{"id":58,"date":"2017-03-23T18:14:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T18:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/?p=58"},"modified":"2017-04-24T18:59:28","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T18:59:28","slug":"a-true-story-about-jewish-and-arab-israelis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/a-true-story-about-jewish-and-arab-israelis\/","title":{"rendered":"A True Story About Jewish and Arab Israelis"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. <\/em><\/span>(Deuteronomy 10:19)<\/h4>\n

In 2015, Sara Zoabi<\/a> was one of the favorite contestants in the Israeli Master Chef reality show. She didn\u2019t win but announced in front of the entire nation that she was “an Arab Muslim and an Israeli Zionist,\u201d and added, \u201cI may get killed for saying this, but I truly believe that we as Arabs have no better place than Israel.\u201d
\nHer son Muhammad<\/a>, a high school student at that time, became famous in 2014, just before the war with Hamas, after he posted a video on Facebook asking for the return of the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped by Hamas, while holding a big Israeli flag in front of him.
\nAfter receiving many threats (even death) from Israeli Muslims he had to go into hiding. Today Muhammad has many followers on Facebook where he dedicates his time to promote love and acceptance of Israel. He considers Israel his homeland\u00a0 and says he loves Israel. He sees the anti-Israel propaganda around the world as spreading lies and based on hate, and he wants to speak out against it.
\nMany are furious with him when they hear him speak the truth in Israel\u2019s favor. But not all Israeli Arabs are anti-Israel. Many are like Sara and Muhammad, but are afraid to speak up.
\nIn January, I (Bella) attended this year\u2019s Likud party members get-together in Eilat. (Last year I joined the Likud party as a member. Likud is the major government party headed by PM Netanyahu.) There I met many Knesset ministers, and heard speeches about their different achievements and plans.\u00a0 I also met Sarah Zoabi there and we talked for a while. She was willing to be interviewed by me for our newsletter.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI define myself as a proud Israeli, Zionist, Arab, and Muslim.\u201d She said, \u201cand as a Zionist who loves Israel, I support the right of the Jewish people to their own state in the Holy land –\u00a0 the state of Israel. Throughout history and up to today, the Jewish people have been suffering from genocidal attacks and persecutions, so they deserve their own state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Jewish people give honor to humanity. The state of Israel can be an example to the whole world. I was born and raised here, gave birth to my 2 children here. I live here among Israeli Jews and don\u2019t feel like a second class citizen. The Apartheid accusation against Israel makes me laugh. Even the word doesn\u2019t fit Israel. What is apartheid? You could have seen it in South Africa. But here I don\u2019t see Jews living separate from Arabs. On the contrary, we are integrated in the Israeli society, we work together (there are many Arab doctors in Israeli hospitals, Arab actors in Israeli theater, Arab contestants in Israeli reality shows, and even a beauty queen). There are also Arabs in the Israeli government and in the army.
\n\u201cIsraelis honor Muslim women. There is equal rights and equal responsibilities. I don\u2019t hear words of hate because of skin color or religion. My parents raised me to honor the other person without any connection to his or her race, color or religion.
\n\u201cWe (the Israeli Muslim Arabs), have a good life here. I am willing to give my life for the state of Israel. I pray God will keep Israel and the Jewish people safe and alive. The Jewish people are the chosen people. I have learned this also in the Koran. Some say that because the Jews sinned against God they are no longer His people. I don\u2019t know, all I know is that there is a God in heaven and He is the judge. I know this, that the Jewish people are still the chosen people and the Holy land is the gift that God gave to His chosen people, and I have to accept this and honor it.
\n\u201cUp to today, many promote annihilation of the Jewish state and the Jews. But I, a Muslim Arab who is active in Israel’s advocacy, want to tell all Arabs and especially the Israeli Arabs, wake up. We live in Paradise. About a million Arabs live in Israel among Jews. They are not suffering like the Arabs who live under Arab rulers. In Israel there is freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. In Israel Muslims, Druze and Christians enjoy conditions that in Arab countries are being prevented. I believe that Israeli citizens, regardless of their religion must be Israelis first. For me the Israeli flag is my flag. Hatikva (Jewish people’s Hope) is my national anthem. Thank you so much.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

When we finished the interview we hugged, and I felt love for this precious woman. She said she loves many of the government members who are her friends, among them PM Netanyahu. As we spoke, we had to stop a few times as some of them came over to say hello to her and hug her. I saw the love they have for her and the love she has for them. Later she told me she is not into politics but sees herself as an ambassador of love to the Muslim Israeli Arabs and to the Jewish Israelis.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sarah Zoabi has many speaking engagements around the world where she spreads her message of this love and the Ideologies she expressed in this interview.<\/p>\n

\n

Please pray for Sarah Zoabi and her son Muhammad, for protection and strength.<\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19) In 2015, Sara Zoabi was one of the favorite contestants in the Israeli Master Chef reality show. She didn\u2019t win but announced in front of the entire nation that she was “an Arab Muslim and an Israeli […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[26,34],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics-in-israel","tag-israel","tag-israeli-arabs","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}