JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T
MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE
MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET
SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO
OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST
FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
East Jerusalem Hamas cell ‘planned to kill Netanyahu’-Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, 22, and Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, 19, indicted for aiding member of Gaza-based terrorist group-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 11:49 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment with the city’s district court on Friday against two Arab Israeli residents of East Jerusalem who allegedly plotted to kill Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an event at the capital.According to the indictment, Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, a 22-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Old City, and Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, a 19-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the Negev, planned, along with Hamas activist Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam, 24, to plant explosives in the Jerusalem Payis Arena at a time when Netanyahu would be scheduled to speak at the site, Ynet reported.The indictment said the three planned to place the device beneath the stage at the multi-purpose sports arena in Malha on a future occasion at which Netanyahu was to appear, but never set a final date for the operation.The indictment added that the Hamas activist rented an apartment in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis and purchased explosive materials both personally as well as through the help of Sandouqa, Channel 2 reported.Azzam, from Qalqilya in the West Bank, was arrested last month after the Shin Bet uncovered a large Hamas terror cell that planned to carry out suicide bombings and other terror attacks in Israel. The Shin Bet, alongside the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police, arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them students of the al-Quds University in Abu Dis, who, they suspect, were preparing to attack Israeli targets. In a statement, the agency said the cell was controlled by the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip.Sandouqa, the indictment added, obtained chemicals weighing dozens of kilograms in order to assemble explosive devices, and transferred the matériel to Azzam.Abu Qaian, who was branded in the indictment as a supporter of the Islamic State terrorist group, was accused of planning to transfer weapons to Israel and the West Bank in order to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians.The two men, along with Azzam, further planned to carry out a large attack in Jerusalem earlier this month, the indictment said.The indictment also noted that Azzam had operated a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks.Azzam was recruited by Hamas operatives from the Gaza Strip in order to set up a terror cell in the West Bank. The 24-year-old remained in constant contact with his controllers in the Strip, the Shin Bet said last month following his arrest.Hamas taught Azzam, a student from al-Quds University in Abu Dis — which has campuses in East Jerusalem and el-Bireh — how to create explosive belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devices that could be used against both civilians and security forces.Once he became a member of Hamas, Azzam recruited other students from his university who assisted him in every aspect of the plot, from renting apartments to use as laboratories to purchasing the chemicals and materials necessary to create the explosives, as well as volunteering to act as suicide bombers in the planned attacks, according to the Shin Bet.During Abu Qaian’s interrogation, he revealed to officers that he had accepted Azzam’s request in October 2015 to either carry out a suicide bombing with an explosive vest, or drive a car packed with explosives into some Israeli target.In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a Bethlehem-based group that was also associated with Azzam. Some of its members also came from al-Quds University in Abu Dis, and were recruited in order to serve as suicide bombers, the agency said.Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, a 19-year-old student at al-Quds University in Abu Dis, agreed to carry out a suicide bombing and also to help Azzam transfer money between the West Bank and Gaza.Shoka acted as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell, recruiting Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, as well as Muhammad Na’im Issa Ali, 19, to carry out a suicide bombing and other attacks, the Shin Bet said.“The planned wave of terror attacks proves that Hamas, led by its military wing, has removed itself from the terrible distress of the population of the [Gaza] Strip,” the agency added.Avi Issacharoff contributed to this report.
Police deploy heavily in Tel Aviv exactly one week after shooting-Authorities stress there no specific indication of imminent terror threat in city, but checkpoints set up in region none the less-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 1:16 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Hundreds of police officers were deployed in Tel Aviv Friday, and inspection checkpoints were set up at several locations throughout the city, a week after a deadly shooting attack at a bar on the city’s busy Dizengoff Street.Tel Aviv residents reported witnessing police officers patrolling the site of the attack, and drivers in the area were asked to halt and present identification.Several Hebrew-language media outlets reported that the terror alert level in the city and the surrounding area had been raised, although police stressed they had no specific indication of an imminent terror threat in the region.The heavy deployment in Tel Aviv may signal a possible development in the ongoing manhunt for a fugitive Arab Israeli, Nashat Milhem, suspected of killed two people in a Tel Aviv bar last Friday, before he went on to murder a cab driver whose taxi he hailed to make his escape.Police on Friday also descended in large numbers on a neighborhood in the Arab village of Arara, the hometown of Milhem, who, since the shooting, has remained at large. Authorities have warned he is armed, dangerous and capable of striking again.Earlier reports have said that police do not know where Milhem is, although law enforcement authorities were looking into the possibility that he fled to the West Bank. Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich indicated at a press conference Tuesday that Milhem was no longer believed to be in Tel Aviv, although he refused to elaborate. Alsheich said it was possible to “dramatically reduce the tension in the Tel Aviv area.” He said he could not elaborate “in order to not cause harm” to the ongoing investigation.Milhem was known to have fled the scene of the shooting on Dizengoff Street on foot, and hailed a cab on nearby Ibn Gabirol Street. The cabbie drove to north Tel Aviv, where Milhem worked. There, Milhem is said to have killed the driver, Ayman Shaaban, outside the city’s Mandarin Hotel. He then drove the cab himself to Namir Road, where he abandoned it near a bus stop.According to Channel 2 TV, Israeli security officials increasingly believe Milhem may be in the West Bank, although most details of the search remain under a gag order.Milhem allegedly killed two people in a shooting attack outside the Simta Bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street last Friday, New Year’s Day, before fleeing and disappearing. Shift manager Alon Bakal, 26, and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, were killed in a hail of bullets as the suspected gunman opened fire with a submachine gun he allegedly stole from his father. Seven people were also wounded.Police on Wednesday evening officially named Milhem as the killer of Bedouin taxi driver Ayman Shaaban some 60 minutes after the bar attack. In fleeing the scene, police said, Milhem shot dead Shaaban after hailing and escaping in his taxi.According to a Channel 10 report, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to track down Milhem in the north than in the West Bank, where the Shin Bet security service has many informants. Police assessments quoted by the TV station said Milhem had likely received assistance both before and after Friday’s attacks.
Tel Aviv gunman shot and killed in northern Israel-Nashat Milhem tracked down in Wadi Ara, opens fire on forces and is killed, a week after he allegedly killed 3 in Tel Aviv; five people arrested-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 4:56 pm Updated: January 8, 2016, 5:21 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Nashat Milhem, the gunman who killed three Israelis last week in Tel Aviv, was shot and killed by Israeli forces in northern Israel on Friday afternoon.He was located near his hometown Arara area. Initial reports said he had been “neutralized.” It was later confirmed that he had been killed.Milhem was tracked down to the area where he was hiding out, opened fire on the forces, and was shot dead, Israeli security officials said in a statement. An inaccurate initial report said that he had been shot in a mosque in Umm al-Fahm.Channel 2 reported that the forces had sought to capture him alive, but were fired upon by Milhem who was using the same weapon he used for last Friday’s shootings.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the security forces for the operation.Channel 2 said he was tracked down to a building near his hometown of Arara where his family had lived in the past.Five people were arrested in relation to the case.A Channel 2 report said he was located in recent days via a “personal item” that was found in the area of his hometown in Arara. The item was checked and found to match his DNA. He was then tracked down.Hundreds of police officers had deployed in northern Israel and in the Tel Aviv area Friday, and inspection checkpoints were set up at several locations, a week after the deadly shooting attack by Milhem at a bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street. Milhem was suspected of killing two people in the bar last Friday, before he went on to murder a cab driver whose taxi he hailed to make his escape.Police on Friday also descended in large numbers on a neighborhood in the Arab village of Arara, the hometown of Milhem. Authorities had warned he was armed, dangerous and capable of striking again.Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich indicated at a press conference Tuesday that Milhem was no longer believed to be in Tel Aviv, although he refused to elaborate. Alsheich said it was possible to “dramatically reduce the tension in the Tel Aviv area.” He said he could not elaborate “in order to not cause harm” to the ongoing investigation.Milhem was known to have fled the scene of the shooting on Dizengoff Street on foot, and hailed a cab on nearby Ibn Gabirol Street. The cabbie drove to north Tel Aviv, where Milhem worked. There, Milhem is said to have killed the driver, Ayman Shaaban, outside the city’s Mandarin Hotel. He then drove the cab himself to Namir Road, where he abandoned it near a bus stop.Milhem allegedly killed two people in a shooting attack outside the Simta Bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street last Friday, New Year’s Day, before fleeing and disappearing. Shift manager Alon Bakal, 26, and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, were killed in a hail of bullets as the suspected gunman opened fire with a submachine gun he allegedly stole from his father. Seven people were also wounded.Police on Wednesday evening officially named Milhem as the killer of Bedouin taxi driver Ayman Shaaban some 60 minutes after the bar attack. In fleeing the scene, police said, Milhem shot dead Shaaban after hailing and escaping in his taxi.According to a Channel 10 report, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to track down Milhem in the north than in the West Bank, where the Shin Bet security service has many informants. Police assessments quoted by the TV station said Milhem had likely received assistance both before and after Friday’s attacks.
Police to probe whether Tel Aviv gunman was part of Islamic State sleeper cell-PM praises security forces for bringing down Nashat Milhem, shot dead in exchange of fire in northern Israel after week-long manhunt-By Times of Israel staff January 8, 2016, 5:21 pm
18:01-Simta bar owner: Death of gunman may show terrorists they cannot defeat us-Nati Shaked, one of the owner of the Simta bar in Tel Aviv where Nashat Milhem killed two people, tells Army Radio: “We had a rough week; killing the terrorist gives some hope that maybe they’ll realize on the other side that terror will never defeat us.”-Alon Bakal, who was shot dead by Milhem, was a manager at the bar.-18:00-‘No doubt’ that Milhem acted out of ‘nationalistic’ motive-Channel 2 quotes security officials saying there was “no doubt” that Milhem opened fire in Tel Aviv last week “for nationalistic reasons,” rather than for criminal or any other motive.Tellingly, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had referred to Milhem earlier Friday as a terrorist — a term Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not use when discussing the case in recent days.17:57-Father of Tel Aviv shooting victim: I had no doubt they’d get him-The father of one of Nashat Milhem’s victims in last Friday’s shooting in Tel Aviv says he had no doubt that the security forces would bring down the gunman in a short space of time.“This is our consolation, and we are pleased that none of our own were hurt in the neutralization. I was sure we would get him,” says David Bakal, whose son Alon was killed in the shooting at the Simta Bar where he worked.17:56-Milhem ‘had been in Arara for all of past week’-Milhem had been hiding out in his home town of Arara ever since fleeing Tel Aviv after killing three people there last week, Ynet’s military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai reports.He had apparently changed hiding places once or twice, and may have been helped by relatives and/or members of the Israeli Islamic Movement.17:51-Liberman: Radicals in Arab community must be rooted out-Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman commends the security forces for killing Nashat Milhem, but warns that arrests in Israel’s Arab community connected to case show Tel Aviv shootings were not a lone-wolf attack.“The fact that there are other persons who assisted the terrorist puts an end to ridiculous statements of one crazy lone-wolf attacker,” the Walla website quotes Liberman as saying.“This calls for a root canal treatment of radicalized forces in Arab society in Israel.”17:46-Arabs in northern Israel praise Tel Aviv gunman-A Facebook post shows Arabs in northern Israel praising Tel Aviv gunman Nashat Milhem as a “martyr.”-“With our souls and our blood, we will sacrifice our lives for you oh martyr,” the crowd is chanting in Arabic.The location where the footage was filmed is identified only as somewhere in the Wadi Ara area.— Lee Gancman-17:41-Ya’alon: Killing of Milhem proves Israel will hunt down those who harm it-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon says the killing of Tel Aviv gunman Nashat Milhem by security forces “proves once again that the State of Israel will hunt down those who seek to harm it.”-Israel, Ya’alon is quoted by Channel 2 as saying, will go after those who act against it “anywhere inside and outside the country.”17:34-Police suspect Tel Aviv gunman was member of IS cell-The security forces are investigating whether Nashat Milhem, the Tel Aviv gunman shot dead in Wadi Ara on Friday, was part of an Islamic State cell, Channel 2 reports.The Shin Bet suspicion that Milhem may have been an operative of the terror group is based on interrogations of several detainees arrested by security forces for allegedly assisting the gunman.-17:31-PM praises security forces for bringing down Tel Aviv gunman-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises the security forces for bringing down the Arab Israeli gunman who killed three people in Tel Aviv last Friday.17:29-Shin Bet: Tel Aviv gunman shot dead after opened fire on forces-The Shin Bet says Nashat Milhem, the Arab-Israeli gunman who killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv, was shot dead by security forces after he opened fire on troops on Friday afternoon.The security service adds that Milhem, 29, was firing with the same weapon he used in the killings in Tel Aviv last week.Milhem had been on the run for a week.
Why Israel’s Arab citizens are the biggest proponents of gun control-In places like Umm al-Fahm, Taibe and Tira, residents say the shooting never stops and police ignored pleas to collect illegal weapons. Then came the Dizengoff Street shooting-By Simona Weinglass January 8, 2016, 3:07 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Mahamed Jomana, a young mother of two from the Israeli-Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, remembers the day her best friend was murdered.“It was 2005. Amal and I were both university students. She was studying social work at the Hebrew University and I was studying physiotherapy in Tel Aviv. She was gifted and adorable.”Jomana relates that Amal was standing on the street in Umm al-Fahm when a car drove by slowly. “I think they were trying to shoot a girl standing behind her, but they missed, and the bullet went straight into her heart. She died an hour later.”Jomana adds, “I was devastated. Her family was devastated. We never found out who did it.”Residents say this was among the first shooting incidents they recall in Umm al-Fahm, a town of about 50,000 residents in Israel’s north. But since then, there have been at least 10 murders involving guns — most of them never solved. In fact, firearms have become so widespread in the past decade that Jomana hears gunshots and bursts of automatic gunfire periodically throughout the day. Her parents and neighbors have found bullets in their homes, in their backyards, and on their rooftops. A month ago, someone shot at a car parked next to an elementary school while classes were in session.“Just now I was outside hanging laundry, when I heard about 15 minutes of gunfire, so I went inside until it stopped.”For Israel’s Arab citizens, those who don’t live in predominantly Jewish or mixed Jewish-Arab cities, this kind of shooting is a daily reality. Most of the time it is shooting in the air at a wedding, or young men showing off, or even shooting at an adversary’s house or business to intimidate them. But with so many weapons around, the bullets often claim human victims.“Since 2000, 1,100 Arab citizens have been killed in internal violence,” Joint (Arab) List Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi tells The Times of Israel.To put this in perspective, Israel’s intentional homicide rate is on the low side, at about 135 murders per year — or 1.8 murders per 100,000 people. Arab citizens constitute 20 percent of the population.“This is a terrible price in blood,” Tibi says.-Netanyahu speaks about illegal weapons-Oמ Wednesday, January 6, the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee held an emergency session on the problem of illegal weapons in general and specifically in the Arab sector. On Saturday, the day after the January 1 fatal shooting attack on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street and subsequent murder of a cab driver — allegedly by Nashat Milhem, an Arab citizen of Israel who used his father’s gun — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the site of the attack and delivered a strongly worded message to Israel’s Arab minority.“I will not accept two nations within Israel: a lawful nation for all its citizens and a [second] nation-within-a-nation for some of its citizens, in pockets of lawlessness. You can’t say, ‘I am Israeli in my rights and Palestinian in my obligations.’ If you want to be Israeli, be completely Israeli and your foremost obligation is to follow the laws of the state.”MK Ahmad Tibi says he was flabbergasted by Netanyahu’s speech, in part because Arab leaders have been pleading with the government, for at least a decade, to increase policing and to confiscate illegal weapons.“After all the Arab leaders, the family and the local council condemned the attack on Dizengoff Street in a sweeping, unequivocal way, Benjamin Netanyahu comes along and speaks as if he were [Jewish Home Knesset Member] Bezalel Smotrich. It’s incitement.”Tibi adds, “The weapon used by the attacker was legal, it was licensed. So why did the prime minister start attacking us over illegal weapons? He went off the rails.”“From my point of view,” says Tibi, “take the legal weapons too. We don’t want them in our communities. I held a hearing in the Knesset in 2012 in the presence of the prime minister, the interior security minister, bereaved families and 40 Knesset members. It was a historic event. We demanded that they collect the weapons.”Tibi asks why Jews had to be killed to draw attention to the issue.“The government and law enforcement don’t care, because it’s Arabs shooting other Arabs. When did they wake up? When this terrible attack took place on Dizengoff Street.”Calling the police and getting no response-According to a July 2014 report by the Knesset Research and Information Center, Israeli Arabs constitute about 20 percent of the population, but 49% of prison inmates. And 54.3% of Israeli Arabs live under the poverty line, whereas 65.8% of Israeli Arab children are poor.Meanwhile, Israel’s Arab citizens are more afraid to leave their homes than are their Jewish counter parts: 51.9% of Israeli Arabs say they fear being the target of violent crime, whereas only 30% of the Jewish population says this. Murders in Israeli Arab communities are less likely to be prosecuted. Between 2006–2013, 58% of murder cases in which the suspect was a Jew resulted in an indictment, whereas only 46% of the cases in which the suspect was Arab, ended in an indictment, according to the Knesset report.It is statistics like these that jibe with the subjective feeling of many Israeli Arabs that when it comes to violence within their communities, the police don’t try very hard.Muhammad Haj Daod, a theater actor from Umm al-Fahm who is married to Mahamed Jomana, said that he and his wife call the police about shooting on a regular basis. He sent The Times of Israel 10 recorded conversations with police dispatchers in which he complains about gunfire, which can sometimes be heard loudly in the recording. In each case, the dispatcher politely tells him that the complaint is being processed. But Daod says he has never once seen a patrol car in response to any of his complaints.“Almost every day I hear shooting and the police never come. I don’t think it would be that hard for the police to come in and clean the city of illegal weapons and drugs. Maybe it’s in their interest for this to spread and grow.”Daod says it’s gotten so bad that even high school students walk around with weapons.“It’s very strange because the source of the weapons can only be the state. The state is the only player that can import weapons into Israel. So how do the weapons get to people? I think people in the government, police and army must be corrupt and involved in selling illegal weapons.”“That’s nonsense,” a former Shin Bet officer says, noting that most illegal weapons are former legal weapons that were sold or stolen.“There are crime organizations that sell weapons, there are thefts from houses and from people with gun licenses. There are soldiers whose guns are stolen, as well as army bases that have been robbed.”In Wednesday’s Knesset Committee meeting, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan did say that 90% of illegal weapons in Israel originate in the Israel Defense Forces. But there is no systemic corruption, says the ex-Shin Bet officer. He says the real reason that the police have not cracked down on illegal weapons among Israeli Arabs is that it’s not easy to do.“You need intelligence to know who has weapons in their home. You need to know it’s there and then someone has to look for it, because the person who has it doesn’t keep it in their living room.”He adds, “What happens is that the police, when they go into an Arab village or town, need a much bigger force than when they go into a Jewish town. It’s very easy to blame the police and say that the illegal weapons in the Arab sector are because of them. But the problem has existed since the establishment of the state. A lot of Israeli Arabs want to have weapons for self-defense. Others want them for celebrations and weddings. Others want them for status, or for criminal activity. Each person has their own reason. But because the level of crime and violence is so high, as a result, even more people arm themselves.”-Why now? Asked what has changed in the last decade to make the problem worse, Jomana speculates, “Either it’s a policy or it’s what’s happening in the whole world, with technology and kids growing up with violent video games and things. When we were growing up, the world was simpler.”“In the past,” says Daod, “people would get into disputes and it would end with a sulha. People met and made peace. It never got to the point of weapons except for one incident of shooting that everyone remembers from the 1980s. Since we got the police station in Umm al-Fahm, we see the weapons and drugs spreading through out the city.“How do I explain it?” he asks. “In the past, families were organized in hamulas. Each hamula [clan] has its leader and he is the one who decides. It was easier to resolve disputes because there weren’t a lot of different people involved in the decision. The decision was up to the head of the entire family. Today, these leaders don’t exist anymore. Today, everyone does whatever they feel like.”Waseem Hosary, a lawyer in Umm al-Fahm and parliamentary aide to Joint (Arab) List Member of Knesset Youssef Jabareen, agrees that the breakdown of traditional communal structures could be a factor, but he thinks the main issue is lack of police enforcement.“These changes are happening in all of society, but the difference is that among the Jewish majority there’s enforcement and police presence. Crime is also on the rise in Israeli society. But our community has seen a huge spike. The thin presence of law enforcement and the light punishments against people who carry illegal weapons are an opportunity for people to run riot in the streets.”But there’s something else that happened 15 years ago that Hosary believes affects the relationship between Arab citizens and the police.A problem of trust-In October 2000, Israeli police killed 12 Israeli Arab citizens in riots at the beginning of the Second Intifada. Soon afterward, the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, established the Orr Commission to investigate what went wrong. The commission recommended that the police improve its relationship with the Arab public so that it can be perceived as providing essential security instead of being seen as a hostile force.“It’s true, the way you [a Jewish person] view the police and the way we perceive the police is different,” says Hosary.Hosary goes on that when people in Umm al-Fahm call the police, the police don’t come most of the time. But sometimes they do.“If I hear shooting in my neighborhood and they come, they don’t know where it’s coming from. What can they do? They wander around the neighborhood and go back. There have been incidents where someone called the police and said there is shooting on the street and he gives them the license-plate number and tells them where the people are, but nothing happens.“When you ask the police chief what happened, he says there was a patrol car and they looked and didn’t find anything,” Hosary adds. He says there is a single patrol car in Umm al-Fahm that patrols at night, and a second car at the station. He adds that the local police commanders are so understaffed that they have been known to quietly ask Arab Knesset members to pressure the government for more manpower.The relationship of Arab citizens with the police, says Hosary, is a catch-22.“The whole concept that the police are Jewish or that they serve the Jewish Zionist government that wants a Jewish state, which we reject, that’s problematic for us. But people don’t want to take the law into their own hands, and we do want the police to come in and confiscate all the weapons.”Ideally, he’d like to see a patrol car in every neighborhood of Umm al-Fahm.“Two years ago, we had a problem of shooting at weddings — there’s a custom of people expressing joy with shooting. What did the police start to do? They would call in the groom and his father and warn them the day before the event. They said, ‘If there is shooting at your wedding, we will arrest you.’ It was welcome and a good idea and it worked, because the groom and his family made sure there was no shooting.“But as a matter of fact, from a legal point of view,” explains Hosary, “if there is shooting, there is no justification for arresting the groom. And people continue to shoot at weddings.”Asked if he would like to see a police car outside every wedding in Umm al-Fahm, Hosary replies, “Here’s what I’d like: I’d like the police to treat us just like Jews.”He chuckles at his own statement. “At least in this matter,” he adds. “The weapons in Umm al-Fahm should be treated exactly the same way they would treat weapons in Tel Aviv.”
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
East Jerusalem Hamas cell ‘planned to kill Netanyahu’-Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, 22, and Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, 19, indicted for aiding member of Gaza-based terrorist group-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 11:49 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment with the city’s district court on Friday against two Arab Israeli residents of East Jerusalem who allegedly plotted to kill Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an event at the capital.According to the indictment, Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, a 22-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Old City, and Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, a 19-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the Negev, planned, along with Hamas activist Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam, 24, to plant explosives in the Jerusalem Payis Arena at a time when Netanyahu would be scheduled to speak at the site, Ynet reported.The indictment said the three planned to place the device beneath the stage at the multi-purpose sports arena in Malha on a future occasion at which Netanyahu was to appear, but never set a final date for the operation.The indictment added that the Hamas activist rented an apartment in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis and purchased explosive materials both personally as well as through the help of Sandouqa, Channel 2 reported.Azzam, from Qalqilya in the West Bank, was arrested last month after the Shin Bet uncovered a large Hamas terror cell that planned to carry out suicide bombings and other terror attacks in Israel. The Shin Bet, alongside the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police, arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them students of the al-Quds University in Abu Dis, who, they suspect, were preparing to attack Israeli targets. In a statement, the agency said the cell was controlled by the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip.Sandouqa, the indictment added, obtained chemicals weighing dozens of kilograms in order to assemble explosive devices, and transferred the matériel to Azzam.Abu Qaian, who was branded in the indictment as a supporter of the Islamic State terrorist group, was accused of planning to transfer weapons to Israel and the West Bank in order to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians.The two men, along with Azzam, further planned to carry out a large attack in Jerusalem earlier this month, the indictment said.The indictment also noted that Azzam had operated a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks.Azzam was recruited by Hamas operatives from the Gaza Strip in order to set up a terror cell in the West Bank. The 24-year-old remained in constant contact with his controllers in the Strip, the Shin Bet said last month following his arrest.Hamas taught Azzam, a student from al-Quds University in Abu Dis — which has campuses in East Jerusalem and el-Bireh — how to create explosive belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devices that could be used against both civilians and security forces.Once he became a member of Hamas, Azzam recruited other students from his university who assisted him in every aspect of the plot, from renting apartments to use as laboratories to purchasing the chemicals and materials necessary to create the explosives, as well as volunteering to act as suicide bombers in the planned attacks, according to the Shin Bet.During Abu Qaian’s interrogation, he revealed to officers that he had accepted Azzam’s request in October 2015 to either carry out a suicide bombing with an explosive vest, or drive a car packed with explosives into some Israeli target.In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a Bethlehem-based group that was also associated with Azzam. Some of its members also came from al-Quds University in Abu Dis, and were recruited in order to serve as suicide bombers, the agency said.Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, a 19-year-old student at al-Quds University in Abu Dis, agreed to carry out a suicide bombing and also to help Azzam transfer money between the West Bank and Gaza.Shoka acted as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell, recruiting Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, as well as Muhammad Na’im Issa Ali, 19, to carry out a suicide bombing and other attacks, the Shin Bet said.“The planned wave of terror attacks proves that Hamas, led by its military wing, has removed itself from the terrible distress of the population of the [Gaza] Strip,” the agency added.Avi Issacharoff contributed to this report.
Police deploy heavily in Tel Aviv exactly one week after shooting-Authorities stress there no specific indication of imminent terror threat in city, but checkpoints set up in region none the less-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 1:16 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Hundreds of police officers were deployed in Tel Aviv Friday, and inspection checkpoints were set up at several locations throughout the city, a week after a deadly shooting attack at a bar on the city’s busy Dizengoff Street.Tel Aviv residents reported witnessing police officers patrolling the site of the attack, and drivers in the area were asked to halt and present identification.Several Hebrew-language media outlets reported that the terror alert level in the city and the surrounding area had been raised, although police stressed they had no specific indication of an imminent terror threat in the region.The heavy deployment in Tel Aviv may signal a possible development in the ongoing manhunt for a fugitive Arab Israeli, Nashat Milhem, suspected of killed two people in a Tel Aviv bar last Friday, before he went on to murder a cab driver whose taxi he hailed to make his escape.Police on Friday also descended in large numbers on a neighborhood in the Arab village of Arara, the hometown of Milhem, who, since the shooting, has remained at large. Authorities have warned he is armed, dangerous and capable of striking again.Earlier reports have said that police do not know where Milhem is, although law enforcement authorities were looking into the possibility that he fled to the West Bank. Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich indicated at a press conference Tuesday that Milhem was no longer believed to be in Tel Aviv, although he refused to elaborate. Alsheich said it was possible to “dramatically reduce the tension in the Tel Aviv area.” He said he could not elaborate “in order to not cause harm” to the ongoing investigation.Milhem was known to have fled the scene of the shooting on Dizengoff Street on foot, and hailed a cab on nearby Ibn Gabirol Street. The cabbie drove to north Tel Aviv, where Milhem worked. There, Milhem is said to have killed the driver, Ayman Shaaban, outside the city’s Mandarin Hotel. He then drove the cab himself to Namir Road, where he abandoned it near a bus stop.According to Channel 2 TV, Israeli security officials increasingly believe Milhem may be in the West Bank, although most details of the search remain under a gag order.Milhem allegedly killed two people in a shooting attack outside the Simta Bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street last Friday, New Year’s Day, before fleeing and disappearing. Shift manager Alon Bakal, 26, and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, were killed in a hail of bullets as the suspected gunman opened fire with a submachine gun he allegedly stole from his father. Seven people were also wounded.Police on Wednesday evening officially named Milhem as the killer of Bedouin taxi driver Ayman Shaaban some 60 minutes after the bar attack. In fleeing the scene, police said, Milhem shot dead Shaaban after hailing and escaping in his taxi.According to a Channel 10 report, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to track down Milhem in the north than in the West Bank, where the Shin Bet security service has many informants. Police assessments quoted by the TV station said Milhem had likely received assistance both before and after Friday’s attacks.
Tel Aviv gunman shot and killed in northern Israel-Nashat Milhem tracked down in Wadi Ara, opens fire on forces and is killed, a week after he allegedly killed 3 in Tel Aviv; five people arrested-By Adiv Sterman and Judah Ari Gross January 8, 2016, 4:56 pm Updated: January 8, 2016, 5:21 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Nashat Milhem, the gunman who killed three Israelis last week in Tel Aviv, was shot and killed by Israeli forces in northern Israel on Friday afternoon.He was located near his hometown Arara area. Initial reports said he had been “neutralized.” It was later confirmed that he had been killed.Milhem was tracked down to the area where he was hiding out, opened fire on the forces, and was shot dead, Israeli security officials said in a statement. An inaccurate initial report said that he had been shot in a mosque in Umm al-Fahm.Channel 2 reported that the forces had sought to capture him alive, but were fired upon by Milhem who was using the same weapon he used for last Friday’s shootings.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the security forces for the operation.Channel 2 said he was tracked down to a building near his hometown of Arara where his family had lived in the past.Five people were arrested in relation to the case.A Channel 2 report said he was located in recent days via a “personal item” that was found in the area of his hometown in Arara. The item was checked and found to match his DNA. He was then tracked down.Hundreds of police officers had deployed in northern Israel and in the Tel Aviv area Friday, and inspection checkpoints were set up at several locations, a week after the deadly shooting attack by Milhem at a bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street. Milhem was suspected of killing two people in the bar last Friday, before he went on to murder a cab driver whose taxi he hailed to make his escape.Police on Friday also descended in large numbers on a neighborhood in the Arab village of Arara, the hometown of Milhem. Authorities had warned he was armed, dangerous and capable of striking again.Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich indicated at a press conference Tuesday that Milhem was no longer believed to be in Tel Aviv, although he refused to elaborate. Alsheich said it was possible to “dramatically reduce the tension in the Tel Aviv area.” He said he could not elaborate “in order to not cause harm” to the ongoing investigation.Milhem was known to have fled the scene of the shooting on Dizengoff Street on foot, and hailed a cab on nearby Ibn Gabirol Street. The cabbie drove to north Tel Aviv, where Milhem worked. There, Milhem is said to have killed the driver, Ayman Shaaban, outside the city’s Mandarin Hotel. He then drove the cab himself to Namir Road, where he abandoned it near a bus stop.Milhem allegedly killed two people in a shooting attack outside the Simta Bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street last Friday, New Year’s Day, before fleeing and disappearing. Shift manager Alon Bakal, 26, and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, were killed in a hail of bullets as the suspected gunman opened fire with a submachine gun he allegedly stole from his father. Seven people were also wounded.Police on Wednesday evening officially named Milhem as the killer of Bedouin taxi driver Ayman Shaaban some 60 minutes after the bar attack. In fleeing the scene, police said, Milhem shot dead Shaaban after hailing and escaping in his taxi.According to a Channel 10 report, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to track down Milhem in the north than in the West Bank, where the Shin Bet security service has many informants. Police assessments quoted by the TV station said Milhem had likely received assistance both before and after Friday’s attacks.
Police to probe whether Tel Aviv gunman was part of Islamic State sleeper cell-PM praises security forces for bringing down Nashat Milhem, shot dead in exchange of fire in northern Israel after week-long manhunt-By Times of Israel staff January 8, 2016, 5:21 pm
18:01-Simta bar owner: Death of gunman may show terrorists they cannot defeat us-Nati Shaked, one of the owner of the Simta bar in Tel Aviv where Nashat Milhem killed two people, tells Army Radio: “We had a rough week; killing the terrorist gives some hope that maybe they’ll realize on the other side that terror will never defeat us.”-Alon Bakal, who was shot dead by Milhem, was a manager at the bar.-18:00-‘No doubt’ that Milhem acted out of ‘nationalistic’ motive-Channel 2 quotes security officials saying there was “no doubt” that Milhem opened fire in Tel Aviv last week “for nationalistic reasons,” rather than for criminal or any other motive.Tellingly, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had referred to Milhem earlier Friday as a terrorist — a term Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not use when discussing the case in recent days.17:57-Father of Tel Aviv shooting victim: I had no doubt they’d get him-The father of one of Nashat Milhem’s victims in last Friday’s shooting in Tel Aviv says he had no doubt that the security forces would bring down the gunman in a short space of time.“This is our consolation, and we are pleased that none of our own were hurt in the neutralization. I was sure we would get him,” says David Bakal, whose son Alon was killed in the shooting at the Simta Bar where he worked.17:56-Milhem ‘had been in Arara for all of past week’-Milhem had been hiding out in his home town of Arara ever since fleeing Tel Aviv after killing three people there last week, Ynet’s military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai reports.He had apparently changed hiding places once or twice, and may have been helped by relatives and/or members of the Israeli Islamic Movement.17:51-Liberman: Radicals in Arab community must be rooted out-Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman commends the security forces for killing Nashat Milhem, but warns that arrests in Israel’s Arab community connected to case show Tel Aviv shootings were not a lone-wolf attack.“The fact that there are other persons who assisted the terrorist puts an end to ridiculous statements of one crazy lone-wolf attacker,” the Walla website quotes Liberman as saying.“This calls for a root canal treatment of radicalized forces in Arab society in Israel.”17:46-Arabs in northern Israel praise Tel Aviv gunman-A Facebook post shows Arabs in northern Israel praising Tel Aviv gunman Nashat Milhem as a “martyr.”-“With our souls and our blood, we will sacrifice our lives for you oh martyr,” the crowd is chanting in Arabic.The location where the footage was filmed is identified only as somewhere in the Wadi Ara area.— Lee Gancman-17:41-Ya’alon: Killing of Milhem proves Israel will hunt down those who harm it-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon says the killing of Tel Aviv gunman Nashat Milhem by security forces “proves once again that the State of Israel will hunt down those who seek to harm it.”-Israel, Ya’alon is quoted by Channel 2 as saying, will go after those who act against it “anywhere inside and outside the country.”17:34-Police suspect Tel Aviv gunman was member of IS cell-The security forces are investigating whether Nashat Milhem, the Tel Aviv gunman shot dead in Wadi Ara on Friday, was part of an Islamic State cell, Channel 2 reports.The Shin Bet suspicion that Milhem may have been an operative of the terror group is based on interrogations of several detainees arrested by security forces for allegedly assisting the gunman.-17:31-PM praises security forces for bringing down Tel Aviv gunman-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises the security forces for bringing down the Arab Israeli gunman who killed three people in Tel Aviv last Friday.17:29-Shin Bet: Tel Aviv gunman shot dead after opened fire on forces-The Shin Bet says Nashat Milhem, the Arab-Israeli gunman who killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv, was shot dead by security forces after he opened fire on troops on Friday afternoon.The security service adds that Milhem, 29, was firing with the same weapon he used in the killings in Tel Aviv last week.Milhem had been on the run for a week.
Why Israel’s Arab citizens are the biggest proponents of gun control-In places like Umm al-Fahm, Taibe and Tira, residents say the shooting never stops and police ignored pleas to collect illegal weapons. Then came the Dizengoff Street shooting-By Simona Weinglass January 8, 2016, 3:07 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Mahamed Jomana, a young mother of two from the Israeli-Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, remembers the day her best friend was murdered.“It was 2005. Amal and I were both university students. She was studying social work at the Hebrew University and I was studying physiotherapy in Tel Aviv. She was gifted and adorable.”Jomana relates that Amal was standing on the street in Umm al-Fahm when a car drove by slowly. “I think they were trying to shoot a girl standing behind her, but they missed, and the bullet went straight into her heart. She died an hour later.”Jomana adds, “I was devastated. Her family was devastated. We never found out who did it.”Residents say this was among the first shooting incidents they recall in Umm al-Fahm, a town of about 50,000 residents in Israel’s north. But since then, there have been at least 10 murders involving guns — most of them never solved. In fact, firearms have become so widespread in the past decade that Jomana hears gunshots and bursts of automatic gunfire periodically throughout the day. Her parents and neighbors have found bullets in their homes, in their backyards, and on their rooftops. A month ago, someone shot at a car parked next to an elementary school while classes were in session.“Just now I was outside hanging laundry, when I heard about 15 minutes of gunfire, so I went inside until it stopped.”For Israel’s Arab citizens, those who don’t live in predominantly Jewish or mixed Jewish-Arab cities, this kind of shooting is a daily reality. Most of the time it is shooting in the air at a wedding, or young men showing off, or even shooting at an adversary’s house or business to intimidate them. But with so many weapons around, the bullets often claim human victims.“Since 2000, 1,100 Arab citizens have been killed in internal violence,” Joint (Arab) List Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi tells The Times of Israel.To put this in perspective, Israel’s intentional homicide rate is on the low side, at about 135 murders per year — or 1.8 murders per 100,000 people. Arab citizens constitute 20 percent of the population.“This is a terrible price in blood,” Tibi says.-Netanyahu speaks about illegal weapons-Oמ Wednesday, January 6, the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee held an emergency session on the problem of illegal weapons in general and specifically in the Arab sector. On Saturday, the day after the January 1 fatal shooting attack on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street and subsequent murder of a cab driver — allegedly by Nashat Milhem, an Arab citizen of Israel who used his father’s gun — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the site of the attack and delivered a strongly worded message to Israel’s Arab minority.“I will not accept two nations within Israel: a lawful nation for all its citizens and a [second] nation-within-a-nation for some of its citizens, in pockets of lawlessness. You can’t say, ‘I am Israeli in my rights and Palestinian in my obligations.’ If you want to be Israeli, be completely Israeli and your foremost obligation is to follow the laws of the state.”MK Ahmad Tibi says he was flabbergasted by Netanyahu’s speech, in part because Arab leaders have been pleading with the government, for at least a decade, to increase policing and to confiscate illegal weapons.“After all the Arab leaders, the family and the local council condemned the attack on Dizengoff Street in a sweeping, unequivocal way, Benjamin Netanyahu comes along and speaks as if he were [Jewish Home Knesset Member] Bezalel Smotrich. It’s incitement.”Tibi adds, “The weapon used by the attacker was legal, it was licensed. So why did the prime minister start attacking us over illegal weapons? He went off the rails.”“From my point of view,” says Tibi, “take the legal weapons too. We don’t want them in our communities. I held a hearing in the Knesset in 2012 in the presence of the prime minister, the interior security minister, bereaved families and 40 Knesset members. It was a historic event. We demanded that they collect the weapons.”Tibi asks why Jews had to be killed to draw attention to the issue.“The government and law enforcement don’t care, because it’s Arabs shooting other Arabs. When did they wake up? When this terrible attack took place on Dizengoff Street.”Calling the police and getting no response-According to a July 2014 report by the Knesset Research and Information Center, Israeli Arabs constitute about 20 percent of the population, but 49% of prison inmates. And 54.3% of Israeli Arabs live under the poverty line, whereas 65.8% of Israeli Arab children are poor.Meanwhile, Israel’s Arab citizens are more afraid to leave their homes than are their Jewish counter parts: 51.9% of Israeli Arabs say they fear being the target of violent crime, whereas only 30% of the Jewish population says this. Murders in Israeli Arab communities are less likely to be prosecuted. Between 2006–2013, 58% of murder cases in which the suspect was a Jew resulted in an indictment, whereas only 46% of the cases in which the suspect was Arab, ended in an indictment, according to the Knesset report.It is statistics like these that jibe with the subjective feeling of many Israeli Arabs that when it comes to violence within their communities, the police don’t try very hard.Muhammad Haj Daod, a theater actor from Umm al-Fahm who is married to Mahamed Jomana, said that he and his wife call the police about shooting on a regular basis. He sent The Times of Israel 10 recorded conversations with police dispatchers in which he complains about gunfire, which can sometimes be heard loudly in the recording. In each case, the dispatcher politely tells him that the complaint is being processed. But Daod says he has never once seen a patrol car in response to any of his complaints.“Almost every day I hear shooting and the police never come. I don’t think it would be that hard for the police to come in and clean the city of illegal weapons and drugs. Maybe it’s in their interest for this to spread and grow.”Daod says it’s gotten so bad that even high school students walk around with weapons.“It’s very strange because the source of the weapons can only be the state. The state is the only player that can import weapons into Israel. So how do the weapons get to people? I think people in the government, police and army must be corrupt and involved in selling illegal weapons.”“That’s nonsense,” a former Shin Bet officer says, noting that most illegal weapons are former legal weapons that were sold or stolen.“There are crime organizations that sell weapons, there are thefts from houses and from people with gun licenses. There are soldiers whose guns are stolen, as well as army bases that have been robbed.”In Wednesday’s Knesset Committee meeting, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan did say that 90% of illegal weapons in Israel originate in the Israel Defense Forces. But there is no systemic corruption, says the ex-Shin Bet officer. He says the real reason that the police have not cracked down on illegal weapons among Israeli Arabs is that it’s not easy to do.“You need intelligence to know who has weapons in their home. You need to know it’s there and then someone has to look for it, because the person who has it doesn’t keep it in their living room.”He adds, “What happens is that the police, when they go into an Arab village or town, need a much bigger force than when they go into a Jewish town. It’s very easy to blame the police and say that the illegal weapons in the Arab sector are because of them. But the problem has existed since the establishment of the state. A lot of Israeli Arabs want to have weapons for self-defense. Others want them for celebrations and weddings. Others want them for status, or for criminal activity. Each person has their own reason. But because the level of crime and violence is so high, as a result, even more people arm themselves.”-Why now? Asked what has changed in the last decade to make the problem worse, Jomana speculates, “Either it’s a policy or it’s what’s happening in the whole world, with technology and kids growing up with violent video games and things. When we were growing up, the world was simpler.”“In the past,” says Daod, “people would get into disputes and it would end with a sulha. People met and made peace. It never got to the point of weapons except for one incident of shooting that everyone remembers from the 1980s. Since we got the police station in Umm al-Fahm, we see the weapons and drugs spreading through out the city.“How do I explain it?” he asks. “In the past, families were organized in hamulas. Each hamula [clan] has its leader and he is the one who decides. It was easier to resolve disputes because there weren’t a lot of different people involved in the decision. The decision was up to the head of the entire family. Today, these leaders don’t exist anymore. Today, everyone does whatever they feel like.”Waseem Hosary, a lawyer in Umm al-Fahm and parliamentary aide to Joint (Arab) List Member of Knesset Youssef Jabareen, agrees that the breakdown of traditional communal structures could be a factor, but he thinks the main issue is lack of police enforcement.“These changes are happening in all of society, but the difference is that among the Jewish majority there’s enforcement and police presence. Crime is also on the rise in Israeli society. But our community has seen a huge spike. The thin presence of law enforcement and the light punishments against people who carry illegal weapons are an opportunity for people to run riot in the streets.”But there’s something else that happened 15 years ago that Hosary believes affects the relationship between Arab citizens and the police.A problem of trust-In October 2000, Israeli police killed 12 Israeli Arab citizens in riots at the beginning of the Second Intifada. Soon afterward, the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, established the Orr Commission to investigate what went wrong. The commission recommended that the police improve its relationship with the Arab public so that it can be perceived as providing essential security instead of being seen as a hostile force.“It’s true, the way you [a Jewish person] view the police and the way we perceive the police is different,” says Hosary.Hosary goes on that when people in Umm al-Fahm call the police, the police don’t come most of the time. But sometimes they do.“If I hear shooting in my neighborhood and they come, they don’t know where it’s coming from. What can they do? They wander around the neighborhood and go back. There have been incidents where someone called the police and said there is shooting on the street and he gives them the license-plate number and tells them where the people are, but nothing happens.“When you ask the police chief what happened, he says there was a patrol car and they looked and didn’t find anything,” Hosary adds. He says there is a single patrol car in Umm al-Fahm that patrols at night, and a second car at the station. He adds that the local police commanders are so understaffed that they have been known to quietly ask Arab Knesset members to pressure the government for more manpower.The relationship of Arab citizens with the police, says Hosary, is a catch-22.“The whole concept that the police are Jewish or that they serve the Jewish Zionist government that wants a Jewish state, which we reject, that’s problematic for us. But people don’t want to take the law into their own hands, and we do want the police to come in and confiscate all the weapons.”Ideally, he’d like to see a patrol car in every neighborhood of Umm al-Fahm.“Two years ago, we had a problem of shooting at weddings — there’s a custom of people expressing joy with shooting. What did the police start to do? They would call in the groom and his father and warn them the day before the event. They said, ‘If there is shooting at your wedding, we will arrest you.’ It was welcome and a good idea and it worked, because the groom and his family made sure there was no shooting.“But as a matter of fact, from a legal point of view,” explains Hosary, “if there is shooting, there is no justification for arresting the groom. And people continue to shoot at weddings.”Asked if he would like to see a police car outside every wedding in Umm al-Fahm, Hosary replies, “Here’s what I’d like: I’d like the police to treat us just like Jews.”He chuckles at his own statement. “At least in this matter,” he adds. “The weapons in Umm al-Fahm should be treated exactly the same way they would treat weapons in Tel Aviv.”
