SAKHNIN, Israel - The Gaza crisis has left Israeli Arabs caught between a fear of voicing solidarity with the Palestinians and an urge to condemn the onslaught fuelled by a ban on two of their parties from next month's elections.
"Our state is at war with our Palestinian nation," said Gazal Abu Raya, an Arab Israeli and head of the Jewish-Arab Institute for Peace in Sakhnin, in the northern Galilee region.
Sakhnin, which has an Arab population of 25,000, was the site of a demonstration of over 100,000 people on January 3 to protest the Israeli offensive in Gaza a week after it began.
As the death toll has spiralled, spontaneous protests against the war have multiplied in Galilee -- home to around half of the 1.4 million-strong Arab Israeli community, which makes up about 20 percent of Israel's population.
Israeli police have stepped up security in the north, including at road checkpoints.
Arab Israelis, most of whom are descended from the 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel when the Jewish state was created in 1948 despite an Israeli campaign to ethnically cleanse them, are concerned about the consequences of their rejection of the Gaza offensive.
On Monday, Israel's election panel disqualified two Arab parties from running in the February 10 elections based on a motion filed by two far-right parties which claimed they did not recognise the Jewish state's right to exist.
"Obviously, the right wing is stronger with the war. The Israelis are selling more cheap popularity in the streets," said Jamal Zahalqa, head of the parliamentary group of one of the two parties, the National Democratic Assembly.
The Supreme Court is to rule on the ban next week.
If the ban is confirmed, Zahalqa warned of an Arab boycott of the elections and a "crisis" that would deepen the friction with the Jewish population.
"If we can't participate in the electoral process, and work under political legitimacy we will reconsider our strategy. More and more people will demand an Arab parliament," he said.
"There will be a crisis between the Palestinian minority and (Israel's) majority."
The election panel's decision is "an act of racism, an intimidation," said Sakhnin's deputy mayor, Mahmud Abu Raya, who has no party affiliation. "We will boycott the elections as a protest."
Gazal Abu Raya, who belongs to the same Arab clan as Mahmud, conceded that these are difficult times for the community's fragile relations with Jews in north Israel.
He said his institute tries "to be a bridge, mediators between the Palestinians and the state of Israel. It's not easy when you see the pictures of children and women dying in Gaza."
The leader of the Greek Orthodox community in Sakhnin, father Salah Khoury, has organised a campaign to send food and clothes to Gaza, but fears the consequences of supporting the Palestinians in the enclave.
"We identify with the people in Gaza, but we don't want to endanger ourselves," said the Arab Israeli. "We want to stand in our land. We're scared. Right wing Jews see us as enemies."
Khalil Nakhleh, a Palestinian researcher into conflicts and based in the West Bank, agreed.
"In general, Arabs in Israel feel they are not wanted as citizens in the state," he said, despite the fact that they are the original inhabitants of the land.
Israel has often come under international criticism for ‘racism’ and mistreatment of its Arab minority.
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