Israeli Arabs don't know whether to blame Olmert or Nasrallah

Duhoul Safdi remained silent when his 4-year-old daughter told him Nasrallah was a bad man. The Nazareth resident was at a loss to explain to her that reality was far more complicated. Like a million other Israelis, Safdi has lived for the past two weeks with the sense of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"I tried explaining to her that this is war, that bad people on both sides are fighting with each other. And then she asked me why Nasrallah is firing at us. What can I say to that?" he asked on Tuesday.

Safdi owns the famous "Diana" restaurant in Nazareth. An ordinary day brings in 200 patrons. On Tuesday there were only six. The situation is the same at all Nazareth restaurants. "Not just Jews are staying away. The Arabs too. Nobody feels like going out," he said with a sigh. Safdi spends the day behind the counter flipping between television news broadcasts.

"I have no identity problem. I'm an Arab Palestinian Israeli," he explained. "On the evening of the Katyushas in Nazareth, I got 50 telephone messages from friends in the center. I have a friend whose children are pilots and I called him. On the other hand, I'm part of the Arab nation and I understand what they're thinking, that Israel is attacking innocent civilians. Who is to blame for the situation? We have here impatience on the part of the Israeli government and arrogance on the part of Nasrallah. And I have no idea who is to blame. If I blame Nasrallah then I'm at fault, and I'm not going to blame him, and if I blame Olmert, then I'm also at fault."

The war has taken a major toll on Arabs in Israel.

Beyond the economic damage to communities, four Arab citizens were killed this past week. In Nazareth on Wednesday, Katyushas killed two children, brothers Mahmoud and Rabia Taluzi, who were walking in the street near their house. On Sunday, Habib Awad of Ibalin was killed by a Katyusha that hit the carpentry plant he worked at in Kiryat Ata. Yesterday a 15-year-old girl was killed in the Galilee village of Maghar.

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah did not intend his Katyushas to kill them. Last Thursday he apologized to the Taluzi family for killing the children and said: "Accept my apology. I take responsibility for this. It was not deliberate... They will be martyrs of Palestine, Lebanon, the nation and the resistance."

Nasrallah's statement clearly indicates that Hezbollah is trying to avoid hitting Israel's Arab residents. However, 50 percent of Galilee residents are Arab, so the chances of their being hit is high.

While the Taluzis refused to condemn Nasrallah, the Awad family blamed him for the crisis. The opposing views underscore the broad spectrum of positions in the Arab public, and also the confusion besetting it.

MK Nadia Hilu (Labor) yesterday explained that she prefered to deal with caring for the public rather than with political arguments. "I try to be practical. After all, I don't make the decisions about the war. The arguments over who is to blame will do no good and won't end. Meanwhile, the residents in the Arab communities - even more so than in the Jewish communities - are very troubled and worried. Both about livelihood and about the inability to protect their children. The state does not give any weight to the home front, and even less to the Arab home front."

Fadi Iyadat, 24, lives in Haifa. Every time the siren goes off, he goes down to the shelter in his apartment building, where he meets his Jewish neighbors. "Why is it even necessary to ask these questions, to check if we're displaying loyalty to the State of Israel" he asks. "I thought we were past this stage. There is no respect for the complexity we live in. I feel that the Arab will pay a price for whatever stance he takes."

Iyadat said he knows many Arab Israelis who have relatives in Lebanon. "How can they criticize Nasrallah? Their relatives will pay for it," he said. "The only thing that comforts me is that history has shown that after such crises comes a political process that brings improvement. We're all waiting for that."