On January 4, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Israel’s Minister for the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience reported that Hezbollah has been trying to infiltrate Kiryat Shmona by having Israeli Arabs purchase apartments there. During the war, 25,000 residents were forced to evacuate the city, which Hezbollah apparently saw as an opportunity to occupy the city from within - like a Trojan Horse operation.
What’s worse, it seems that the local Islamic movement is encouraging the creation of more mixed Arab-Jewish cities. Clearly, this is not intended to foster better relations between Arabs and Jews, but to create more locations where pogroms and internal security crises can occur while our frontiers are on fire.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response to these alarming reports was less than reassuring. He was quoted as saying that this matter “was not just a national one, but an international one, as well". Although I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly, he meant by this, it’s clear that he just wanted the whole issue to go away.
So, the question remains: what can be done about this threat? Given what’s at stake, I believe that drastic measures would be justified.
Starting off with Kiryat Shmona, it’s not been established that Hezbollah actually succeeded in persuading any Israeli Arabs to have them purchase apartments in the city. Reliable sources have indicated that in the past month about 50 Arab citizens have changed their registered address to Kiryat Shmona. The Shabak has stressed, though, that the claim of Hezbollah directed infiltration stands as an “allegation under examination, not a confirmed plot".
However, given the fact that Kiryat Shmona is a strategically important front line city, one has to ensure that the city’s internal security is prioritized above all else. This means, I would think, that even though a new Arab resident doesn’t have a nationalistic criminal record or hold membership in a banned Islamist organization, a red flag should be placed on their sudden decision to move to Kiryat Shmona.
What this means is that all new property purchases made by Arabs should be returned to their original owners, while the funds involved with these transactions should be seized pending a determination of the actual motives behind the purchases.
It’s clear that Jews buying property in Kiryat Shmona could reasonably be seen as an act of patriotism. However, Arabs suddenly deciding to move into an area adjacent to an active war zone strongly suggests a desire to respond to the enemy’s call to do so. And while some of our bleeding hearts might condemn this reasoning as “racist", I’d think that most rational people would prefer to err on the side of caution rather than to turn a blind eye to what the enemy might be up to. In any event, it would probably be wise for the government to assign some type of national security designation to such an operation lest the High Court deem it to be an illegal infringement on the rights of a so called “protected minority".
As far as the efforts by some Islamic groups to create more mixed cities is concerned, I’ve already called for the government to outlaw all Moslem Brotherhood affiliated groups in Israel. Apart from arresting all the members of these terrorist organizations, it would also be prudent for the government to ensure that restrictions are placed on the number of Arabs moving into Jewish majority cities.
It’s clear that the Islamists intend to infiltrate Jewish communities then to turn them into what I call mini Beiruts, complete with bombings, shootings and all manner of organized mayhem. Life for the Jewish residents of these cities would literally be unbearable. And lest you think this scenario is a product of my own fevered imagination, be advised that it’s exactly what the Brotherhood has in mind for us. In other words, I’m not describing some “aspirational" dream of these Islamist terrorists. Rather, it’s an operational plan that they sincerely hope to implement.
Although the High Court would no doubt find such an edict restricting where Arab citizens of the state could live to be illegal, as long as the government were to declare a state of national emergency, the High Court would be unable to prevent the housing restrictions from being enforced. This would provide the government with the time necessary to crush the Brotherhood on its home turf and then to deport its members to a place like Syria, where they could live out their days in some version of an Islamic paradise.
We should bear in mind that the Trump administration has recently labeled the Muslim Brotherhood branches in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt to be terrorist organizations. The decision includes imposing sanctions on the group and their members. Our government would be wise to ask Washington to do the same for our own Muslim Brotherhood organizations. It would certainly make it a lot easier for the government to then declare a state of national emergency and destroy the Brotherhood.
To this end, I think it’s important for people to understand that what Hezbollah and our local Islamists are up to is what’s called hybrid or unconventional warfare. And unless we recognize this fact we might very well wake up one day to find all of our newly mixed cities on fire, with the Jewish residents being slaughtered by their Arab neighbors. At that point, the wars on our borders would also be occurring behind the front lines in our cities. And while I have faith in our army’s ability to pull off miracles, I’m not entirely sure that we could survive this kind of inside/outside assault.
This is why I’ve called upon the government to declare a state of national emergency with regard to the threat posed by the Islamist movement. This would prevent the High Court from interfering in the outlawing of the Moslem Brotherhood and the arrest of its members.
This terrorist organization excels in undermining a liberal state’s own laws and institutions to ensure its ascendence. To prevent this from happening here in Israel, the government has no alternative but to silence the High Court and then to destroy the Brotherhood once and for all. Apart from imprisoning its members and preventing their families from receiving any government assistance, this counter terror operation would also involve closing down the Brotherhood’s associated charitable organizations, Mosques and student groups. The Waqf, in particular, would definitely have to be outlawed given the fact that it is one of the most racist, antisemitic tentacles of the Islamist movement.
At the end of the day, the citizens of an embattled democracy when faced with a murderous 5th column bent on their destruction must ask themselves a simple, fundamental question: what are they prepared to do to survive? Democracy is not a suicide pact.
Indeed, it sometimes requires its citizens to do whatever is necessary to eliminate those elements bent on destroying it from within. We, the Jewish citizens of Israel, are facing just such a moment now. Simply put, those extremist elements within our Arab community bent on our annihilation must be dealt with strongly if we, and the rest of our citizens, are to live in peace. I realize that for some this seems like a betrayal of our democratic principles.
But, I’d rather have a Jewish state that respects the rights of its peaceful minorities than a dead democracy, destroyed by the hatred of Moslem religious fanatics it had lacked the courage to defeat.