Kristallnacht In Israel. By Hugh Fitzgerald.
In the middle of Israel, 16 miles outside of Tel Aviv, sits the city of Lod (Lydda). One-third of its population of 77,000 is Arab; it has been a source of local pride that Arabs and Jews have gotten along so well, and that the Arabs have flourished. Starting with an Arab population of 1,600 in Lod in 1949, the Arabs now number 25,700, a colossal increase of more than 1500%. Obviously, living in Lod agrees with them.
But in recent days, Arab mobs in Lod have been roaming the city, attacking Jews, burning cars, throwing petrol bombs into Jewish homes and shops, setting three synagogues on fire. …
Jewish shops were set on fire, three synagogues burned, gasoline bombs thrown into Jewish homes. It is a miracle that no one so far has burned to death, though several Jews have been seriously wounded by Arabs, and one Arab man was shot dead while attacking Jews. Meanwhile Arab mobs for two days and nights roamed the streets, looking for Jews and Jewish property to attack. Some Jews had to be escorted home by the police, for fear of what might happen to them at the hands of the maddened Muslim marauders. …
No Jews in Lod have attacked Arab-owned shops or houses, or mosques. …
Throughout central Israel, the Arab attacks spread: in Ramle, right near Lod, more attacks on Jewish homes and cars; major fires consumed a restaurant and hotel. In the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, the locals blocked roads so that the forces of order — the Israeli police — would keep out. On the coast, in Jaffa, a car was set on fire and Arabs and Jews clashed, Even in the overwhelmingly Jewish Tel Aviv, fights broke out between Arabs and Jews in the very center, Habimah Square, of the city. …
A refuge ended by Arab bad behavior:
Israel was supposed to be the Jewish National Home, a refuge for world Jewry. The Israelis are used to fighting for their survival against the armies of Arab states. They are used to fighting terror groups, too — Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
But in Lod, many of the Arabs with whom they have lived side-by-side, among whom they had grown up, people whom they had allowed themselves to believe were reasonably content as citizens of Israel, with all the civil, religious, and political rights of Israeli Jews, suddenly turned on their Jewish neighbors. …
Now what?
The Border Police have been called in to restore order in Lod, where the Arab mob violence has finally been suppressed. But the former trust between Arab and Jew in Lod, and in other mixed cities, too, have been broken by the Arab mobs …
President Rivlin, normally so measured and soft-spoken in his remarks, said that “the sight of the pogrom in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob… is unforgivable.”
hat-tip Stephen Neil
