by Hadar Miller, media personality and former Associate Deputy Mayor in Lod (written for the religious zionist periodical - Matzav Haruach), translated by Hillel Fendel.
Just last week, we marked the third anniversary of the Simchat Torah massacre. These were days of poignant soul-searching, of immense pain - and of drawing necessary conclusions for the future. We succeeded, it appeared, in awakening not only as a nation, but also in our government and our security agencies. The misguided conceptions of many years were shattered, and we understood much more clearly the type of cruel enemies we were facing, and on how many different fronts. We realized that we could no longer sweep the threats under the carpet, and that imaginary quiet does not provide genuine security.
But there is still one front that to which we have not awakened, and it is possibly the most dangerous, explosive, and complex of all. It is the danger of the hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons flowing unhindered within the Israeli-Arab public. We're talking about an insane arsenal of shoulder missiles, M-16 and Kalachnikov rifles, and hosts of other advanced weapons.
Do we not remember the discovery of a portable unguided missile and launcher in a children's nursery in Lod in two years ago? The nursery, thankfully, was closed at the time for the Passover holiday, but it is located adjacent to major highways and Ben Gurion Airport. The implications are chilling.
I experienced the Arab riots of May '21 on my own flesh. To put it simply, they tried to murder me. When I speak of the weapons on the Israeli-Arab street, I know very well what I'm talking about. It was then that I woke up to the depth of the problem. [Translator's note: That very month, the author resigned from the Lod Municipality governing coalition, saying she could not sit together with an Arab member who took part in a march calling for "blood and fire to redeem the shahid."]
Ever since then, I have been crying out that the riots of those days were just a small promo of what the future holds, even without the much greater means of destruction the Arab public now has. It could be that those who do not live with the threat from up close do not realize its full extent. But the simple fact is that the police, with all due appreciation, do not have the ability and means to deal with an extreme scenario of myriads of armed Arabs. And of course, even worse is the frightening prospect of coordination between the Arabs of Judea and Samaria and those of Israel, in which case the Jewish towns and cities of central Israel would face an immediate and absolute threat.
Beyond Criminal
There is a dangerous tendency to treat the mountains of weapons in Arab hands as a "criminal" issue. Every time there is a shootout in Arab population centers – not an infrequent occurrence – the police release a statement ending with, "The incident was of a criminal nature," i.e., not terrorist. Nothing could be more ostrich-like. A fundamental principle in political thought is that whoever holds the weapons, holds the power. Just about a month ago, we saw how the Arabs of Majd al-Krum [in the Galilee, west of Carmiel] threw out a law-abiding shepherd from Jewish JNF lands, simply because he was Jewish. They did it because their weapons enabled them to do it.
The fact is that inter-Arab violence in Israel continues to be very costly: Well over 180 Arabs were killed so far this year, following last year's record high of 252 murders. If the police and Shabak would treat every shooting in the Arab public as if a Jew had been killed, we could start talking about a solution to the problem.
The legal framework required to cleanse Arab localities of weapons is already in place. What's lacking is the armed or even military force to do so, and even more so, the motivation and daring. For no matter what, it takes a great deal of courage to confront the clucking of the global Left, which doesn't like strong enforcement against Arab crime in Israel and considers it "racist." This simply ignores the fact that the real racists are those who treat spilled Arab blood lightly.
One who thinks that we'll be able to take effective action only when Jews are the targets, is liable to find out, too soon, that it's already too late.
We may no longer hide our eyes and pretend that the problem will be solved on its own. Nor may we rely on the police working alone to prevent a mass uprising in the heart of Israel. We must look the situation in the eye and realize that the broad strategic threat developing under our noses has nothing to do with maintaining routine law-and-order.
Now that we have remembered and commemorated the 7th of October, and been forced to take new stock of our approach to the threats we face on various fronts, the time has come to be truly strong and brave. We must take care of this dangerous problem right now, not later, thoroughly and without compromise. We can absolutely not afford to be caught once again by surprise – and this time, in the middle of Israel.