In a new Peace Index survey of Israelis, 37% of the Israeli public said that they “fear that you or one of the people who are important to you will be harmed in the current wave of attacks.” But what’s much more interesting about it is the fact that the percentage of Jews and Arabs who have this “fear” is almost identical. 37.5% of Jews and 37.4% of Arabs said they “strongly fear” an attack.
We should note, of course, that the survey was conducted before the latest attack in Tel Aviv, in which an Israeli Arab shot and killed three innocents. We should note that, of course, in the last couple of days the fear among Jews who live in Tel Aviv has probably risen dramatically, because the shooter is still at large. On Sunday, about fifty percent of the parents in northern Tel Aviv, where I live, and where the searches for the killer were intensive, decided not to send their children to school. So there is fear – an understandable fear, one must say.
But listening to Arab Israelis speaking about the recent incident, one gets the feeling that their fears have also increased because of the incidents. Arab Israelis who live in Tel Aviv feel the suspicion of Jewish Tel Avivivans towards them. Some of them had to contend with searches in their apartments – as the Shin Bet reasonably assumes that if the killer was hidden by anyone, it would probably be an Arab friend. But Arabs who do not live in Tel Aviv also feel the pressure and probably have a sense of fear about what all of this means for their future. If they were afraid as much as the Jews before the latest attack, they are probably more afraid now.
On Sunday, the government and the Tel Aviv municipality were understanding of parents’ and citizens’ growing fear. The mobile phone of the killer was found in a northern Tel Aviv neighborhood – the same area in which the killer also used to work. Police presence was felt everywhere, and that made people nervous. They assumed, as did the police, that the perpetrator of the attacks is still in the area. Under such circumstances, many of them decided against going to cafes and the movies, against sending children to schools and letting them play in the playground.
On Monday (today) the tone somewhat changed: several ministers reminded Israelis on the radio that the risk of getting involved in a car accident is still greater than the risk of encountering a terrorist, and still, no parent keeps his child at home because of the fear of road accidents. It also became more reasonable to assume that the killer found his way out of Tel Aviv and is no longer hiding in the area in which searches are taking place. So letting the fear subside as the days pass became a goal for policy makers.
The fear experienced by Israelis, Jews and Arabs, is valid. There is the fear for the lives of innocent people that killers and terrorists want to end. There is the fear for a society that is becoming more suspicious, less tolerant, because of the actions of these terrorists. There is the fear of a situation that is getting out of hand. The Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in an appearance at the site of killing (not a well planned one), emphasized that Israel will not allow a state within a state in Israel, in which some citizens live in “enclaves with no law enforcement, with Islamist incitement and an abundance of illegal weapons that are often fired at happy events, weddings, and during endless criminal incidents.”
Fear is a destructive force within a society.
Fear is what motivated the unwise decision of Israel’s Education Ministry last week to disqualify a novel from being included in school curriculums because of its theme, a love story between a Jew and an Arab. It is not because the ministry identifies an intermarriage problem that it needs to curb. It is because of the unsubstantiated fear of a nonexistent problem (and then the appliance of the wrong measure to try and solve this inexistent problem).
Fear is what motivated the more reasonable decision (Washington Post editorial notwithstanding) to harass NGO’s who get funding from foreign countries. Israel fears the intervention – perceived, for good reasons, as hostile – of European countries in Israel’s decision making processes. If Israel were in a more secure mood, it would probably dismiss the involvement of these countries in funding NGO’s as insignificant and unimportant.
Fear is a key factor in making Israelis – all of them – highly skeptical of the prospect that a peace process could lead “in the coming years to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” 3.9% of Jewish Israelis and 5.4% of Arab Israelis “strongly believe” that this is a possible outcome. When fear of the other is at the current level, no sane Israeli is going to make any concessions to test the probability of peace.
Could Israel become less apprehensive? This depends on many actions of many players. Jewish political leaders, Arab political leaders, international political players (yes, if they stop giving funds to groups within Israel that annoy the majority and make it feel threatened) – but also Facebook users, religious leaders, columnists, advocates. There are leaders and groups and media outlets for which fear is a boon. There are leaders and groups and media outlets who don’t pay the appropriate attention to the role of fear in making a problematic situation even worse.
Then there are the terrorists, the murderers. For them, the spread if fear is victory. They should be denied that kind of victory by any means necessary.
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