SARAH HONIG
The kneejerk response in Israel’s Arab sector is to declare general strikes to underscore what is hyped as “popular anger.”
The latest expression of such “anger” took place last week when throughout Israel’s Arab communities businesses shut down for a day. Doubtless many were forced to do so but the truth is that many others were willingly swept up in the well-orchestrated volatility.
What did they aim to achieve? Whom did they aim to hurt?
Surely they realized that they are only shooting themselves in the foot. Their strikes simply and serially fail to awe the mystified Jewish majority. The only effect strikes have, if any, is to hone even further the already deeply ingrained impression that this country’s Arabs side unequivocally with Israel’s existential and implacable foes.
To resort to extreme understatement, this in no way contributes to the cause of coexistence.
Hot on the heels of a spate attacks against Jewish civilians in nearly every nook of this country, the Arab general strike invariably helped establish an association – whether subliminal or conscious – between Arab businessmen and the recurrent stabbings, shootings, fire-bombings and rock-throwing.