MK Effi Eitam wants to expel "most" of the Arabs in the West Bank; when it comes to Israeli Arabs, he would be satisfied with removing them from the political system, since they are "a fifth column, a first-class gang of traitors." Many in Israel's Jewish community share his opinion and believe that the Arab MKs and a few Arab public figures and intellectuals accurately reflect the mood of the Arab public, or at least of the majority. Even if they do not explicitly declare that all the refugees must be returned to "Haifa, Jaffa, Acre" and the 400 Arab villages in Israel that were abandoned and destroyed in 1948, their speeches in the Knesset and their statements outside of it in effect reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and are interpreted as anticipating its destruction in the not-so-distant future.

Is it justified to ascribe to the silent majority of Israeli Arabs the hidden intentions behind their leaders' words? We can reasonably assume that the vast majority secretly wish for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and its transformation into a "state of all its citizens," in the case of the moderates, or its disappearance within a greater Palestinian state, in the case of the extremists. But only a few are willing to take action in order to attain this goal. Most prefer to live in peace with the existing Israeli reality, to improve their standard of living as much as possible and to hope that the day is not far off when their dream will come true, whether due to the intervention of outside actors or "naturally" - in other words, through demographics.

But there are two political groups among the Arab public that are not satisfied with waiting passively for the dream to come true. They are actively and openly nurturing a vision that does not include the State of Israel. One of these is the Islamic Movement - both factions of it. Sheikh Ra'ed Salah is the leader of the northern faction, a radical Islamic movement that envisions a renewal of the caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital. In such a caliphate, Israel would disappear on its own. If anyone thinks that this is a vision for "the end of days," the sheik, in a speech that he made in Umm al-Fahm last Friday night, promised that it would happen "soon."

	Advertisement

One can make light of his words, as reflecting an unrealistic vision. After all, on this same occasion, he also uttered quite a bit of nonsense (for example, that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's coma and President Moshe Katsav's legal problems are punishments inflicted on them by Allah because they tried to "divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque"). But Salah repeatedly calls on Muslims to unite against the "Zionist domination" of Al-Aqsa, and in the insane Islamic world of the 21st century, such incitement is liable to lead to results.

The leader of the Islamic Movement's southern faction, MK Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur, does not deliver inflammatory speeches in front of tens of thousands of impassioned believers, but he does quietly express support for establishing the caliphate. The road to establishing the caliphate on Israel's territory is still a long one, however, so meanwhile, he will be satisfied with establishing it in the Arab and Muslim countries.

The second organization that is actively nurturing the idea of destroying Israel as a Jewish-Zionist state is the Balad Party, led by MK Azmi Bishara. Bishara, as we know, speaks about turning Israel into a state of all its citizens (all the Arab MKs share this opinion) - in other words, a country that within a few decades will be controlled by a Palestinian majority. Bishara is a Nasserite, who supports the pan-Arab ideas developed by the former Egyptian leader. In Nasser's version of the pan-Arab system, there was no place for a Jewish state, and there is also no place for it according to Bishara. It is no wonder that he is forming close ties with Syria (without being bothered by its corrupt dictatorial regime - despite being an avowed democrat): The Syrian regime may be the last bastion of belief in the pan-Arab idea. Bishara considers the United States the main threat to the Syrian regime, so it is no wonder that he is trying to convince Israel to sever or weaken its ties to the U.S. If this means that Israel loses its main source of support in its efforts to protect itself against hostile parties in the region, so much the better.

Israel is caught in a kind of internal pliers between the fundamentalists of the Islamic Movement and the nationalists of Balad, and the Jews' fear of what these movements represent affects their attitude toward Israeli Arabs in general. What is the solution? Until there is an Israeli Arab movement that declares its loyalty to the state in words and deeds (the test: agreeing to perform national service), places concern for the welfare of the Arab population, as part of the State of Israel, at the top of its agenda, and publicly rejects extremist groups such as the Islamic Movement and Balad, the Jewish public's suspicions of the Arab minority's intentions will not die down. The state's obligation to prevent discrimination and to end the deprivation from which the Arab minority suffers exists regardless. But if such a movement were to arise and receive the support of the Arab public, the efforts made in this area and the results that would be achieved would be far more satisfactory than they are at present.