PA libel: Israel is behind violence and killings in Israeli Arab society
- PA PM: “Israel, as a colonialist and settler state, is taking action to destroy the spirit of unity in the Palestinian society in the Interior (i.e., Israel), is spreading strife, and is not enforcing order”
- PA TV: Israel’s “goal is to dismantle the Arab public in the Interior”
- Israeli Arab journalist: “The official Israeli policy [is] to escalate every conflict and every tension in the Palestinian public in the Interior… They want to escalate every internal conflict”
- Israeli Arab lawyer: “The Israeli police and government are capable of eliminating the crime, but they are not interested in this. They want the crime to continue to spread so as to subordinate the Arab willpower to this police”
- Israel Police: “When someone is killed in an Arab city there are no witnesses. Everyone closes the window. They didn't see and didn't hear. It's a way of life and not something that the police is to blame for”
Last night, another Israeli Arab was murdered in what has turned out to be a long and continuous wave of violence and killings in Israeli Arab society. The latest murder brings the total of Israeli Arabs murdered since the beginning of the year to 118.
But who is responsible for this?
Israel, of course - if you ask the PA.
The accusation comes from the PA top. PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh claims that Israel - because of its “colonialist” aspirations – wants to “destroy the spirit of unity” and calculatingly creates friction among Israeli Arabs:
“Israel, as a colonialist and settler state, is taking action to destroy the spirit of unity in the Palestinian society in the Interior, is spreading strife, and is not enforcing order. It wants you to constantly fight among yourselves.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, June 12, 2023]
The PA used this cartoon to illustrate the allegation, showing an Israeli police officer with a grotesque face watering a potted plant, which has a hand holding a knife in place of a flower. On the flowerpot is written “Palestinian society in the 1948 [territories]” – one of the Palestinian terms for Israel. The cartoon refers to the intensification of lethal Israeli Arab crime, presenting the Israeli police as encouraging the phenomenon:
Text on cartoon: “Crime”
Text on flowerpot: “Palestinian society in the 1948 [territories]”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 12, 2023]
Israel Police have explained that even though they have increased the budget and numbers of police in the Arab cities, it is still not helping: Even though in 98% of the murders they have clear suspects who they potentially can arrest, the Arab society hides the information from the police:
Israel Police Lieutenant Elhadad: “You arrive at the scene that was cleaned with bleach and a water hose, cameras disappear, witnesses to the crime do not help, and a child sweeps up the gun casings. This is why the percentage of indictments filed is low.”
Anan Zidan, spokesman for the Menashe region: “At the scene of a shooting in [the Jewish town of] Hadera, the hotline is flooded with witnesses, business owners hand over cameras and the public is mobilized. In nearby [Arab] Aara, a neighbor was shot, and everyone closes the window. They didn't see and didn't hear. It's a way of life and not something that the police is to blame for.”
[IMRA, June 24, 2023]
Nonetheless, the libel blaming Israel for intentionally causing a rise in Arab crime and murders continues unabated. Regular columnist for the official PA daily Bassem Barhoum stated that entire Israeli government is responsible for Arab violence and crime:
“No one disagrees that the Israeli government with all its ministries, and particularly the Ministry of Public Security (sic., Ministry of National Security), are responsible for the phenomenon of the spread of violence and crimes of murder in the Palestinian society within the Green Line (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel; the Green Line is the ceasefire line between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries, 1949-1967).”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 7, 2023]
He continued that Israeli groups even work secretly to cause more violence and killings among Israeli Arabs so that they will be busy with their own issues:
“There are Israeli circles that are conspiring and working in secret and under the table to fan the spread of violence and crimes of murder in the Palestinian Arab society, out of a clear goal – to preoccupy this society with its internal problems and leave it as a marginal and dismantled society.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 7, 2023]
Another PA daily columnist, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, charged that Israeli authorities and “deep state” follow “a prepared and systematic plan” to cause the killings in Israeli Arab society:
“One of the forms of ethnic cleansing is the near daily acts of murder (refers to wave of Israeli Arab criminal activity -Ed.), which the [Israeli] police forces, Israeli Security Agency, and settler herds are managing in accordance with a prepared and systematic plan, behind which stands the Israeli deep state in the Palestinian cities and towns in the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel).”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 3, 2023]
Israeli Arabs are similarly accusing Israel of deliberately trying to “escalate” the internal Arab conflicts. In an interview with an Israeli Arab journalist, the PA TV interviewer seconded this allegation, adding that Israel’s goal is “to dismantle the Arab public” in Israel:
Israeli Arab journalist Suheil Diab: “The official Israeli policy [is] to escalate every conflict and every tension in the Palestinian public in the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel), and I want to say, not just in the Interior. There are those who speak about exporting this practice of strengthening the crime gangs to the occupied areas in the West Bank. They want to escalate every internal conflict, whether it is familial, tribal, or ethnic.”
Official PA TV host: “The idea has been understood, and we must make all efforts as you noted to stand against the organized crime, whose goal is to dismantle the Arab public in the Interior.”
[Official PA TV News, June 25, 2023]
An Israeli Arab lawyer further charged that Israeli governments have spent the last two decades “moving the crime organizations out of the Jewish towns and planted them in the Arab society,” claiming that Israeli Police are enjoying the situation and “want the crime to spread”:
“The High Follow-Up Committee of the Arab Public in the Land (i.e., The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel) established a protest tent… in protest of the Israeli authorities’ role in intensifying the violence and wild behavior of the organized crime gangs in Arab society…
Lawyer Khaled Zabarqa [said]: … We direct an accusatory finger directly at the Israeli government in light of the crime that is spreading in Arab society, which did not exist 20 years ago.’
He added: ‘We suffer from the results of the policy that the Israeli governments have worked diligently on for years, and specifically after the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered), when the government moved the crime organizations out of the Jewish towns and planted them in the Arab society.’
Zabarqa concluded his words by saying: ‘The Israeli police and government are capable of eliminating the crime, but they are not interested in this. They want the crime to continue to spread so as to subordinate the Arab willpower to this police.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 30, 2023]
The following are longer excerpts of the statements cited above:
“At the start of the 209th [PA] government meeting, which was held today, Monday [June 12, 2023], in Ramallah… Regarding the increase in crimes of murder (i.e., of Israeli Arabs) in the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel), [PA] Prime Minister [Muhammad Shtayyeh] expressed deep pain over the victims of the crimes that are being committed in the 1948 territories, whose number stands at more than 100 killed from among our people in the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel) since the start of the year [2023].
He laid full responsibility for the increase in the pace of the crimes on the Israeli authorities, which have not taken action to stop them or to put their perpetrators on trial, which constitutes a racist practice of double standards.
He also said: ‘Israel, as a colonialist and settler state, is taking action to destroy the spirit of unity in the Palestinian society in the Interior, is spreading strife, and is not enforcing order. It wants you to constantly fight among yourselves.’ He called on our people in the 1948 territories, on behalf of Palestine and on behalf of the souls of your children, to prevent the bloodshed and to act wisely and prudently.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, June 12, 2023]
Excerpt of a column by Bassem Barhoum, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “The spread of crime among the Palestinians within the Green Line”
“No one disagrees that the Israeli government with all its ministries, and particularly the Ministry of Public Security (sic., Ministry of National Security), are responsible for the phenomenon of the spread of violence and crimes of murder in the Palestinian society within the Green Line (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel; the Green Line is the ceasefire line between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries, 1949-1967). Likewise, no one disagrees that this government has no
intention of putting an end to this severe phenomenon. On the contrary, the majority feels that there are Israeli circles that are conspiring and working in secret and under the table to fan the spread of violence and crimes of murder in the Palestinian Arab society, out of a clear goal – to preoccupy this society with its internal problems and leave it as a marginal and dismantled society, which is being ripped apart by conflicts of various kinds…
The Israeli government, which views the Palestinians within the Green Line as ‘an enemy at home,’ or in the best case ‘a fifth column,’ is not interested under any circumstances in dealing with this phenomenon. On the contrary, it is encouraging it as preparation for an additional dirty round of ethnic cleansing. Israel, basically, did not want them to exist, and they remained as a bone in the throat of the Hebrew state. Today they constitute a fifth of the residents, and they express the Palestinian identity. Since this is the situation, we must not wait for a solution from the enemy, and it may be that a great responsibility is laid on the leaders of the Palestinian society within the Green Line…
Before it is too late, and before it will no longer help to have regrets, the leaders of the Arab society must take action on two fronts: the first, to examine and appraise the true causes behind this phenomenon, and to draw conclusions on how to deal with it and with what means; the second, to work to establish lobbies together with the enlightened Jewish side, and foremost among it the Meretz political party and other Jewish leftists.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 7, 2023]
Green Line - 1949-1967 ceasefire line between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) following Israel's War of Independence (1948-1949). Land within the Green Line is all part of the State of Israel since 1949. Land outside the Green Line includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.
Excerpt of a column by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for official PA daily and former advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs
Headline: “The smallest coffins are the heaviest”
“I borrowed the headline of the article from a statement by [UN] Special Human Rights Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 Francesca Albanese. [This statement] most represents the Martyrdom of child Muhammad Tamimi (i.e., accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers returning fire to Palestinian terrorists), is more painful than all the criminal Israeli acts of murders, and is the most expressive of all the Arab and global responses and condemnations of the murder of two-and-a-half-year-old child Muhammad Tamimi at the hands of a fascist Zionist soldier…
The murder of child Muhammad in the embrace of his father without any prewarning by a Zionist soldier war criminal, similar to his security system and his bastard state, exposes for the millionth time that the colonialist State of Israel – which since the start of the year [2023] has murdered 28 children out of 162 Martyrs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (refers almost exclusively to terrorists killed while committing an attack -Ed.), in other words, 20% of all the
victims, and this is in addition to the crimes of murder in the Galilee, the Triangle, the Negev (i.e., all Israeli regions), and the mixed [Jewish-Arab] cities, whose number of victims has reached approximately 90 (refers to victims of Israeli Arab crime -Ed.) –is a state that was established to indiscriminately murder and destroy the members of the Palestinian Arab people – children, women, and the elderly.The murder was for its own sake and for the sake of tearing apart the hearts of the mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, and daughters, and in order to steal the land, the history, and the Palestinian Arab narrative…
May Allah have mercy on angel child Muhammad Tamimi, whose coffin is the heaviest, and the one that most exposes the [true] face of the Nazi Israeli state.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 8, 2023]
Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul is also a former PLO Central Council member.
Headline: “The High Follow-Up Committee establishes a protest tent in Jerusalem against the crime and the inaction of the Israeli police”
“The High Follow-Up Committee of the Arab Public in the Land (i.e., The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel) established a protest tent yesterday, Monday [May 29, 2023], in front of the occupation government headquarters in Jerusalem. This was in protest of the Israeli authorities’ role in intensifying the violence and wild behavior of the organized crime gangs in Arab society…
Regarding the significance of establishing the protest tent in Jerusalem, lawyer Khaled Zabarqa told [the Israeli Arab website] ‘Arab 48’: ‘The significance is in the site of establishing the tent, which is between the three Israeli [governmental] branches – the Supreme Court, the Israeli Parliament, and the various government ministries. From here we direct an accusatory finger directly at the Israeli government in light of the crime that is spreading in Arab society, which did not exist 20 years ago.’
He added: ‘We suffer from the results of the policy that the Israeli governments have worked diligently on for years, and specifically after the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered), when the government moved the crime organizations out of the Jewish towns and planted them in the Arab society.’
Zabarqa concluded his words by saying: ‘The Israeli police and government are capable of eliminating the crime, but they are not interested in this. They want the crime to continue to spread so as to subordinate the Arab willpower to this police.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 30, 2023]
The second Intifada – PA terror campaign (2000-2005) in which more than 1,100 Israelis were murdered.
Excerpt of a column by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for official PA daily and former advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs
Headline: “We want to live. We accuse”
“The Israeli ethnic cleansing war against the members of the Palestinian people in the Galilee, the Triangle, the Negev (i.e., all Israeli regions), and the mixed [Jewish-Arab] cities has not stopped, and it will also never stop, because the struggle… is an existential struggle…
One of the forms of ethnic cleansing is the near daily acts of murder (refers to wave of Israeli Arab criminal activity -Ed.), which the police forces, Israeli Security Agency, and settler herds are managing in accordance with a prepared and systematic plan, behind which stands the Israeli deep state in the Palestinian cities and towns in the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel). Until two days ago, Thursday, June 1, 2023, the number of victims had reached 80 Palestinians. This is a dangerous increase, which threatens the members of the people wherever they are – at home, at work, in the car, at the market, at the club, at the café, at the movie theater, at the theater, on the beach, at the mosque or church. There is no difference from the murderers’ perspective. The most important thing is to tear the Palestinians’ hearts, to burn their consciousness, to cause them to live in a nightmare of loss of security and loss of a sense of security, and to terrify them in a racist and barbaric way, whether they are children, women, elderly, or young. All the Palestinians are included in the list of murder by all possible means, through the crime gangs and the drugs, or those who are fulfilling the role of these gangs from among the members of the Israeli Security Agency, the police, or any force at all…
With the rise of the fascist triumvirate government [of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir – Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich] at the end of last year [2022], the acts of murder increased until they reached numbers that only have a precedent in wars and popular uprisings. Whenever the Palestinian people demonstrates its adherence to its national principles… and the symbols of its national identity, the acts of revenge and murder intensify against it. After every act of murder, the murderers drink a toast of darkness and barbarity, as if it seems to the likes of Ben Gvir, Smotrich, corrupt liar Netanyahu, and the entire Zionist choir that they are drinking Palestinian blood…
All the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the diaspora, and the exile must sound one resounding voice to put an end to the injustice that was caused to the brothers in the 1948 [territories] (i.e., Israel), and to emphasize the uniform position in the confrontation and opposition to the Zionist murderers, who are drunk off the unconditional support from the states of the capitalist West, and foremost among them the US.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 3, 2023]
Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul is also a former PLO Central Council member.
"’In 98% of the cases we understand what happened in the incident, who the suspects are and what the background is,’ explains [Israel] Police Lieutenant Elhadad. ‘Our difficulty is translating the intelligence into evidence for the charges and the prosecution. That's the gap. You arrive at the scene that was cleaned with bleach and a water hose, cameras disappear, witnesses to the crime do not help, and a child sweeps up the gun casings. This is why the percentage of indictments filed is low.’
Anan Zidan, spokesman for the Menashe region. ‘At the scene of a shooting in Hadera, the hotline is flooded with witnesses, business owners hand over cameras and the public is mobilized. In nearby Aara, a neighbor was shot, and everyone closes the window. They didn't see and didn't hear. It's a way of life and not something that the police is to blame for. I have a detective who worked day and night on a serious assault case, and everyone kept quiet during the investigation. He gave his soul and in the end everyone was released.’"[IMRA, June 24, 2023]