Originally published in Hebrew in Zman Yisrael (Israel Time). Translated and adapted for English-language readers.

The words of attorney Khalil Naameh, father of the lawyer beaten in Be'er Sheva, laid bare the government's worst nightmare: Israel's Arab citizens as full partners in defining Israeli identity.

By Pinhas Inbari

The brutal attack on attorney Salah Naameh may yet prove to be a turning point in Jewish-Arab relations in Israel — not only because of the incident itself, but because of what his father, attorney Khalil Naameh, said in an interview on Reshet Bet:

"We are the Israeli people, Jews and Arabs."

This definition casts Israel's Arabs as full partners in shaping the country's identity — and that, precisely, is the present government's worst nightmare.

Years ago, while covering a day of Knesset debates for the old, good Kol Yisrael, I watched Mapam MK Walid Sadik take the rostrum and declare:

"We, the Israelis."

Likud Knesset Speaker Dov Shilansky answered him with an indulgent smile:

"There is no such thing as an Israeli people. There are Jews and there are Arabs."

MK Sadik muttered something in embarrassment and went on with his speech. Four decades on, that same definition of identity has returned — this time from the Arab side, and from a hospital bed.

A Reversal of Roles

Consider what happened in Be'er Sheva: an Israeli elite — Arab lawyers and medical professionals — was attacked, allegedly, by ignorant and violent Jews. The episode acquires additional weight in light of the public commitments of Naameh and his father. The two of them, together with their fellow villagers from Deir al-Asad, sprang into action immediately after October 7 to assist evacuees from the Gaza envelope. The yellow ribbon for the hostages, almost certainly, adorned their lapels too.

The grieving father's further remarks complete the inversion. He described the police station as "an organization trying to protect its members and coordinate their stories." When we add the picture of the "hilltop youth" in the West Bank, the reversal is complete: the old danger of Arab terror has flipped into the danger of Jewish terror. Not that we are cured of Palestinian terror — that threat remains — but the trajectories within Israel's Arab population are toward integration. And that integration, which is a blessing for the state, is a threat to the government.

The old danger of Arab terror has flipped into the danger of Jewish terror. The trends among Israel's Arabs are toward integration — a blessing for the state, but a threat to the government.

It is no accident that the targets of attacks by the government's surrogates are, of all people, the very symbols of Arab integration into Israeli life: the journalist Lucy Aharish, who endured a sustained campaign of incitement and harassment; the Honorable Justice Khaled Kabub; and the Tarabin tribe, whose members serve in the IDF. This integration is the birth of the new Israeli people — and this government will do everything it can to detonate the process.

Jerusalem Day — From Unity to Partition

With this in mind, we should keep a close eye on Jerusalem Day, which falls this weekend. A holiday that once marked the city's unity has become a day of its partition.

One of the State of Israel's great achievements has been to keep Jerusalem a united city — a symbol of the peaceful coexistence of its component parts. When the West Bank and Gaza were convulsed by intifadas, Jerusalem held its quiet. Car-rammings and stabbings came from beyond the city, or from outlying villages. The people who pushed the knife attacks out of the Old City's walls were, of all parties, the merchants themselves — who made it plain to the PLO and Hamas that the intifadas had to be taken out of the Old City alleys, after several incidents harmed daily commerce and drove off Israelis and tourists alike.

One of this government's objectives for Jerusalem Day is to upend that very stability — through violence against the shops and shouts of "May your village burn!" We are witnessing here the same pattern visible in the Be'er Sheva attack: a cultivated Arab elite confronted by an ignorant Jewish mob.

One of this government's objectives for Jerusalem Day is to upend the city's stability — through violence against the shops and shouts of "May your village burn!" The same pattern as Be'er Sheva: a cultivated Arab elite confronted by an ignorant Jewish mob.

The people carrying Jerusalem's unity on their shoulders are the Arabs who have integrated into every sector of the city's economy — medicine, tourism, transport. They are the ones rescuing it from economic collapse in the face of Haredi withdrawal from the labor market — and they are required to absorb, with dignity, the insults and harassment of the Jewish mob.

The Danger on the Temple Mount

The danger is that, on this approaching Jerusalem Day, the "flag celebrants" will try to force their way into the Temple Mount itself. There are early indicators: the Red Heifer conference, and the dispensation granted by Itamar Ben-Gvir's rabbi to his minister to enter the precincts of the Dome of the Rock. Let us hope all our concerns prove unfounded. Were Israel possessed of a functioning police force, it would have been bound to fix a vigilant eye on this danger. But…

A Sea of Flags — and How to Set Ourselves Apart

The sea of Israeli flags that will billow on this troubled day forces us to think about how to distinguish ourselves from the violent mob. The founding event of the "New Israel" is, of course, the October 7 massacre. That day was a shared trauma for Jews and Arabs, who fought side by side against the Hamas Nukhba commandos. Between the Bedouin of the Negev and Hamas a blood-debt has been opened — and the Bedouin are "of Israel" no less than the Jews.

The keen-eyed will have noticed that Israel's Arabs have stopped raising Palestinian flags and have moved to black flags — flags expressing mourning over the surging crime wave amid police indifference. The Israeli flag, adorned with the yellow ribbon of the hostages, may gradually come to represent Israel's Arabs as well — especially if the flag of a "Jewish Israel" comes to be adorned with a hangman's noose representing the brute thuggery of rising Kahanism.

Those who carry Jerusalem's unity on their shoulders are the Arabs integrated into every branch of its economy. They are rescuing the city from economic collapse in the face of Haredi withdrawal from work — and are required to absorb the insults of the Jewish mob with dignity.

One Word on the Opposition

I cannot conclude without a word on the conduct of the opposition. In a pathetic effort to prove they are not "the Left," Yair Lapid and his colleagues keep stressing that they will only form a "Zionist" government — meaning: no Arabs.

Once upon a time, Israel fought stubbornly to overturn the UN resolution that defamed Zionism by equating it with racism. Zionism is an expression of the new Israeli nationhood in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence — and it is far from racism. The integration of Arabs into the Israeli fabric is the proof. So what does the opposition do? It disqualifies the Arabs in the name of "Zionism."

As for the full-fat right-wing government, racism is its DNA. But the opposition? The sooner it stops dancing to Netanyahu's flute, the better. The attack on Naameh and his colleagues must be the turning point.

Pinhas Inbari is a senior Middle East analyst, journalist, author, screenwriter, and poet. He authored the entries on the Palestinians in the New Hebrew Encyclopedia and served for many years as a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He has written nonfiction books on the Palestinian question, as well as a linguistic study of the roots of the Hebrew language, Sippur Shoresh ("Root Story"). Together with his wife Aviva, he co-authored the novels Al Gav Sufa ("On the Back of a Storm") — on the challenges faced by the Christian communities of the Western Galilee under the British Mandate, confronting radical Islam and the status of women — and Shomer ha-She'ol ("Keeper of the Underworld"), which deals with Israeli corruption.

This article was originally published in Hebrew in Zman Yisrael (Israel Time).