Embers Of Discontent

Feeling scorned, Israeli Arabs
turn to militant Islamic Movement.

GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Umm el-Fahm, Israel
he rally looked like it
could have been held in
downtown Tehran.
Hundreds of cars, filled
with bearded men and scarfed women,
headed toward Umm el-Fahm, after
Nazareth the second largest Arab town
in Israel. It is also a stronghold of the
Islamic Movement, a political group-
ing that has a growing following
among the Arabs who make up a fifth
of Israel's citizens.
The cars were arriving last Friday for
the movement's fifth annual rally,
which, like the ones in previous years,
focused on obtaining, and maintain-
ing, an Islamic hold on Jerusalem.
Umm el-Fahm's 35,000-seat "peace
stadium" filled up soon after prayers
and latecomers had to rely on a public
address system that carried the speech-
es to hundreds of homes on the sur-
rounding hills.
The loud message: Israel may be
busy trying to reach - a historic com-
promise with Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat regarding
Jerusalem, but the Islamic Movement
will never compromise when it comes
to the Holy City.
A huge model of the Al-Aksa
Mosque on the Temple Mount —
within the Islamic world, third in reli-
gious importance only to the holy
shrines at Mecca and Medina — stood
on the stage of the stadium. Chains,
representing Zionist shackles, sur-
rounded the model, which was topped
with a weeping eye — symbolizing
Palestinian tears for the mosque.
"Even giving up one stone of Al-
Aksa means giving up all of Al-Aksa,"
declared Sheik Raed Salah Mahajneh,
the mayor of Umm el-Fahm and
leader of the Islamic Movement in
Israel. "Giving up even one piece of
earth equals giving up all of Al-Aksa."

T

Tensions Rise

For years, Mahajneh has been a consis-
tent foe of Jewish-Arab coexistence,
railing against successive Israeli gov-
ernments for confiscating the lands of

Israeli Arabs and for undermining
Muslim rights to holy sites on
Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
In his speech, he charged that Israel
was damaging the Al-Aksa Mosque,
which prompted the Israeli daily
Maariv to criticize his "incendiary"
rhetoric.
Days before the rally, the police
arrested 12 residents of Umm el-Fahm
for weapons possession and for con-
spiring to kill Arabs they suspected of
collaborating with Israel.
However, after a widely publicized
news conference in which the chief of
the northern command of Israel's
police force depicted the group as
potential terrorists, the charge sheets
revealed a different picture. According
to the documents, the 12 were linked
to the underworld.
In the eyes of the Islamic
Movement, this was proof that the
authorities were harassing the group's
followers.
Leaders of the Islamic Movement
say Prime Minister Ehud Barak has lit-
tle interest in improving relations with
Israel's Arabs.
"Our gravest mistake was the sup-
port we gave Ehud Barak in the last
elections," said Mahajneh.

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Worrisome Trends

A growing number of Arabs, many of
whom now want to be called
Palestinian Israelis to emphasize a soli-
darity with the larger Palestinian body,
say they are frustrated by the Israeli
state.
Last week, Israel Television publi-
cized a survey showing that a third of
Israel's Arabs do not believe that they
should be loyal to the state.
Israeli policymakers, though
alarmed, are trying to find a course of
action to deal with such expressions of
militancy.
Science Minister Matan Vilnai, who
heads a government committee on
Arab affairs, suggested that the govern-
ment should make a wholehearted
effort to improve the standard of liv-
ing of the Arab population in Israel —
a move he said that would pull the rug
out from under the Islamic
Movement's rhetoric. Ell

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