Israeli-Arab bereaved mothers protest pandemic of violence, crime

Aug 13, 2020

The helicopter disaster on Feb. 4, 1997, left 73 Israeli troops dead. It also led to the creation of Four Mothers, a movement founded by four Israeli women with sons serving in Lebanon, to protest the ongoing Israeli presence in that country and to call for an immediate withdrawal, with or without an agreement with the Lebanese government. It took three years since the movement was founded, but by May 25, 2000, all Israeli troops had returned home, following a decision by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Just over two decades later, Israel is witnessing the creation of a new protest movement, this one by Arab mothers of victims of the wave of violence and crime that has swept Arab society over the past few years. The purpose of their protests is to raise public awareness of this violence and put the problem on the national agenda, so that it can finally be tackled and resolved.

On Aug. 11, a march by a group of Arab mothers left Haifa’s Halisa neighborhood for President Reuven Rivlin’s residence in Jerusalem. Leading the march is Mona Khalil, whose son Khalil, 28, was killed last June. She is joined by several other mothers whose children were also victims of violence, and by Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Arab Joint List. The group has marched through the Megiddo Intersection, Wadi ‘Ara and the town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye, with the goal of ending their trek outside the president’s residence in Jerusalem. On Aug. 9, the march had about 50 participants; by Aug. 10, there were over 200.

Will these mothers who lost loved ones succeed, where Arab men and Arab political parties failed? Will they succeed in forcing the Israeli authorities to put an end to the wave of violent crime, which has already claimed 46 victims since the start of July? Will they be able to repeat the success of the Four Mothers movement two decades ago, which brought about the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon in May 2000?

In a conversation with Al-Monitor, Khalil, organizer of the march, said, “I lost my son Khalil two months ago when he was shot dead in the Halisa neighborhood. That was when I decided to do something that would put the issue of violence on the public agenda. I wanted to wake the police and the local authorities from their lethargy, to get them to move and to compel them to fight the violence that is so prevalent in Arab society.” Explaining how the initiative came about, she noted, “I came up with the idea of the march as something that could evoke interest in the cause. I then approached Knesset member Ayman Odeh about it. He supported the idea from the very beginning and informed me that he would be joining us.”