A city torn apart

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

In Israel, a simple car ride through the northern city of Acre has sparked a national crisis. Tawfik Jamal, an Israeli Arab, was driving through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur — a holiday where it is customary for Israeli Jews not to use their cars. Jamal’s car was surrounded by an angry mob, who threw stones and lightly injured his son. Witnesses would later contend that Jamal was driving recklessly and playing loud music, which he denies.

As news of the attack spread, Arab residents responded by breaking the windows of Jewish shops and hurling rocks at their homes. Arab-Jewish clashes continued over the next three days as Jewish rioters responded, burning and looting the houses of Arab residents. Arab residents were further inflamed by the arrest of Jamal for “harming religious sentiment,” an effort to appease Jewish sentiment.

While the violence has mostly died down, there are signs that radical movements will use the still raw emotions as justification for their own political ends. Both Syria and Hezbollah released statements condemning Israel for complicity in the rioting. More ominously, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine threatened to murder Knesset Member Avigdor Lieberman in retaliation for the rioting. The organization said that his fate will be similar to that of former Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, who the organization assassinated in 2001.

Let’s hope cooler heads prevail.