The events of the past 24 hours take me back two decades, to the night riots erupted in October 2000. The clashes between the police and Israel's Arab citizens began spreading from the north to the south, and what stood out at the time, unlike today, is that the Arab leadership in Israel stood at the very forefront of the protests and to a certain extent, influenced what happened. Today, it seems more as if social media is dictating matters. Everything is photographed and documented live on Facebook and TikTok; the public reacts, and tensions flare.
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The majority of the Arab public in Israel self-identify as Israeli citizens. But Israel's Arab citizens cannot detach themselves from their Palestinian brethren. What happens to the Palestinians is felt among the Arabs of Israel, and what happens in east Jerusalem is strongly felt on the Arab street in Rahat or Umm al-Fahm. And when the all-too-familiar troubles of the Arab street, from rampant crime to the economic situation, meet with the riots on the Temple Mount and clashes with Jews in Sheikh Jarrah, the ensuing unrest cannot be stopped.
There's no question that the Arab public is allowed to protest, against the police or against the eviction of families from Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem. What we are seeing, however, is no longer protest. An act of protest is capable of restricting itself, it can and often needs to be decisive and blunt, but when it spills over into vandalism, to harming innocent civilians, destroying property and disrupting the social order, we are well on our way to October 2000 all over again and the formation of a national commission of inquiry.
The hundreds and thousands of impassioned Arab youths who took to the streets in the Arab towns and villages to express their legitimate dissent could have actually won some support had they kept things relatively tasteful and within the normal bounds of civic protest. But things are spiraling out of control, and the reason is that there's no effective Arab leadership. There is no leadership actually leading the protest and restricting it to the appropriate bounds, and there is no leadership working to calm the situation.
In east Jerusalem, too, there's an acute leadership vacuum. Essentially, this is the result of a temporary state of affairs becoming more permanent. The resident of east Jerusalem are trapped inside a black hole of leadership: Where do they belong more, the State of Israel or the Palestinian leaders? Israel, for its own reasons, isn't fully present there but does send in the police; the Palestinian Authority is limited in its ability to impose its authority.
Regardless of the reasons behind the protest, however, what transpired overnight Tuesday in the Arab towns and villages and in the mixed Jewish-Arab cities is dangerous, and exactly now is when the Arab leadership must notice the flashing red alarms. It is not only unacceptable for a protest, any protest, to lead to vandalism and wanton destruction, because everything has a limit, but Arab society must also reach conclusions regarding the role its leaders are playing and the forces penetrating and influencing Arab public opinion, sometimes without any oversight or control.
And most importantly, as much as this might sound disingenuous amid the images we are now seeing, both Arabs and Jews living in this shared space need to find the common ground to stop the cycle of violence.
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