Hizbollah rockets put Israel's Arabs under fire http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-07-18T122915Z_01_L17235895_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&src=071806_0850_TOPSTORY_rockets_hit_haifa
Tue Jul 18, 2006
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
MAJDEL KRUM, Israel (Reuters) - Badiyan Farhat hasn't slept a night since a Hizbollah rocket slammed into his home in an Israeli Arab town. "I still can't get the sight out of my head of my two little grandchildren sent flying by the blast," he says.
The rocket last Thursday blew out all the windows, badly charred the back wall and damaged the top floor. The Farhats were lucky. Two of their neighbors are still in hospital. Elsewhere in Israel, 12 people have been killed by the rockets.
But as Majdel Krum's residents worry about incoming rocket fire, they are also concerned at Israel's bombardment of the southern Lebanese towns where many relatives live.
The fighting underlines the dilemma for a community caught under fire from fellow Arabs and Muslims in a Jewish state.
"My heart is a mosaic. On the one hand I live in a country being rocketed and the rockets don't differentiate between us and Carmiel," Hassan Ali, a spokesman for Majdel Krum, said, noting a large Jewish town nearby that has come under fire.
"I also have an aunt who lives across the border."
Relatives of many in Majdel Krum, a town of 28,000, escaped to Lebanon during a war that erupted when Israel was founded in 1948, along with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes.
The Palestinians who stayed behind became Israeli citizens and now make up almost a fifth of Israel's population.
Many live in Israel's northern Galilee region. They actually make up a majority in much of the area targeted by Hizbollah. Haifa, Israel's third largest city and one of the main Hizbollah targets, has a mixed Jewish and Arab population.
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"I feel a conflict between feeling for my people and like an Israeli," Ali said. It is years since a respite in violence allowed him to see his aunt, who lives in a refugee camp near the Lebanese city of Sidon.
While Jews and Arabs are living together under the rain of Hizbollah rockets, there is little to suggest that the war will bring them any closer together after nearly six years of a Palestinian uprising pushed them further apart.
While acknowledging Israel's official offers of assistance for Majdel Krum, Ali complained that the town faced discrimination and poor funding like other Arab Israeli towns. Israel denies this.
"Nobody treats the Arab sector seriously. I have a binder full of promises never kept," he said.
Meanwhile, some Israelis resent the sympathy felt by Arabs for the Lebanese at a time of war.
Polls show 86 percent of Israelis back the air offensive against Hizbollah that has killed more than 230 Lebanese since the guerrilla group grabbed two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others at the border last week.
"Despite the developments that threaten their very homes, they (Israeli Arabs) are still capable of expressing solidarity with the Lebanese and attacking Israel's policy," wrote Dganit Kenig in the mass market Maariv daily.
A minority of Israeli Arabs, mostly Druze and Bedouin, serve in Israel's armed forces and tend to be supporters of the Israeli offensive against Hizbollah.
Many other Arabs feel the Israeli government should try harder to negotiate for the release of the captured soldiers and be ready to free Lebanese prisoners to bring an end to the crisis.
Farhat wants Israel and the international community to do everything possible to end the fighting.
"We need peace here, and if Israel and Hizbollah ... won't have peace, then the international community has to come in here and force everyone to make peace," he said.
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