Police and Border Police forces this week launched an extensive arrest operation in Umm al-Fahm in an attempt to suppress the outbreak of terrorism from the third largest Arab city in Israel. The ammunition arsenal and weapons in their car indicated an intention to carry out a mass killing spree, and in the police raids in Umm al-Fahm since the attack, pistols and an improvised rifle, telephones, documents and computers, as well as rings and books affiliated with ISIS were seized.
In recent years, Umm al-Fahm has expelled many terrorists who have carried out severe bloody attacks across the country. Among the attacks led by residents who left the city was the attack on the Temple Mount in July 2017, in which two border police officers were killed; 10,000 residents attended the funeral, and it turned into a show of great hatred against the State of Israel. Shmuel, and the murder of a 19-year-old female soldier. In 2018, a resident of Umm al-Fahm Ahmad Mahamid, armed with a knife, attacked a policeman. And cries were made against Israel.
The third largest Arab city in Israel has a population of about 58,000, and is considered a stronghold of the northern faction of the Islamic Movement, which was declared an illegal association in November 2015. The faction’s leader, Sheikh Raed Saleh, was a former mayor (from 1989 to 2001), and although he has been repeatedly sentenced to prison for a variety of riots, incitement and support for terrorism, he enjoys support and sympathy in the Arab street. The terrorist Ayman Agbaria, for example, was photographed in the past smiling next to the sheikh.
Still, the municipality wants to signal a completely different direction. “Umm al-Fahm municipality expresses deep shock, condemns the horrific act and condemns any act of violence,” wrote Mayor Dr. Samir Mahamid in a statement of condemnation issued this week, after it was learned that the people of the city were behind the murderous terrorist attack in Hadera. Is a slap in the face to everything we are trying to fix and improve, “Mahamid told us.” We are trying to change patterns here. In the end of the day, we are part of the Israeli experience, and for us, anyone who is exceptional should condemn it. “
But yesterday, an official statement was posted on social media on behalf of Mahamid, on behalf of municipal employees and on behalf of the residents of Umm al-Fahm: “May God have mercy on them and forgive them and arouse patience and comfort in their families. We belong to Allah and to Him we will return.”
The message was quickly deleted, and a municipal spokesman explained that it was a mistake: “We thought it appropriate to issue a condolence statement like all the people who died in Umm al-Fahm, but the mayor immediately issued an order to delete it.” Mahamid hurried to be interviewed by IDF waves and announced that the publication was a mistake: “We condemned and we condemn. This is neither our way nor our opinion. “I only found out about him from the conversation with the director general of the Ministry of the Interior,” he said.
After a few hours, Mahamid announced in an interview here 11 that he takes responsibility for the mistake and resigns: “Here I had to be skinny, so I get responsibility. What’s simpler than that. You know what? It’s redemption for me. It’s redemption for me from this place. Yes, I’m announcing my resignation, I’m leaving this position in a lot of pain, because I came to contribute.” Finally, after two hours, the mayor announced that he was withdrawing from his resignation.
From his statement of condemnation this week, before the inadvertent announcement of the condolence message, Mahamid came out against terrorism, calling on the police “to do their part. ISIS is coming out against Muslims, Christians and Jews, and therefore it should be cut off from this world.” He explained that “murder is murder and no matter who commits it, Arab or Jewish, Hamas or ISIS. We will go with our truth. We will survive it and not give up. We will work to make it good.”
Alaa Agbaria, a strategic adviser and expert commentator on Arab society, claims that the condemnation of the terrorist attacks, which have been heard from all over Arab society, is “historic.” “Everyone unanimously condemned this act,” he says. “You saw almost no encouragement or understanding and agreement here. Even after the attack in Be’er Sheva, the Arab society issued a wide condemnation. There is a new position here that should be listened to. Ayman Odeh also addressed Hamas in an official statement and asked that they not interfere in our affairs. “The incident. Raed Saleh has explicitly said he condemns. People want change and peace and integration.”
“If the terrorists had done so out of sympathy with the Palestinian movement and not with a broad Islamist organization, it is very possible that the reservations we would have heard would have been more limited,” said Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public and State Affairs. There are only a few small nests of ISIS supporters here in Israel and this is not a widespread phenomenon. In its heyday, 60 Israeli Arab activists identified with the organization were identified. Because they are the most extreme. “
Mayor Mahamid spoke this week with the terrorists’ relatives, he said, to make sure the funeral would take place quietly and without the presence of a large crowd, in order to prevent a demonstration of incitement. He asked school principals in his city to talk to their students about tolerance: “The mood in the city is completely against what they did, and one can feel in the streets that no one here is interested in such a thing, a heinous murder.” In recent years, he argues, he has actually felt a spirit of change. “We are leading the community and giving young people hope. There is a miss of a good thing here. We do not want to lose it. I hope this month of Ramadan fasting will be a month of peace of mind and peace and quiet.”
Counselor and commentator Agbaria says that in recent days social networks have been vibrant and turbulent in opposition to terrorism. “The handful offends the name of the city and destroys it,” he states. “Until 2015, it was really connected to the Islamic movement, but there are 60,000 residents in the city, and not all of them are Raed Saleh. You will find here Meretz and Ra’am voters and Likud and Labor. It is a city with a variety of opinions and people who want to live and exist with dignity. It is not fair that the media gave the Islamic Movement all the credit for this city. “
At the beginning of 2021, riots broke out in the city precisely to demand that the police take over the crime in the city again. This was after the assassination attempt on the former mayor of Umm al-Fahm, a senior member of the Islamic Movement, Dr. Suleiman Agbaria. – 21, when he returned home from a protest event.
One of the demonstrators was hit by a stun grenade or a sponge bullet by MK Yusef Jabarin from the joint list and the current mayor, Mahamid, along with about 35 other demonstrators. Eight policemen were also injured in the demonstration. In Israel and representatives of the committee of heads of the Arab authorities, and those gathered, were furious at the police violence and called on the government and the police command to immediately fire Yitzhak Hovav, commander of the Umm al-Fahm police. Dr. Mahamid claimed that When the chairman of the Ra’am party, MK Mansour Abbas, asked to take part in one of the demonstrations, the demonstrators told him: “You have no respect, Umm al-Fahm will not enter.”
In March 2021, as part of the protests, residents removed the Israeli flag over the city hall and hung the Palestinian Authority flag in its place. Two months later, in May 2021, riots broke out across the country, and residents of Umm al-Fahm took advantage of the situation to throw stones at vehicles and police forces in Wadi Ara. In one case, a Jewish family who happened to be in the city and a crowd tried to lynch a T-shirt by some of the city’s residents.