Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle · 22 April 1976
CP-1976-046
Shattered Illusions
Arab Riots Show Failure of Israeli Policies
By Yosef Goell, Jerusalem Post News Service
Transcribed from the clipping
March 30, 1976 will be a day to remember in the history of Israel’s Arab minority; in this at least Rakah, the predominantly Arab nationalist Communist Party, has succeeded. For the first time since the state was established, Israel’s Arab citizens dared attack Israeli soldiers and policemen — including a not insubstantial number of Druse and Arab servicemen.
It is a watershed date, which should hasten a long, overdue reassessment of policy towards the Arab minority. What happened among Israel’s Arab citizens on that Tuesday; why did it turn out the way it did? And what lies ahead on this new volatile front that has opened for Israel?
Hundreds of rioting Arab men and boys vented their rage and hatred against Israel in a fashion that elicited an extreme reaction from the security forces, which had been posted in the Galilee and the Sharon region in anticipation of trouble on the day of the Rakah-fomented strike.
Several thousand Arab citizens of Israel passively supported the strike by closing their shops and staying home from work and school.
In the midst of the passions engendered by these dramatic events, it is easy to forget that hundreds of thousands of Israeli Arabs — the silent majority — went to work, plowed their fields, attended school and otherwise went about the normal course of their workaday lives — although they were certainly aware of the violent events around them.
What accounts for the difference in behavior?
Cite this clipping
"Shattered Illusions," Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 22 April 1976, p. Five. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1976-046. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1976-046
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
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