Tamra's confusing behavior

Just two weeks ago Israel suffered a horrific tragedy when 45 people were crushed to death at a religious festival in Meron on Lag B'Omer. It is hard to call anything a bright point in such a horrific incident but one of the bright points was when the Arabs from a nearby town called Tamra provided water and food to Meron survivors. They set up stations offering free food and drink to thousands of evacuees as they were trying to make their way off the Meron mountain in the chaos.

Besides for that there were other bright spots, like the outpouring of love and empathy among nearly the entire Israeli public, regardless of sector, and thousands in towns all over Israel lined up and waited hours to donate blood for the injured.

For the purpose of this post, the part of this under discussion is the Arabs from Tamra (and elsewhere) who were sympathetic and loving, and showed an amazing level of coexistence and care.

This morning, amid all the reports of violence around the country over the past day, news reports, both the Times Of Israel and The New York Times, reported on the violence and pointed out the following incident - "In Tamra, an Arab mob attacked a man presumed to be Jewish and nearly beat him to death, according to an Arab paramedic who saved him" (excerpt from the NYT)

How can the Arab residents of Tamra be so caring, so neighborly, so empathetic, so warm, and then just two weeks later join violent riots, join the tiktokifada, against people who did them no harm? How could such kind and caring people just go and assault other people?

It might not be the same exact people in both incidents, but both were the "Arabs from Tamra". By Meron we assumed it was the entire town that came out to help. It seemed like it was the nature of the people there, the humanity.

How could we go from one to the other, and so quickly?

Which is the more accurate depiction of Tamra? I don't know, and right now I am not sure it matters. As I said yesterday, the decades of coexistence has been shattered in days and I am not sure how we will go back to trusting our other neighbors without starting over and giving it a bunch more decades of work...

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------