Amnon Lin, a former Knesset Member and authority on the Middle East, told Israel National News' Hebrew-language radio that a segment of the Arab-Israeli community is taking its orders from global jihadist organizations, such as Hizbullah and Hamas.
"We need to get used to the idea that today, among Arab Israelis, there is a very extremist group - led by the Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, Kamal Khatib and others - who maintain very close relations with organizations in the Islamic movement outside Israel, be it Hamas, the Hizbullah or other elements, such as Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon - the Muslim Brotherhood. Israeli Arabs no longer live on an isolated island," Lin explained.
Connections between Israeli Arabs and Islamist groups worldwide, Lin said, are by way of the Internet, telephone, through the mass media, and more. This facilitates events such as the pre-planned rioting in Jerusalem this week, which can be essentially orchestrated from afar.
"Nowadays," Lin told Arutz Sheva, "Arab Israelis have many methods by which to receive guidance, and even orders and instructions, that 'you must do such-and-such' and thus place the struggle for Jerusalem - that is, the battle for the Temple Mount - at the center."
Asked by the interviewer if this constitutes, in effect, an operational arm within Israel of the global jihadist movements, Lin replied: "I am certain that [the Islamist leadership in Israel] is an operational arm that acts in full coordination with the leadership of the Hamas groups or of Hizbullah. It is all networked by the extremist fundamentalist Islamic movement."
INN: "If so, then we have to treat it like a spy network, because we are a country that has to deal with existential threats."
Lin: "I don't think you or I need to encourage the security services. They do their job well."
Asked if he sees the justice system at fault for the growth of Islamic fundamentalist activity, Lin replied that, in his estimation, the legal penalties for terrorist activities are not sufficient to deter those who want to attack innocent Jews.
"The only thing that surprises me," added Lin, "is that we, Jews in the State of Israel, apparently have not yet learned, and are not investigating or aspiring to learn well, the sad truth that describes the situation among the Arab Israelis - [that they are] not separate from the general Arab public or from the Islamic fundamentalist public in the Arab countries."
Amnon Lin, a graduate of the Shomer HaTza'ir Kibbutz movement in pre-state Israel, started his political career as in the mainstream socialist Mapai party led by David Ben-Gurion. Lin was responsible for Mapai party activities among the Israeli Arab sector in the 1950s and '60s. By the 1970s, Lin had switched parties and joined the Likud under Menachem Begin. Then, due to local political issues in his hometown of Haifa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lin rejoined the left-wing Labor party, Mapai's successor. His last term in the Knesset ended in 1988.
Lin has published several publications and many articles dealing with the Arab refugees of 1948, the Arab states, politics in the Arab Israeli community, as well as on the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Source: INN
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