by roy eitan
jta
Last week’s deadly rampage in Jerusalem has prompted a furious public debate in Israel about what steps the government can and should take to protect Jerusalemites against would-be Arab terrorists.
The July 2 attack, in which a Palestinian from eastern Jerusalem used a bulldozer to kill three people and injure dozens on Jaffa Road, drew furious and sometimes confused responses from members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government.
Several ministers called for the terrorist’s home, in an Arab village on Jerusalem’s outskirts, to be razed. Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon proposed that the village, Sur Baher, and other outlying Arab neighborhoods be cut out of Jerusalem.
Their residents would become West Bank Palestinians, ineligible for the rights afforded to Jerusalem’s Palestinians.
The debate about how Israel should react to the threat from Arabs within its borders reflects the dilemma of a Jewish state proud of its ethnically mixed democracy, but also mindful of the pull of pro-Palestinian sympathies among the country’s large Muslim minority.
Husam Duwayat, the driver of the bulldozer, was one of about 200,000 Arabs in Jerusalem who identify as Palestinian but live within Israel’s borders.
Hailing from territory Israel captured during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed to Jerusalem shortly thereafter, these Arabs are considered by Israeli law to be resident aliens. They bear Israeli identity cards and have all the rights of Israeli Arabs except the right to vote in national elections.
That makes it difficult for the state to crack down on them without either appearing prejudiced or, in effect, declaring limits on national sovereignty.
Some Israeli officials’ calls for demolishing Duwayat’s home were met with ambivalence.
“The order to demolish the homes of families of terrorists, residents of an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, is something I do not understand at all,” wrote Yaron London, a Yediot Achronot newspaper columnist. “Do we not believe that Israel is ‘Jewish and democratic’ and that the same law applies to Tel Aviv as to Sur Baher?”
Demolishing the homes of Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza Strip was a longtime Israeli practice until recently, when domestic and international criticism prompted the Israel Defense Forces to discontinue it.
Used against an Arab in Israel, the tactic would raise accusations of double standards, since the state never considered such a response to the occasional act of Jewish terrorism.
Privately, Israeli security officials say the quandary about what to do in Duwayat’s case is compounded by questions about what motivated his murderous spree.
Authorities have been unable to establish any firm link to Palestinian terrorist groups, and they are considering the possibility that the 30-year-old father of two simply may have taken leave of his senses.
Despite the pain and anger surrounding last week’s attack, many Israelis recognize that eastern Jerusalem Arabs, like Israeli Arabs, are relatively unlikely to take up arms on behalf of the Palestinian cause, though they may pay lip service to anti-Zionism.
Opinion polls show that most Arabs are loath to give up their rights in Israel, which come with welfare stipends.
Ethnic-specific security measures run the risk of straining the already frayed fabric of Jewish-Arab ties in Israel while doing little to thwart terrorists acting on their own.
Thus, Israeli officials predict, security precautions will remain tactical rather than institutional. Police officers and private guards at public venues and targets such as Israel’s airports will continue to subject Arabs to more intensive scrutiny than Jews. The Shin Bet will continue to monitor Israeli Arab communities for pro-Palestinian sedition, just as its secretive Jewish division monitors far-right settler groups for violence.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California