Dozens of Jewish extremists hoisting
Israeli flags defiantly marched through this Arab-Israeli town
Wednesday, chanting "death to terrorists" and touching off clashes
between rock-hurling residents and police who quelled them with tear
gas.
As the unrest unfolded, an Israeli court convicted a prominent
Arab-Israeli activist of spying for the Lebanese militant group
Hezbollah in a plea bargain that will send him to prison for up to
10 years.
The court case and the violence in Umm el-Fahm added to mounting
tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority.
Israel Arabs, who make up about one-fifth of the country's
citizenry, have grown jittery amid repeated questions about their
loyalty by nationalist elements in Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's government.
The Jewish extremists converged on Umm el-Fahm, one of Israel's
largest Arab towns, because it is known as a stronghold of the
country's radical Islamic Movement. It was the second time Jewish
ultranationalists have marched through the town in the past year and
a half. Residents called it a provocation.
Khaled Hamdan, the town's mayor, faulted police for protecting
the protesters and their leader, calling them "a madman and a bunch
of racists."
"The purpose behind this (march) clearly is to provoke and to
cause chaos," he said.
The scenes of Israeli Arabs - their faces masked by checkered
headscarves, burning tires, hurling rocks at riot police and
scrambling to dodge tear gas and police fire - recalled images of
violence between Israeli forces and the Arabs' Palestinian brethren
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Police said 10 people were arrested, but reported no serious
injuries.
Hundreds of police deployed in the town after Israel's Supreme
Court authorized the march, which took place on the outskirts of
town. Some 350 Arab residents gathered in anticipation of the rally,
and youths threw rocks at police, who dispersed the crowd with tear
gas and stun grenades.
Police kept journalists away from the 50-meter (yard) path of the
march. But resident Amneh Jabari, a 38-year-old woman who lives
along the march route, said marchers, hoisting white-and-blue
Israeli flags and reciting prayers, chanted "death to the Arabs"
and "Umm el-Fahm will be Jewish."
The Jewish militants are admirers of Meir Kahane, a U.S.-born
rabbi who preached that Palestinians should be expelled from Israel
and the West Bank. An Arab gunman assassinated Kahane at a New York
hotel 20 years ago.
March organizer Baruch Marzel said the activists came to demand
that the Israeli government outlaw the Islamic Movement, just as it
did Kahane's Kach Party.
"If the Kach Party was outlawed, then the Islamic Movement
deserves to be outlawed 1,000 times over," he said.
An Arab-Israeli lawmaker, Hanin Zoabi, told Army Radio that two
rubber bullets hit her in the back and in the neck. Zoabi infuriated
many Israelis earlier this year by joining a Gaza-bound
international flotilla that Israeli commandos stormed at sea,
sparking clashes that left nine Turkish activists dead.
Police said they did not fire rubber bullets. It was possible
Zoabi was hit by a tear gas canister or other projectile.
The Arab minority comprises 20 percent of Israel's citizens.
Israeli Arabs are ethnically Palestinian, but unlike their brethren
in the West Bank and Gaza, they enjoy equal rights under the law.
They often suffer discrimination and are statistically poorer and
less educated than Israeli Jews. Tensions between the two
communities run deep.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's ultranationalist Yisrael
Beiteinu party has played heavily on the perceived disloyalty of the
country's Arab citizens.
His efforts to pass anti-Arab legislation could target people
like Amir Makhoul, the Arab activist who admitted to spying for
Hezbollah in Wednesday's plea bargain.
Makhoul's lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said his client admitted
to passing information about the location of a military weapons
factory to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah during Israel's war against
the group in 2006. Makhoul also told his contact where he believed
captive Lebanese fighters were held.
Makhoul used a coded e-mail program to send the information to a
community activist in Jordan who Israeli intelligence believes
belongs to Hezbollah.
Makhoul knew the man, Hussan Jaja, through their mutual activism,
and it appeared that Jaja wheedled him into giving over the
information, Abu Hussein said.
He said the information that Makhoul shared is common knowledge
and available on the Internet, but that Makhoul agreed to a plea
bargain because of the difficulty of proving his innocence. The
court is expected to sentence Makhoul in November. Without a deal,
he could have faced life in prison.
Makhoul is a vocal critic of Israel, and the media was barred
from reporting his arrest for weeks. His case is similar to that of
another prominent Arab-Israeli leader, Azmi Bishara, a lawmaker who
fled the country to avoid facing espionage allegations.
