Haifa, one of Israel's major cities, is situated along the northern coastline and is often referred to as the unofficial capital of the north. The city is renowned for its unique example of coexistence between Arabs and Jews, with about 11 percent of Haifa's population being Arab-Israeli.

Haifa, however, is not just a symbol of peaceful coexistence—it is also a prime target for Hezbollah should the terror group choose to engage Israel in a broader regional conflict. In mid-June, Hezbollah released a 9-minute propaganda video, reportedly filmed by a drone, which documented military and civilian areas in Haifa. This video served as a psychological tactic designed to instill fear in residents, with the terror group subtly marking its targets within Israel.

During my visit, I went to Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus to learn about the city's preparedness for potential attacks from Hezbollah or the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hospitals are undeniably vulnerable targets, and there is no telling the lengths to which these terror groups might go to inflict harm on civilian populations.

 As we entered the hospital, we took the elevators down to the underground Level 3 parking lot instead of heading upward. What I witnessed there was a transformation beyond anything I had ever seen. The Rambam Health Care Campus had converted its underground parking garage into a fully functioning underground fortified hospital. Hospital beds stretched as far as the eye could see, totaling approximately 2,200. The three-floor facility, with each level spanning over 20,000 square meters, is the largest underground hospital in the world.

Professor Michael Halberthal, Director General and CEO of Rambam Health Care Campus, explained that after the devastation of the Second Lebanon War, the hospital's management resolved never to leave their patients so vulnerable again. Driven by a commitment to their patients, they built this fortified underground medical facility from the ground up, with all the necessary infrastructure—ready in the ceilings and walls—to provide shelter for over 2,000 patients. In the event of a serious attack from Hezbollah or Iran, the hospital can relocate all its operations underground in less than eight hours and accommodate two other hospitals in the area, ensuring that most of Haifa can continue its medical services without disruption. 

The underground hospital boasts twenty-four fully fortified operating rooms and has even established a daycare for families capable of caring for up to 500 children. The facility reportedly can withstand conventional, chemical, and biological attacks. Between patients, staff, and families, the three-floor underground facility can house up to 8,000 people, with enough water, oxygen, electricity, food, and gas to last three whole days without external assistance.

Haifa has also converted schools, parking garages, and other spaces around the region into fortified shelters for locals, preparing for a more serious scenario.

Israel's ability to adapt and innovate is well-known, but seeing how Rambam transformed a parking lot into a fully functioning hospital is something that words can hardly capture. It embodies the true essence of Israel: brilliance, innovation, and resilience. According to Professor Halberthal, approximately thirty percent of the hospital staff are not Jewish, meaning this incredible transformation was largely achieved through the collaborative efforts of Jews and Arabs, working together to save lives. It is a powerful reminder of what can be accomplished when communities unite, even under the shadow of potential devastation.

While there may not be a perfect way to prepare for a larger war in the north, it is reassuring to see that Rambam Health Care Campus has found a way to ensure they can continue saving lives in the face of unimaginable threats. This underground hospital stands as a testament not only to Israel's ingenuity but also to its unwavering determination to protect its citizens. It may seem like an ordinary hospital, but it represents the indomitable Jewish spirit of survival and resilience.

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One of the most delicate terms in Israeli identity discourse is "Arab citizens of Israel." Jews citing this term use it to make a distinction between "Israeli" Arabs and "Palestinian" Arabs and to imply differences in their attitudes toward the State of Israel and its institutions. There are substantive differences between the legal status of Arab citizens in Israel, Jerusalem's Arabs (who are non-citizen residents), and the Arabs of the territories (most of whom are residents of the Palestinian Authority). But in the world of identities, the spoken word is mightier than the written law.

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Anyone versed in the finer points of the discourse prevalent in the Arab world is aware that the term "Israeli Arab" is seldom used. Arab citizens of Israel most often are referred to by the Arab world as "the Arabs of 1948." This appellation distinguishes Arab citizens of Israel from the Palestinian collective in Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem, and the Palestinian diaspora abroad. It implicitly criticizes the Israeli ID card that they bear and their ties to Israeli society.

Both the Jewish discourse and the Arab discourse disregard the self-identification of many of Israel's Arab citizens as part of the Palestinian national collective. Prominent Arab-Israeli spokespeople, such as Joint Arab List head Ayman Odeh, emphasize their Palestinian identity. In fact, they insist that the fact that they did not become exiles in 1948 or 1967 serves to deepen their Palestinian identity.

Public opinion polls conducted in recent years indicate that about one-fifth of Israel's Arab citizens define themselves as Israeli. But the same polls indicate that this Israeli identity is secondary to the Islamic and Arab identity of those sampled. Whenever the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensifies, in particular regarding the Islamic contexts of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the desire of Israel's Arab citizens to support the Palestinian side is brought into sharp focus.

It seems that the serious violence of the past month in Lod, Akko, Jaffa, Tamra, Qalansawe, Tayibe, Haifa, the Negev, and elsewhere in Israel greatly undermined whatever divides do exists between factions of the Palestinian community and instead bolstered the affinity between Israeli and West Bank or Gazan Arabs.

Many groups in the Arab sector have strongly condemned the violence of an Arab minority, and it should be noted that many Arab criminal elements led to the riots. Nevertheless, the nationalist narrative of the riots cannot be downplayed. The rioters sought to proclaim that the artificial divide between "Israeli" and "Palestinian" Arabs has expired and to emphasize that preoccupation with the 1967 borders is artificial. Like the Palestinians, the Palestinian citizens of Israel view the conflict with Israel as stemming from 1948. Young people in Lod and Acre interviewed by the Israeli media even explicitly stated that "Acre is Arab like Jerusalem, like Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Lod – and all of Palestine. It is time we take back what is ours."

The PLO's Phased Plan, adopted by that organization in June 1974, also made clear that a return to the borders of the 1967 Six-Day War referred to by Palestinians as the Naksa, meaning the "downfall," or "defeat" is merely the first step toward a return to the reality that preceded the Nakba ("catastrophe" or "disaster") of the displacement of Palestinian refugees during Israel's War of Independence 1948. A similar trend is also evident in the Arab-Israeli community's "Vision Document" of 2006, written by members of the Joint Arab List, among others.

This document seeks to unravel Israel's political system, in place since 1948, regarding the existence of a majoritarian democracy (where the country's Jewish majority holds preference in the determination of the country's character). Instead, the authors of the Vision Document seek to establish a consociational democracy where minority groups have the power to veto decisions inconsistent with their views.

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The deep-seated national component of the recent clashes indicates that even after calm is restored on the streets, Israel's political leadership will still face fundamental questions. Given that both national communities must continue to coexist within the State of Israel, how can a cooperative civil framework be formed despite the harsh national disputes? The key to answering this question lies mainly in working with civil society organizations and the local authority leaderships in both publics, who can fashion a framework of consensual "ground rules" for leading a shared life alongside bitter national conflict.

This must include strict condemnation of violence on anyone's part and a commitment to maintaining law and order while creating mechanisms for close dialogue between the parties both in times of routine and in emergencies. Mechanisms of dialogue – which have broken down because of recent rioting –  are a fundamental tool in restoring order, alongside firm policing and the imposition of heavy penalties on lawbreakers.

One must also consider additional causes for the bloody incidents of recent weeks, including the power of violent armed gangs and Arab criminal elements in mixed cities and Arab local authorities. These groups terrorize local authorities, public leaders, Arab educators, and community activists. This internal fauda ("chaos") in the Arab sector was bound to spill over into Jewish Israeli society. The police and security forces have no choice but to confront such vigilantes to secure the safety of Jewish- and Arab-Israeli citizens.

Blaming the situation on the police alone is narrow-sighted. Beyond the police, the Israeli government must own up to the challenge of governance and sovereignty in Arab communities. Dealing with the challenge will entail a combination of educational, community, employment, identity, and infrastructure initiatives. It will require the provision of proper municipal services in Arab cities, alongside real empowerment of pragmatic local leaderships, with an emphasis on Arab municipalities.

Arab municipal authorities in the country's north, center, and south face severe deficiencies in transportation infrastructure, education, and employment – all of which grew worse during the coronavirus pandemic. Manpower in Arab authorities is weak, too, leading to inefficient financial and organizational conduct, which makes it harder to implement budget reforms prescribed by Government Decision No. 922, which mandated the investment of NIS 15 billion ($4.6 billion) over five years in Arab cities and towns and Decision No. 2397, which adds a further investment of NIS 3 billion over five years. Therefore, in addition to the allocation of the budgets, there is a need for extensive professional training of municipal officials.

To deal with all the weighty challenges mentioned above, four key endeavors must be undertaken:

1. Deep and constructive community discourse between Israeli authorities and local and national Arab community leadership.
2. Improvement of police enforcement and the imposition of law and order.
3. Advancement of quality of life, with an emphasis on planning and construction, development of commercial complexes, recreation and leisure, street cleaning, and road infrastructure.
4. Development of human capital in the fields of education, higher education, and employment.

National authorities have invested heavily in the Arab sector in recent years, but it seems that there is no integrative approach or government coordinator who has a view of the complete picture and who channels resources appropriately and effectively. Additionally, the government has failed to broadcast the diverse work it has undertaken to benefit the Arab community, something that might slightly restore the current low level of trust between Arab citizens and government authorities.

Past Israeli governments included a Ministry of Minorities. Dismantled in 2011, this ministry lacked any real power. Last February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Israel Police Maj. Gen. (ret.) Aharon Franco as point man on combating crime in Arab communities. What is still missing is an integrative government office with powers to coordinate all government policies and security matters relating to the Arab sector. Such a coordinated government effort is needed to work with pragmatic Arab leadership in creating a better future for Arab Israelis and the Negev Bedouin.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org, this article was originally published by the Jerusalem Institute of Strategy and Security.

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Her work tool has not changed, but hairdresser Jeje July Touk from Acre has gone from cutting people's hair to grooming dogs.

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Coronavirus restrictions on beauty salons left the hair stylist jobless, so turning adversity into opportunity, Touk became a professional dog groomer, an occupation relatively rare for a woman in Israel's Arab community.

Dogs are considered unclean by some in the Arab world, but attitudes are changing, and many now own them as pets.

Touk opened her B-rex dog spa in Acre a few months after the outbreak of the pandemic, offering grooming, claw clipping, and other services.

"Dogs are my passion," she said in the brightly colored salon in the historic city on Israel's northern coast.

The salon is visited by both Jewish and Arab customers, and Touk is helped by her son, who wants to become a veterinarian.

"Before she gives the dog the needed treatment, she works on forming a connection first. This is what makes me always come back," customer Hamada Kleib, owner of a Doberman pinscher, said.

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Members of the Joint Arab List are up in arms after Ra'am party head Mansour Abbas,' along with three of his fellow party members, skipped a vote to disperse the Knesset, Wednesday.

Faction officials went so far as to accuse Abbas of coordinating the move with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in advance, with one specifically alluding to a meeting the Ra'am party held with senior officials from the Prime Minister's Office over several hours last Thursday.

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Abbas confirmed to Israel Hayom he held a few meetings with PMO officials on Thursday but insisted it "had nothing whatsoever to do with the vote to disperse the Knesset."

The meeting was aimed at "promoting the government plan to benefit the Arab sector. This is a plan that is spread out across five years and costs some 500 million shekels ($152 million) a year. That is what matters right now to the Arab public, not petty politics," he said.

While Abbas said he was not brushing off criticism from within the faction, he emphasized that "the reason we established the Joint Arab List was to worry about the Arab sector and not to please the Zionist Left. The Arab public supports me, and it's a fact that there are no complaints about me from the public. The allegations are only from Arab politicians, not the voters, and I serve the Arab public that voted for me, no one else. Not Gantz, not Netanyahu, not [Yamina party head Naftali] Bennett, and not [Yesh Atid party head Yair] Lapid."

He added, "I respect my fellow party members' decision to support the legislation to disperse the Knesset, but with all due respect, I do not have to obey it [the list]."

In a statement, Joint Arab List head Ayman Odeh said, "Just as we promised the public, we are continuing to fight for equal rights and mark achievements – without groveling and while defending our ideology and our values."

Odeh said he was pleased with "the significant progress" being made with Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn on reforms he said would be published in full "on the more painful issues in Arab society – the many years of discrimination in the field of planning and construction and the authorities' closing their eyes to the waves of crime and violence.

"The Joint Arab List will continue to work for the public that sent it to represent it with honor," he said.

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Beyond that, the party has another reason to be proud – the facts that four of its 15 MKs are women, and for the first time in the history of the Knesset there will be a hijab-wearing female MK (Iman Khatib-Yassin) from the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement.

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Among all the happy cries, the confetti, the singing, and the sense of pride the Arab elected officials were feeling at the enormous victory, one person looked serious as he looked at the big TV screens that were broadcasting the exit polls that showed the Joint Arab List's rising numbers as well as the colossal collapse of Blue and White and the anti-Bibi camp, not to mention the Zionist Left as a whole.

That person was Joint Arab List faction chairman MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi – a veteran political fox who apparently understood better than anyone the paradox he was facing. The Joint Arab List's astonishing victory was mitigated by bitterness at the failure to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Right from power.

The results of the election for the 23^rd Knesset, which saw the Joint Arab List make gains, pose an enormous challenge to the party. With all due respect to the tens of thousands of Jews who cast ballots for the list, more than 90% of its voters come from the Arab sector and expect the list's MKs to take their electoral success and use it to better the quality of life for the Arab citizens of Israel. A top priority is curtailing the crime and violence that are tearing Arab society apart.

We must not make the mistake of thinking that Arab voters flocked to the polls merely to oust Netanyahu and the Right from power. They didn't. Getting rid of Netanyahu and the Right would have been a bonus of the high voter rates the sector saw.

The Arab population is rightfully demanding that its elected officials act on its behalf: that they improve municipal infrastructure, schools, and health and welfare services. Now that the Arabs have placed their trust in the Joint Arab List, they want the MKs to live up to their promises.

Many members of the Arab public are saying, "We did our jobs and went out and voted. Now our elected officials need to work on our behalf." But the Joint Arab List knows that even with 15 or possibly 16 seats, they won't have an easy time getting things done from the opposition with a right-wing government in power.

It's possible that the Joint Arab List MKs still haven't realized that someone will have to pay the political price for the "Anyone but Bibi" camp's failure to oust Netanyahu and the Right for the third time running.

What is certain is that even confetti won't hide the fact that now, more than ever, Joint Arab List MKs have a bigger obligation than ever to the Arab voters in Israel.

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The committee is set to create a policy within 90 days that aims to "eradicate violence and crime in Arab society."

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According to a statement issued by Netanyahu's office on Tuesday afternoon, the team will also hold discussions with leaders of the Arab community.

Recently, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and the Israel Police approved 620 new police positions earmarked for Israeli Arab communities. A decision was also made to transfer responsibility for handing organized crime among Israeli Arabs to the Lahav 433 Major Crimes Unit.

In a meeting with senior Israel Police officials and Israeli Arab leaders on Oct. 10, Erdan said he was willing to install security cameras throughout streets in Arab communities, with the intent of increasing deterrence. The police officials asked the Arab MKs to urge the residents of their communities to cooperate.

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The figures, based on data released by the Israel Police to Israel Hayom, show that 90% of illegal arms and ammunition come from Arab-Israeli homes. This was also the case in the equivalent period in 2018.

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According to the data, the Israel Police have so far been able to make 3,350 arrests of Arab Israelis for illegally possessing and trading firearms.

The arms confiscated comprise 526 handguns and 435 rifles (mostly assault rifles). This represents a 21% increase compared to the equivalent period in 2018 for those two kinds of firearms.

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Head of the Israel Police Intelligence and Investigations Division, Maj. Gen. Gadi Siso, presented the MKs with an overview of what the police were doing to combat crime in Arab communities.

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Siso also said he supported an expansion to a five-point government program to make Arab communities safer.

The meeting ended with a decision to allocate resources for 620 additional police officers who will be assigned to the Arab sector in an attempt to contain crime. The additional manpower will be permanent. A decision was also made to transfer responsibility for handing organized crime among Israeli Arabs to the Lahav 433 Major Crimes Unit.

Erdan said he was willing to install security cameras throughout streets in Arab communities, with the intent of increasing deterrence. The police officials asked the Arab MKs to urge the residents of their communities to cooperate.

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Schools and businesses in Arab towns and villages were closed following a call by Arab leaders, and newly elected Arab Knesset members skipped the swearing-in out of solidarity. Thousands took part in a protest in the northern Arab town of Majd al-Krum, where two brothers and a third man were killed in a brawl involving guns and knives earlier this week.

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The protesters waved signs and chanted slogans calling for an end to the violence and criticizing what they see as indifference on the part of Israeli authorities. The police say they are doing everything they can to stem the violence and are urging community leaders to do more to help them.

Police say there have been more than 70 killings in Arab communities this year, nearly as many as in each of the past two years when Arabs made up more than half of all murder victims nationwide.

Arab leaders say Israeli police largely ignore the violence in their communities, everything from family feuds and mafia turf wars to domestic violence and so-called honor killings. Israeli Arabs, who make up 20% of the population, say authorities treat them like second-class citizens.

The Joint Arab List made major gains in last month's election and has made improving public safety one of its top priorities. The 13 newly elected lawmakers did not attend the swearing-in at the Knesset because they were taking part in the strike.

"A racist government has neglected us, and the police have abandoned our neighborhoods to gangs and criminals," Joint Arab List head Ayman Odeh tweeted. He said the strike was to demand weapons searches, tougher action against organized crime, and larger budgets for education.

"If there is no other choice, we will block streets to return safety to the streets," he said.

The police have adamantly rejected the allegations of indifference.

"Police are continuing to speak to the leaders of the communities in order to try and prevent the incidents from taking place, but at the same time also working inside the communities, patrolling more," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

He said seven new police stations have been opened in Arab communities this year, and there are plans to open eight more in the coming months. This year alone, police have confiscated 4,000 weapons and arrested some 2,800 people on weapons-related charges, according to Rosenfeld.

But he said local leaders need to do more to cooperate with police and to prevent violence.

"It has to come also from inside the community," he said. "They can't just, you know, decide at a wedding to open fire and shoot in the air. These are basic issues that have to be dealt with by the leaders of the communities."

Thabet Abu Rass, the co-director of the Abraham Initiatives, a group that promotes coexistence between Arabs and Jews, has worked to improve relations between the police and Arab communities as part of the group's public safety program. But he said there is still a security vacuum in many Arab towns and villages that allows criminals to thrive.

"In terms of public and private safety, our Arab towns are kind of extra-territorial, it's kind of outside of Israel," he said. "While we are citizens of the State of Israel, the state is not here, not in our towns."

He said there's a high level of mistrust between police and Arab citizens that makes cooperation difficult, and that the lack of a police presence inside the communities makes people reluctant to come forward with information for fear of violent reprisal.

"We are willing to cooperate with the police in issues related to combatting violence and crime in our community," he said. But "before cooperation, we would like to see a police presence in our towns."

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"[Youth movements] Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam would initiate joint activities for Arabs and Jews, and the parties told us, let's think about what we want and dream of. But when the election was over, the dreams would end, too, at least until the next election," he says.

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Fifty-two years later, at the end of a historic week of political involvement by Israeli Arabs, Abu Shakra is more sober. As the founder and director of the Umm al-Fahm art gallery, and one who is considered a leading figure in building bridges between Arabs and Jews, he has spent years on the Sisyphean task of encouraging the Arab sector to take part in Israeli civil life.

Although he is criticized for it, Abu Shakra insists on maintaining close ties with the Israeli establishment, and in turn, receives its support.

"They know that I'm fighting for funding for something that's important to all of us. There's no [public] school that doesn't get money from the Education Ministry," he says.

He says that most of his critics come from the Arab and Palestinian world outside Israel.

"When I tried to find US donors for the gallery and I'd show them catalogs, some would ask me why they were written in Hebrew, too, rather than Arabic only? I told them I live in Israel, study here and eat here, so it was obvious that I would know the language. The funding from Israeli institutions reflects my real battle for rights."

Abu Shakra doesn't ascribe the Joint Arab List's electoral achievement – 13 seats – to its politicians, but rather to the Arab public.

"The parties didn't say anything. It was the voters who told the politicians – we want political involvement, and want to be part of the decisions, the debates, and the future of this place. The Arab public wants to see itself an inseparable part of what happens in Israel."

Q: Would you like to see the Joint Arab List join the government? Get a ministerial portfolio?

"I always wanted to see a minister from the Joint Arab List or from an Arab party. Today I'm saying what I've always said – if you don't want to be part of the solution, you'll always be part of the problem. And to be part of the solution you need to be on the inside, work, do things, and make decisions. You can't be part of all that if you stay on the sidelines."

Abu Shakra thinks that the reality is changing.

"Today, no one can shove the Arab public aside and ignore its existence. It's a very important community in Israel, one in which changes are constantly taking place. It's becoming more varied and more educated. We aren't satisfied with being part of the final product. We want to take part in the process of development, which will eventually benefit us, too."

Q: So is the Arab sector conducting some introspection?

"We are learning from the mistakes of the past. We've never taken responsibility for our failures or for our future."

'A cup of coffee solves anything'

Last month, Abu Shakra, born in October 1956, was awarded the Shulamit Aloni Prize for artists with links to Arab culture and the Arabic language who promote human rights, social justice, and coexistence. He was born and raised in Umm al-Fahm, in a family who has been here for generations. He studied art at Beit Berl College and in addition to his artistic endeavors served as a police commander and did outreach with youth at risk.

He comes from a prominent artistic family. His older brother Walid, who passed away a month ago, wrote mainly in English. His middle brother Farid is a noted painter. His cousin Assam, who died of cancer in 1990 when he was only 29, is considered a groundbreaking artist. The gallery he founded in Umm al-Fahm 25 years ago now includes four floors, including 1,500 square meters of exhibit space, archives, and research rooms, as well as modest accommodations for artists showing at the gallery.

When he shows the work at the gallery, which now represents Jewish artists as well, such as Efrat Galnoor or Dubi Harel alongside Palestinian artists like Issam Darawshe and Saher Miari, Abu Shakra is as excited as a boy.

He proudly shows a piece by "the artist-builder" Miari, which features a concrete wall that looks like it was removed from a bomb shelter alongside buckets of cement rubble. The piece expresses "the lack of security of the Palestinian, who builds shelters for Jews."

He jumps to a piece by Micha Ullman, which features a mound of packed, dark brown earth in the shape of a volcano, sitting on top of a glass.

"I brought Micha this earth from the lands of the village al-Lajjun, where the Megiddo Regional Council now sits," he says.

"Once, all this land belonged to people from Umm al-Fahm and they would go out to work it. In 1948, when there was a battle there, Mom waited for Dad and made him food. When people started to flee en masse, the only thing she was worried about was whether Dad's food would stay warm, so she wrapped it in a blanket and left it in a corner, thinking that they would be back in an hour or two to eat. But they never went back. When Micha put this piece on display, we said that one of its messages is that even though the land around it is shaking, there is nothing a cup of coffee can't solve."

He was inspired to open the gallery in Tel Aviv after the death of his cousin Assam rocked the family.

"Assam, who was five years younger than me, was known for his paintings of cactuses, which became a recurring, obsessive theme in his work. After he died, the Helena Rubenstein Pavilion in Tel Aviv put on a solo show of his work, and people came by bus from Umm al-Fahm to see it. I thought, why not in my town? I had to wait for Tel Aviv to show my work, and that bothered me. So I decided to open a gallery."

The gallery, which is run as a non-profit organization and represents Palestinian, Jewish, and international artists, plays a major part in community life. It hosts ceramics workshops and a photo archive of the residents of Umm al-Fahm and Wadi Ara that includes some 600 videotaped interviews, 800 photo portraits, and thousands of images of landscapes, homes, and other places in Umm al-Fahm and Wadi Ara that were collected all over the world.

'We're still a marginalized society'

Abu Shakra says that his main goal is that "the gallery not display my weakness, but my pride – and I can't be a proud person if I'm weak or a victim. I told myself that the gallery would prove that I'm not another victim in Israel, but someone who can carry himself with pride and personal strength. The way I see it, Jews no longer want to pet the poor Arabs and the Arabs aren't willing to be wretched and weak. Those who wanted us to be water carriers now see us as doctors and lawyers. Both the Jews and the Arabs agree that if we treat each other as equals, change can come."

Q: Some see that as less legitimate, such as your cousin, Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement.

"I don't want to defend him, but his trial has been going on for four years, and I haven't seen or heard him calling for the destruction of Israel. There are various interpretations to what he says. What is a shahid [martyr]? Anyone who falls in battle is called a shahid, and so is anyone who is killed in a car accident on his way to work. I think the Arab population in Israel is under too much attack. Our leaders are subject to very crude treatment. Long ago, we were targeted, and if that target is erased, things can work out."

Q: It also has to do with the vast differences in how violence is handled. 68 people have been murdered in the Arab sector since the start of this year, seven this past week. How do you 'erase the target' when it comes to an issue like that?

"Violence is Arab society is a very serious problem, but it always has been – it's just that it was ignored for years. It was easier to say, like [TV host] Yaron London did, that Israeli Arabs are 'wild' or decide they were born that way instead of saying that the role of society is to place boundaries and educate the "feral."

"Israeli law enforcement doesn't put enough emphasis on giving Israeli Arabs boundaries. It's unacceptable that a person who owns an illegal weapon and can kill people with it is released on recognizance. Murders cannot go unsolved. We're still a problematic marginalized society, one that is poor and orphaned, so the solution people find for themselves is to become henchmen for criminals and even hit men. Israel, as a state, has to wield an iron fist and strike a harsh blow against anyone who breaks the law and behaves violently."

Abu Shakra's next big dream is to open an art museum in Umm al-Fahm. Plans are already underway.

"It will combine free art for the entire population and display high-quality art from the collection the gallery has built up. The museum will be Israel's first home for Palestinian, Israel, and international culture.

"By nature, I'm an optimist who believes in the power of culture and art to overcome humans' emotional obstacles. Every person carries fears and hesitations, and I respect those. A meeting has the power to break down those fears and give people the sense of connection and respect.

"The gallery, and later on the museum, address problematic subjects at Israel's core. Because we address them correctly, the Jewish visitors who come are given a chance to look at me as an equal, with all that entails. To see me when I'm in pain and when I'm happy, when things are tough for me and I'm scared, and when I'm hopeful. To discover who I am."

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