Fear Druze-bedouin Blood Feud over Murder of Bedouin Sheikh

Officials here are keeping an uneasy watch on the Druze and Bedouin communities, both loyal to Israel, for fear that a blood feud may erupt between them over the murder on Jan. 12 of Bedouin Sheikh, Hamad Abu Rabia, a member of the Knesset. His successor, Sheikh Jaber Muadi, a Druze, was sworn in last Tuesday. The situation was complicated by the disclosure over the weekend that the prime suspects are Muadi’s three sons who were arrested shortly after the killing.

Muadi, like Abu Rabia, is a member of the United Arab List, a one-man Knesset faction affiliated with the opposition Labor Alignment. A bitter dispute developed between the two men in recent months because Abu Rabia refused to step down in favor of Muadi in compliance with what Muadi claimed was a prior agreement to rotate the Knesset seat. Muadi says he and his colleague had a reconciliation when they met at the Labor Party convention last month.

Muadi is not a suspect in the murder. But the police official heading the investigation, Nitzav Karti, said at a press conference Friday that there is sufficient evidence to press charges against his sons Seif, Dahesh and Heil. When Muadi entered the Knesset building to be sworn in, he was escorted by a heavily armed guard and the ceremony was kept secret until the last minute to forestall a possible assault on him.

So far, no incidents have been reported in either the Druze or Bedouin communities. The latter are known to have been infuriated by the murder, especially because Abu Rabia was the only Bedouin representative in parliament. Muadi is known to have enemies in his own home village of Yerka, near Acre in western Galilee.

DRUZE CLOSING RANKS

But some 3000 Druze demonstrated their solidarity with him at a rally he organized in Yerka yesterday. The rally may have been a warning to Bedouins that the Druze were closing ranks. Muadi hinted that he expected trouble. In a radio interview yesterday he urged that 5000 soldiers be posted to guard Druze villages against possible vigilante action by Bedouins following the identification of his sons as suspects.

He also implied a veiled warning to the Israeli authorities. Muadi and other speakers at the rally stressed that the Druze community traditionally unites when it is faced with external threats. They criticized “hostile stories in the press which aim at slandering the entire Druze community.”

Muadi claimed he had just received word that several Druze soldiers were refusing to return to their army units and he asked them to return and maintain order. There was no confirmation of that report. But Muadi’s statement was interpreted as a hint that the loyalty of the Druze community was conditional upon the State’s fair treatment of his sons. Israel’s Druze community numbers about 45,000.

APPEAL TO DRUZE, BEDOUIN COMMUNITIES

Paradoxically, there have been few expressions of hostility toward the Druze by the Bedouins. Relatives of Abu Rabia said their quarrel was with the Muadi family. When a Druze delegation visited the Bedouins to express condolences, they were treated cordially. Nevertheless, Police Superintendent Arye Ivtzan appealed to both communities not to take the law into their own hands. The son and nephew of the slain leader said Friday that they have “full confidence in the police and in the justice of the State.”

They added, however, that it was wrong for anyone to “benefit” from a murder, a clear reference to Muadi’s ascension to Abu Rabia’s Knesset seat. Some Bedouins have called on Muadi to step down in favor of the next man on the United Arab List slate who is a Bedouin.

Muadi insists that he took the seat as “a matter of honor” and indicated he would not be very active in the 4-5 months that remain of the present Knesset. “I’m sick and tired of politics. I have no interest in going into politics,” Muadi told reporters after he was sworn in.

He said he would not use his Knesset immunity to block police inquiries into Abu Rabia’s murder. But he complained that the police and press were “discriminating against” him and his sons. He alleged his sons were being denied legal counsel, but Karti denied this.

Meanwhile, Likud MK Ehud Olmert has demanded that Muadi be suspended from the Knesset for the duration of the legal process. But Knesset Speaker Yitzhak Berman said today that Muadi would remain a Knesset member with all privileges he is entitled to. Muadi is not a new-comer to the Knesset. He represented the United Arab List for 25 years prior to the last elections and also held sub-Cabinet posts as Deputy Minister of Communications and of Agriculture in Labor-led governments.

In the late 1940s Muadi cooperated with Jews who were fighting to secure Galilee within the boundaries of the new State of Israel. After Israel’s independence was declared he became a key figure in the Druze and Arab communities and was well known for his close ties with the Israeli establishment.