Israel agreed to retain 148,000 Palestinians in the new state at the time of its founding in 1948. Israel consented to the idea not out of any noble sentiments but to avoid the stigma of a racist regime.
The presence of Arabs in Israel, who were reduced to a minority as a result of frequent terrorist attacks by the Jewish immigrants, was a matter of continuous dispute among the early Jewish terrorists. Goldamier said she could not go to sleep if she heard a baby was born to an Israeli Arab. The Jews called the Israeli Arabs the Arabs of 48.
The population of the Israeli Arabs has crossed the half a million mark.
The recent developments in the region have put the existence of the Arab minority in Israel in an extremely precarious state. Ariel Sharon is reviewing the official attitude toward the Israeli Arabs with the aim of launching an ethnic-cleansing operation. Increasing arrests and interrogation of Arab Israeli youths point to the diabolical designs of the Israeli authorities. These Arabs have been charged with colluding with the Palestinians in the occupied territories to carry out blasts inside Israel. The authorities have been striving to establish that the very presence of the Arabs of 48 is a threat to the racist state.
A careful reading of the Israeli political files since the state’s founding reveals a deep-seated hatred by the Israeli leadership toward its Arab citizens. In 1967, Gen. Aharon Yari chalked out a plan to expel all the Arab citizens from Israel under the cover of the Arab-Israeli war.
Under the shadow of mounting confrontation between the Palestinians and the occupiers, the demand for the eviction of Arab citizens is gathering momentum in Israel. They are depicted as the fifth column working for the Palestinian freedom fighters.
Israeli leaders contend that the intifada continues unabated only because of the support of Israeli Arabs. Muhammad Hobaish, who carried out a highly destructive martyr operation in Natania, was an Israeli Arab. Jews also charge the Israeli Arabs with providing logistical support to the resistant groups in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israelis also object to the Arab citizens organizing campaigns for blood donation and other relief works for the Palestinians. The authorities also watch the activities of the Arab deputies in the Knesset with concern.
Apart from charging the Israeli Arabs with disloyalty and subversion, the Israeli leaders believe that no bridge of understanding can be built between the Arabs and Jews, and therefore the Arabs should be evicted.
Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the extremist Israel Beitenu party, which supports Ariel Sharon and demands much more repressive measures against Palestinians, wrote recently in a leading Jewish daily that a wall could not solve the terrorist menace because of the simple reason that the Arab Israelis, who remained inside Israel, collaborated with every Palestinian operation against Israel. Anyone who wished to end the attacks should realize that the Arab Israelis were at the center of the problem and they should be eliminated first, Lieberman argued in his article.
As the Israeli authorities are seemingly bent on solving the Palestinian problem through inhuman methods, the Palestinian minorities inside the Green Wall are heading for a great tragedy.
