Organizing between Jewish and Arab populations helped prevent violent escalation in Israel’s mixed cities after October 7, a new study found. Abraham Initiatives Research and Evaluation Director Shany Payes, who headed the study, said that much of the organizational efforts resulted from fears of race riots like those that occurred during the 2021 Israel-Gaza war.
The study looked at a spectrum of initiatives that grew throughout the war, from joint Jewish-Arab groups that cleaned bomb shelters and collected of food and supplies, to the Jewish-Arab Guard, members of which patrolled the streets in order to deescalate harassment and violence, to those engaged in targeted debunking of rumors meant to exacerbate tensions.
Payes presented her interim conclusions from the study at the Abraham Initiatives’ Shared Cities Conference held in Haifa earlier this month. The study was based on interviews of about 30 activists, residents, and officials conducted between December 2023 and August 2024.
The May 2021 Gaza war saw waves of violence between Jewish and Arab residents of Israel in mixed cities. Payes said that the reason those events didn’t reoccur in 2023 were complex. “It’s hard to say why something didn’t happen, what the main factor is that prevented it, and what the extent of the impact of this factor is as opposed to another,” she noted.
Following the 2021 war, researchers studied the effectiveness of de-escalation tactics that were meant to quell the violence. Payes cited one study by Dr. Rolly Rosen titled “Breaker of the Walls—Municipal Coping with the Events of May 2021 in Haifa.” That study showed that “in order to prevent violence and escalation in mixed cities and in mixed areas, it is important to create a triangle of impact—the municipality, the police, and the neighborhood organizations,” Payes said.
Payes’ study found that residents had a real fear of escalating violence between Jews and Arabs following October 7. “People still have that wound from May 2021, and in addition to that, the state’s loss of control which was reinforced on October 7. People called for help and didn’t receive an answer, and residents of mixed cities understood that the state was not going to protect them,” she said. “It’s not a far cry for people to rise up against their neighbors.”
The groups that took action had several motivating factors, Payes said. Many recognized that citizens feeling unsafe would try to acquire firearms, increasing the likelihood of violent clashes between Israelis. Others were motivated by the fear of political persecution—according to Payes, 160 disciplinary cases were opened against Arab students, mostly for content posted on social media. Many organizations and activists saw that as an impetus to deal with mutual suspicion between Jews and Arabs.
Lack of adequate bomb shelters also motivated Arabs and Jews to come together. A number of public shelters were found to be unusable due to lack of running water and general filth, leading mixed groups of Arabs and Jews to work together to improve conditions. Activists also recognized inequality surrounding bomb shelters, noting that Arab neighborhoods and municipalities did not have enough available shelters. Payes said that these realizations prompted activists “to take over for the state” to protect residents.
Much of the activism dealt with easing the friction in spaces occupied by both Jews and Arabs. For example, activists worked to quash a rumor that a soldier had been prevented from sitting in a cafe on HaNevi’im Street in Haifa, a highly Arab area. In the mixed city of Ramla as well as Haifa, activists responded to reported plans of violence and succeeded in preventing any escalation. The organization Fake Reporter, which monitors and reports on fake news, helped monitor social networks and prevent incitement to violence.
One of the key initiatives Payes looked at was the Jewish-Arab Partnership Patrol, which conducted training for social activists in November 2023. “The Arab civil society organizations immediately met on October 7, and the next day they invited the representatives of the Jewish residents of the city to form a joint initiative,” Payes explained. “The goal was to create a network that could intervene if conflicts arose, for example in mixed neighborhoods or workplaces, and provide legal advice to those who needed it. Five hundred people participated in the first webinar, and 4,000 activists joined the Jewish-Arab Partnership Patrol WhatsApp groups.”
Dozens of initiatives promoted civil partnership and Jewish-Arab solidarity against the background of the war. Partners in Fate, a Jewish-Arab organization based in the Bedouin city of Rahat, was one such group, distributing donations to Jewish and Arab municipalities around Gaza following October 7.
Payes spoke at the conference with a representative from the Haifa municipality, and noted that Haifa chose not to establish a “rapid response squad”—armed civilian groups that respond to security events. The city dealt with tensions between its Arab and Jewish residents in other ways, Payes said. After Jewish residents of Haifa expressed fear in relation to their neighbors from the Muslim Ahmadiyya community, “the Ahmadis held a conference for their Jewish neighbors to show that the fear was unfounded, and that was the end of it,” she explained.
As state institutions floundered in the days after October 7, civil society groups managed to respond and ease tensions between Arabs and Jews, Payes said. She noted that various organizations came together to establish a fund to finance projects aimed at promoting peace in Israel’s mixed cities.
“The cooperation between private citizens, social activists, and the municipalities was significant,” Payes said. She commended the mayors of mixed cities for their responsible behavior, noting that heads of 18 mixed municipalities attended a November 2023 conference about coexistence. In the Negev, heads of Jewish and Arab localities signed a “Treaty of Hope,” declaring their intention to strengthen partnership.
“The first and most important message of the activists was that security is a necessity for both Jews and Arabs, as opposed to the dominant perception of the Israeli public, which is that there is only the need to protect Jews from Arabs,” Payes explained. “People spoke about protecting their home in the deepest way, to defend my life and to trust my neighbors. This demands massive effort, the security of Jews will not come at the expense of Arabs, rather the opposite. We are in a decade of integration of Arabs in Israel, in which a common fabric of life will be built, and our role is to create positive conditions for this to continue.”
This article was translated from Hebrew and edited for context by Tzivia Gross.
