Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system fires at a Palestinian rocket last November
Here is a report posted today on an Israeli blog called The Muqata:
Due to the rising tensions in the countries neighboring Northern Israel, the IDF has recently positioned multiple “Iron Dome” anti-rocket systems around Israel’s north.
Some of the installations are nearby to Israeli Arab villages, and NRG/Maariv reports that today a group of Israeli Arabs cursed the IDF soldiers manning the installation, and pelted them with rocks till the police arrived. …
The question is, why would Israeli Arabs hurl curses, harass and stone IDF soldiers — when the anti-rocket system protects them as well.
The answer depends on understanding the phrase “Israeli Arab” and other names for the same thing.
An Israeli Arab is an Arab who lived (or his ancestors did) in the area that became Israel in 1948. He has the right to vote in Israeli elections, utilize Israeli health care, receive state funds for schools, etc. He is neither required to sing “Hatikva” nor to serve in the IDF, but is expected to be loyal to the state and not assist its enemies or engage in terrorism.
In recent years some former Israeli Arabs have come to prefer to be called “Palestinian citizens of Israel.” They reject the description “Israeli” because for them there is no legitimate country called ‘Israel’. They define themselves as members of the ‘Palestinian people’, which has created itself entirely in opposition to the idea of Israel. Palestinian Arabs (inside and outside of Israel) believe an invented version of history in which a flourishing ‘Palestinian’ society was usurped by Zionist colonialists, culminating in a mass expulsion (the nakba). Here is a more accurate historical account.
In any event, these ‘Palestinians’ long for the day that the usurpers will be eliminated, the ‘refugees’ will ‘return’ (a discussion of the ‘refugees’ is here) and the beautiful pre-Zionist ‘Palestine’, which never existed, will be re-established. Some, who have adopted the Islamist ideology of Hamas — there is an “Islamic movement in Israel” which represents this ideology among the Arab population of Israel — believe that the Jews should be entirely driven out of the land, even killed.
As citizens of Israel these ‘Palestinians’ enjoy the highest standard of living of any Arabs in the Middle East, as well as more personal and political freedom. But they will not feel fulfilled in a political/ideological sense until the Jewish regime is replaced by an Arab or even Islamic one.
So what’s a few rocket attacks if they will help end Zionism and bring the millennium?
I don’t think it is possible to judge or measure individuals on the basis of their feelings. It is actions that count. We all have many non- admirable feelings and I would not be surprised if many perhaps even most Arabs in Israelis have toward the Jewish state thoughts of destruction. But it is the actions that should be observed and judged. Of course there too is an area of ‘performative utterances’ in which the speech act itself becomes an action which can be judged and possibly condemned.
All this is preliminary to saying that Arabs in Israel have the free speech right to attack and condemn the state. They do it every day and the Knesset is full of this.
But once that speech leads to seditious action another situation begins.
I would consider any abusive attack on soldiers of Israel while they are on duty to be a seditious action. I do not know the Law here but it seems to me that such an action should be an offense punishable by imprisonment.