ISRAEL: 'A barrel of explosives' in Acre

Israeli police remained on high alert Friday evening in the northern coastal city of Acre after a third day of clashes between Arab and Jewish residents.

Tensions between the two sides boiled over Wednesday night during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, when most of Israel shuts down to all vehicle traffic and even secular Jews avoid driving to keep from offending the more devout.

The clashes began when an Arab resident of the mixed city was accosted by Jewish youths after driving into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. According to local media reports, neighborhood residents claim Tawfik Jamal provoked them by blaring his car stereo -- a charge Jamal denies.

"I knew it was Yom Kippur; we have been living amongst Jews for many years, so I thought I'd drive slowly without turning on the radio,” said Jamal, who added that he was coming to pick up his daughter from a friend's home.

Jamal reportedly had to be rescued from rock-throwing youths by Israel police. As news of the attack spread, a group of Arab teens arrived on the scene -- setting off a mushrooming cycle of retaliation that left local police scrambling to maintain order.

Remarkably there were no serious injuries from three nights of on-and-off clashes. Dozens of storefronts and car windows were smashed and the police made about 30 arrests. But the real damage may be psychological -- reopening old resentments between Israeli Jews and the country's Arab minority.

Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni rushed to the scene Friday and appealed to both sides to “move forward to improve the relations between Jews and Arabs."

Right-wing politicians also moved in quickly; parliamentarian Zvi Hendel of the fringe Tkuma party charged that the conflict was a pre-planned Arab ambush and said, “We must not let this pass without a response.”

Leftist parliamentarian Yossi Beillin said the clashes were proof that little has been done to improve  Arab-Jewish relations inside Israel since the 2000 riots in which police killed 12 Arab citizens of Israel. "We are sitting on a barrel of explosives, and every time we are surprised anew when the tension explodes, rather than making a genuine effort to stop it," Beilin said.

One immediate victim of the Acre clashes: The city's annual theater festival, scheduled for next week, has been postponed indefinitely.

Local police commanders pledged that they could maintain order after flooding the city with 700 extra officers. But Acre Mayor Shimon Lankry said it would be "irresponsible" to hold the festival given "the sense of insult, anger and pain" felt by residents on both sides.

-- Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

Photo: An Israeli border police officer passes the shattered window of a shop while on patrol in the mixed city of Acre, northern Israel. Credit: MUHAMMED MUHEISEN/AP

Comments

[AY]

Unfortunately, in the foregoing piece entitled "ISRAEL: 'A barrel of explosives' in Acre," we are confronted with the selective type of reporting that only exacerbates the problem by highlighting provocation in illustrating violence perpetrated by Jewish teens. Where are the voices of those Israeli Jews and those Israeli Muslims who reached out to each other with assistance and kindness? Where these voices sacrificed with the editor's knife or the reporter's limitations? I submit that stories, such as this, which intentionally censor salient facts truly amount to fraud and only perpetuate fear, hatred and mistrust. To glean truth we must be presented with all the facts, not just those that lead to an intended conclusion. If we are not presented with entirely truthful accounts of the type of apartheid that exists in Israel and Occupied Palestine and the wonderfully human forces in opposition to such violence and assault on our humanity, in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities then how can we address the root problem?

[palestinereview]

Racism in action. A good example of Zionism.

The Palestine Review
http://palestinereview.com

[Sen]

30 years ago, during Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv at least, many secular Israeli Jews use to drive on the streets. It's only over the years that secular Jews stopped driving. Gentrification is going on in mixed towns in Israel: same in Jaffa same in Acre. Rich Jewish Israelis and people from abroad are buying up houses in the old areas of Arab towns, pricing out locals, whilst religious from the West Bank are moving in temporarily and stirring up trouble between local Jewish and Arabs. The poor are fighting the poor.

[Robert Bernier]

The Arabs of Israel spit in the well from which they drink.
We have been fooling ourselves all these years. We are ignoring the participation of Arabs with Israeli citizenship in terrorist attacks, and we refuse to recognize that most of the property crimes in Israel are carried out by Arabs. We also don't want to know about the systematic Arab takeover of Jewish neighborhoods in Israeli cities, significant centers of unrest exist, just like in Akko, in Lod, Ramle, Yaffo, Carmiel, Upper Nazareth, and Haifa as well. There, too, Arab riots and destruction of Jewish property are just a matter of time. More about the Arabs in Israel at : http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/12/enemy-within.html

[AY]

Apparently you don't know about the poor Palestinian teens who were stabbed in the back and otherwise savaged by Jewish teens, merely because they were Palestinian. We have learned nothing from the very sad tragedy of the holocaust when this happens. Never Again huh?

[Josh]

ya right, 1st off he shouldn't of been driving out of respect, 2nd its a little strange that a group of arab teens would randomly arrive to the rescue, sorry im just not one for coincidences, say what you want but i was barred from entering certain parts of jerusalem because it would be very disrespectful, to drive around a jewish town on the holiest day is basically spitting in all of there faces, he would've known what message he was sending by driving