By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — One day last week three young men (a doctor and two nurses working in an Israeli hospital) were on the beach in Haifa, a city known for its serious efforts at Jewish-Arab coexistence. They were approached by another man and asked if they were Arabs. They answered in the affirmative. The man soon returned with some eight other thugs and beat up the three who had to be hospitalized with serious injuries.
That’s the very bad news. The somewhat redeeming good news is that Yair Allalouf, a Jew, seeing what was happening broke up the fight, called the police and an ambulance. Many Jews as well as the Arab community have gone out of their way to praise him as a hero.
A couple of the alleged Jewish hooligans (they were so described by Yaron London, the presenter of a popular program on Israel TV Channel Ten) were detained, but they’re denying involvement. There were many bystanders on the beach, but they kept their distance and no eyewitnesses other than Mr. Allalouf have come forward. Israel’s President Rivlin has condemned the attack, but it’s unlikely that the perpetrators will be punished because of insufficient evidence.
Also this: four Jewish activists were beaten up the other day by the residents of Mitzpe Yair, an illegal settlement in the West Bank, because they photographed the settlers and the place. The activists also ended up in the hospital.
Those who keep track on Jewish hooliganism have a long dossier of incidents of the kind reported above. Commentators offer a range of explanations.
An editorial in Ha’aretz suggested that the attacks on the Arabs was inspired by Israel’s new Nationality Law that allows Jews to keep Arabs away from them. The argument of the hooligans seems to have been that Arabs have no business being on a “Jewish” beach.
Anybody who criticizes settlers is, of course – according to the received wisdom of the ruling parties – a renegade left-winger who has to be isolated and, if necessary, forcibly removed from decent right-wing company. MK Bezalel Smotrich, a devoted member of Mr. Netanyahu’s party, described the visitors at Mitzpe Yair as violent provocateurs, even though they were only shooting pictures.
Shlomo Sand, professor of history at Tel Aviv University, offered a more global explanation. He suggested (in an interview with Yaron London) that beating up the Arabs in Haifa and the photographers in the West Bank is part of an international trend that has now been adopted by many other reactionary politicians, e.g., Erdogan of Turkey, to haunt those they consider to be aliens. Several countries like Hungary, Poland have turned exclusionary nationalism into a state religion.
Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be on their wave-length. Some of those who vote for him may be behind the recent atrocities in Israel. Tellingly, neither he nor any of his cabinet colleagues have emulated President Rivlin and publicly condemned the hooliganism.
The Zionist dream has always been for Jews to be like other nations. But the intention wasn’t to act towards others the way anti-Semites acted toward Jews. We who continue to live by the Zionist dream hope that Jews will always have the same rights as other nations, but be spared their vices.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com