By Forest Rain
Shia missiles
don’t differentiate between Sunni and Jew
Even the best safe
room cannot save you from a direct hit by a missile carrying half a ton of
explosives.
On the night the
Iranian missile changed his life forever, Raja Khatib, a prominent Israeli-Arab
attorney, was pulling up to his house.
The air-raid sirens
were already blaring as he rushed to get to his family. And then the missile
hit.
It feels almost
obscene to write about that horrific night now, when Iran is once again
launching missiles intended to destroy Israeli lives.
It was June 14th,
2025, one day into the twelve-day war,
when Israel and America severely damaged Iran’s almost-operational nuclear
facilities and destroyed a large portion of its ballistic missile capability.
But the 12 days of “Operation Rising Lion” did not remove the threat posed by
the Iranian regime—to Israel, to the Middle East, or even to its own people.
The war was stopped
early in the hope that a diplomatic deal could be reached. Many Israelis
understood from experience that stopping too soon would necessitate returning
later to finish the job.
Because there is no
deal with an entity whose central goal is your destruction. Ideologues do not
compromise on their ideology. To do so would be to reject their own identity.
At the time, the
battle in Gaza was raging, and hostages still needed to be rescued.
And Iranian missiles
did not differentiate between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.
What do you say to a
man who lost his wife, two of his three daughters, and his home in an instant?
A man who built a house like a castle—strong and beautiful—but not strong
enough to protect his family. His brother’s wife was killed in the attack as
well.
We went to see the
missile impact site and pay our respects to the Khatib family. We did not know
them personally, but that does not matter. When something awful happens,
showing up is the right thing to do.
Jews observe
shivah—seven days of mourning after the burial. Muslims traditionally observe
three days. Because Raja is so well known, he received visitors for four.
We saw no formal
notice about where condolences were being received. The town they live in is
large, but we knew it would not be too difficult to find the family.
At first, we were
directed to Raja’s parents’ home. Inside, I found the women from his side of
the family sitting together. They all turned to stare at me—the only Jew in the
room—before pointing me toward his mother.
She hugged me twice. Everyone in the room showed pleasure at my expression of empathy for their sorrow.
One woman asked what
they were probably all thinking.
“Why did you come? Did
you come because of your position… or…?”
She wanted to
understand how to place me—what role I occupied. Was I one of the many
politicians coming to demonstrate that Jewish politicians care about Arabs too?
A peacenik virtue signaling?
Jews and Arabs live
side by side in Israel, and Raja works with many Jewish colleagues. But genuine
friendships and deep mutual understanding between the sectors are not common.
Our cultures, desires, and goals overlap in some places—but they are not identical.
And there is a
significant difference between friendship between individuals and peace between
Jews and Arabs as collective groups.
I told her simply that
what happened was terrible, and coming was the right thing to do.
She seemed satisfied
with that answer. But she appeared to assume I was a Jew dreaming of peace, so
she began saying what Arabs often say in these situations:
“We just need to end
all the wars. We all just want to live.”
Many Jews respond
warmly to statements like this, hearing what they want to hear rather than what
is actually being said.
It is not possible to
“just end” a war with Hamas or Iran—both of which are openly committed to
exterminating the Jews. The only way to “just end the war” would be to
surrender. That was not, is not, an acceptable solution.
I smiled and replied: “Iranian
missiles—Shia missiles—don’t differentiate between Sunnis and Jews. Israel will
win this war and bring safety to all of us. You and me. Then we will be able to
live well.”
My response startled
her into silence. No one else in the room spoke.
Someone offered me a
drink and suggested I sit with them, as is customary. I thanked them but
declined, explaining that my husband was waiting outside and that we wanted to
go pay our respects to Raja.
They directed us to
where the men were receiving visitors, in the municipal building—a common
arrangement when large crowds are expected.
We found the gathering
easily and were received graciously.
Raja made a point of
telling us how many Jews had come to offer condolences—colleagues, politicians,
peaceniks, and activists (hoping the Arab population might vote in ways that
could bring them political power).
I do not think he
realized the full spectrum of motivations behind those visits. But the sheer
mass of Jews who came comforted him, and that is a good thing.
Many of the Jewish
visitors probably had little awareness of how hostile much of the town’s
population is toward the Jewish state, how many residents participated in the
riots of May 2021, or knew anything about the almost lynching of a Jewish
driver stopped by the bloodthirsty mob. Only the intervention of a respected
elder prevented the crowd from tearing him apart.
Did any of those
visitors wonder how many Arab Israelis would come to comfort Jewish families torn
apart by the war?
Probably not.
Some do, of course, when
the victims are colleagues or long-time neighbors. But they do not arrive in
large numbers to comfort strangers the way Jews often do.
And they generally do
not assume that suffering under the same enemy will naturally produce bonds of
peace.
Shared danger does not
automatically create shared loyalty.
The divide between
Sunni and Shia Islam began as a dispute over who should lead the Muslim world
after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE. The disagreement hardened
into a religious and political rivalry that still shapes the Middle East today.
Nearly 1,400 years is
a long time to hold a grudge.
Sunni Muslims form the
majority across the Muslim world, including Israel’s Arab population. Iran,
however, is overwhelmingly Shia. Iran’s desire to assert dominance over
the world by first destroying the Jewish State led it to cultivate a Sunni
proxy in Gaza – Hamas.
That does not mean
Shia and Sunni have suddenly become allies. It means they have temporarily
cooperated to pursue a shared objective: destroying Israel.
Israeli Arabs and
Israeli Jews now face the same missile threat from Iran and from Iran’s Shia
proxy in Lebanon—Hezbollah.
But that does not make
Arabs and Jews allies. It simply means we share the same danger.
One of the most
dangerous mistakes made about the Middle East is assuming that everyone thinks
the same way.
Projecting our own
motivations onto others—without taking the time to understand their worldview,
goals, and ideology—is naïve at best. Often, it reflects arrogance. Worst of
all, it leads to deadly miscalculations.
In Hebrew, there is a
saying: “A person is shaped by the landscape of the place he comes from.”
The Middle Eastern
mindset was shaped long before Islam, from the experiences of desert tribal
life. The Western mindset emerged from the fusion of Jerusalem and Athens:
biblical morality, justice, democracy, individual responsibility, and the
pursuit of knowledge.
Two very different
psychological frameworks.
The sands of the
desert shift constantly, and yet the desert itself remains unchanged.
How can those focused
on the here and now fully grasp a worldview built around eternity?
The people of the
desert outwardly resemble people of the here and now—urban professionals with
nice cars, Instagram accounts, and TikTok videos. That surface similarity
tempts outsiders to assume that the internal motivations are the same.
They are not.
And today, in
societies where many have attempted to replace God with secular
ideologies—capitalism, communism, progressivism—the mindset of the
desert people doesn’t register.
Without understanding
that mindset, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to navigate the region—much
less to win a war.
Israeli Jews knew it
would be necessary to go back to Iran to finish the job. Israeli Arabs are
still talking about their desire to stop the war to attain “quiet”.
But quiet is not
victory. In the Middle East, quiet is the time to prepare for the next war.
To survive a conflict,
you must understand what the fight is truly about. If you do not understand
what your enemy actually believes and desires, you cannot defeat him. And if
you try to build peace on comforting assumptions instead of reality, you will
only guarantee the next war.
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