To the surprise and consternation of many Israelis, the current war with Hamas has been accompanied by the rioting of Arab citizens. On Tuesday, just as the riots had started to wane, both Hamas and its rival Fatah called for an Arab “day of rage” and general strike. Oded Granot comments:
For the past nine days, terrorist organizations in Gaza have made enormous efforts to ignite Judea and Samaria and to incite rebellion among Israel’s Arab citizens. The desire has been to achieve what thousands of missiles fired from Gaza have failed to: create a sense of insecurity and anarchy among Israeli citizens, inflict a large number of casualties on Israeli security forces, and prove that Hamas is the flagbearer for the “struggle to liberate the homeland.”
Only a handful of Palestinians, [however], left their homes to clash with Israeli security forces, and even what initially seemed like a “civil war” between Arabs and Jews in the mixed cities quickly emerged as unbridled rioting by gangs of Arab youths, extremists, hotheads, and those incited by the Islamic Movement in Israel—some with the criminal intent of harming Jews and lynching them. . . . The situation in Judea and Samaria, meanwhile, has remained under control. The Palestinian public, for the most part, didn’t take to the streets to demonstrate against Israel. The majority of Arab Israelis didn’t join the firebrands in [the cities of] Lod or Wadi Ara.
According to initial figures, however, many Arab citizens appear to have ignored . . . calls and showed up for work regardless. Jewish-Arab relations sustained a severe blow over the past few days, but co-existence did not collapse and civil war did not erupt.
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