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Israeli Arabs

Israeli Arabs will 'never do national service'


By Stan Goodenough
December 18, 2007

Israel's 1.2 million Arab citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living and without question more freedom than any other country's Arab population, but are too tight with their "Palestinian" brothers to ever agree to do national service in Israel. This is according to the founder of the Israeli Arab Islamic Movement, Sheikh Abdallah Darwish, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post Sunday.

Darwish also said that the Islamic world, including the Hamas, would be willing to talk about recognizing Israel after a Palestinian state has been established on all lands Israel took from Jordan and Egypt in 1967.

Darwish, who has a long history of cultivating hatred for Israel among his followers, said the Israeli Arab who volunteered to serve the country from which he received so many benefits "would be seen as an enemy to the Palestinian people (sic)."

An Arab accused of such "treachery" would be "forced to join the Palestinian resistance [Ed: read terrorist] movement against Israel," Darwish continued, without any sense that he would regret such an "inevitability."

The sheikh is described as one of the "more moderate" leaders of the Islamic Movement.

Among his beliefs: Israel can never be recognized as a JEWISH state; Israel cannot be recognized at all unless it leaves all lands it took control of in 1967; and an Israeli failure to go along with the so-called Saudi plan for peace will cause future generations of Jews to curse today's Israeli leaders.

The Post credits Darwish's Islamic Movement with bringing about "a renaissance of Islam among what was once a relatively secular Arab populace" by building mosques in Israel and injecting Islamic content into the Arab Israeli school curricula.

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