Published: 1 May 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ON THE DAY BEFORE RAMADAN (April 23), Sheikh Safwat Freij and other adherents of the southern branch of Israel's Islamic Movement (IM) were busy in Kafr Qasim northeast of Tel Aviv dispatching food packages to churches in villages struck by Covid-19.
"At a time like this, you don't ask what's the name, what's the nationality, what's the religion?" says Freij, 48, a Kafr Qasim native. This explains a touching gesture the IM mayor of Kafr Qasim, Adel Badir, made towards the Jewish town of Bnei Brak, an epicentre of corona that was cordoned off by the army in a bid to stop the spread of the plague.
Badir offered the town’s residents food and medical help on behalf of the 25,000 citizens in Kafr Qasim. In the event, the government provided the assistance but leaders in Bnei Brak, home to fervently religious ultra-Orthodox Jews, were very grateful to Badir.
Sheik Freijsays this is evidence that the common struggle against the virus has drawn some Jews and Arabs closer. But he says it is an open question as to whether this will lead to greater equality for the Arab minority, which numbers a fifth of the country's population, especially given the continued tenure of the anti-Arab prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
What is certain is that Freij is setting a humanist tone amid the anguish of this corona-marred Ramadan, one with a global perspective. "Corona impacts the whole world because we are all in the same boat," Freij tells The Jewish Independent. "If I could help those suffering in New York, I would give them all my help and also those suffering in Italy and every place in the world."
With ten cases of Covid-19, Kafr Qassem is thus far better off than most neighbourhoods. Freij wants to keep it that way and he was pivotal in a decision to lock the mosques for Ramadan even though the health ministry permitted prayer there in groups of up to 19 people. "Can you do a selection and say one person will come to pray and the other not? Of course not," he says.
It is very moving that during a crisis one minority sector offers to help another.
Freij sees the role of religious leaders of all faiths as being to offer hope amid the mounting death toll and anxiety. "The most bitter and dangerous enemy of ours is despair. When it enters inside people, nothing good will come out. We always have to speak of hope and shared living, of peace and security for everyone."
The same idea is shared by Bnei Brak municipality spokesman Chezi Schechter, who uses the Arabic word "inshallah" when asked if he thought the common fight against corona would improve the relations between the various segments of Israeli society.
With regard to Kafr Qasim's offer to help, he says the Arabs there and the ultra-Orthodox Jews of his city have one key thing in common: they are both ''minority sectors" in a country dominated largely by secular Jews and nationalists.
" It is very moving that during a crisis one minority sector offers to help another."
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In many Arab communities in Israel, a closing in of sorts is taking place in which people like Freij, who normally view the police as biased against Arabs, now help them ensure that stay-at-home lockdown guidelines are kept by residents to contain the virus.
"At times, senior people including police ask my opinion about corona. The police ask if we have any religious directives or fatwas (Islamic legal rulings) that can be influential. The police try to use these to face corona.
"People never objected to police as a body for law and order; it was the behaviour of the police in Arab areas that people opposed. But now with corona, it is clear that police imposing regulations is good for all of us.
"It is essential that the police be present in the cities and at intersections because we are fighting corona, an enemy you can't see and which we don't know enough about." Freij adds.
Kafr Qasim was the site of an atrocity by Israeli paramilitary border police on October 29, 1956. Forty-nine of its residents were shot dead on their way home from their fields ostensibly for violating a curfew they were never informed about. Freij's father was wounded during the massacre. No one was substantially punished, leaving a lingering feeling of injustice to this day.
To my regret, equality has entered through a negative door, not a positive one. What value is it that I'm afraid like the others? Equality should be positive.
The sense that Arabs and Jews are not equal is still very palpable for Freij. Coronavirus has thus far created a negative sense of equality, he avers. "Yes, we are equal in feelings, the sense of fear for our families and for ourselves. All of us can't move freely, we're all restricted, we're all afraid, have needs and are helpless.
"To my regret, equality has entered through a negative door, not a positive one. What value is it that I'm afraid like the others? Equality should be positive."
It will depend on the government whether the joint battle against Covid-19 ultimately paves the way for genuine positive enhancement of the status of Arabs in Israel, Freij believes. "If I start to feel that in Kafr Qasim there is infrastructure, a strong municipality and people with senior positions in the state, I will say we are moving in the right direction towards equality. But if equality just means they come to eat falafel, humus and knafe, no thank you."
Possibly for the first time, a large number of Israeli Jews are realising the extent of the substantial contribution of Arabs to medicine in the country as Arab and doctors and nurses work shoulder to shoulder with Jewish counterparts to treat Jewish and Arab victims of Covid-19.
Still, Freij harbours doubts there will be change for the better for Arab citizens of Israel in the post-pandemic era. "After corona it will be worse economically for everyone. Even during the good periods, they didn't create equality and give Arabs their rights. So how can we expect that when it's worse they will do so? Still, I hope and pray that it will happen."
READ MORE
Arab Israelis partner with police, IDF to avert Ramadan coronavirus surge (Times of Israel)
‘We don’t want the government coming in only when we have protests,’ says one local leader, asking for help maintaining law and order, as others cite the chance to build trust
Palestinian PM's COVID-19 response gets high marks, but will it be enough? (Al-Monitor)
Palestinians are generally very happy with the performance of their prime minister in confronting the coronavirus and can easily see him as president; the harder question is whether there will be a Palestine to be president of
West Bank, Gaza eye return to normal after two days without new coronavirus cases (Haaretz)
There are no longer COVID-19 patients in intensive care or on ventilators in either area
Photo: A paramedic handles a swab at a drive-through testing site in the northern Israeli city of Tamra on March 31 (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)
