Gavriel Fiske, publishing in the Times of Israel, writes the following:
Police arrested three men Tuesday for threatening their relative, an Arab Israeli teen who, in a strikingly pro-Israel video posted online, wraps himself in an Israeli flag and
expresses solidarity with three kidnapped Israeli youths
In the video, uploaded to YouTube earlier this week, 17-year-old Mohammad Zoabi of Nazareth called for the release of the three teens, affirmed his own identity as an Israeli, and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop negotiating with Palestinian terrorists.
Another relative, the controversial MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad), distanced herself from his comments Tuesday and said that, contrary to his assertion, the kidnappers were “not terrorists.”
Mohammad Zoabi’s video below.
I want to focus on two aspects of this story, the fact that MK Hanin Zoabi does not consider the kidnappers to be terrorists and the fact that Mohammad Zoabi has been threatened with death by at least three family members for daring to stand up for Jews.
Israeli parliamentarian Zoabi does not consider the kidnappers to be terrorists because she believes, even as a Knesset member, that Israel is a terrorist country and that the Jews have no rights to autonomy and self-defense on Jewish land. In fact, she does not believe in any such concept as “Jewish land.” There is plenty of Arab lands and Muslim lands that span a very big part of the globe even well beyond the Middle East, but the very notion of Jewish land on the land where Jews come from is entirely anathema to Hanin Zoabi who, without question, should be removed from any position of authority in the Israeli government.
By claiming that the kidnappers of Yifrah, Shaar, and Frenkel are not terrorists she is essentially claiming that Arabs have every right to kidnap Jewish youths. And, astonishingly, she says so as a member in good standing (sort-of) within the Israeli parliament. Although I very much hope that she is shortly removed from that position, it should speak volumes to the liberal nature of Israeli democracy that they would even allow malicious anti-Zionists to be government representatives.

When the kids were swiped Israeli-Arabs handed out sweets to children and to one another in celebration of this “great victory.” Under no circumstances would the Jewish communities around the world ever celebrate the kidnapping of anyone and certainly would never consider the kidnapping, by Jews, of perfectly innocent students of Islamic theology to be anything but entirely revolting, immoral, and reprehensible.In the liberal west we like to think that all cultures are more or less the same and that we all pretty much want the same things in life. We want security and prosperity and happiness and freedom for ourselves and our children and our friends and our community and our country and, hopefully, for the rest of the world.These are western values and they are good values, worthy of being championed, but we must cease going on the assumption that everyone shares these values.They do not, but thankfully Mohammad Zoabi of Nazareth does.So, we start in small ways where we can.We plant seeds.
Michael Lumish is the editor of Israel Thrives , a regular contributor to the Times of Israel and the Elder of Ziyon.
Mohammad Zoabi is an incredibly brave young man, who depsite having been brought up witin an Islamic culture, has demonstrated by his stance that he has embraced Judeo-Christian values.
Tragically, this is regarded as a crime in his culture, one which can be punished by death.
The Jewish community needs to support our friends.
He is a friend.