Israeli Arabs

Police have arrested 41 Israeli Arabs and three Palestinians from the West Bank on suspicion of forming an underground, illegal possession of arms and conspiracy to attack police and soldiers, Israeli police said Tuesday. Of those arrested, 24 have been indicted, said Alik Ron, police chief in northern Israel. Ron stressed that such cases are unusual among Israel's Arab minority, who are mostly law-abiding.

Pope Benedict XVI attended a classical concert Wednesday that doubled as a political event in which the leader of the Catholic Church called for peace in the Middle East. Conductor Daniel Barenboim led members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a group comprised of Israeli and Arab musicians. The private concert featured performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and 6, and was intended to celebrate the feast day of St. Benedict. The event was held at the Pope's summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, south of Rome.

Israeli forces arrested seven Israeli Arabs on Monday who allegedly helped a Palestinian suicide bomber blow up a commuter bus. A leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas was detained in a separate raid. The seven Israeli Arabs, all members of the same family, are accused of involvement in an Aug. 4 suicide bombing on a bus at the Meron junction in northern Israel. The blast killed nine passengers and pedestrians.

Any soccer fanatic gearing up for the World Cup will tell you that national pride is on the line with every game. When that pride is caught up in geopolitics, keeping score can get even more complicated. The documentary "After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United" looks at Bnei Sakhnin, a soccer team from an Arab city in Israel that won that country's national cup in 2004. National identity is a fraught issue for the country's Arab Israelis, who often feel like outsiders in their country.

Four Arab citizens of Israel have been arrested on suspicion of killing three Israeli soldiers inside their tents at a military camp, an attack that ignited a weeklong round of reprisal raids by Israeli forces in Lebanon last month. Upon announcing the arrests on Wednesday, Israeli officials moved quickly to soften the shock that the guerrillas were not Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, but Israeli Arabs.

More than 50 protesters, along with 15 police officers, were injured Sunday in riots that broke out in an Israeli Arab village after police tried to evacuate land the army has claimed for a firing range. Residents of Muawiya village near the northern Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm battled police for hours with stones and Molotov cocktails as officers fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets.

Thousands of Israeli Arab protesters marched through the streets of this biblical town Saturday demanding better protection for holy sites after a troubled family set off firecrackers inside a major Christian shrine. The emotional reaction to the attack at the Church of the Annunciation reflected the fragile status of Israel's Arab minority, which has long alleged discrimination at the hands of the Jewish majority.

Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, in what was seen as a thinly veiled endorsement of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, called Sunday on Israeli Arabs to "push forward the peace process" by voting in Israel's parliamentary elections next month.

With his impassioned complaint, Halil Ibrahim Hasarme sounded like thousands of Palestinians who have felt robbed of their land to make room for new Soviet immigrants coming in waves to Israel. "I will die here rather than give it up," he told visitors as he threw up his hands in a gesture that spoke more of dejection than defiance. Hasarme is not, however, Palestinian, and he does not live in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian uprising has triggered waves of solidarity among Arab citizens of Israel, who are likely to defect from mainstream Israeli parties in Tuesday's elections. With a voting population capable of electing 14 or 15 members of the Knesset, Israeli Arabs will probably contribute only 3 or 4 to the mainstream parties; the rest of the vote will go to three mainly Arab parties, two of which are pariahs in Israeli politics.

The Jewish state of Israel is a diverse nation that has absorbed people from more than 140 countries. Among its population are about 1.5 million Arabs, including Israeli Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, who in a May 23 Times interview lashed out at Israel, using inflammatory words like "racist" and "fascist." As is his style, Tibi failed to back up his white-hot rhetoric with hard facts. In 1947, Arab leaders rejected a United Nations resolution to form an Arab state alongside a Jewish one. This caused the displacement of some 600,000 Palestinian refugees.

In 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, a new kind of illegal gambling sprang up in Israel: suicide-bombings roulette. The rules were simple: People placed bets on where the next attack in Israel would take place. If you got it right, you could make a killing. Naturally, Jerusalem gave the shortest odds. Betting on a bomb going off there seemed like a sure thing. Still, people ruined their lives getting this seemingly solid prediction wrong. Not as many as those whose lives were directly ruined by the bombings themselves, but there were still enough examples to teach us, yet again, that irrational rage is a tough thing to predict.

Disgust greets release Re "Gravely ill Lockerbie bomber wins early release," Aug 21, and "An ugly act of 'mercy,' " Editorial, Aug. 21 I agree that the release of the Lockerbie bomber was disgusting. Even more disgusting was the hero's welcome given to this criminal in Libya, as you reported. That country, where they care so little for innocent human life, should be the target of boycotts. Where are the church leaders and academic groups? Marshall Giller Winnetka, Calif.

Re "The kingmaker?" Opinion, Feb. 11 Let me get this straight: It is because of right-wing politics that the peace process has foundered. Right-wing politics. Not Hamas rockets. Not Hezbollah missiles. Right-wing politics. M.J. Rosenberg has confused cause and effect. It is not right-wing politics but a combination of the failed policies of successive governments of all political stripes, Palestinian intransigence and the rise of the Hamas terror state in Gaza that have rendered Israel bereft of left-leaning peace options.

Portraits of two Israeli Arab politicians, defaced by red Hebrew letters reading "Shame and Disgrace!" flashed on a giant video screen. Jeering erupted in the hall, packed for the tough-talking candidate whose bid to lead Israel is propelled by unease about its Arab minority. Avigdor Lieberman's attacks on Arabs have shaken up the race for parliament and prime minister.

Israeli police blocked an attempt by Israeli Arabs to sail from Israel to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip with food and medical supplies. Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip has been stepped up in recent weeks amid a surge of violence. An Islamic group in Israel composed mainly of Arab citizens of the Jewish state organized the aid effort. But police in the port of Jaffa instructed the boat's owner not to set off.

The leaders of Israel's largest and most powerful Arab organization were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of disguising millions of dollars as charitable donations from overseas, then slipping the cash to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The crackdown on the Islamic Movement further undermined the already shaky relationship between Israel and its 1.2 million Arab citizens, a beleaguered minority that complains of ongoing discrimination and intolerance.

Israel's attorney general said he would not indict police officers involved in the killing of 13 Israeli Arab protesters in 2000, prompting accusations of discrimination from Arab citizens. Menachem Mazuz's decision in effect closed the case against police over the protesters' deaths soon after the eruption of a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "There is insufficient evidence . . . to indict any of the suspects," Mazuz's decision said. Police opened fire to disperse Israeli Arabs who threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police and passersby in October 2000 during demonstrations in support of the Palestinian uprising.