Israel plans to bypass some of its Arab towns in war manoeuvres
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[November 12, 2021]
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will bypass
some of its Arab towns in transporting ground forces to future war
fronts, a senior army general said on Friday, citing lessons from
sectarian violence that erupted in the country in May during clashes in
the Gaza Strip.
Arabs, most of them Muslim, constitute a fifth of Israel's population.
Many identify as Palestinian. Some mounted protests against the Gaza
campaign that spiralled into bloody street confrontations with police
and Jewish citizens.
Major-General Yitzhak Turgeman, chief of logistics for Israel's
military, said it had since marked out 1,600 km (1,000 miles) of dirt
tracks which could serve as wartime alternatives to roads, and had set
up new anti-riot units to protect convoys.
"I'm really concerned about... the impact of violent disturbances on
internal security and movement of transport convoys," Turgeman told
Maariv newspaper in an interview.
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He said major deployments were now unlikely to happen through Wadi Ara,
a valley highway among close clusters of Arab towns that leads to the
northern fronts with Lebanon and Syria.
"In wartime, the IDF (Israel Defence Force) will do what is right in
order to brings its units to the war theatre as quickly as possible, and
we have enough alternatives," Turgeman said.
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![](../images/111221PIX/news_n27.jpg)
Israeli Border Police force members patrol near the entrances to
the Arab-Jewish town of Lod, Israel May 13, 2021. REUTERS/Corinna
Kern/File Photo
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The remarks came after video clips on social media
showed army vehicles wending through Umm al-Fahm, an Israeli Arab
city, during a drill. The municipality issued an open letter
condemning the presence as "unacceptable and hurtful to residents'
feelings".
Israeli Arabs have long complained of discrimination and neglect by
the state. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's governing coalition,
which includes an Arab Islamist party, has sought to mend relations
with a crackdown on crime plaguing the community.
Bennett's internal security minister, Omer Barlev, described police
operations to seize illegal firearms in Israeli Arab communities as
a further safeguard for future military deployments.
In the absence of such actions, a war could see "100 armed (Israeli)
Arabs suddenly go down to this or that road or artery and hold up
for 48 hours a division that has to deploy on the Lebanese border
within 24 hours," Barlev told Army Radio last month.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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