This weekend, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan commences—a time of prayer and celebration for most, but also a time that usually sees an uptick in Palestinian terrorism. The flurry of Jewish activity in preparation for Passover, which begins in mid-April, will likely provide additional targets, and motivation, for terrorists. After the deadly stabbing in Be’er Sheva a week ago, and another in Hadera on Sunday, writes Yoav Limor, Israel must be on high alert

Unlike the terrorist attack in Be’er Sheva last week, Sunday’s incident seemed more premeditated. Not one terrorist who acts for personal motives, but two gunmen with a small arsenal and automatic weapons, [carried it out]. The past month has seen nine terrorist attacks that left six people dead. Such a sequence of events cannot be coincidental. Even if each attack stands on its own, there is a clear sense that they draw inspiration from each other. This is certainly true in the case of the Beersheba and Hadera attacks, carried out by Arab Israelis who were Islamic State sympathizers.

The growing involvement of Arab Israelis in terrorism is an issue that must now top the government’s agenda. True, this is a fringe minority that cannot be projected on the entire sector, and yet—it is impossible to turn a blind eye to the mounting events, certainly given the riots that took place during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021.

This [problem] is further compounded by the growing anarchy in the Arab sector and the loss of governance in large parts of the Negev and the Galilee. It is high time to take action and introduce a real, detailed, budgeted national plan, and to stop treating the matter as if we are fated to tolerate it.

On June 3, an Egyptian policeman crossed the border into Israel and killed three soldiers. Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow urge President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to respond by visiting the Jewish state as a show of goodwill:

Such a dramatic gesture is not without precedent: in 1997, a Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls visiting the “Isle of Peace,” a parcel of farmland previously under Israeli jurisdiction that Jordan leased back to Israel as part of the Oslo peace process. In a remarkable display of humanity, King Hussein of Jordan, who had only three years earlier signed a peace agreement with Israel, traveled to the Jewish state to mourn with the families of the seven girls who died in the massacre.

That massacre unfolded as a diplomatic cold front descended on Jerusalem and Amman. . . . Yet a week later, Hussein flipped the script. “I feel as if I have lost a child of my own,” Hussein lamented. He told the parents of one of the victims that the tragedy “affects us all as members of one family.”

While security cooperation [between Cairo and Jerusalem] remains strong, the bilateral relationship is still rather frosty outside the military domain. True normalization between the two nations is elusive. A survey in 2021 found that only 8 percent of Egyptians support “business or sports contacts” with Israel. With a visit to Israel, Sisi can move beyond the cold pragmatism that largely defines Egyptian-Israeli relations and recast himself as a world figure ready to embrace his diplomatic partners as human beings. At a personal level, the Egyptian leader can win international acclaim for such a move rather than criticism for his country’s poor human-rights record.