This Friday, the call to prayer in Israel’s mosques will be closely scrutinized. Since the Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent state of war declared by the Jewish state, the authorities have greatly feared the reaction of their Arab citizens, whose number is estimated at two million ( out of an Israeli population of nine million). “Our eyes are everywhere,” assures an Israeli military source. “If we have mobilized 300,000 reservists, it is also to prepare us for a war on several fronts. Our army is ready.”
The Israeli population as a whole is standing together, with the same visceral trauma for all communities, but the government has not forgotten the intercommunity riots of May 2021. In so-called “mixed” cities, such as Haifa, Lod or Jaffa, a part of the Arab population revolted after airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza. The current flammable context makes some fear a new eruption of violence. “This is an extremely sensitive subject for Israel, confirms Kobi Michael, military expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Nobody has forgotten the uprisings of thousands of Arab citizens of Israel in May 2021… We “We have to prepare ourselves to deal with these kinds of events, which was not the case at the time.”
In response to these riots, the Israeli authorities set up “civil security” teams a year ago, directly under the authority of the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Jewish supremacist, openly racist, the latter announced the distribution of assault rifles to his teams last Tuesday and encourages Jewish citizens to arm themselves in the coming days. Comments denounced by the entire Israeli political class, who accuse him of fanning the embers of division.
Hamas itself has been calling on the Arab Israeli population to rise up since October 7, highlighting civilians killed by bombings in the Gaza Strip. The objective is to occupy Israel in different theaters of violence. “Hamas thinks that by launching its operation, it will be able to recruit or mobilize on other fronts,” says Kobi Michael: the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Arab citizens of Israel, South Lebanon and perhaps even the Houthis in Yemen. This is the ultimate strategy of Hamas and Iran to bring down the State of Israel.”
So far, these calls have gone unanswered. But the terrorist organization is counting on the growing emotion aroused by the images of desolation coming from Gaza, which will multiply with the war. “We must also consider that Hamas has been preparing this operation for months and that, even if the Palestinian populations do not respond to its calls for an uprising, we are only in the first phase of its plan,” indicates Hugh Lovatt, Middle East specialist. -Orient at the European Council on Foreign Relations. These battles in Gaza will destabilize Lebanon, but also Jerusalem. They will provoke even more massive anger among the Palestinian communities in Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
A new “front” would then open for the Hebrew State, even within its borders. With devastating consequences for its society in the long term. “The last thing Israel needs”, confides to The Express the former Israeli ambassador to Paris, Elie Barnavi.