Israel is my country, and she belongs to all her citizens – Muslim, Jew, Christian and Atheist,” said Muslim Arab-Israeli Mohammad Kabiya.
Mohammad Kabiya, an Arab-Israeli student of Political Science at the University of Haifa who served in the Israel Air Force, contacted United with Israel (UWI) to express his staunch support for the State of Israel.
Kabiya’s message came in the context of the recent appeal made by the Palestinian Authority to the Arab League for help in suing the United Kingdom for the Balfour Declaration, a milestone on the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
The Balfour Declaration, authored by then UK Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour, was signed in 1917 and pledged British support for the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine.
Kabiya sent UWI his Facebook from Sunday, in which he was featured with an Israeli flag and stated: “The Palestinian Authority is requesting from Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration. I want to send Britain thank-you notes and blessings for issuing the Balfour Declaration.”
Kabiya then agreed to an interview, in which he said that he is a Muslim and hails from Ka’abiya, a Bedouin village in the Northern District. He attended the Franciscan Sister’s Sec School in Nazareth and currently is a lecturer and organization consultant for the IDF.
His family is completely supportive of his activities on behalf of Israel, he said, adding that many relatives are soldiers and officers in the IDF.
Mohammad Kabiya’s Facebook post lauding the Balfour Declaration. (Courtesy)
“My family sacrificed three soldiers in Israel’s battles,” Kabiya stated.
“I’d like to end by sharing my hope that more Arabs will come to regard themselves as citizens of Israel and be proud of both their Arab heritage and their citizenship in the Middle East’s only secular democracy – a democracy wherein racial or ethnic identity and religious belief is not a barrier to participation in the democratic process,” he continued. “I’m proud of the name I was given – the name of Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the Prophet of Islam. In Israel, I can carry this name proudly, and no person of importance will judge me based on my name alone. In Israel, I and my people have kept our customs and our pride in them. Not once have I been asked to compromise or lay down even one principle or value.”
“It is my belief that I and my people should be grateful for these freedoms and should even defend and sustain them alongside our Jewish cousins,” Kabiya said. Israel is a Jewish State, but she is not a country for Jews alone. Israel is my country, and she belongs to all her citizens – Muslim, Jew, Christian and Atheist.
We must protect her just as she protects us. We must respect her, nurture her, and harness her potential. Why? Because she was given to all of us and we shall not be given another like her,” he concluded.
