How will relations between Jews and Palestinians in Israel be restored?
Israelis can't rely on politicians to help repair fraught relations between Jewish and Arab citizens, because they are in part responsible for the incitement highlighted by the recent wave of stabbing attacks.
The line was crossed during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 and resulted in the recent wave of terror attacks. The public discourse surrounding Israeli Arabs has become violent, racist and dangerous.
The rift was created despite the low degree of involvement of Palestinian Israelis in the recent wave of terror. Out of the 75 terror attacks perpetrated during the month of October, only two assailants were Palestinian Israelis: Alaa Raed Ahmad Ziwad, who carried out a stabbing and vehicular attack Oct. 11 in Gan Shmuel, and Mohannad Khalil Salam al-Okbi, from the Bedouin community near Hura, who on Oct. 18 carried out an attack in Beersheba. Asra Zidan Abed, from Nazareth, to whom an Oct. 9 attack in Afula was initially attributed, suffers, it seems, from a mental disorder. An investigation revealed that she was waving a knife at security forces because she wanted to commit suicide.
