On Wednesday President Reuven Rivlin, who frequently talks about the shared destiny of Arabs and Jews, issued a statement in which he said: “Tearing down of the Israeli flag by Arab rioters and replacing it with the Palestinian flag is a brutal assault on shared existence in the State of Israel. The silence of the Arab leadership about such disturbances is shameful, giving support to terrorism and rioting and encouraging the rupture of the society in which we live.”
At times of extreme tension, there is a terrible danger of negatively labeling whole sectors of the population, without taking into account the positive elements in each side.
Yediot Aharonot this week gave an example of how the first priority in human relations is looking at the needs of another human being without being influenced by that person’s race, religion, nationality or political affiliation.
Reuven Nehorai Ben-Hamo is a Chabadnik, who distributes food to needy families – both Arab and Jewish – through the Hasdei Menachem organization. After delivering baskets of food this week, Ben-Hamo, while driving home on Wednesday at around 8 p.m. from Nof Hagalil to Tiberias, was set upon by a group of Arab youth, some of them masked, who began throwing rocks at his car. After breaking the windows, they attacked him physically, not only with their fists but also with rods. Ben-Hamo, who in his younger days served in the armored corps of the Israel Defense Forces, said that he had never experienced anything as frightening as on that night. He was sure he was going to die, and prayed fervently for salvation.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, another small group of Arabs appeared, led by Jamal Amara who told Ben-Hamo to restart his car and to drive in reverse. But Ben-Hamo was unable to do so because the keys were missing, apparently taken by the youths who had attacked him, in order to prevent his escape.
Amara and his friends pushed the car to the side of the road and helped Ben-Hamo to exit. They told him not to be afraid. Realizing that Ben-Hamo was in need of medical treatment, Amara took him to the nearby home of a family that he knew. Ben-Hamo was given water to quench his thirst and first aid was administered to the wounds on his head. More Arab neighbors turned up to help and said that no one should have to endure what had befallen Ben-Hamo. After a while, a doctor arrived from a neighboring village. Amara is a devout Moslem who believes that Islam obligates its followers to protect every innocent human being. Unfortunately, not every Moslem follows this principle, which is also a Jewish principle to which not every Jew adheres. In both cases, the rebels are mainly frustrated young people looking for a cause and deriving greater satisfaction from violence than from harmony.
■ LAST WEEK, at the Iftar dinner which Rivlin hosted for Moslem diplomats, Arab mayors, and community leaders and activists, the final speaker was Mudar Yunes, the mayor of Arara and the chairman of the committee of Arab Heads of Local Authorities, who urged the Israeli authorities to do something tangible about curbing Arab violence, instead of just paying lip service to solve a problem that has claimed so many Arab lives. This week, Rivlin telephoned Yunes, and the tone of their conversation was somewhat different from the sweetness and light aura that permeated the table at which the two had been seated during the Iftar meal.
Referring to violence that occurred in cities and towns in which the population mix includes a relatively large percentage of Arabs, Rivlin said: “We must not allow these sights to recur. We must not be held hostage by murderous Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who are firing indiscriminately at Israeli citizens.” Rivlin appealed to Yunes to do whatever possible to calm the situation. “The Israeli People, Jews and Arabs alike, need to hear the Arab leadership speak out strongly and clearly against violence, against damage to synagogues, against the outburst of disorder.” Curiously Rivlin seemed to overlook the damage done to Arab people and property by young Israeli extremists such as La Familia and the Hill Top Youth. Violence is a two-way street. Rivlin referred to the Iftar dinner at a briefing that he had at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Tuesday with diplomats representing EU member states. The reference was by way of underlining freedom of worship in Israel’s capital. The meeting with the 26 EU membe
r state ambassadors was actually a farewell to Rivlin who will complete his tenure in less than two months. Rivlin had initially intended to speak about the positive winds of change in the region, but under the circumstances, spoke of freedom of worship, violence and the use of the Temple Mount as a cache for weapons that could prove harmful not only to Jews but also to Muslim worshippers. Emanuele Giaufret, the head of the EU delegation subsequently tweeted that together with the ambassadors of EU member states he had been honored to farewell Rivlin “who worked hard to strengthen EU-Israel relations. “ Giaufret who had also spoken at the luncheon emphasized the need to protect civilians and to deescalate the hostilities. While seated at the long table as they listened to Rivlin, the ambassadors did not wear masks, but when posing for the group photo, all wore masks.
■ FORMER ROMANIAN ambassador to Israel Andreea Pastârnac, who is currently her country’s ambassador to Belgium, has a perfect command of Hebrew, which she speaks without a foreign accent. Pastârnac continues to follow the news about Israel by watching Israeli television stations, and this week messaged friends in Israel stating that she was watching Channel 12 from Brussels and that the situation seems very serious. She hoped that recipients of her message were well. On the local scene Polish ambassador Marek Magierowski, who also has a good command of Hebrew, posted on WhatsApp in Hebrew: Tishmeru al atzmechem hevre, which roughly translated is “Guys, look after yourselves.” He followed up with another message condemning Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians.
■ SOME TIME before the start of the violence, Swedish ambassador Erik Ullenhag had organized a meeting to be held at his residence next week where speakers will be Rabbi Moshe Dovid HaCohen and Imam Salahuddin Barakat, who joined forces in Malmo, Sweden to fight antisemitism and Islamaphobia. The pair represents one of many examples of harmonious coexistence where mutual respect for and understanding of the other are key factors in the relationship.
■ FORMER REPORTER of The Jerusalem Post Arieh O’Sullivan, whose by-line still appears in the paper occasionally, but who currently is primarily a news editor and anchor broadcasting in English at Israel Public Radio KAN, on Tuesday night of this week began broadcasting from a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv under a Hamas rocket attack and quipped that he literally had a captive audience.
■ JERUSALEM’S HAZVI Yisrael synagogue had a far larger attendance on Tuesday night than at the service on the previous Saturday. Three generations of the Leibler family, together with congregants, friends and admirers came together to pay tribute to the late Isi Leibler following the 30th day of his passing. In sharing memories of one of the great Jewish leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries, all speakers while mentioning his accomplishments, noted that family was always his chief priority. International human rights activist and former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler, who is a close family friend of the Leiblers, said that Isi Leibler had a transformative impact on Jewish history and world history, and was unrelenting in the struggle against antisemitism “which did not die in Auschwitz” where Leibler’s maternal grandparents were murdered.
■ SEVERAL EVENTS that were scheduled to be held this week have been canceled or postponed to a later date. Among them was the dedication of the Ilan Ramon Memorial Torah Scroll that was to have been dedicated on Thursday to mark the 18th anniversary year of the death of Israel’s first astronaut, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while reentering earth in February 2003. Haim Bibas, the mayor of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, decided in view of the security situation to cancel all events prior to the Shavuot festival. While disappointed that the long-anticipated dedication ceremony has been moved to a later date, Neil Rubinstein, the director of the Ilan Ramon Global Torah Scroll project says that the safety of the children at the Ilan Ramon school is paramount, and it was simply too risky to allow them to parade outside with a Torah scroll at time of such tension and danger.
■ AACI, THE Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, advises that the National Emergency Portal, which also publishes information in English, is the most reliable source of information and directives when Israel is under attack. It is accessible through Pikud Ha’Oref, Israel’s Home Front Command.
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