Tag Archives: Arabs

Arabs prioritize key ties with U.S. against Iran in reacting to Trump peace plan

Arabs prioritize key ties with U.S. against Iran in reacting to Trump peace plan
By Stephen Kalin and Amina Ismail

RIYADH/CAIRO (Reuters) – Arab powers appear to be prioritizing close ties with the United States that are vital to countering Iran over traditional unswerving support for the Palestinians in their reaction to President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

At a White House event on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump proposed creating a Palestinian state but demilitarized and with borders drawn to meet Israeli security needs, while granting U.S. recognition of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land and of Jerusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital.

The plan diverges from previous U.S. policy and a 2002 Arab League-endorsed initiative that offered Israel normal relations in return for an independent Palestinian state and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Saudi Arabia’s response exemplified the careful balance now required from Gulf Arab monarchies, Egypt and Jordan which rely on U.S. military or financial backing and find themselves aligned with the United States and Israel in confronting Iran.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry expressed appreciation for Trump’s efforts and support for direct peace negotiations under U.S. auspices. At the same time, state media reported that King Salman had called the Palestinian president to reassure him of Riyadh’s unwavering commitment to the Palestinian cause.

Egypt and Jordan, which already have peace deals with Israel, as well as Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used similar language that swung between hope for re-starting talks and caution against abandoning long-held stances.

Despite Palestinians’ rejection of the plan and boycott of Trump over perceived pro-Israel bias, three Gulf Arab states – Oman, Bahrain and the UAE – attended the White House gathering in a sign of changing times.

In a bitterly divided Arab world, backing for Palestinians has long been seen as a unifying position but also often a source of internal recriminations over the extent of that support, especially as some states have made independent, pragmatic overtures to historical adversary Israel.

Trump and Netanyahu praised the UAE, Bahraini and Omani ambassadors for attending the White House announcement: “What a sign it portends – I was going to say ‘of the future’ – what a sign it portends of the present,” Netanyahu said to applause.

Critics were less kind, condemning the envoys’ presence as a “shameful” abandonment of the Palestinian cause.

“No government or ruler wants to be seen to sell Palestine so cheaply and hand Netanyahu such a victory and, in fact, end up footing the bill,” said Neil Quilliam, senior research fellow at Britain’s Chatham House think-tank.

“At the same time, all states except perhaps Egypt are dependent upon the U.S. and will not risk angering Trump, given his propensity to act like a petulant child.”

A THOUSAND NO’S

Saudi King Salman has previously reassured Arab allies he would not endorse any plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s disputed status or Palestinian refugees’ right of return, amid perceptions Riyadh’s stance was changing under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is close to Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, the plan’s main architect.

Palestinian officials say Prince Mohammed, the de facto Saudi ruler, has pressed Abbas in the past to support the Trump plan despite serious concerns. Saudi officials have denied any differences between the king and crown prince.

Naif Madkhali, a prominent Saudi who tweets often in support of the government, blasted Trump’s plan: “No and a thousand no’s,” he wrote under the hashtag #Down_with_the_deal_of_the_century.

In Bahrain, which hosted a U.S.-led conference last June on the Palestinian economy as part of Trump’s broader peace plan, opposition groups came out strongly against the proposal.

“Whoever today gives up the Holy Land of Palestine will tomorrow give up his land in order to preserve his seat,” tweeted Waad party leader Ibrahim Sharif. “Treachery is a stab in the back and is not a point of view.”

Any change to the consensus on refugees’ right of return to what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories would reverberate loudest in Jordan, which absorbed more Palestinians than any other country after Israel’s creation in 1948.

Palestinians, which by some estimates now account for more than half of Jordan’s population, hold full citizenship but are marginalized and seen as a political threat by some people of Jordanian descent.

“The biggest risk is to Jordan, where sentiment towards the issue and rising levels of discontent converge,” said Quilliam.

Analysts predicted most Egyptians would reject the plan but not present a problem to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, which has already cracked down harshly on dissent.

“I feel angry and helpless as an Egyptian, an Arab, a Muslim and above all a human…” prominent blogger Zainab Mohamed wrote of Trump’s plan.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry criticized Arab countries after their generally positive comments on Trump’s plan.

“Following the revelation of details of the American-Israeli conspiracy, it is unacceptable to hide behind ambiguous and murky statements in order to escape confronting this conspiracy,” it said in a statement.

However, a spokesman for Abbas said later he had received calls from Saudi King Salman and Lebanese President Michel Aoun “supportive of the Palestinian position”.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin in Riyadh, Lisa Barrington and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Amina Ismail and Ulf Laessing in Cairo, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ali Sawafta in West Bank; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Two tales of a city: Jerusalem tour guided by a Palestinian and an Israeli

Tourists take part in the Dual Narrative tour lead by tour guides, Noor Awad, a Palestinian from Bethlehem, and Lana Zilberman Soloway, a Jewish seminary student, stand next to the Dome of the Rock on the compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as The Noble Sanctuary, in Jerusalem's Old City, February 4, 2019. Picture taken February 4, 2019. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

By Rami Ayyub and Stephen Farrell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – On a Jerusalem plaza looking up at the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, a crowd gathers in front of two guides, listening attentively, a common sight in a city packed with pilgrims and tourists visiting its religious landmarks.

What is unusual is that one of the guides is Palestinian, one is Israeli, and they are taking turns to give their perspectives on the city known to Jews as Yerushalayim and to Arabs as al-Quds..

“We are in Jerusalem, which is the capital of the Jewish state. We are in one of the holiest places in the world for Christianity. And the keys are held by Muslim families,” said Israeli guide Lana Zilberman Soloway, who spoke first as the group reached the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Jesus is believed to be buried. “And all three coexist at the same time.”

Her counterpart, Noor Awad, from Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank just a few km (miles) away, took a different view of the status quo, noting that Muslims and Christians from the West Bank or Gaza need Israeli travel permits to worship here.

“For Palestinians, this is the capital of Palestine and the capital of their country,” said Awad, 28. “If you don’t get that permission, you can’t come actually here to pray. So the place is being used, and plays a lot into the two narratives and the conflict we have today.”

The two guides heard each other out politely, with the occasional quip or raised eyebrow. Two dozen tourists, mainly foreigners living in the city, peppered them with questions.

The company, MEJDI Tours, says its “Dual Narrative” tour was “created in partnership by Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, and Jews”. The weekly tours have been underway since last October.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital. The Old City and holy sites lie in the mainly Arab eastern half, captured by Israel in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians say the eastern half is occupied land and must become the capital of a future Palestinian state.

At the heart of Old City, the tour came to the hill known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

“Where the Dome of the Rock today is standing, the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven to talk to God,” Awad told the tour party, describing what Muslims consider the holiest spot on earth outside of the two Arabian cities Muhammad called home.

“That’s a very central event, somehow similar to the story of Moses talking to God from Mount Sinai.”

For Jews, it is the site of the biblical temple, destroyed by Babylonian conquerors, rebuilt and razed again under the Romans. The Western Wall, a restraint for the foundations built by Herod the Great 2000 years ago, is a sacred place of prayer.

“All the way down deep underground, underneath the golden dome, 5779 years ago, God created the world. 4,000 years ago we believe Abraham came to bind Isaac on that exact spot,” Zilberman Soloway said.

Dave Yedid, 26, a Jewish seminary student from Long Island, New York who came on the tour, said: “exactly what differs in the sort of Jewish Zionist narrative versus the Palestinian narrative is something I’ll take home with me.”

“I wanted to see those two side by side.”

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Stephen Farrell and Peter Graff)

Israeli forces kill 15 Palestinians in Gaza border protests: Gaza medics

A Palestinian demonstrator holds an axe during clashes with Israeli troops, during a tent city protest along the Israel border with Gaza, demanding the right to return to their homeland, the southern Gaza Strip March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) – At least 15 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, pressing for a right of return for refugees to what is now Israel, gathered at five locations along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) frontier where tents were erected for a planned six-week protest, local officials said. The Israeli military estimate was 30,000.

Families brought their children to the encampments just a few hundred meters (yards) from the Israeli security barrier with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, and football fields were marked in the sand and scout bands played.

But as the day wore on, hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organizers and the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier, where Israeli soldiers across the border kept watch from dirt mound embankments.

The military said its troops had used “riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” Some of the demonstrators were “rolling burning tires and hurling stones” at the border fence and at soldiers.

Two Palestinians were killed by tank fire, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said the two were militants who had opened fire at troops across the border.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces used mostly gunfire against the protesters, in addition to tear gas and rubber bullets. Witnesses said the military had deployed a drone over at least one location to drop tear gas.

Live fire was used only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence and at least two of the dead were Hamas operatives, an Israeli military official said.

Gaza health officials said one of the dead was aged 16 and at least 400 people were wounded by live gunfire, while others were struck by rubber bullets or treated for tear gas inhalation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that Israel was responsible for the violence and declared Saturday a national day of mourning.

The United Nations Security Council was due to meet later on Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, diplomats said.

Israeli military vehicles are seen next to the border on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, as Palestinians demonstrate on the Gaza side of the border, March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Israeli military vehicles are seen next to the border on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, as Palestinians demonstrate on the Gaza side of the border, March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

RIGHT OF RETURN

The protest presented a rare show of unity among rival Palestinian factions in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where pressure has been building on Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah movement to end a decade-old rift. Reconciliation efforts to end the feud have been faltering for months.

The demonstration was launched on “Land Day,” an annual commemoration of the deaths of six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.

But its main focus was a demand that Palestinian refugees be allowed the right of return to towns and villages which their families fled from, or were driven out of, when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

In a statement, the Israeli military accused Hamas of “cynically exploiting women and children, sending them to the security fence and endangering their lives”.

The military said that more than 100 army sharpshooters had been deployed in the area.

Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, had earlier urged protesters to adhere to the “peaceful nature” of the protest.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It argues that refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end collapsed in 2014.

There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and about 65 Palestinians were injured.

In Gaza, the protest was dubbed “The March of Return” and some of the tents bore names of the refugees’ original villages in what is now Israel, written in Arabic and Hebrew alike.

Citing security concerns, Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, blockades the coastal territory, maintaining tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier. Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighboring Sinai, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Ori Lewis and Stephen Farrell; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Gareth Jones)

Turkey chides Arabs for ‘weak’ reaction ahead of Jerusalem summit

Turkey chides Arabs for 'weak' reaction ahead of Jerusalem summit

By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey criticized what it said was a feeble Arab reaction to the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying on the eve of Wednesday’s Muslim summit in Istanbul that some Arab countries were scared of angering Washington.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused the United States of ignoring Palestinian claims to Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem and “trampling on international law”, has invited leaders from more than 50 Muslim countries to agree a response.

Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam’s third holiest site and has been at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last week recognizing the city as Israel’s capital angered many Muslim countries, but few governments have matched Turkey’s warning that it would plunge the world “into a fire with no end”.

Several countries had still not said who they would send to Istanbul, a Turkish minister said.

“Some Arab countries have shown very weak responses (on Jerusalem),” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. “It seems some countries are very timid of the United States.”

He said Egypt and the United Arab Emirates would send foreign ministers while Saudi Arabia had yet to say how it would participate. All three countries have delicate ties with Turkey, seeing links between the policies of Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted ruling AK Party and regional Islamist movements they oppose.

Other countries had also not said who they would send, Cavusoglu said, adding that the meeting of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries must stand up to what he called Washington’s “I am a super power, I can do anything” mentality.

“We will make a call for countries that have so far not recognized Palestine to do so now,” he said. “…We want the United States to turn back from its mistake.”

PROTESTS AND CLASHES

Trump’s announcement triggered days of protests across the Muslim world and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, an action not recognized internationally.

On Monday, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Beirut to protest at a march backed by Hezbollah, the heavily armed Iran-backed Shi’ite group whose leader called last week for a new Palestinian uprising against Israel.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is expected to attend the Istanbul summit, said his country supported a new uprising against Israel to “safeguard the Palestinian people’s rights”.

Rouhani said Muslim countries would “undoubtedly voice their protest to the world” at Wednesday’s meeting.

Iran supports several anti-Israel militant groups. The mainly Shi’ite country is also competing for power and influence in the Middle East with predominantly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally.

Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami said Trump’s decision would strengthen Israel, and accused some Muslim states of cooperating covertly with the Israeli government.

“We strongly believe that this decision is the result of interaction between Israel and some Muslim countries,” he told his Turkish counterpart in a telephone call on Tuesday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Qassem Soleimani, head of the branch of the Revolutionary Guards that oversees operations outside Iran, pledged “complete support for Palestinian Islamic resistance movements” on Monday.

The Trump administration says it remains committed to reaching peace between Israel and the Palestinians and its decision does not affect Jerusalem’s future borders or status.

It says any credible future peace deal will place the Israeli capital in Jerusalem, and ditching old policies is needed to revive a peace process frozen since 2014.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Frustration and fury among Arabs at Trump’s Jerusalem declaration

Frustration and fury among Arabs at Trump's Jerusalem declaration

By Mostafa Salem, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ellen Francis

CAIRO/AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Arabs denounced President Donald Trump’s plan to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as a slap in the face but few thought their governments would do much in response.

Trump phoned allies in the Middle East late on Tuesday to tell them the United States would acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday and prepare to move its embassy there.

“It incites feelings of anger among all Muslims and threatens world peace,” said Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, one of Islam’s most important institutions.

“The gates of hell will be opened in the West before the East,” he added, warning of the possible reaction.

Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem, which it seized in the 1967 war, is not recognized internationally, and under the U.S.-brokered Oslo accords of 1993 the city’s status was to be decided in negotiations with Palestinians.

Arab governments issued statements of concern or condemnation and emergency meetings of both the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have been called. But the U.S. decision has been taken.

In a bitterly divided region, backing for Palestinians is often seen as a unifying position, but it is also often a source of internal recriminations over the extent of that support.

A cartoon in al-Arabi al-Jadeed, a London-based Arabic news website, showed Trump raising a hand against an Arab as if to slap him, wearing a large glove marked with the Israeli flag.

In Lebanon, the Daily Star newspaper ran a full page photograph of Jerusalem on its cover with the headline “No offense Mr. President, Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”.

Around the Arab world – including Egypt and Jordan, its only two countries to recognize Israel – and across the bitter divide between allies of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, people denounced the move.

“Neither I nor my children nor my children’s children will give up our right to Palestine and Jerusalem,” said Hilmi Aqel, a Palestinian refugee born in Jordan’s al-Baqaa camp after his family fled the fighting that accompanied Israel’s creation.

“America does what it wants because it’s powerful and thinks it won’t feel the consequences … Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, not of Israel. It never can be,” said Nada Saeed, 24, a property broker in Cairo.

“This is a provocation for the Arabs,” said Mahdi Msheikh, 43, a taxi driver in Beirut’s Hamra district.

ETERNAL CAPITAL

However, few people Reuters interviewed on Wednesday expected their governments to take any real action.

“What saddens me most about this is that Palestine in the past was an ultimate rights cause for us as Syrians and Arabs … Palestine has retreated from our priorities,” said a lecturer at Damascus university, who asked not to be named.

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, pushed a plan in 2002 offering Israel peace with all Arab countries in return for a Palestinian state including east Jerusalem.

But a recent newspaper report suggested it was willing to compromise on several areas that are regarded by Palestinians and some other Arab countries as red lines. Riyadh has denied that and called on Trump not to move the embassy.

“The current events on the world stage and especially in the Gulf help Trump take this step because the most important thing is that Saudi Arabia is not against it,” said Adnan, a 52-year-old trader in Beirut.

The kingdom’s top clergy issued a mild statement saying Saudi Arabia supported Jerusalem, but did not explicitly denounce Trump’s move.

Many Saudi Twitter users posting under the hashtag “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine”, shared a film clip of the late King Faisal, who launched the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the West, pledging never to accept Israel.

But one Twitter user posting with a common Saudi family name said that while Muslims and Arabs would be provoked by the move, its top royals would not be. Instead, they would “suppress any move or call to jihad against the Zionist enemy”, he wrote.

REFUGEES

In Cairo, Khaled Abdelkhalik, a lawyer, said: “We paraded Trump as an ally of the Arabs, but he turned out dirtier than his predecessors.”

Jordan, which agreed peace with Israel in 1994 while the peace process with the Palestinians still seemed on track, held a special session of parliament.

“I call on my colleagues to tear up the treaty of humiliation and shame,” said MP Yahya Saoud, referring to the peace deal.

Jordan, like Lebanon, is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

“This is a conspiracy that is denying us our rights, the first of which is to return. They think we are a branch of thorns that they can step on and break,” said Fadia, a social worker with two daughters in Lebanon’s Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp.

“But we are a bomb. If they step on it, it explodes,” she said.

In Israel, analysts said that despite such warnings, they expected little violence or opposition.

“The moderate camp in the Arab world needs the United States as well as Israel in order to face their main threat, which is Iran,” said Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

“We may see some public announcements maybe denouncing the American decision, but in substantive terms I don’t think much will change.”

(Additional reporting by John Davison in Cairo, Tom Perry in Beirut, Ulf Laessing in Tunis, Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Stephen Kalin in Riyadh, Reem Shamseddine in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Writing By Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Jordanian soldier who shot Israeli schoolgirls walks free from jail

Ahmad Daqamseh, a Jordanian soldier convicted of killing seven Israeli schoolgirls on March 13, 1997, is seen at Um Alluol prison in the city of Mafraq, Jordan, July 30, 2013. Picture taken July 30, 2013. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – A Jordanian soldier who killed seven Israeli schoolgirls has been freed after serving 20 years in prison, with many Jordanians celebrating his release and calling him a national hero, witnesses and family sources said on Sunday.

Ahmad Daqamseh, 45, was taken to his family home in the village of Ibdir near the city of Irbid in northern Jordan where dozens of relatives and wellwishers gave him a rousing welcome.

Jordanian security services set up checkpoints around the village to restrict access as people flocked to see him.

In July 1997, a five-member Jordanian military tribunal found Daqamseh guilty of opening fire on a group of Israeli schoolchildren and killing seven of them before soldiers seized him and rushed to help the victims.

Daqamseh became a hero to many Jordanians and was embraced as a figurehead by a strong opposition movement led by Islamists and nationalists vehemently opposed to the country’s peace treaty with Israel.

During the trial, Daqamseh said the girls had mocked him while he was performing Muslim prayers in a border area returned to Jordanian sovereignty under the 1994 peace treaty.

He would have faced the death penalty but the tribunal ruled he was mentally unstable and sentenced him to life imprisonment, which is equivalent to 20 years under Jordanian law.

A few days after the incident, the late King Hussein personally apologized for the incident, traveling to Israel to visit and pay his respects to the girls’ families.

Many lawmakers welcomed his release. Neither the Jordanian nor the Israeli government made any comment.

“The release of this hero has cheered us. Israel has committed crimes against many Jordanians that were never accounted for,” Saleh Armouti, a leading parliamentarian, said.

One Israeli survivor, Keren Mizrahi, said Daqamseh’s release revived painful memories and he had served a light sentence.

“My feeling is that it’s like I’m being wounded again, mentally and physically, as if a knife is turned inside my heart,” she was quoted as saying on Israeli Channel 10 TV.

A defiant Daqamseh told Al Jazeera he did not recognize Israel, saying Arabs could not have normal ties with what he termed “the Zionist entity”.

Jordan’s biggest political opposition group, the Islamic Action Front, which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, hailed his release.

“We congratulate Jordan and the family of the hero Ahmad al Daqmaseh his release from prison,” it said in a statement.

Many lawmakers and politicians had lobbied to set him free in a kingdom where hostility toward Israel runs deep.

Many Jordanians see Israel as an occupier state which has driven them from their land. Palestinians originally from Jordan make up a large proportion of the country’s population.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

In bid to belong, Israeli Arabs sign up for Israel’s army

Saleh Khalil, 20, an Israeli Arab soldier from the Desert Reconnaissance battalion takes part in a drill near Kissufim in southern Israel

By Rinat Harash

KISUFIM, Israel (Reuters) – A battalion of soldiers crawls across the desert sand with assault rifles cocked. It’s a routine exercise, but these are no ordinary troops – they are Arabs who have chosen to fight for the Jewish state.

While the vast majority of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are Jews – and nearly all their conflicts have been against Arab nations – a trickle of Israeli Arabs volunteer for the army.

Most are Bedouin, a community native to southern Israel. But some are other Arab citizens of Israel, the descendants of Palestinians who remained during the 1948 war of the state’s founding, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced from their homes by advancing Israeli troops.

“Why did I decide to enlist?” asks Sergeant Yusef Salutta, a 20-year-old Arab from the north of Israel who serves with the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. The army rarely grants journalists access to the unit.

“Because I’m from this country and I love the country and I want to contribute,” he said. “Everyone should enlist, anybody who lives here should enlist.”

Yussef Saluta, 20, an Israeli Arab soldier from the Desert Reconnaissance battalion takes part in a drill near Kissufim in southern Israel

Yussef Saluta, 20, an Israeli Arab soldier from the Desert Reconnaissance battalion takes part in a drill near Kissufim in southern Israel November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The military conscripts young Jewish men and women, but not Arabs. It does not report exact numbers of Arab volunteers, but officials say there are several hundred among the 175,000 active personnel.

A silver Star of David necklace hung around Salutta’s neck, and he chatted with fellow-soldiers in Hebrew.

At a time when Israel is expanding its settlements in the West Bank and Palestinians fear they may never end up with their own state, some Israeli Arabs see volunteering for the military as betrayal.

“This phenomenon, we totally reject it,” said Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli-Arab member of parliament.

“What could go through a person’s mind when he serves against his people? We try to educate people that this is not the way.”

Volunteers say their families are supportive, and that they are prepared to take criticism.

“I don’t care about them,” said Salutta. “I need to be part of the country, to be like everybody else.”

The head of the IDF Minorities Unit, Colonel Wajdi Sarhan, said some Israeli-Arabs saw service as a way to improve their chances in life.

“(It) can get easier when you hold an Israeli soldier or reservist ID card,” said Sarhan.

“To be a soldier in the army, it’s actually an identity certificate of Israeli-ness, which can help integration.”

Israeli soldiers from the Desert Reconnaissance battalion take part in a drill near the Gaza Strip in southern Israel

Israeli soldiers from the Desert Reconnaissance battalion take part in a drill near the Gaza Strip in southern Israel November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

 

He said some recruits faced threats and harassment at home from fellow Israeli-Arabs. In some cases, they are allowed to travel to and from military duty out of uniform.

When it comes to Israel’s decades-old conflict against the Palestinians, there is no question – if they are required to fight, they must.

“I assume that anyone who decided to be a combat soldier in such a unit took this into consideration in advance,” said Sarhan.

(Writing by Luke Baker; editing by Andrew Roche)