A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighbourhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel, March 22, 2026. REUTERS/Roei Kastro
Algemeiner News: A Message of Hope-Israeli Negev Bedouin’s Response to Iranian Rockets
by Ahron Shapiro
The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants Palestinians to believe that Israeli Arabs hate their country — Israel — and the Jews living in it.
The reality, however, is not like that at all.
When commenting on Israeli Arabs, whom they call the Palestinians from “Interior Palestine,” or from the “lands occupied in ’48” (the year Israel was established) they vigorously promote the lie that Israel targets Israeli Arabs.
Commentary by columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, in the official PA daily and former advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs, is a case in point:
Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul
The members of the Palestinian people in the Interior [i.e., Palestinian term for Israel] … reject all the actions of falsification and coexistence between the true Arab Palestinian narrative and the fake and false Zionist narrative, because confirming the Zionist narrative … means confirming the legitimacy and eligibility of the Zionist presence on the Arab Palestinian land.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2021]
But following recent Iranian missile attacks against the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona, nearby Israeli Bedouin Arab communities posted in “local Facebook groups to offer their homes, food, and messages of solidarity” [The Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2026] to Israelis/Jews harmed by the rockets.
This is the exact opposite response of what you would expect from a “hostile” population:
Israeli Arab Bedouin school principal Sager Abu Srehan: “I think the real reality is what matters. We live together with the Jewish society as brothers, on the same land and under the same sky.
We study together, work together, and this country belongs to all of us. We are people who belong here and who love our country … The partnership between us as a society, with many examples of cooperation, is what creates the beautiful colors in the mosaic of Israeli society.” [emphasis added]
[Israeli school principal Sager Abu Srehan, The Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2026]
The dystopian image that the PA promotes of Israeli society tumbles like a deck of cards when confronted with the Israeli reality as a democratic country where all citizens — Jews and Arabs — are treated equally according to law. It is a level of freedom that, ironically, the PA does not come close to bestowing upon its own population.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
