Israel, you see, is home to about two million Arab Muslims by now.
Here’s a report about them in Wikipedia:
“Arab citizens of Israel[2] are non-Jewish Israeli citizens whose cultural and linguistic heritage or ethnic identity is Arab.[3] The traditional vernacular of Arab citizens, irrespective of religion, is the Arabic language, or more precisely, the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. Most Arab citizens of Israel are functionally bilingual, their second language being Modern Hebrew. By religious affiliation, most are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam. There is a significant Arab Christian minority from various denominations as well as Druze, among other religious communities. Israeli Mizrahi Jews are not considered to form part of this population.
"According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, the Arab population in 2010 was estimated at 1,573,000, representing 20.4% of the country's population.[4] The majority of these identify themselves as Arab or Palestinian by nationality and Israeli by citizenship.[5][6][7] Many have family ties to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Negev Bedouins tend to identify more as Israelis than other Arab citizens of Israel.[8]
"Most of the Arabs living in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, were offered Israeli citizenship, but refused, not wanting to recognize Israeli sovereignty. They became permanent residents.[9] They are entitled to municipal services and have municipal voting rights.”
I remember the comely faces of these Arab citizens of Israel during my recent travel there as I watched on television yesterday a local Muslim group and a leftist organization condemning Israel and asking it to stop bombing Palestine.
Palestine is also unleashing hundreds of bombs unto Israel daily since they started their war of bombs just three weeks after our recent trip to visit the Holy Places in Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
The only difference is that being a poor country, Palestine cannot afford to buy bombs that can hit Israel’s populated areas; some Palestine bombs are exploded mid-air by Israeli smart bombs. Still, both countries do not have bombs smart enough not to kill civilians. Palestine certainly has no bombs programmed to “kill Jews only” and not Muslims in Israel.
War is crazy! If there should be a call for stop to it, it should be addressed to both Israel and Palestine! Both countries are at fault and have civilian blood in their hands!
It does not make young Israeli soldiers, 70,000 of whom will soon to be mobilized for a ground offensive, or their close to two million Arab brethren in Israel lesser victims of war just because they have not been hit by the Hamas bombs. Not yet. It does not mean they are not worth saving just because their cadavers have not yet appeared in CNN! It does not mean that just because no picture of a burning Mapai, the largest Arab city in Nazareth, is flashed on Tv the city is no longer worth protecting from Hamas bombs!
I firmly believe both Muslims and Jew civilians just want peace, but their army and politicians hate peace! There are no votes, no issues, no crisis to solve, no military contract and commissions from it; no aid and weapons from fundamentalist groups abroad; no money; no drama; no CNN, BBC, Al Jahzeera; no life for them; and no use for them in peace time!
It is the same situation for some politicians, military, rebels and terrorist leaders here. Some people must just make war to get noticed. They must just make trouble to justify their existence!