Israeli Arab Christian Political Party Seeks Integration (Updated)

Mike L.

The snippet below was published by Dror Eydar at Israel Hayom:

"The New Alliance" supports national service, including in the military, and recognizes Israel as the home of the Jewish people • "We are completely Israeli, and then comes religion," says party founder Bashara Shlayan of Nazareth.

The events in the Middle East have unleashed deep sociological and ideological processes, of which we are only seeing the beginning. It is not only political Islam in the eye of the media storm. Throughout the various Arab countries in the region, the bruised and battered Christian community is raising its voice. Israel appears to be the only country in the region whose Christian community does not have a negative emigration ratio as its members flee West in pursuit of a more promising life.

Recent newspaper headlines involve Christian Israelis who are setting themselves apart from their Muslim counterparts, disproving the traditional perception of Israel's Arab population as homogenous. They want to join the Israel Defense Forces. 

Against the backdrop of hysteria expressed by Arab MKs who object to national service of any kind, but particularly in the army, the comments emanating from Israel's Christian Arab community sound like a cultural and social declaration of independence.

To the extent that this story is true it is an exceedingly welcome development.

The problems between Israel and its Arab neighbors are not because Jews are mean to Arabs or caused the "ethnic cleansing" of the Arabs from their homes, but because the great Arab majority in the Middle East has dominated and persecuted and oppressed the tiny Jewish minority since the time of Muhammed and they still cannot accept Jewish freedom from dhimmitude.

Arab Muslim hostility toward the Jewish minority is grounded in the Koran, but the Day of the Dhimmi is Done.

To the extent that some Arabs were forced from their homes in the '48 War it was because you cannot try to slaughter a people who just came through the Holocaust and expect to do so with impunity.  The very notion is, in itself, a hangover from the centuries of dhimmitude in which Arabs became accustomed to laws which justified violence against Jews - such as stoning as a sport - as proper.   The Arabs of the British Mandate launched a civil war against the Jewish people in November of 1947, directly after the voting on UN 181 which recognized a Jewish State on a small portion of the land originally promised to us, and they fought that war against Jewish women and Holocaust survivors.

Yet, they lost.

If the local Arabs residing on Jewish land wished to integrate themselves into Israeli society they could easily do so and, in fact, would be rewarded with greater civil liberties and economic prosperity than Arabs anyplace else within the Arab world.

Unfortunately for their children, Arab Muslims have not chosen that route.

Perhaps Arab Christians can do better and I am exceedingly pleased to see signs that this is precisely the case.

Arab Christians are our sisters and brothers in the Land of Israel.  Arab Muslims could be, as well, but that is entirely up to them.

Update:

Many thanks to oldschooltwentysix for pointing to this story from the Elder of Ziyon, which points to this story from the Jerusalem Post written by Jeremy Sharon and Yonah Jeremy Bob:

MK Miri Regev denounced on Wednesday Arab MKs who have campaigned for the dismissal of a Greek-Orthodox priest for backing IDF enlistment in the Christian community, during a hearing in the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee.

Last week, Balad MKs Basel Ghattas and Haneen Zoabi wrote to Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem Theophilus III, demanding that Father Gabriel Nadaf either halt his activities supporting Christian Arab enlistment or be fired by the patriarch from his position as a serving priest in his congregation in Yafia, near Nazareth.

Meanwhile, as the Elder writes:

Now, in a stunning article in Al Arab and picked up by other Arabic media, a teenage girl from Nazareth slams Zoabi and declares her intention to enlist in the IDF.

18-year old Raghda Gracie told the newspaper:

Our recruitment is not done with coercion or force, but is my choice...I believe that we as Israelis are obliged to provide the service to the state and we have to be faithful to her and offer loyalty.

Haneen Zoabi has no right to speak in our name; we are Christians and not Palestinians. We were born in the State of Israel, which existed before we were born and I call on Zoabi stop speaking in our name as Arabs, Palestinians.

My father was an army officer in the Golani unit and all members of my family have served in military units and combat.

I am the first girl in the family that will serve in the army and I am proud of it; I walk in the streets of Nazareth with my head held high and proud because no one can deprive me of this dream. The army is very important for me, especially since Israel is a democratic state and does not differentiate between citizens. We are Christians and proud Israeli army Christian recruits. We are not racists, we love Arab Muslims and we ask only that Haneen Zoabi not talk in our name.

Everyone here can says that Palestinians or Arabs do not believe in this country, but it must be known that they live in it. I say to everyone whether they are Muslim Arab, Druze or Christian: if you support the Palestinians, leave to another country.

Christ and the Virgin Mary were two Jews, and we [Christian Israelis] belong more to the Jews.

One of the biggest mistakes that diaspora Jewry has made is in snubbing our Christian friends.  Not all Christian denominations are our friends, sadly, but many are.  As individuals, and as groups, Christians are often among the very best friends that the Jewish people have in this world and that needs to be acknowledged.

We have more allies than we may sometimes realize.