Mick Hartley

Yes, there are some – and the numbers may be growing. Hillel Kuttler in Tablet on Arab Advocates for Israel:

Born in Damascus to secular Muslim parents and raised in the village of Chtaura in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Rawan Osman, 40, was on her fourth trip to Israel this year when we dined outdoors at a Jerusalem restaurant in mid-September. She plans to move here for good. In preparation, she spent two months this summer studying modern Hebrew in Jerusalem. (“I’m at Level 4,” she told me in Hebrew, during an interview otherwise conducted in English. “I attended an intensive ulpan.”)

Osman has been a vocal advocate on social media for Israel and against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran—including launching an Instagram forum, Arabs Ask, shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, to answer questions about Israel in Arabic. She’s a central figure in a new documentary, Tragic Awakening, about the plague of antisemitism….

Cairo native Dalia Ziada, another Muslim woman I interviewed who publicly, including on social media, supports Israel and opposes Iran and its anti-Israel military proxies, stated that she, too, hears from Arabs who back her but fear saying so aloud. Israeli Arabs Joseph Haddad and Jonathan Elkhoury, both Christians, stridently speak and tweet on the subject. A British-American Muslim, Elica Le Bon, has appeared regularly on television interviews and on social media to denounce her parents’ homeland of Iran and support Israel’s fight. So has Matthew Nouriel, a British-American Jewish activist whose parents also are Iranian. Another stalwart has been Mossab Hassan Youssef, a Muslim-turned-Christian native of Ramallah who in 2010 attained asylum in the United States and whose father was a founder of Hamas….

Signs hint at the Arab rank and file becoming emboldened by Israel’s dramatic gains over the past month that include the air force’s destroying thousands of Hezbollah’s missiles and killing its leadership up to Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine; Israeli intelligence pulling off the beeper and walkie-talkie caper that decimated thousands of Hezbollah operatives; Israeli ground troops continuing to uncover Hezbollah tunnels and weapons-storage depots near Lebanon’s southern border; and Iran bracing for Israel’s expected strike to avenge Tehran’s launching of 181 ballistic missiles against the Jewish state on Oct. 1. Even before Nasrallah’s assassination, videos made in Lebanon mocked him for some Hezbollah strikes against Israeli farms that killed only hundreds of chickens. Christian villages in northern Lebanon reportedly are refusing admission to Hezbollah officials seeking refuge there. Ordinary Lebanese and Iranians are said to be cheering on Israel’s victories that, the thinking goes, could ultimately topple Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic, respectively. All of that is on top of the moderating influence of the 2020 signing of the Abraham Accords that brought peace between Israel and four Arab countries and heralded a breakthrough for the Jewish state with Saudi Arabia that many see as imminent postwar.

The trailer for Tragic Awakening is here.