Israeli Arabs, choose life
Nadav Shragai - Israel Hayom
The piece of cloth on which Tel Aviv gunman Nashat Milhem scribbled "Islamic State" and hung up as a flag on a building in Ramat Aviv shortly after going on his killing spree is nothing short of a flashing warning sign. Islamic State is here, inside Israel, and not only on our borders with Gaza, Sinai, Syria and Jordan.
They are not many, but they are here -- individuals who share the same sick ideas as the organization's decapitating maniacs. So far, more than 60 Israeli Arabs have crossed into Syria to join Islamic State in its war against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Many have been arrested upon their return to Israel.
They come from the Bedouin village of Hura in southern Israel, from the Arab local councils Kafr Yasif and Yafia in northern Israel, and from Umm al-Fahm and Arara in the Triangle (the cluster of Arab towns in the eastern Sharon plain). Their voices are also heard preaching on the Temple Mount. Only recently one preacher called on Islamic State to seize Rome, Paris and Washington by way of jihad.
They are also present in east Jerusalem: Alaa Abu Jamal from the Arab neighborhood Jabel Mukaber, who rammed into pedestrians at a crowded bus stop and then proceeded to attack his victims with a cleaver last October, had pledged his support to Islamic State online prior to embarking on his journey of death.
Teachers in Hura told their students that Islamic State-style decapitation is the right way to go. An intern at Soroka Medical Center; an orderly at the Eitanim psychiatric hospital; and a well respected lawyer from the Arab sector -- all three disappeared one day. Further investigation revealed they had joined the ranks of Islamic State.
During interrogations of terrorists who carried out stabbing and ramming attacks in recent months, it was often discovered that the perpetrators associated themselves with Islamic State and were even familiar with its doctrine. Milhem and terrorists like him who have been arrested in the recent past belong to these circles. Many of them seek to kill Jews and destroy Israel, in the way that Saladin massacred the Crusaders some 850 years ago.
Our natural allies in the fight against Islamic State are Israeli Arabs. Seen through Islamic State eyes, Israeli Arabs are just as bad as the Jews -- modern infidels and crusaders.
On an operational level, Israel cannot defeat the Islamic State faction growing within us, just as one cannot kill an idea, sick as it may be. However, Israel can isolate and shun it while putting more effort and resources into education and information. For that purpose we need the Arab-Israeli population and its leadership's cooperation, and they need us.
It is in their best interest as much as it is in our own: to live and not die. Jews and Arabs in Israel must join hands, or dozens of terrorists like Nashat Milhem will rise up to destroy us, and them.