Loss of Sovereignty
by Kobi Erez - ZOA Michigan Director
Imagine this: It's Friday night; a family has finished eating a nice Shabbat dinner. One of the daughters, a ten year-old girl, is sleeping peacefully in her room. Her parents are sleeping in a room nearby. All of a sudden, three Bedouin men from a nearby village break into the house, enter the girl's room and cover her mouth so no one will hear them repeatedly rape her. It sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? But it's not.
This horrendous crime happened just last month in February 2021. When the victim's father was interviewed by Israeli media outlets, he said: "The Negev has lost all sense of security, Bedouin outlaws do whatever they please while my family is broken". And he's right. While many Bedouin are law abiding citizens and even serve at times in the IDF, this type of crime perpetrated by Bedouin is nothing new. Over the past few years, in addition to a long string of robbery and sexual crimes, Bedouin criminals have also been breaking into IDF bases and have stolen over half a million bullets and various types of sophisticated army equipment and assault weapons. The gangs often use these weapons to extort businesses and steal from farmers. It was also recently discovered that they have created underground tunnels that they use to produce illegal drugs. | | Bedouin criminals on a tractor with stolen weapons from an IDF base | | The Israeli government has known about this criminal pattern for years, but has done nothing to stop it. Unlike in the United States, it is difficult to obtain a license to carry a gun in Israel. This leaves law-abiding citizens with no means for defense while criminals gather illegal weapons. Israeli police have also been lacking the resources and, frankly, the motivation to deal with this kind of organized crime that is so common in the Israeli-Arab community. What's most frustrating is when police do arrest a criminal, Israeli courts usually grant a laughable sentence. Similarly, the IDF specifically forbids its soldiers from firing at anyone who infiltrates an army base to steal equipment. What kind of an army doesn't defend its own bases? The offenders do as they please because the Israeli government has systematically allowed them to.
| | Gangs shooting in the air as a sign of celebration at a wedding in an Israeli-Arab community
The crisis in southern Israel is a symptom of a deeply rooted problem in the Israeli psyche. Since the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987, Israel has been apologizing for defending itself to the point that Israel will risk its own civilians and soldiers. Current IDF rules of engagement deter soldiers from using their weapons, even when their lives are at risk. Another example: In the 2014 Operation Protective Edge against Hamas, the IDF decided to move its forces into the city of Sagaya in Gaza without bombing Hamas targets first. This move was intended to take extra precautions so as to not potentially hurt Palestinians, even though citizens of the town were warned well beforehand to evacuate the area. This kind of supposedly moral decision led to the unnecessary death of many Israeli soldiers. But these "compassionate" rules of engagement went beyond just IDF soldiers. Palestinians used empty schools to bomb Israeli civilians and Israel, instead of immediately taking out Hamas's rocket launcher, allowed Hamas to shoot at Israeli cities for days. This decision resulted in the death of Daniel Tregerman, a four year-old Jewish boy and the injury of many other Israeli civilians from rocket fire. What other country puts the safety of its enemies over the safety of its own people? This is one of the reasons that motivation to serve in the IDF is at its lowest since the inception of the state of Israel.
| | Daniel Tregerman who was killed by a Hamas rocket
There is an ancient teaching in Judaism that sums up the reality in Israel today: "A person who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate". It's time to turn this unethical policy around. Israel must regain its strength to deter criminals and terrorists from acting. This means changing the laws of engagement so Israeli civilians and soldiers are not afraid to defend themselves. The Knesset must change the law and implement much harsher sentences on criminal behavior. Above all, Israelis need to believe that they have the right to the land and that defending its own people, even at the expense of its enemies, is the absolute moral thing to do. Americans need to aggressively and publicly voice support for Israel's right to defend its citizens and soldiers.
| | Joint Arab List MKs at swearing-in ceremony: 'We vow to fight the Zionist Occupation'
Members of the Joint Arab List insult the State they are elected to serve at the swearing-in of the 24th Knesset.
Members of the Joint Arab List issued a provocative statement at the swearing-in of the 24th Knesset today (Tues, April 6).
The first party MK to arrive for the ceremony, Sami Abu Shehadeh, changed the original wording of the pledge of allegiance to the State of Israel to, "I swear to fight the Zionist Occupation. I swear to fight the Apartheid regime." Asked by Knesset speaker Yariv Levin to correct his "mistake," Abu Shehadeh repeated the previous statement. MK Aida Toma Suleiman, the List's sole Jewish MK Ofer Cassif and party chairman Ayman Odeh followed suit, vowing to fight the state they were elected to serve.
Important to note is that according to statute 16 of the Knesset Basic Law, an MK who doesn't vow allegiance to the State "will not benefit from the rights allotted to Knesset members so long as he fails to do so."
Based on this legal statute, Joint List members will be required to follow through with the correct wording of the oath at an upcoming Knesset session if they wish to benefit from rights reserved for Israel's MKs.
To follow up on the day's events, as the National Anthem was about to be played before the closing of the session, Joint List MKs were seen leaving the hall, leading to a verbal exchange with other members of the assembly. | | Released Arab Israeli who killed IDF soldier gets hero's welcome in hometown
Rushdi Hamdan Abu Mukh, imprisoned for 35 years, is paraded in streets of Baqa al-Gharbiyye; family of victim Moshe Tamam demands his citizenship be revoked
Hundreds of residents of the Arab Israeli city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye held a welcoming ceremony Monday for a resident who was released from prison after serving 35 years for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1984.
Rushdi Hamdan Abu Mukh was a member of the terror cell that killed Moshe Tamam. The other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell were all also Arab Israeli citizens, and all were given life sentences.
Video posted on social media showed Abu Mukh being given a hero's welcome and paraded through a main street in the city. No Arab Israeli lawmakers were reported as attending Abu Mukh's arrival in the city, though on hand was former MK Ibrahim Sarsour, a former leader of the Ra'am party, which is seeking to join a ruling coalition in the wake on last month's elections.
The Tamam family has appealed to both Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana with a demand that Abu Mukh's citizenship be revoked.
| | IDF soldier Moshe Tamam, who was murdered in 1984
| | "As a family, today our hearts are broken," Tamam's niece Ortal Tamam told Ynet. "To see the murderer of my uncle released as a hero, received with adoration and return to his life in a community close to my family home is heartbreaking."
Abu Mukh's PFLP cell originally planned to kidnap an IDF soldier and transfer him to Syria as a bargaining chip for the release of imprisoned terrorists, but instead decided to slay Tamam after capturing him at the Netanya junction as he made his way home from his base. He was later killed near the West Bank city of Jenin.
Security forces caught the cell members and they were sentenced to life in prison in 1986, but in 2012 then-president Shimon Peres decided to reduce Abu Mukh's sentence to 35 years.
Abu Mukh is said to be one of the highest-paid recipients of monthly Palestinian Authority stipends, part of a controversial program that awards those who carry out terror attacks on Israelis.
The Ra'am party, whose former leader Sarsur attended the welcoming ceremony for Abu Mukh, sits in a potential kingmaker position for forming the next government following the inconclusive elections last month.
With the Knesset divided between those who want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in office and those who want to oust him, both sides have been courting Ra'am, a conservative, Islamist party.
Last week party leader Mansour Abbas gave a press conference in which he called for peace and cooperation between Arab and Jewish citizens in Israel.
However, establishing a government that relies on even outside support from Ra'am faces opposition on both sides of the divided Knesset, with some seeing the party as anti-Zionist and accusing it of supporting Palestinian terrorism.
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