Israel, in a thundering article, bewailed the policy of "Judaizing" and then proclaimed that "the path that Koenig suggests contradicts Zionism and its path!" Indeed. Political Zionism was born with a book called The Jewish State; it was embodied in a Declaration of Independence that creates a Jewish majority. But Judaizing the Galilee is anti-Zionist! Koenig's efforts to save the country's Jewish and Zionist character is antiZionist! Meged is not a Zionist. In his own self-hatred, he is an intellectual pseudo-Samson whose death wish is accompanied by a desire not to go alone. It took a gentile reporter, William E. Farrell of the New York Times, to put his finger on the only relevant question. Writing on September 22, 1976, he stated: "The report has also once again brought into focus a crucial question - still to be answered - that has vexed Israel since its founding: can an Arab minority participate fully and democratically in a state that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recently described as predicated on 'the ingathering of the Jewish people's exiles' and 'living the life of a Jewish state'?” But, of course, the question has been answered in the reality of the ultimate contradiction between the two concepts. A Jewish state can exist in peace only with a large Jewish majority. It cannot grant the right to a minority to take its home away peacefully. It is a contradiction that the Arabs are determined to resolve in their own favor, and democracy is joined by demography to plunge Israel down the road to catastrophe. And as the political clock ticks on, the hands moving toward the era of political and violent confrontation, the Arabs inside Israel in many different ways chip away at the political, economic, and social stability and health of the Jewish state. The angry Arab shout over the expropriation of land is in reality a tactic to cover the incredible amount of state land stolen by Arabs over the years, thanks to Israeli fear of provoking incidents. Not only have literally hundreds of thousands of dunams of state land been stolen through Arab squatting, but the illegal building of Arab houses, which tends to eternalize the theft as well as cut off and surround Jewish villages, has reached the epidemic stage. The thefts are in the Negev, in the Galilee, and increasingly in the center of the country, including the heart of the cities.
The huge wholesale theft of lands created political facts. The Arab squats on state lands; the Jews do nothing; the Arab works it, builds houses on it, and then claims it as his own. Indeed, for every dunam of Jewish settlement in the liberated lands, thousands of dunams go into de facto Arab illegal settlements inside Israel (as well as in the liberated lands). The situation has gotten so desperate in the Negev that Agricultural Minister Ariel Sharon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee (July 30, 1980) that it will be necessary to set up five new settlements east and west of Beersheba, between the Gaza Strip and Hebron Hills, to prevent Bedouin encroachment on state lands which could create terrorist continuity between the present Arab-inhabited areas of Judea and Gaza. Using a map, Sharon showed how Bedouin tribes from the Beersheba area had fanned out alarmingly to the north, west, and east. The Markovitz Committee, set up to report on the problem of stolen state lands, reported in June 1980 that the stealing of lands had become a plague. The major problem was the Bedouin growth. Thanks to Israeli health facilities and agricultural progress, not only were there more Bedouins but infinitely more Bedouin flocks. As to the Bedouins themselves, in 1948 there were between 12,000 and 15,000 of them in the Negev. Today more than 40,000 live there! This tripling of the population in thirty years, thanks to a growth rate that today reaches a world record of 7 percent, means an inevitable explosion in the years to come. As far as Bedouin flocks, whereas in 1948 there were some 30,000 Bedouin animals, by 1978 there were nearly half a million. Not only did they steal the land and then make it de facto "Arab," but because of their irresponsible overgrazing they destroyed it from an agricultural and ecological standpoint The Arabs have grown bolder thanks to the incredible apathy and timidity of the government. In September 1979 a Nature Reserve patrolman, Asahel Lev, discovered a large flock of Bedouin animals illegally grazing on state land. When he left his jeep to warn the Bedouins, he was attacked by seven of them, armed with knives, who shouted " Itbach-al-Yahud" ("Slaughter the Jew"). He fled. In December 1979 Knesset member and Dimona mayor Jacques Amir tabled an urgent motion for discussion of Bedouin harassment of the Jewish settlement of Nevatim in the Negev. According to Amir, the settlers -- Jews from India -- "have suffered heavy property losses from the Bedouins, who do not hesitate to use force." The Jewish residents told of Bedouin flocks eating away at their fields and trees. On the tombstones 172 of the settlement's graveyard could be seen goats' droppings. The police never arrested one Bedouin. Members of the settlement Bitha, near the Negev town of Ofakim, were so frustrated over two years of Bedouin encroachment on their lands that in March 1978 they exploded and burned a Bedouin tent. Four Jews were arrested. Between 1976 and 1978 nearly the entire Sinai Bedouin tribe of AlHaiwat moved into the southern Negev along with 5,000 animals. They gradually became residents of Israel, aside from seizing and destroying land. On March 4, 1978, Alon Galilee, head of the Nature Reserve's Green Patrol unit, claimed that Bedouins had taken over land within the Israeli army firing range area. More than 10,000 head of livestock were in the area. The same problem was also noted in army range areas in the Galilee. The army was not only forced to limit and postpone important training, but as Galilee pointed out, the Bedouins had access to classified military information. In addition, thefts of army weapons and ammunition had become an epidemic. That hostile political elements realize the importance of establishing Arab "facts" on as much land as possible was emphasized in March 1978 by Yitzhak Bardimon, head of the Interior Ministry's southern district, who said that Bedouins were being incited "by enemies of the state" to try to gain control of government land. He also pointed out that the sudden "wild building was an effort to establish facts.” The Bedouin theft of land, which, in the words of Ariel Sharon, is "a result of Jewish weakness," is only one side of the coin. The fact is that the lands on which they grazed when the state came into being in 1948 are for the main part not theirs either. The Bedouins, wanderers and nomads, never owned land. They would move from one part of the country to another with their flocks. Present efforts on their part to claim "ownership" are transparent efforts to legitimize their theft. Thus, at a press conference in Beersheba on March 28, 1978, Negev Bedouins were unable to produce any legal titles (kushanim) to the land they claimed. This sheds more than a little necessary light on the controversy surrounding the efforts of the Israeli government to take over desperately needed land for the new post-Camp David air bases. Israel, a country with 3.1 million Jews on barely 8,000 square miles, desperately needs every inch of its land. Agricultural land for Jews is
scarce, water supplies precious. The Negev, covering more than half of pre-1967 Israel, clearly is a region that Jews see as their future. For decades, however, Israel preferred not to make this clear to the Bedouins, thus allowing them to stake their claim to most stretches of land. Suddenly, Israel must pay the price. The disastrous Camp David accords not only called for Israel's giving up the Sinai with its oil, but also the vital Israeli air bases. It was agreed that new bases be built in the Negev. The question was where. Experts carefully surveyed the possible sites, and it was decided that to replace the base at Ohira, to be given up in 1982, a new one would be built in the Negev on land of Tel Malhata. The thirty years of Jewish unwillingness to grapple with the issue of the Bedouins now came back to haunt them. Riots, protests, threats -- and suddenly the Bedouins were laying claim in the Negev alone to 600,000 dunams (150,000 acres) of land. Nuri-EI-Urbi, secretary of the Committee for Bedouin Rights in the Negev, vowed on July 7, 1980, that the Arabs "will not budge from their lands. ... They can cut the Bedouin into pieces and we still will not leave the lands.” Naturally, the Arabs receive support from the professional Jewish selfhater. A fascinating document was a petition circulated by the extreme leftist Shell Knesset Party which called the proposal to expropriate the Negev lands at Tel Malhata (with impressive compensation to the Bedouin squatter) "a blatant violation of the fundamental principle of equality." It was suggested that the petition be sent to non-Zionists and non-Jews to increase pressure on Israel. Among the "suggested signers" were Ramsey Clark, Jerry Brown, Teddy Kennedy, Leonard Bernstein, Jane Fonda, Woody Allen, Saul Bellow, Arthur Herzberg, Nahum Goldman, and Joachim Prinz. ... The Galilee is yet another area of Arab land grabbing and establishment of facts. In February 1979 the Interior Ministry claimed that in the past twenty years no fewer than 40,000 dunams (10,000 acres) of Galilee land had been taken over by Arabs in Military Areas 9 and 117 alone. On July 21, 1976, Knesset member Yehuda Ben Meir warned that not only was land being grabbed but more than 1,600 illegal buildings had gone up on state land. He said that one reason was to cut Jewish contiguity for political reasons described the method as one of chap ("grab"): "They put up two or three houses on a hill. If there is no reaction they begin to build more houses on a hill. Gradually, the area becomes a village, as occurred with the village of Danun in the western
Galilee. Today there are 1,700 people living there, and no one dreams of moving them out.” Despite Ariel Sharon's warning on September 7, 1977, that "Arab squatters [in the Galilee] must be prevented from their continued campaign to seize state dunams," the process continues. Jewish Agency official Amos Harpaz reported on December 26, 1979, that just in recent months 800 more dunams (200 acres) had been seized by Arabs in Military Area 9. "They plowed and sowed the land and now claim title by right of undisputed possession.” To the threats of "democracy" and "demography" was now added that of "geography." But despite the awesome political implication, in September 1976 the Ministry of Interior announced a "retroactive" legalizing of the illegal houses. And on February 16, 1978, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was able to report the following: "The Israel Lands Administration has changed its tactics with regard to illegal houses built by Arab villagers in Galilee on State-owned land without obtaining government permits. Instead of bulldozing them, it is leasing the land to the Arabs, who readily admit they are getting 'a real bargain.' "A case in point is the village of Iskal in lower Galilee, with a population of 5,000. Over the years the local residents built some 300 houses without permits, leading to repeated conflicts with the Lands Administration. In three instances, the government sent in bulldozers to raze the houses. But that only increased the bitterness. Recently, the Lands Administration reached an agreement with the village council. It legalized the buildings retroactively and leased the land to the villagers at 1970 rates, which are relatively cheap. "Ahmad Abdul Hahman Assad, a building contractor, will have to pay the Lands Administration IL 50,000 for the land on which he built his house 13 years ago. Assad is pleased with the deal. 'When I built this place it was illegal. Now I am paying for it,' he said. He will also receive permits to build additional houses on the leased land for his children. "The mayor of Iskal, a known sympathizer with the Rakah Communist Party, feels the villagers have won a victory. 'What we did was actually an illegal settlement,' he said. 'We simply forced the government into the agreement.' The Lands Administration has leased about 25 percent of the land to the village council for public purposes. A new mosque is under construction and a new road is being built at government expense amounting to IL 1.2 million.
"News of the 'bargain' traveled fast in Galilee. Yaacov Vaknin, director of the Lands Administration, will meet this weekend with representatives of other Arab and Druze villages in Galilee to work out similar deals.” That the startling decision to give the Arabs their illegal houses and the state land was a victory for them can hardly be doubted. The Arabs were more convinced than ever that time was on their side. The sensitive area of the Triangle that divides Samaria from the populous Jezreel Valley and the coastal plain is the scene of both illegal Arab "immigration" and the seizure of state land. As in the case of Jerusalem, where the figures are in the thousands, hundreds of Arabs from the liberated lands just across the "Green Line" have illegally settled in the Triangle. Many "disappeared" into the numerous Israeli Arab villages there, but others simply squat on state land. They work in nearby Jewish cities and towns -- Natanya, Hadera, Kfar Saba -- and gradually become part of the growing permanent Arab population in Israel. They, too, "create facts.” The land seizure is heartbreaking. Wadi Ara, the Triangle, is a strategically sensitive area. In the midst of more than 40,000 Arabs in the immediate area stands the one lonely Jewish settlement in the region, Mei Ami. It was originally set high up on a hill with large areas of empty land about it. No longer. The hostile Arabs of the region have seen to that, says thirty-year-old Uri Bejarno, the treasurer of Mei Ami. "They have taken over. They settle every parcel. They build, plant - and then force the planners to recognize accomplished facts.” It is estimated that the Arabs have built some 600 illegal houses in the region. They are rapidly swallowing up all the available land in the Triangle so that Jewish settlement will be impossible to establish - one more step toward "autonomy" for the Arab Triangle. And they have moved into the very heart of Israel. In October 1977 Agriculture Minister Sharon declared that Israel was in the midst of a process of "10,000 Arabs taking over state lands between Ashkelon and Hadera and building houses there." When Sharon says Hadera, he is talking of the very heart of the country, an area far north of the Negev. The Bedouins have already reached there. One finds them everywhere in the heartland of the coastal and central region. On the outskirts of Rehovot, Ramie, Givat Brenner, Mazkeret Batya, Nes Tziyona, and on, northward. They find land, private or more 176 likely state land, and set up tents or primitive houses. They and their hundreds and thousands of animals have acquired "land." Yitzhak Nir, of Moshav Mazkeret Batya, near Rehovot, says: "They are sitting on state and private land. They use large quantities of water for their flock; they wander freely around a high-security military facility." Near the Moledet quarter of Holon, hundreds of Bedouins have settled on the sand dunes, their human and animal feces littering the area. Alon Galilee of the Green Patrols is worried. Three whole tribes of Bedouins have crossed over from Sinai to live in Israel. Thousands of others have crossed from the liberated lands into the area of the state proper. Galilee now calls this "the invasion" into the heart of Israel. It is not only that the Bedouin herds are destroying the land, having eaten up entire gardens, parks, and lawns all over the southern part of Holon, which borders on Tel Aviv. Galilee warns that "lack of awareness of how serious the situation has become is resulting in the loss of actual Jewish control over vast stretches of land for which fierce battles once took place. The open country has become largely Arab.” Indeed, the questions of geography and demography are choking Israel. Arabs from Ramallah in 1978 built twenty-seven illegal Arab buildings on state land inside Jerusalem's northern border. This followed the contemptuous defiance in September 1976 by Arab landowners of a military government ruling forbidding new buildings without a permit. The Arabs are surrounding Jerusalem with a noose of illegal buildings that prevents Jewish expansion. But what is happening in Jaffa is the clearest indication of the catastrophe toward which Israel races. Jaffa is today part of the city of Tel Aviv. In the War of Independence of 1948, some 70,000 Arabs fled in panic, leaving a few thousand frightened and humble brethren behind. Today, the Arab of Jaffa is neither frightened nor humble. Under the leadership of four separate hamullas, the Jaffa Arabs have taken over entire areas of the city, seizing state-owned land and building houses and stores on it. Jews are terrified, and many are leaving the area. In the area known as Jaffa Daled is a large fenced-in area of forty-five dunams (11 acres) known as "The Grove of Abu-Sayaf." Abu-Sayaf is one of four Arab clans that has seized land in Jaffa (the others are the clans of Dacha, Shnir, and K'chil). In a letter of complaint to the Ministry of Housing, at the beginning of 1980, the director of the Halamish Company, Mr. Aharon Farber, wrote: "The area is held illegally by an
Arab hamulla ... that is now building dozens of illegal houses, factories, and stores. The residences are then rented to Arabs from the territories." The police are aware that the area is the center of crime of all kinds and that neighbors complain regularly. On a visit to the site, Ha'Eretz reporter Nan Shchori was forcibly prevented from entry by two Arabs. Says Miriam Levi, a Jewish resident of the neighborhood: "We live in constant fear. There is a nearby playground for children and the Arab hoodlums hit them and chase them away. After 7:00 P.M. we are afraid to leave the house. It is difficult to believe that we live in Jaffa. ...” What makes the problem politically explosive is the fact that the AbuSayafs claim the property was theirs before 1948 and that they have merely retaken it. This effort to return Jaffa to the pre-state situation is a clear and present danger to the state. Nor is Jaffa an isolated case. In Jaffa Gimel, near the border of Bat Yam, is an area belonging to the Israel Lands Administration. It has been planned by the state that the twenty-dunam (five-acre) area shall be used to build 250 housing units, a public park, and public services. But the Dacha Arab hamulla has decided otherwise. They have taken over the land (it is now known as "The Dacha Orchard") and built numerous dwellings in which live Arabs of the territories. They also claim title to the land since before the days of the state. This seizure of land by Arabs is a forerunner and precedent on the part of a hundred thousand others for the return of "their land" all over the country. And the authorities? "Everyone complains but the authorities do not lift a finger" - the words of Shula Elyakim, who lives opposite "The Dacha Orchard.” And as the Arabs turn the clock back to 1947 in terms of geography, so, too, with demography. Nan Shchor wrote in Ha'Aretz (May 9, 1980): "A new phenomenon has appeared in the last months in the region of Kedem Street in Givat Ha'Aliya in Jaffa. Scores of Jewish residents have sold their apartments to Arab families and are leaving the area. The region has changed character and become an Arab ghetto, and an unseen hand has even changed the street signs from Hebrew to Arabic. The apartments are sold over and beyond their real value. Members of the Alfandari family ... relate that they received an offer from a Jaffa Arab one and a half times greater than the market price. ... The Alfandari family did not ask questions, took the money, and moved. ... The apartments are bought by Israeli Arabs but immediately rented to Gaza Arabs, some of whom dwelt here before 1948. In a period of three months, on Kedem Street, no fewer than twenty-two Jewish apartments were sold to Arabs.”
The return of pre-1948 Jaffa Arabs and their families not only illegally adds to the Arab population of Israel but adds an element that will serve as a catastrophic precedent, opening the door to loud demands of other - hundreds of thousands of other - Arabs who fled for a similar "right to return." From the government there is only silence. The Alfandaris may not have asked questions, but at least one query is pertinent to yet another sickness within Israel. Where do the Arabs get so much money? It is estimated that Arabs have tens of millions of dollars in cash stored away. According to tax officials, "Illegal capital is growing in the Arab sector and is evidenced by the building of luxury villas in rows of villages, the purchase of new cars, travel abroad, and the acquisition of various luxury items" (Yediot Aharonot, January 22, 1979). Where does this money come from when the vast majority of Israeli Jews struggle desperately to "finish the month"? The answer is: They do not pay taxes. They pay nothing or only an absurd percentage of what they should. For the State of Israel, faced with a desperate need for funds to solve the economic and social problems of its needy Jews, the Arabs of the state -- who pay so little in taxes -- are an intolerable burden. They receive billions in national funds for welfare and services. In a memorandum sent to Finance Minister Simha Ehrlich in early 1979, Knesset member Meir Cohen wrote: "The Arab sector in the country never paid and does not pay taxes ... in relation to its economic capacity and income. Traveling on the new road between Kiryat Ata and Nazareth, one sees that in the villages on the side, where ten years ago stood huts, there have now grown villas, more luxurious than those of Savion. ...” The following is taken from an article that appeared in Ha’Eretz (March 16, 1976): "The Arabs make up 15 percent of the state's inhabitants, but pay only 1.5 percent of its taxes. According to Finance Ministry people, this is ludicrous and in no way mirrors the conditions of the majority of Arabs whose income today is much larger than [that of] the Jewish residents of development towns. "Most of those who owe taxes receive national insurance, but the National Insurance Institute will not allow the Finance Ministry to take what is owed to it by garnishing the benefits. ...
"The tax people know of entire villages where, except for workers in regular jobs, no one pays taxes, despite the fact that the living standards in those villages rose enormously.” And this startling item (Yediot Aharonot, June 13, 1976): "The heads of the Likud faction in Knesset dealt last weekend with the question of Arab citizens who have stopped paying taxes. From the discussion it was learned that since March many Arab citizens have stopped paying taxes in the villages of Tayba, Tira, Kfar Kassem, Jaljilia, and others. ...” The question is: What causes the government to overlook the massive tax evasion? What causes it to refuse to levy penalties on Arab property, something it does swiftly in the case of Jewish offenders? What causes the municipality to do nothing when a resident of Jaffa says concerning the Arabs: "Every night there are screams, drugs, police. It is impossible to live here any longer"? What stops it from acting against the Maronite Arabs around Ohev Yisrael ("Lover of Israel"!) Street when they freely build illegal buildings and say: "Our priest [sic] gave us permits to build"? What allows the Jewish authorities of the new, non-Galut, non-ghetto Israeli brand to watch calmly as whole areas are taken over by Arabs and populated with illegal residents of the territories -- with all the political dynamite that this portends? The answer: "In the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality they know of the massive illegal takeover ... but because of fear of confrontation with the Arab residents the municipality avoids concrete steps" (Ha'Aretz, May 9, 1980). "In the Arab sector levies are not made on property in the event of tax delinquency for fear of violent reactions in the Arab villages and because of hostile public opinion. ..." (Yediot Aharonot, May 9, 1980). The growth of the Arab population, its dispersal throughout the country, and its sense of growing power have given birth to a new boldness that manifests itself in yet another area that cripples the state: a sharp rise in crime. The police in Tel Aviv, in May 1980, estimated that fully 25 percent of all the Gush Dan (the area including Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Bat Yam, Ramat Gan, and other major cities) crime was committed by Arabs. In addition, they declared, there is an inordinate percentage of Arab involvement in sexual crimes. And although it is clear that Arab crime has individual or clan gains as its underlying motive, at the same time it cannot be doubted that the fact that the Jews are the victims is a definite consideration.
Green Patrols head Galilee specifically pinpointed Bedouins as a major factor in the rise in crime in the country. The head of the Mazkeret Batya council told Maariv (August 13, 1976): "They [the Bedouins] and the Arab workers from the territories steal agricultural produce and expensive equipment. At times it appears to me that an organized gang works here that specializes in dismantling water pipes and irrigation parts and smuggling them into the West Bank.” Other examples include the arrest near Afula (July 10, 1980) of Bedouins of the tribe of Arab e-Shibli for stealing army ammunition and agricultural equipment from Jewish settlements. Among the items stolen were mortar shells. A watchman at the Ahuzam Moshav shot a member of a gang (July 30, 1980) from the West Bank who specialized in fruit stealing, a plague in the country today. Indeed, the Arabs have created wholesale theft and smuggling gangs, stealing millions of dollars' worth of equipment and selling it in the territories and Arab countries. They also play a large role in the alarming rise in drug traffic. (In Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Haifa, Arab drug peddling is notorious.) Clearly, this is not to say that there would be no crime in Israel without Arabs. There certainly is a sadly large amount of crime committed by Jews. But the amount added by Arabs is sizable and badly injures the economy and people of Israel. The worst is the amount of crime that is strictly based on the fact that the victims are Jewish. Such crimes include arson, especially in Jewish National Fund forests in the Galilee and north. In July 1978 fires destroyed tens of thousands of trees. Jews of Moshav Yodfat specifically charged Arab shepherds with starting fires, and a resident of the Arab village of Kfar Kabul was arrested on October 27, 1977, for setting fires in the JNF forests near Haifa and Kibbutz Ginegar. Jewish property is a political target for the Arabs. Jewish residents of the "mixed" Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu-Tor organized in July 1980 to protect themselves from what they called the third rash of vandalism to Jewish-owned cars in a year. They bitterly complained of lack of police response and insisted that they were certain the attacks were "politically motivated.” Attacks on the physical persons of Jews grow in proportion to Arab boldness and arrogance, which in turn feeds upon the lack of Jewish response to the attacks. Instances of neither Arab attacks nor Jewish refusal to respond are lacking.
On July 24, 1979, a group of Jewish teenagers was attacked by twenty Arabs in the Bitzaron neighborhood of Tel Aviv. Cursing and shoving Arab workers stabbed sixteen-year-old Yaakov Abrian, who barely survived. According to Maariv (July 27, 1980): "Two of the neighborhood residents. Rati Hadi and Sholom Azulai, complained: 'Our young children are afraid to go out and play. During the day the Arabs chase them away. At night they are afraid they will attack them and rape the girls. Not long ago a sixteen-year-old girl was attacked. She went into shock and the family wants to leave the neighborhood. "The Arabs work in almost all the large and small factories in the area and most remain to sleep at night without permission. They walk about cursing the Jews and playing loud Arabic music on the radio so as to disturb and anger us.'“ Israel, 1980. The state of Jewish pride. It is in every city where Arabs have begun to appear. In Ramat Gan, on Memorial Day, 1980, as Jewish worker Yona Ben Yona heard the siren in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, he paused and stood at attention. Three Arab workers began to laugh, one shouting: "Why do you stand up for the dogs?" Then they attacked him. But the worst is in Jerusalem - Jerusalem of gold; Jerusalem of 120,000 Arabs; Jerusalem of Teddy Kollek. Koliek, the mayor of Jerusalem thanks to Arab votes, is the primary symbol of the stubborn refusal to see the Arab danger. In Yediot Aharonot (AprW 11, 1980) Kollek replied to the question of whether tension had grown in Jerusalem recently by saying: "There is no greater tension, and one of our outstanding achievements is that, practically, there is no outstanding tension." The very next page carried a story headlined: "Residents of Jewish Quarter: Attacks on Us in the Old City Have Increased." The story discussed attacks on a group of yeshiva students near the Arab school Umriya; the stoning of a five-year-old Jewish girl; the near trampling of a father and three sons by an Arab on a horse. In the words of Tziporah Levin, a resident of the Old City Jewish quarter: "To our sorrow, this has become the norm." Why do they not complain to the police at the Kishia Old City police station? Yet another lesson: "In the Kishia sit mostly Arab police who are not prepared even to listen to complaints of Jews attacked by Arabs.” Yet another incomprehensible bit of Israeli policy: the creation of Arab police in the dangerous Old City, Arab police whose most natural basic instincts are Arabic. They are supposed to ensure that Arabs will
not harm Jews. The case of a twenty-one-year-old American immigrant who was on leave from the army in Jerusalem tells one of many such stories. Walking back from the Western Wall, he was attacked by an Arab who was joined by ten others. Breaking away, he found an army patrol, and they in turn called the police. Two Arab policemen came - and shook hands with the Arab attackers. By the time all had arrived at the Kishia police station, the Arabs had arrested the soldier on a counter-complaint. Other Jews have told of beatings by Arab policemen within the station. In June 1976 several cases of Jews being slashed were reported. Writer (and today Knesset member) Moshe Shamir wrote in Maariv (June 11, 1976): "We have read about small incidents of violence, about a stabbing. We have not read about the daily actions of hoodlums, of breaking into Jewish yards, petty thefts, vandalism. ... Israeli weakness yields Arab boldness.” Arab attacks injure people, damage property, cost millions, and instill fear and tension in Jewish lives in the reborn Jewish state. The chairman of the Jerusalem municipality's Committee on Security, Shmuel Pressburger, angrily resigned in May 1980. In a statement to a local paper, Kol Hair (May 9), he said: "The shaky security situation in Jerusalem recently stems from the improper policies of the security authorities, and Teddy Koliek has a not insignificant influence in this. They try to build reciprocal relations ... but lack of [Jewish] response does not prove tolerance, but rather it proves weakness. ... "I know places where Arab residents attack Jews every day - East Talpiot, for example - but these incidents are not publicized. ...” What is especially not publicized are the Arab sexual attacks; thus, the number of Bedouin rapes of women in Eilat, tourist beach areas, and the Negev (the rape-murder of a woman soldier, Vered Wiener, by a Bedouin was especially horrifying). In Jerusalem, women residents of the Diaspora Yeshiva on Mount Zion have suffered for more than a decade from Arab sexual attacks. The Arab sexual perversions result in cases such as the one in which five Arab laborers were accused of paying Jewish children from Tel Giborim and then practicing sodomy on them. The children ranged in age from eight to ten years (Yediot Aharonot, January 22, 1976). There is little doubt that the sexual crimes committed by Arabs against Jewish women are derived from both the usual sickness and what one might call the "Eldridge Cleaver" phenomenon (as expressed in Soul on Ice) of wishing to attack and degrade the enemy. The more the Arabs multiply 183 and reach Jewish areas, the greater will be the number of general crimes, and sexual ones in particular, committed against the Jews. The degrading phenomenon of Jewish prostitutes catering to Arab clients in the citrus groves of the coastal plain and in cheap hotels and backyards of Tel Aviv is all too well known. The Arabs constitute a sizable number of the clients of Jewish prostitutes in cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre; Arab pimps direct them. The social destruction and the moral humiliation need not be elaborated upon. Nor can one escape the growth in social intercourse between Jewish women and Arab men that escalates yearly, thanks to both the breakdown in Jewish tradition and the increasing contact between Jews and Arabs, because of the universal presence of Arab laborers, the government's integration plans, and the growth of the Arab university student population. The amount of intermarriage in Israel is on the rise, but even more startling is the number of Arabs who live with Jewish women. On the one hand are the predominantly Sephardic women from moshavim or poor urban neighborhoods who are easy prey for Arabs who promise them a "better life." The twenty-four-year-old Holon Jewess who was involved in scores of burglaries with her Arab boyfriend from the village of Baka Al-Gharbiya is just one example. On the other hand are the predominantly Ashkenazic women from middle- and upper-class families who - for all the unhealthy reasons seen among such women in the United States during the civil rights and radical eras - find an outlet for rebellion and personal confusion in relationships with Arabs. These contacts are made mostly at the universities. Both the Jewish women and the foreign Jewish students are easy targets for the Jew-hating Arab student. In a series of articles on the problem, the Jerusalem Post wrote (February 23, 1979): "A lecturer well versed in the atmosphere of Arab student life on the campus added a blunt comment: I wouldn't say it for all mixed couples on campus, but in some of the cases, it is very much a matter of the best way of the Jewish State is to — - a Jewish girl and broadcast the fact as widely as possible.'" The Arabs clearly understand the importance of humiliation of Jews and the place that sexual relations with Jewish women have in that humiliation. For the foreign Jewish woman student, the contact is often made on the basis of deliberate deception. The handsome Israeli she met as "Moshe" later turns out to be "Musa," but by the time she finds out she is deeply involved. None of this is helped by policies such as at BenGurion University in Beersheba, where dormitories are totally mixed, male-female and Arab-Jewish.
The government is playing no small role in breaking down the social barriers between Jews and Arabs. It will avail Israel nothing politically, but will lead to a disintegration of Jewish separatism and Zionism, and to growing sexual relations and intermarriage. Thus, the Education Ministry in a press release (July 27, 1979) concerning government-sponsored summer camps stated: "There also are camps which contain both Arab and Jewish students." One may favor such a thing on the grounds that nothing will succeed better in knocking down social barriers between Jews and Arabs. That is, of course, true. And nothing will better lead to intermarriage. Again, let it be clear that this will in no way solve the Arab political demand for a "Palestine" instead of an Israel, any more than massive Jewish assimilation in Western and Central Europe solved the problem of anti-Semitism. All that will happen is that in the frantic efforts of the government to solve the problem of the coming explosion, they will wreck Jewish uniqueness and weaken the desire or understanding of the Sabra for a specifically Jewish state. This and nothing else will be the result of tragic governmental policies such as the one described in the Jerusalem Post (October 20, 1977): "Israeli Jewish schoolchildren will be taken to Arab towns and villages this year on study tours and exchange programs, Eliahu Mansour of the Education Ministry's Arabic-language division told the Jerusalem Post yesterday. He said that the scheme would also bring Israeli Arab children into Jewish homes." Not the slightest progress will, of course, be made in persuading Arabs to accept happily their second-class status in a Jewish state. But the breakdown in Jewish uniqueness will persuade large sections of Jewish Israelis that the concept of a "Jewish" state is hardly worth dying for, especially since they have such fond memories of the mixed camp and school, of visits and food in the Arab village. Especially when their girlfriends - or wives - are Arabs. Being told that there is no basic difference between Jews and Arabs is the surest way to convince the Jew that if he can be given peace, there is no difference between an "Israel" and a "Palestine." And as long as the Arabs remain in Israel and they and their threat grow, the Israelis will frantically search for a solution. This disintegration and ideological destruction will be their only bewildered answer. And finally, there is the staggering economic burden of these barely taxpaying Arabs, both those in the state and those in the liberated areas. Many billions of Israeli pounds are spent yearly on services of all kinds in the Arab sector. They include national insurance, welfare, schools, health facilities, highways, electricity, police, sanitation - all the many services of a welfare state. One need only see the amounts of national-insurance
money collected by Israel's Arabs for child benefits to be staggered by the drain on the state's coffers. At a time when both inflation and recession shake the economic structure of Israel; when young couples cannot purchase or rent a decent apartment; when the defense budget along with the budgets of all other departments must be cut; when subsidies for basic foodstuffs are slashed; when economic collapse sends the Israeli Black Panthers into the street to threaten social and communal clashes; when thousands of young Israelis leave and many more think of leaving for other countries -- who can afford the enormous economic burden of the Arabs? Economy, demography, geography, democracy -- all combine to push Israel closer and closer to the abyss. What is the solution? There are those who understand the danger of Arab growth and who call for more Jewish babies. Indeed, there should be more, but the Jews do not want them. There are those who urge us to teach Arab women to have fewer babies. Indeed, we should do that, but the Arabs see their babies as a national weapon against the Jews, which they are. There are those who call for mass aliya, immigration, to Israel. Indeed, is there anyone among us who will object to the Jews of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Australia, or anywhere else leaving all that they have and coming to Israel? But they do not come; the only meaningful aliya in the last fifteen years has been from the Soviet Union, and today those Jews prefer the West to the Jewish state. By all means let us attempt to have more Jewish babies, fewer Arab ones, and more Jewish immigration. But those are all faint hopes, and we will be doing well if we can succeed in not having the balance of population increase in favor of the enemy in the years to come. The Arabs of Israel grow in numbers, in education, in hatred of the Jewish state, and in confidence that time is on their side. Time is running out for a state whose spokesmen follow in a long tradition of Zionist leaders who either could not or would not understand that a Jewish state is an impossibility with a large and exploding Arab population. All the "peace" in the world on the part of Egypt or Syria will not save Israel from the cancer raging within. It is not Arab armies from without that are the problem, but the quietly -- and soon loudly -- ticking bomb inside the Jewish state itself. There is an insoluble contradiction between the right of Arabs to become a majority and the Jewish state. Every day the Arabs of Israel move closer to that majority. And we sit, stricken dumb. Is there, then, no answer? Is there, then, no hope?
Of course there is an answer. Of course there is hope. If all that has been written prior to this is depressing and painful, it is only because the reality is, indeed, depressing and painful. But escape from reality does not make reality disappear or less painful. It becomes worse and more dangerous, and our very national life becomes threatened. It is necessary, therefore, to force the Jew to look at the painful reality and depressing truth so that the enormity of the danger becomes frighteningly apparent and he will rush to save himself. Can he? Is there hope? Of course: If we have the courage to be Jewish and sane. If we can throw off the needless and false burden of guilt and the gentilized, twisted concepts that are so wrongly called "morality" but constitute the worst kind of immorality, if we can free ourselves from the false shepherds, the leaders of Israel who have driven their Jewish flocks to the pastures of the shadow of death. Our answer, our hope, is to remove the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael from the land.