Terrorism, at home, by fire

You don’t have to be a fire inspector to conclude that the wave of fires that has broken out nationwide is neither coincidence nor the result solely of weather conditions. The first one, two or even three blazes that broke out on Tuesday may have been a consequence of negligence — a cigarette carelessly thrown, or a bonfire not properly doused — then fueled by the winds to cause considerable damage.

But as of Wednesday, and especially Thursday, it has become clear that something more sinister is afoot. Fires are being deliberately started. And that’s the firm conclusion drawn by the professional investigators, who are not the kind of people to rush out with unfounded, dramatic proclamations to the media.

Some Israeli Arab politicians have called on their communities to act responsibly, and to take action to stop the fires. Others have resorted to their default denunciations of the ostensibly racist Israeli public, the right-wing inciters, who they assert are stirring up hostility against the Arab public with false claims of arson.

These politicians will have to do some soul searching when the flames are finally out. The facts cannot be avoided. This is an unprecedented wave of arson within sovereign Israel, apparently carried out for nationalistic motives, but not by Palestinians from the West Bank. The location of the fires within Israel’s borders presents us all with a sad and ugly new reality.

The wave of arson, the “terrorism of the fires,” is being fanned by a vicious incitement on Arabic social media, complete with calls to burn the Zionists and the Jews. Such calls are occasionally punctuated by comments opposing the arson attacks, but most of the postings are filled with hatred, anti-Semitism, and disgust for the state of Israel and the Jews.

This is anti-Semitic incitement of the worst kind. And it, in turn, is deepening a sense among the Israeli public that this is a case of organized action by nationalistic Arabs against the state of Israel. Yet pronouncements by some Israeli commentators that we now find ourselves in some kind of intifada may be premature.

As of this writing, it is not entirely clear how wide is the scale of these attacks, or even how many of the blazes are being caused by arson. It is a bitter irony, however, that the Israeli talk of an intifada plays into the hands of Hamas, which uses it to enthuse its supporters and to urge young Arabs to go out and set fires. From Thursday morning onward, Hamas has been making wide use of statements from right-wing politicians, analysts and others who have used the word intifada to try to convince young Palestinians that a new uprising is indeed erupting in front of their eyes.

The “terrorism of the fires” apparently began with a few individuals, who went into action when the first blazes broke out through negligence and weather, and the arson fed on itself after that.

From the moment that the fires began to dominate Israeli media, there were more and more arson attacks. And now others are jumping on the bandwagon. On Thursday evening, a Facebook group calling itself “the Coalition of Intifada Youths” claimed to take responsibility for the fires and called for the ongoing burning of Israel’s forests.

Whatever Hamas and other Palestinian groups might want to assert, however, what is happening in Israel began with no connection whatsoever to so-called Palestinian intifada youths.