The Arab Israeli sector is less than thrilled with the performance thus far of the Bennett-Lapid government, a new political survey conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation in the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University reveals.

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Respondents also rated the governments' attempts to contain rampant crime in the Arab sector very low (2.13 on a scale of 1-5).

How does the Arab public in Israel view the Ra'am Party joining the coalition? A total of 40.5% said they thought that the move by Ra'am would inspire more Arab voter turnout in the next election, whereas 22.7% said they thought it would lead to decreased voter turnout.

When asked if they would vote in Knesset elections if they were held now, nearly two-thirds (61.1%) of respondents said they would vote, compared to 32.9% who said they would not vote.

A large majority of respondents (71.4%) said they supported the reformation of the Joint Arab List ticket, which until the last election included the parties Hadash, Ta'al, Balad, and Ra'am. Only 23.7% said that they did not support the idea of reforming the list.

Slightly more than half (51%) of respondents said they do not expect the current coalition to last four years, compared to 29.1% who said they expected the government to last its elected four-year term.

On a scale of 1-5, the average grade respondents gave the government was 2.37. When asked how much faith they had in the government's plans to fight crime in Arab communities, the grade was also low: 2.13 on a scale of 1-5. Their grade for the government's five-year plan to invest in the Arab sector was similarly low: 2.29.

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More than half (56.2%) of respondents said that Ra'am should ask for a ministerial or deputy-minister position in the cabinet, and not be satisfied with coalition membership.

Slightly more than half (51.8%) of respondents said that the wave of rioting and attacks in mixed cities that erupted during Operation Guardian of the Wall against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip in May of this year had caused severe damage to relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 23.7% of respondents said they believed the ideal solution would be a two-state plan based on Israel's 1967 borders, whereas another 26% said they thought the best solution to the conflict would be a single Jewish-Palestinian state. Interestingly, 37.9% said they foresaw no solution in the near future and expected the situation to remain as it is.

When asked if they believed that the Abraham Accords normalizing ties between Israel and Arab states would help stabilize the Middle East, 63.2% of respondents said that they did not expect the accords to do anything to promote a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, but 55.8% said they believed that the accords were a "positive development" for Israel's Arab citizens.

According to Dr. Arik Rodnitzky, "The new survey illustrates the changes taking place in Arab society, which on one hand wants to increase the rate of integration into Israeli society and be a major player in the coalition and the government, and on the other expresses a lack of trust in the government and its abilities to change the reality and take care of Arab citizens' well-being."

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When Israel faces its next military conflict, the IDF plans to call up reserves units that will be deployed in civilian areas to ensure that Arab Israelis do not interfere with military movements.

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The IDF is still disturbed by the events that erupted during Operation Guardian of the Walls against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip this past May, which included not only rioting and violence in mixed cities, but also attempts by Arab Israelis to carry out attacks on main roads and near sensitive installations.

Highway 31 near the Nevatim Air Force Base southeast of Beersheba was blocked off a few times during the May operation, and entrances and exits at the base, which is the IAF's largest, were restricted.

In the past, there have also been attempts to target armored vehicles on Highway 6 and a few other roads in northern Israel.

The military is concerned that in the next war, incidents like these will become more prevalent and could develop into organized attempts to block the movement of forces, block roads, and even infiltrate bases for the purpose of attacking soldiers or sabotaging sensitive equipment.

"We are focuses on offense, but could pay a heavy price in defense that will interfere with the plans for the offense," one senior IDF officer said.

In any war scenario, the IDF will need to move large contingents of personnel and equipment to the north and the south. Since the country has relative few highways suitable for this type of traffic, the movements are out in the open and exposed to attack. Thus, the threat is a double one – the enemy, who will try to focus its fire on convoys to prevent forces from amassing at the fronts (this is considered a particular threat in the scenario of a war against Hezbollah); and Arab Israelis, who could attempt to launch attacks on Israeli forces and weapons.

In light of these threats, the IDF is working on preparations for the next war, beyond the actual operational plans for the front lines.

The new plan will include three parts. The first has to deal with Border Police forces that will operate under the auspices of the IDF. The Border Police activities will take place in the main across Judea and Samaria, under the command of the IDF. In a state of emergency, the Israel Police will take command of these operations. During Operation Guardian of the Walls, there were a few days in which these Border Police companies were assigned to the police, but now the IDF's plan calls to transfer command as soon as the next military conflict erupts. This will require the IDF to call up reservists to operate in Judea and Samaria.

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The Border Police companies to be reassigned to the Israel Police will be deployed mostly in mixed cities, as patrol forces. The police will send them to various districts, based on situational assessments, and Border Police reservists could see emergency call-ups. A decision has already been made not to assign IDF personnel to back up the police in order to avoid a situation in which uniformed IDF troops would wind up using force against civilians to keep the peace.

The second part of the plan addresses the need to secure IDF missions. The military thinks that the police will be occupied by events in cities and will need to divert police personnel from all its units, including the Traffic Police, meaning that there will be fewer police available to secure roads and the areas around IDF bases.

This is where reservist battalions from the Homefront Command come in – who will receive emergency call-ups as soon as a war breaks out. The soldiers will be deployed across different regions and assigned to combat support as well as the civilian home front. Their main job will be to secure roads and military convoys to ensure that freedom of movement is not cut off.

"We understand that if in the past, a tank transport driver could have loaded a tank and driven feely from northern Israel to the south or the opposite, now he'll need security," the officer said.

Two weeks ago, outgoing head of the IDF's Technology and Logistics Division Maj. Gen. Itzik Turgeman said in an interview to Maariv that in the next war, the IDF would avoid moving forces through the Wadi Ara area to avoid clashes with Arab residents there. Turgeman's comments sparked considerable astonishment – not only because Israel cannot accept a situation in which the IDF is unable to maneuver freely in any part of the country, but also because it is possible to secure its forces. Alternatively, curfews can be utilized in villages and against civilians in cases where there are grounds to suspect that they will try to interfere with the movement of forces or armed vehicles.

The new plan is designed to address this issue. The third part of it, which has not yet been finalized, seeks to reach solutions that will increase the number of police available to handle events in Israel during a war, without backup from IDF soldiers.

One of the main lessons learned in Operation Guardian of the Walls was that Israel will need to implement these plans quickly, as soon as any military conflict begins. In any war scenario, the IDF will need to move large contingents of soldiers and equipment to the front, which will require massive movements throughout the entire country. This depends on freedom of movement and reduced threat on roads and at military bases.

"This is a new challenge we didn't have to deal with in the past, one that requires us to prepare now so we won't be surprised in the future," the IDF official said.

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Israel will bypass some of its Arab towns in transporting ground forces to future war fronts, a senior army general said on Friday, citing lessons from sectarian violence that erupted in the country in May during clashes in the Gaza Strip.

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Arabs, most of them Muslim, constitute a fifth of Israel's population. Many identify as Palestinian. Some mounted protests against the Gaza campaign that spiraled into riots.

Major-General Yitzhak Turgeman, chief of logistics for the Israel Defense Forces, said it had since marked out 1,600 km (1,000 miles) of dirt tracks that could serve as wartime alternatives to roads and set up new anti-riot units to protect convoys.

"I'm really concerned about ... the impact of violent disturbances on internal security and movement of transport convoys," Turgeman told the Maariv newspaper in an interview.

He said major deployments were now unlikely to happen through Wadi Ara, a valley highway among close clusters of Arab towns that leads to the northern fronts with Lebanon and Syria.

"In wartime, the IDF will do what is right in order to bring its units to the war theater as quickly as possible, and we have enough alternatives," Turgeman said.

The remarks came after video clips on social media showed army vehicles wending through Umm al-Fahm, an Arab-majority city, during a drill. The municipality issued an open letter condemning the presence as "unacceptable and hurtful to residents' feelings".

Public Security Minister Omer Barlev described police operations to seize illegal firearms in Israeli Arab communities as a further safeguard for future military deployments.

In the absence of such actions, a war could see "100 armed (Israeli) Arabs suddenly go down to this or that road or artery and hold up for 48 hours a division that has to deploy on the Lebanese border within 24 hours," Barlev told Army Radio last month.

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When Prime Minister Naftali Bennett asked to meet with King Abdullah of Jordan in July, Abdullah agreed but insisted the meeting be kept secret. When Bennett's office leaked the meeting to the Israeli press, the regime-controlled Jordanian media largely ignored the story.

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In stark contrast, Abdullah initiated his meeting Tuesday with Mansour Abbas, Deputy Head of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement and Chairman of the Islamist United Arab List or Ra'am faction in the Knesset. The Jordanians issued a detailed press release replete with an official photograph of the meeting and the news that it lasted a whopping four hours. The king's spokesmen said the men discussed the Palestinian conflict with Israel, the status of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and other top level strategic issues.

Why did Abdullah want to host and then play up a meeting with the leader of the smallest faction in Israel's parliament? To understand his thinking, we need to look at the meeting in the context. Specifically, we need to understand what Ra'am is. We need look at the meeting in the backdrop of recent revelations about Ra'am's relations with Hamas, and we need to see the meeting in the context of the Knesset's approval of the government budget last week.

Unlike Likud or Yamina or the Joint Arab List, Ra'am isn't a free-standing party. It is a node of the Islamic Movement, which itself is a node of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Islamic Movement is more like a web than a tree. Its nodes aren't linear. Abbas' primary position is deputy chairman of the Islamic Movement. His chairmanship of Ra'am is an outgrowth of his position in the Islamic Movement. Other nodes in the movement are its non-profit groups. Two in particular stand out – Igatha 48 Association, and the Al Aqsa Association. Virtually all of the past and current leaders of the two organizations also have senior positions in the Islamic Movement and Ra'am.

Two weeks ago, Channel 13 News' top reporter Ayala Hasson broadcast an investigative report on Ra'am compiled by two Israeli NGOs – Choosing Life, a non-profit group founded by parents whose children were killed by Palestinian terrorists; and Ad Kan, an investigative group that specializes in exposing subversive left-wing organizations and terror finance operations.

Hasson's report focused on Igatha 48 Association. The group is run by its CEO Ghazi Issa and its Director General, Ali Katanani. Issa ran in the last Knesset elections as number 15 on Ra'am's Knesset slate and serves as chairman of Ra'am's party council. Katanani ran in the 29ths spot on Ra'am's Knesset slate for the last election.

Igatha 48 is a charity. It operates in Israel, Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Turkey, Sudan, Syria and Lebanon. As the Ad Kan/Choosing Life report revealed, over the past decade, Igatha 48 has raised 224.5 million shekels ($72 million). According to its website, the funds go to "orphans, widows, prisoners and their families, and the poor in general."

From the group's website it is clear the "prisoners and their families" in question, are jihadist terrorists.

In 2019, Igatha 48 opened an office in Gaza. Issa and Khatanani attended the opening ceremony along with Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamed. Hamed also serves as Deputy Director of Hamas's Ministry of Social Development. At that event and on subsequent occasions, Hamed thanked Igatha 48 and the Islamic Movement for their assistance.

While wearing his hat as a Ra'am senior official, in early June, Issa joined Abbas in the coalition talks with Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid that led to Ra'am joining the governing coalition. Issa is pictured in the official photograph of the negotiating session standing behind Abbas as Abbas, Lapid and Bennett shook hands after they finalized the terms of the coalition deal. The deal with Ra'am gave Lapid and Bennett the 61-seat bare majority they needed to form the current government. So the man who won high praise from Hamas for transferring millions of shekels to Hamas-controlled Gaza to feed "prisoners and their families" is also is the kingmaker of Israeli politics.

This brings us to the Al Aqsa Association. Abbas wasn't alone in his meeting with King Abdullah. Sitting next to him was his colleague from the Islamic Movement, Kamal Alihan. Alihan is a senior official in the Al Aqsa Association. The Al Aqsa Association is dedicated to Islamizing the Temple Mount by among other things, indoctrinating Muslims to believe that there was never a Jewish temple on the site. Alihan served as the association's CEO from 2009-2007. The association's registered address is Alihan's home address.

According the Ad Kan/Choosing Life investigation, between 2007 and 2019, the association received 12.5 million shekels ($4 million) from Hamas funding foundations. Al Aqsa's bank account in Israel was seized in 2015, after the relevant government agencies determined it had received funding from Hamas-associated groups in contravention of Israel's terror funding laws.

This week, the Kol Yehudi news outlet reported that during the so-called "knife Intifada" terror campaign in 2015, the Al Aqsa Association published an article by Hamas terrorist Ahmad Aton. Aton incited supporters of the association "to sacrifice," for Jerusalem. "What was stolen by force will be liberated by force," he wrote.

In the months that followed, fifty Israelis were murdered. The Temple Mount was the focal point of the violence.

Mansour Abbas' personal connections to Hamas are legion. According to The New Yorker, Abbas travelled to Doha, Qatar in 2014 where he met with Hamas politburo chairman Khaled Mashaal. Two years later, he returned to Doha and met with Hamas military commanders.

In a follow-on report last week on Channel 13 News, Hasson reported that a few years ago, Abbas met with Israeli attorney Ephraim Damri and asked that he represent the Hamas terrorists who massacred Ruth and Ehud Fogel and three of their small children in their beds in 2010. Abbas and his Ra'am colleagues have travelled to Ramallah to meet with Hamas terrorists.

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These reports, which document Ra'am's manifold ties with Hamas aired just as the Knesset passed the state budget last week. The coalition deal Lapid and Bennett signed with Abbas and Issa stipulated that the allotment of all budgetary funds to Israel's Arab communities would be done in coordination with the Ra'am-controlled Committee for the Affairs of Arab Society. This means that to all intents and purposes, Abbas and his fellow Hamas supporters in Ra'am now control the funding of Israel's entire Arab minority.

The new budget includes a five-year 30 billion-shekel ($9.6 billion) development plan for the Arab community. As Amit Barak, a veteran activist involved in integrating Arab Israelis into mainstream Israeli society revealed this week, unlike its predecessor, this plan has not been made public.

In a conversation with this writer, Barak said that the new situation is liable to have a profoundly adverse effect on Arab integration. Rather than the government incentivizing Arab citizens and minority communities – like the Druze and the Circassians, whose sons are included in Israel's compulsory military service law – to embrace their Israeli identity and integrate fully into Israeli society, it will incentivize irredentism. As Barak put it, "The superpower that Ra'am has become in the Arab sector endangers the Arabs who are fully integrated, or are considering integrating fully into Israeli society."

And indeed, Wednesday, head of the Druze local council of Daliyat el-Carmel Rafik Halaby encouraged Druze to stop serving in the IDF and praised Ra'am and the Islamic Movement.

In his words, "I congratulate Mansour Abbas… for the efforts of the Arab representatives in the coalition, in contrast to the weakness of the heads of the Druze community. They [the Druze] thought that the covenant of blood and the military service would improve the situation in the Druze Arab society. Enough with the covenant of blood and nonsense!"

Abbas won high praise from the media during May's Operation Guardian of the Walls when he visited a firebombed synagogue in Lod. But like so many of the things that Abbas does and says, that visit was deceptive.

This week, Israel National News published an interview with a recently retired military intelligence officer it dubbed "Lt. Col. A." A. revealed that the Israeli Arab riots during Hamas' most recent missile campaign had been coordinated with Hamas in Gaza. "The proof of the coordination of the [two] terror fronts… was the fact that all the Israeli Arab riots ended immediately after Hamas decided to agree to a ceasefire."

"This is not a characteristic of a popular uprising. Hamas exerted high level control [of the violence in Israel] for the benefit of the joint Arab interest against Israel," he said.

Like many members of the nationalist camp, I initially fell for Abbas' charm offensive. I perceived Abbas' willingness to join a right-wing coalition government led by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a domestic expression of the spirit of Arab conciliation with the Jewish state which stands at the heart of the Abraham Accords. The seeds of the accords were planted a decade ago with the rise of Muslim Brotherhood parties to power in Sunni Arab states. The Saudis and the Emiratis, who had financed and supported the Muslim Brotherhood for decades, suddenly viewed the jihadist movement as an existential threat.

In Israel, the so-called "Arab Spring" caused thousands of Arab Israelis to revisit their longstanding hostility towards Israel. Many came to view their Israeli citizenship as their most precious possession – the one thing protecting them from the terror and genocide in places like Syria. Thousands of Arab Israeli families began sending their children to Jewish Hebrew language schools. According to a 2013 University of Haifa survey, 90% of Arab Israeli youth supported participation in national service. For the first time in Israel's history, Arab Israelis – particularly Christians – began volunteering to serve in the IDF.

Halabi's statement drives home that this trend is being rapidly reversed. As the recent exposes of Ra'am all show, Ra'am's outreach is no domestic Israeli version of the Abraham Accords. It's a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing stunt. Like Hamas, Ra'am – and the Islamic Movement as a whole –is a Muslim Brotherhood organization. Whereas Hamas carries out a violent jihad against Israel, Abbas told an Arabic-language media outlet that he is leading a "civil jihad" against Israel.

Abbas and his colleagues don't want Arab Israelis to embrace their Israeli identity. They intend to use their membership in the coalition to gain control over the Israeli Arab sector and transform it into a large, unified, irredentist front dedicated to dismantling Israel's Jewish identity.

This brings us back to the four hours Abbas and Alihan spent with King Abdullah on Tuesday. Attempts by Bennett's office and initially, by Abbas himself to play down the meeting and present it as a nothingburger didn't survive the morning headlines in the Jordanian media, which celebrated the event as a major milestone. On Wednesday, Abbas dropped the pose of innocent lamb for a moment and told Army Radio that unlike the leaders of the government he ostensibly serves, he supports the Biden administration's plan to open a consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Days before he abandoned the Likud-led right-wing bloc and formed the current government with Lapid and Abbas, Bennett admitted to me that he didn't know what to make of Abbas's willingness to join the governing coalition. But as he put it then, "It's worth looking into the option" of working with Ra'am.

Today, the results are in. Ra'am's nature and intentions are totally exposed. Bennett and his colleagues must draw the appropriate conclusions before it is too late.

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Ninety-two percent of the Arab public support the Shin Bet security agency's involvement in efforts to rein in crime in Arab society. This is according to a comprehensive survey by the Stat Research Institute that examined Arab support for the use of advanced technologies used by the Shin Bet to collect illegal weapons in the sector.

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The survey's findings contradict the winds blowing from the Arab political leadership and other radical forces and point to Israel's Arab citizens clearly demanding governance and showing unequivocal support for the state's fight against violence in the Arab street. This includes support for the limited and pinpointed use of advanced tracking technologies to collect illegal weapons.

Why is the Arab public so clearly demanding this painful treatment for its problem? We see this as an expression of the readiness of the Arab society and its translation into a public decision. No more accusations and no more general demands for action by law enforcement, but rather a discussion of the details and significance of necessary action by law enforcement and determining: Yes, we see personal security as a priority that comes before all others. Yes, we demand enforcement and law and order, including through the use of technologies used by the Shin Bet to thwart terrorist activity by both Jews and Arabs.

If the state has at its disposal excellent technology that put an end to the constant bloodshed, clear the streets of illegal weapons, and fight resolutely and effectively against the despair, terror, and grief found in our families,' neighbors,' friends,' and acquaintances,' mourning tents, who cares what else this technology is used for? And how exactly will we be able to do this without it?

The fact that the Arab public did not provide assistance to the security prisoners who escaped Gilboa Prison made perfectly clear, regardless of statements from Arab leadership, how the Arab public feels about the state. The survey's results grant provide further proof.

The time, then, has come for change. We expect the state to demonstrate its governance, fulfill its basic obligations toward us, redeem us of the anarchy that is increasingly taking over our public spaces, destroying our communities, and killing our children. We expect it to rein in the violence and crime with the tools at its disposal. We have crossed the blood-drenched Rubicon. Absent this eradication, we cannot live democratic, safe, and flourishing lives.

We expect this because the enforcement of law and order does not stand on its own, but is rather a complementary and synergetic infrastructure condition necessary for deeper societal and cultural change. We are convinced that when the state grabs the bull of Arab crime and violence by the horns, and hope and security take the place of the killing, the fear, and the despair, there will be room for more long-term processes as well.

For example, deepening cooperation between our communities and the state, establishing informal educational frameworks for Arab youth to help us contend with their sense of a lack of purpose, establishing initiatives to guide them toward integration into the high-tech industry, and restoring the vitality that will lead to the realization of the immense potential found within that is just waiting to be realized.

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Israel's coronavirus infection rate stands at 3.65%, according to Health Ministry data released Thursday. Of the 105,313 people who tested for the virus Wednesday, 3,550 were found to have COVID-19.

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The reproduction rate, which is trending downward, now stands at 0.72, the lowest recorded since early May.

There are 48,621 active cases of the virus. There are 639 people in serious condition, 169 of whom are on ventilators.

Although 1,222,693 Israelis have recovered from the virus, 7,734 have died.

According to Health Ministry data, 6,108,800 Israelis have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, while 5,632,689 have received two doses. Over 3 million - 3,326,167, have received all three available doses of the vaccine.

There is increasing concern Israel will run out of available ECMO machines as a record 53 seriously ill patients were hooked up to them at hospitals across the country. Of those 53 patients, 91% are unvaccinated. The majority are adults aged 40 to 60. Four percent of patients on ECMO machines received one dose of the vaccine, while 6% had received two out of three available doses. None of them received all three doses of the vaccine.

Last week, Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash announced he would establish a committee to look into providing hospitals with additional ECMO machines, costing 80,000 shekels (around $25,000) each. There is also a pressing need for trained medical staff and technicians to operate the machines.

With morbidity levels on the decline in the general population, the health system is now focusing its attention on sharp increases in infections in the Arab sector.

"The low scope of vaccination in the Arab sector, alongside a lack of restrictions on gatherings that allow for the continued holding of mass weddings and mass gatherings, serve to increase the continued spread of the virus in Arab society," according to a senior member of the committee tasked with reining in the virus in Israel's Arab community.

"Many Arab Israelis have gone back to visit the Palestinian Authority territories, where the coronavirus is running wild, and many of them are being infected and infecting their relatives and their close surroundings when they return to Israel. Just the last day, 20 Palestinians who contracted the virus died in the Ramallah area, and out of 10,000 who were tested, 30% were found to be confirmed carriers [of the virus]. Those are crazy numbers, and everything trickles into Arab society in Israel and from there to the general population."

According to the senior official, "The government must consider imposing restrictions because in the absence of minimal restrictions on gatherings, like mass weddings, it will be very difficult to flatten the curve in the Arab sector and that will clearly also impact the data for wider society."

Some argue the discrepancy in morbidity levels is due to the Arab education system remaining open over the last three weeks, at a time when the Jewish education system was closed for the High Holidays. In addition, there are those in the Arab sector who further say the community suffers from a combination of a shortage of Arabic language information on the pandemic and the spread of false information.

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel petitioned the High Court of Justice to order the addition of Arabic language text to green pass certificates as well as stop issuing the Hebrew language-only green passes until a discussion is held on the subject in another 10 days. In its petition, Adalah argued the lack of Arabic language text was a violation of a Supreme Court ruling on the status of the Arabic language in the State of Israel. Responding to the petition, the state argued it was not legally required to add Arabic text to the pass and that doing so would be technically difficult.

In some Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, there have been claims of a lack of access to vaccines. In addition, a significant portion of the east Jerusalem population is uninterested in getting the jab.

A senior health system official in east Jerusalem told Israel Hayom: "There is a real mess in the east of the city when it comes to vaccines. There is no coordination whatsoever on vaccines in schools. There are places where there's nowhere to get vaccinated in either schools or neighborhoods. In addition, many in the Arab sector aren't coming to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. We need to work with the Jerusalem Municipality to improve the organization of the vaccines. Right now, the situation is not good at all."

In a statement, the Jerusalem Municipality responded that "in cooperation with the [IDF's] Home Front Command, the municipality is conducting a large-scale campaign to encourage vaccination, this alongside the establishment of many vaccination points in all the city's neighborhoods, including in the east of the city."

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Violence in Israel's Arab community is a "national calamity," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared in a statement issued following a meeting with senior government and police officials on Wednesday to discuss plans to tackle violence and crime in Arab Israeli communities.

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The statement, released by the Prime Minister's Office, indicated that the government would soon be making a plan to combat crime in the sector public.

"Violence in the Arab community is a national calamity that has been overlooked for many years," Bennett said.

"Crime is a daily occurrence and fear reigns in the streets. It is the government's responsibility to fight and deal with the phenomenon. It is a national mission," the prime minister continued.

Arab towns and villages have seen an upsurge in violence in recent years, with organized crime perceived as the main driver.

Arab Israelis are highly critical of the police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence, which includes family feuds, gang brawls and violence against women.

Since the start of 2021, 49 Arab Israelis have been killed in homicides in their own communities, the Abraham Initiatives nonprofit group reports.

In 2020, 96 Arab Israelis were killed in internecine violence.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Opposition MK Moshe Arbel (Shas) reached out to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit on Tuesday, asking him in a letter to look into alleged fraud and breach of trust commited by the coalition in the Knesset plenum in an attempt to get a citizenship law passed that would replace a temporary order regulating the status and residency of Palestinian spouses of Arab Israelis.

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In a defeat for the new government, the law was voted down in the Knesset early Tuesday morning following a tie of 59:59.

"The discussion of the bill in the plenum last night raised a serious picture in which the government appeared to be knowingly lying and misdirecting MKs in order to promote its goals of security a majority for the vote, to the extent of [alleged] fraud and breach of trust," Arbel wrote.

"During the discussion, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked was asked a number of times whether there was a written or verbal agreement between coalition factions for MKs from Ra'am and Meretz to support the vote or abstain in exchange for the interior minister 'upgrading' the status of Palestinian residents of Israel who are married to Israeli citizens.

"Minister Shaked responded that the 'former interior minister … issued 1,600 people permits for family reunification. We have remained at a similar number of permits that will be examined by a humanitarian committee… which will convene and discuss the 1,600 cases.' Given these remarks, it can be assumed that MKs considered their stances and voted accordingly in the plenum," Arbel wrote.

However, the Shas MK told Mendelblit, "In a radio interview today [Tuesday] Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej [Meretz] said that 'the agreement reached with [Prime Minister] Bennett and Shaked gave over 3,000 Palestinian families legal standing in Israel. We didn't want to make that public because of the Right. We missed a one-time opportunity to do justice to thousands of our people's families.'"

Arbel alleged that Frej had admitted that Shaked had "lied to MKs in the plenum" in order to promote the interests of the government and the Yamina party, and concluded by asking Mendelblit to launch an investigation into the matter.

Yamina was considering the possibility of bringing the bill to the plenum for another vote, but it was not certain when that might happen.

Minutes before the vote, the cabinet announced that the vote on the bill would in effect be a vote of confidence in the new government and that if the bill fell, so would the Center-Left government.

At 2:40 a.m., Shaked presented a compromise agreement, according to which the temporary order, which thus far has been renewed on an annual basis, would be extended for six months, until January 2022.

The Opposition rejected Shaked's compromise, arguing that any alterations to the original temporary order needed to be presented two months ahead of the Knesset vote. This led to an uproar, and the Opposition ultimately appealed to the Knesset legal counsel for an opinion.

MK Ahmad Tibi asked Arab MKs, "How is it possible that the 'Palestinian rib' of the government will vote for the most anti-Palestinian law possible?"

MK Kati Shitrit (Likud) attacked both Tibi and Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern, calling them "Ra'am's dishrags." MK Orit Strock was removed from the plenum for heckling.

While Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) was speaking, a number of Opposition MKs began calling out "Shame!"

Shaked pointed out that understandings secured by the coalition, not in any written agreement, would grant immediate approval for 1,600 requests for family reunification for Palestinian spouses of Arab Israeli citizens.

Earlier, Shaked and Ra'am leader MK Mansour Abbas discussed the matter of the citizenship law. Abbas also met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in an attempt to reach a compromise.

Hours before the Knesset vote, MK Israel Katz tweeted: "While the Likud faction is weighing its vote on the matter of the citizenship bill, we were informed that the government has promised Ra'am it will gloss over the entry of another 1,800 Palestinian families. My position is to vote against the bill and the anti-Zionist deal between Shaked and Abbas. However, we will promote a Basic Law about entry to Israel that will completely prevent any Palestinian 'right of return.'"

Speaking in the Knesset plenum, Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Shaked.

"Bennett and Shaked say they have formed a 'Zionist government,' but they aren't capable of passing such a simple law because they're dependent on anti-Zionist entities that oppose Israel being a Jewish, democratic state," Netanyahu said.

"The responsible, correct thing to do is to pass a Basic Law on immigration, today, in a preliminary vote, and postpone extending the temporary order by two months, which will lead to a solution to the issue," Netanyahu continued.

On Monday, the Shin Bet security agency warned that the government's failure to pass the citizenship law was hurting national security.

In a meeting of the Opposition bloc on Monday, a decision was taken for every Opposition faction to review the citizenship law, after which the Opposition would re-convene to decide how to vote.

Netanyahu reached out to Bennett and Lapid, telling them, "Don't expect us to save you from anti-Zionist entities," referring to factions in the coalition that oppose the law.

"Bennett wants us to come along but feel like we aren't there," Netanyahu said. "To be prime minister with six mandates, Bennett made a hash of things. He gave things to Meretz, to Ra'am, to Lapid, to the Labor Party, and for whom was nothing left? The Right."

Earlier Monday, Bennett discussed the controversy over the law, saying, "The Opposition is trying we wear us down through childish games. But there are things you don't toy with. National security is a red line. The government needs control over who enters its borders and who receives citizenship. Bringing in thousands of Palestinians, granting them citizenship, and hurting national security for the sake of scoring political points – that's simply not the right thing to do," he said.

Shaked asked members of the Opposition not to torpedo the bill.

"This law was originally passed for security reasons. They saw that over time, most of the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Arab Israelis were committed by people who came into the country under 'family reunification,' or by their children," Shaked said.

"You must understand that if the law is shot down today, despite what some Opposition leaders are choosing to lie to you about, over time, not even the interior minister will be able to stop a process of ongoing naturalization [of Palestinians], which is why the law is so important," Shaked added.

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On March 31, 2002, days after the suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, there was another suicide bombing, this one at the Matza restaurant in Haifa. Sixteen Israelis, including three fathers with their children, were killed. The bomber, Shadi Tubasi, was an Israeli citizen who lived in Jenin. His mother, Naja, originally from the village Muqabla in the Gilboa Regional Council, had married a man from Jenin 30 years earlier, and even though she never returned to her home village, she retained Israeli citizenship.

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Thanks to the "family reunification" policy, through Naja, her husband and children – including her suicide bomber son – all obtained Israeli citizenship. Shadi exploited his, and the freedom of movement it gave him, to travel to Haifa where he carried out his horrific attack. About a third of the households in his village Muqabla were comprised of mixed Palestinian and Arab Israeli couples.

Back then, before Israel's citizenship and entry laws were amended by a temporary order that revoked citizenship or residency from Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who had married Arab Israelis, dozens of Palestinian terrorists used their Israeli citizenship to perpetrate terrorist attacks in Israel.

In November 2012 another naturalized citizen, Mohammad Abdel Jafari Nasser, took advantage of his Israeli ID card – which he received under the family reunification law – to carry out a terrorist attack on a Tel Aviv bus, which left 26 Israelis wounded. In October 2015 it was Mohand al-Uqabi, 21, the son of an Israeli father and a mother from Gaza, who murdered IDF solider Omri Levy at the Beersheba Central Bus Station. In December 2017, Khaled Abu Jaudah murdered IDF Sgt. Ron-Yitzhak Kokia at a bus stop in Arad. Abu Jaudah was also the child of a Palestinian from the West Bank who had married an Arab Israeli.

Yet another Palestinian who became Israel in 1993, after he married an Arab Israeli woman from Haifa, is Omar Barghouti, founder of the global BDS movement. Today, he lives in Acre. Barghouti might not be a terrorist, but he believes that the Jews are not a people, supports Palestinian right of return, and has reservations about dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. A few years ago, the Interior Ministry cancelled Barghouti's travel documents.

According to figures from the security establishment for 2001-2016, children of family reunification represent about 5% of the country's Arab sector, but comprise 15% of Arab Israeli terrorists. When it comes to residents of Jerusalem, the number of children of family reunification involved in terrorism is 12 times their proportion of the population.

The same trend can be seen in Arab residents of the Negev, where children of family reunification make up 12% of the population. From 2000-2017, 44 Negev residents were involved in various types of terrorist activity (attacks, planning attacks, recruiting attackers or helpers, transferring money to fund terrorism, purchasing weapons, etc.).

Haifa District Court Judge Abraham Eliyakim, who a few years ago approved the revocation of the citizenship of Alaa Ziad, a terrorist from Umm al-Fahm who carried out a combined car ramming and stabbing attack near Gan Shmuel in October 2015, wrote in his ruling that "the second generation of family reunification such as Ziad (the son of a Palestinian father) are under inherent pressure between two loyalties or two identities."

After reviewing a classified opinion from the Shin Bet security agency, Eliyakim wrote that the second generation of family reunification "still preserved their Palestinian identity and Israel is seen as an enemy state in a conflict with their people. The family circle, given the family relationships with Judea and Samaria and Gaza, has an inherent influence on the upbringing and identification with the Palestinian mentality and narrative. Moreover, they come into contact with an environment that does not rule out terrorist or reject violence toward the Israeli public."

Eliyakim also observed that "even terrorist organizations have marked this population as potential recruits for terrorist activity, based on shared valued, their ability to move freely, and their knowledge of Israel."

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This is the background for the order that has been renewed annually since 2003, which revoke citizenship, residency, and sometimes even presence in Israel from Palestinians who married Arab Israelis. On July 6 of this year, the order currently in place will expire, but at the moment the new government is not securing a majority to pass it again. The four Ra'am MKs announced that they would not support a renewal of the order. MK Ibtisam Mara'ana of Labor and the Meretz members, have also announced they will not support it. The Likud and the other parties in its bloc, who every other year supported the order, are threatening to vote against it as a political move.

Opponents of the measure are suggesting alternatives. The Left is talking about a compromise in the form of changes to the interim orders that would soften it to allow Palestinian partners to drive inside Israel, enjoy public health benefits, and even give citizenship to 2,000 families who asked for it before the temporary order was enacted in 2003.

On the Right, the Likud is suggesting that the interim measure be replaced by a permanent law, Basic Law: Immigration, an idea that has the support of the Religious Zionist Party, the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and MK Amichai Chikli of Yamina. This proposal would, for the first time, establish rules about entry to Israel and the receipt of temporary and permanent residency, and Israeli citizenship, as well as grounds on which these could be denied or revoked.

'They aren't in any hurry'

 Researcher Adi Schwartz observes that there is not necessarily a plan to weaken Israel by having Palestinians adopt citizenship.

"It's not that the naturalized citizens sit down and say, 'We're part of a plan to destroy the state of Israel.' An individual from Ramallah, Hebron, or Jaffa, or Bedouin from the Negev, don't necessarily intend as individuals to destroy us as a Jewish state," Schwartz explains, adding that the true story is "an Arab environment and collective that surrounds us, which does not recognize our borders or the entity known as Israel."

"As far as this collective is concerned, the whole project of Israel, in which Jews are the majority, isn't legitimate and should be eradicated. According to this view, the issue of family reunification is just another tool. Since the entire area is theirs anyway and there is no difference between Hebron, Beersheba, Ashdod, or Ashkelon, it really is a creeping implementation of the right of return in a different way, at their own pace. They aren't in any hurry," Schwartz says.

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Refusing to believe Yamina head Naftali Bennett's announcement the establishment of a "pro-change" government was off the table, Likud officials have continued to accuse Bennett and New Hope party head Gideon Sa'ar of working to establish a government that relies on the support of the Joint Arab List.

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A senior Likud official told Israel Hayom: "Sa'ar and Bennett talk like they're on the Right but are moving to the Left. They are holding talks about it and are thinking about how to establish such a government. This is an option that has been reopened, and let there be no doubt: This is a government that relies on the Joint Arab List.

"How dare they talk about a government that relies on the Joint Arab List after what happened in [the] Gaza [Strip]? They're going to go with the Joint Arab List after the rioting by Arab Israelis? They're going to go with the Joint Arab List after Biden talks about the establishment of a Palestinian state? Giving Judea and Samaria to Hamas - that's the 'change' government.

"Bennett's announcement was fake. They're holding talks to establish a 'change' government. The entire Left has enlisted in how to prevent a right-wing government," the official said.

Responding to the accusations, a Yamina party official insisted: "The 'change' government is off the table."

Religious Zionist Party head Bezalel Smotrich, formerly of the Yamina faction has launched a campaign aimed at pressuring Sa'ar to join a right-wing government. According to a RZP official, the campaign called on "Sa'ar and his partners in New Hope to join a right-wing government of the nationalist camp and abandon the attempt to form an alliance with the Left."

The official said: "The campaign is continuing the success of the moves by the Religious Zionist Party that prevented Yamina Chairman Naftali Bennett and the members of his faction from establishing a leftist government with supporters of terrorism."

In a series of statements and videos published over the weekend, the RZP asked: "What do you have to do with the Left? A right-wing government is the order of the hour."

According to Smotrich, "Events in recent weeks once again revealed the ethical and practical rifts between the Right and the Left in the State of Israel on a variety of critical issues and the immediate need to establish a right-wing government comprised of all the parties in the nationalist camp. Members of New Hope are people of the Right, and they must understand that there's nothing for them on the Left and join a right-wing government. I hope and believe this will be the case. Gideon, come home."

Last week, Smotrich claimed his mediation efforts had increased the possibility Sa'ar would consider the possibility of joining the government."

Sa'ar denied the claims.

Meanwhile, at a rally at Tel Aviv's Habima Square, Saturday, Meretz party chairwoman Tamar Zandberg called on Bennett, Sa'ar, and Blue and White party head Benny Gantz "not to let the message of the last few days be one of fear of Arabs and the embrace of [radical Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar] Ben-Gvir. A different government must be established."

She said, "Recent days have shown us what life in this country could look like – a nightmare. We don't want to turn the hourglass upside down and wait for the next war, but rather change the direction to one of peace. Living together in genuine partnership and not in hatred and fear. It's no coincidence this violence broke out precisely when we felt Jews and Arabs could cooperate in politics, as well, because there were those who wanted to destroy this vision.

"But to them, we say: Enough! Now, too, we can and should establish a different government that doesn't incite and differentiate between Jews and Arabs but replaces the toxic atmosphere. From here, I call on Bennett, Sa'ar, and Gantz: Don't let the message of the recent days be one of turning our backs on Jewish-Arab partnership and promoting racism and Kahanism, fearing Arabs, and embracing Ben-Gvir. That would be our loss. Victory will be a government that marks the way to a life together," Zandberg concluded.

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