THEY MUST GO – 1981
RABBI MEIR KAHANE
Excerpts from: Israeli Arabs: Fathers and Sons and Daughters
Part 1 of 2 parts
Israeli Arabs. Fathers and sons-and increasingly daughters. For the Israelis have liberated the Arab woman, too, in order that she may also vote for anti-Zionists and teach anti-Israel hatred. Thus, when the prime minister’s office boasts that “the expansion of the educational system has helped to raise the standard of education of the younger generation of women” and “the fact that Arab women are coming into closer contact with the Jewish population is opening up new horizons,” one gropes for an explanation for the smug satisfaction. The most that can be said for Israel’s liberal policy is that it has created a new generation of Jew haters with due care to ensure that the source of the hate is equal, with discrimination because of sex..
The generation of the fathers is dying destroyed by the Israeli government’s “head-and-stomach” policy. The father is dead; long live the son and daughter, whom Israel created. They will do their best to destroy the Jewish state, and, of course, the Jewish state will continue to produce them. The first generation of Israeli Arab university graduates immediately produced the El Ard anti-Israeli movement in the 1960’s.
Indeed, even then there were those who saw and understood-and those who did, terrified by what they saw, put it out of mind. In the Midstream magazine (December 1962) Nissim Rejwan, an Israeli writer, said: “One of the more alarming aspects of the Israeli problem is that the new generation of Israeli Arabs generally shows even less willingness, not to speak of eagerness, to accept the fact of Israel’s existence than do their fathers and grandfathers. The so-called Arab ‘intelligentsia’ in Israel which seems to embrace every literate person from university graduates to those who finished a few secondary classes, are in the majority of cases swayed by the heady talk…about ‘settling scores with Israel.’ Many of them, it would appear, cannot reconcile themselves to their status as a minority in a Jewish state and keep hoping for some sort of savior.” Was anyone listening?
The rise of the new generation of educated Israeli Arabs who did not know, the bitter taste of defeat and who openly moved toward confrontation with Zionism and the Jewishness of the state was itself given enormous impetus by the Six-Day-War.
Again, ironically, it was Jewish military victory that the Jews turned into yet another political defeat. For the first time in nineteen years the Arabs were able to meet and talk with other Arabs who were not Israelis, who called themselves “Palestinians,” and who openly spoke of the day when the hated Jews would leave. The Israeli Arab suddenly, realized that he was neither meat nor milk, fish nor fowl. He was not an Israeli, but now he was struck by the awesome realization that he had not been a “Palestinian” all those years either? He was looked upon by the West Bank “Palestinians” as a traitor who cooperated with, and accepted, Israeli citizenship from the Jews who had stolen the land from his people. In one fell swoop, all the factors that went into creating the new radical Israeli Arab came together. Things could never be the same.
Not only were there new contacts with the West Bank “Palestinians,” but this was also the beginning of joint cooperation. Thus, Israeli Arabs participated in a “Palestine Week” held in 1978 at the Universities of Bethlehem and Bir Zeit. They helped organize it, and they printed and distributed a leaflet calling for the support of the PLO. In defiance of the law several Israeli Arab students have begun studying in schools in the liberated territories.
The opening of the borders between the State of Israel and the liberated areas was seen by the incredibly obtuse Israelis as allowing the better-fed Israeli Arabs to demonstrate the benefits of Israeli occupation. Of course, a child could have known that the exactly the opposite would occur. The Israeli Arabs were suddenly given the opportunity to meet, regularly, with their own people who were struggling for what the Israeli Arab understood to be a common goal: freedom.
The mayor of Hebron, Fahd Kawasma, said (January 22, 1979): “The Israeli Arabs have remained foreigners and their lot remains ours. There is no possibility of blurring the fact that they and we are part of the same people, and the fact that they live in Israel does not make them less Palestinian.”
In his newspaper interview, Bir Zeit President Nasir added: “The destiny of the Arab College at Bir Zeit is to be the nucleus around which is built the Palestinian State.” Indeed, the Arab students being trained in the Jewish universities of Israel see themselves in the same light. They are the seed of the future “Palestine” leaders in the area of “Palestine conquered in 1948.” They give leadership and examples to high school students and are the PLO leaders of tomorrow.
The irony is that the most extraordinary rise in the brazenness has taken place under the supposedly tough Begin government. Maariv reporter Yosef Tzuriel commented on this as long ago as April 26, 1978. “The rise of the Likud to power created a certain amount of tension in the first months among Arabs of Israel and the territories who expected a firmer policy against them. but after a short while it became clear that the new government was as liberal as its predecessor, if not more so.”
What is the real result of the millions of dollars poured into higher Arab education and the hundreds of millions spent on secondary (high school) training? Consider: In December 1979 the Progressive National Movement (PNM) won the election for control of the Arab Student Committee at Hebrew University. In its platform the PNM called for:
· acceptance of the Palestinian Covenant (which calls for the elimination of Israel)
· the creation of a “democratic, secular Palestine” in place of Israel
· acceptance pf terrorist activities as part of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
And indeed, in 1979, students and visitors at the university were startled to find mimeographed copies of the Palestinian National charter being distributed.
And should one have any doubt, the immensely frank interview with Mahmud
Muhareb would dispel all of them. Muhareb, an Israeli Arab citizen of Lydda and at the time chairman of the Arab Student Committee at Hebrew University, presented his views to Maariv Israel’s largest newspaper (January 20, 1978): “We, the Arab students in the university, constitute and indivisible part of the Arab Palestinian nation, and we struggle in its service in order to achieve its goals.”
“As for me and my personal lot, I am first and foremost a Palestinian, resident of Lydda. Israeli citizenship was forced upon me. I do not recognize it and do not see myself as belonging to the State of Israel. The law requires me to carry an Israeli identity card and passport. As a Palestinian, I would prefer Palestinian ones.”
There is nothing new or startling about this. The signs of Arab intellectual hatred of Israel and deep desire for the dismantlement were obvious to all who wished to see.
[Continued next week]
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