Arab Israeli ‘High Follow-Up Committee’ Faces Allegations of Sedition, Terrorism Connections
Key members of the Knesset National Security Committee call for investigations into the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel's activities and leadership
Members of the Israeli parliament’s National Security Committee created controversy in early July when they called for the abolishment of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, as well as criminal investigations against its leadership—including its chair, Mohammad Barakeh, a former lawmaker who represented the far-left, predominantly Arab Hadash party.
It’s not the first time. Multiple attempts to shut down the High Follow-Up Committee have been made, dating back to 1988, when then-parliamentarian and minister Moshe Arens tried to get the group banned.
The current motion was filed in partnership with two organizations from the religious Zionist sector: Btsalmo, which describes itself as a “human rights organization in the spirit of Jewish ethical traditions,” and Cities of Israel, which says on its website that it is “working to strengthen personal and public security in the mixed cities and all over our country, in the face of religious and nationalist extremism and crime among Israeli Arabs.”
Both Btsalmo and Cities of Israel submitted lengthy briefs with the motion, detailing alleged evidence of the High Follow-Up Committee’s supposed crimes.
The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, established in the early 1980s, is described by Israeli author Avner Yaniv as the “top representative body deliberating matters of general concern to the entire Arab community” in Israel. It is responsible for coordinating and overseeing several smaller organizations. Many local government leaders as well as current and former members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, are members of the committee.
The High Follow-Up Committee has recently focused attention on the socioeconomic gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens and has called for Israelis to unite against the rising tide of violence in the Arab Israeli sector. More than 140 Arab Israelis have been murdered across the country since January 2023—more than in all of 2022, when crime and violence claimed 116 lives in the Arab community.
Responding in a written statement in support of the Follow-Up Committee, the Abraham Initiatives, a civil rights organization that works for equality between Jews and Arabs in Israel, described the committee as an increasingly important group that “brings to the agenda issues of importance to the Arab public, promotes education issues, health, sports, welfare, and agriculture.” The Abraham Initiatives goes on to say that attempts to blacklist the committee amount to “a declaration of war” against the Arab citizens of Israel.
High Follow-Up Committee has faced several calls for investigation as well as calls to block the committee’s foreign funding and even to abolish it entirely due to similar accusations of fomenting anti-Israel rhetoric and even incitement to terrorism. Several of the committee’s members and officers have been arrested for connections to terror organizations like Hamas.
In the face of the most recent allegations, members of the Knesset National Security Committee MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) and MK Amit Halevi (Likud) have called for the Follow-Up Committee to be outlawed and for its leadership to be investigated on suspicion of sedition, supporting terrorism and additional crimes.
In partnership with Btsalmo and Cities of Israel, Son Har-Melech accused the High Follow-Up Committee of conducting anti-Israel operations under the cover of equal rights activism. Speaking in the National Security Committee discussion, she said that “there is not enough time to describe the exploits of the [High Follow-Up] committee for supporting terrorism and terrorists and calling for riots.”
The most recent allegations center around a rally on May 10, in which High Follow-Up Committee chair Barakeh, as well as Sheikh Raed Salah allegedly fomented sedition against Israel. Salah has been convicted and imprisoned in Israel multiple times for his role as leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement—an organization outlawed by Israel as a terror group with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
They want to destroy the right to gather and organize politically—especially when [our] views do not align with the extreme right.
Speaking with The Media Line, Barakeh denied the claims as “a dangerous political discussion” with aims to “cover Israel’s extremist and anti-democratic atmosphere at the expense of the primary body that represents Israeli Arabs.”
“[The government] doesn’t want to address us as a collective with shared interests,” he said. “They want to destroy the right to gather and organize politically—especially when [our] views do not align with the extreme right.”
“We don’t hide that we’re against the occupation,” Barakeh continues. “We don’t hide that we’re against the settlements. And we don’t hide that we’re against the wars and the racist Nation-State Law. And if this is terror, then what does ‘terror’ mean?”
Regarding Salah’s involvement, Barakeh said, “[Salah] is an important friend and central figure in the committee who represents a stream of thought that others share. And anyway, he’s currently focused on promoting peace in the community against the backdrop of the violence that’s been rising in the Arab sector.”
Critics are not convinced. Video of the May 10 event shows attendees marching in southern Israel with Palestinian flags, praising Thaer Kayid Hammad, who killed 10 Israelis—seven soldiers and three civilians—in a 2002 sniper attack, and calling for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
אירוע שהתקיים אתמול בלילה בעראבה על ידי ועדת המעקב, בראשה עמדו השייח' המורשע ראאד סלאח, לצידו חכ"ל מוחמד בראכה יו"ר ועדת המעקב.
"הו אסיר, תקוף שוב, חטוף חייל ושחרר אסירים"
"הו עזתי תרמוס תרמוס את המשתפ ואת המרגל"
"מעראבה ברכות לעזה שלנו אצילת הנפש"
"הו גוב שכולו אריות, הנה העם… pic.twitter.com/HqYRUSUPHe— עמית סגל Amit Segal (@amit_segal) May 11, 2023
Video of the Follow-Up Committee’s demonstration on May 10, 2023. (Twitter: @Amit_segal)
Btsalmo CEO Shai Glick told The Media Line that “supporting the kidnapping of soldiers is not part of freedom of speech,” adding that he “filed several complaints against the High Follow-Up Committee, including evidence” but that everything was “closed and disappeared.”
Additional allegations reach back to the events of May 2021, when riots broke out in mixed Arab-Jewish cities across Israel while the Israeli military and armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip exchanged fire in a two-week mini-war that the Israeli military dubbed “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” Btsalmo writes in its brief that “the [High Follow-Up] committee and its chairman encouraged the disturbances that took place during the war and assisted in legally defending the perpetrators of the [anti-Jewish lynch-mobs].”
Cities of Israel likewise submitted a lengthy document with the motion against the High Follow-Up committee, containing alleged evidence of the High Follow-Up committee’s wrongdoing at the time.
Israeli media reported that by the end of the riots, 10 synagogues, 112 Jewish homes, and 849 Jewish-owned cars were set on fire. Over 1,000 Jewish homes were looted or damaged, and over 5,000 instances of stone-throwing against Jews were reported. Jewish rioters reportedly threw stones more than 40 Arabs, damaged 13 Arab homes, and set 13 Arab cars on fire. Over 2,100 people were arrested for participating in the riots, and three Israelis were killed—two Jews and one Arab.
The documents submitted by Cities of Israel and Bstalmo accuse High Follow-Up Committee members of raising funds for and otherwise supporting those accused and convicted of leading lynch mobs during the 2021 conflict. Cities of Israel even suggests that the Follow-Up Committee played an integral role in organizing the riots, starting with calls to go out into the streets “to fight against the crimes of the occupation.”
Follow-Up Committee chairman Mohammad Barakeh praising the riots on Palestinian television. (MEMRI)
The High Follow-Up Committee promised legal assistance to those who were arrested. For example, Barakeh and other committee members met with and raised money for Adham Bashir, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for leading the attempted lynching of Mor Janashvili in Acre during the May 2021 riots.
פרסמנו השבת ב'שביעי': נמשכת התמיכה של ההנהגה הערבית במבצעי הלינצ'ים מאירועי שומר החומות. ח"כ @AidaTuma נפגשה לאחרונה עם אדהם בשיר, מי שהורשע בביצוע לינץ' בעכו. בפגישה נכח גם יו"ר ועדת המעקב, מוחמד בארכה. השבת בחיפה אמורה להתקיים הפגנת תמיכה בבשיר. pic.twitter.com/mgjWCWrouO
— ישי פרידמן (@IshayFridman) December 16, 2022
Snapshot from an article about MK Aida Touma Suleiman (Hadash-Taal) and Follow-Up Committee chair Barakeh meeting with Adham Bashir. (Twitter @IshayFridman)
Barakeh is similarly shown pictured with Maher Younis, who, with his cousin Karim, was sentenced to the longest continuous sentence of any Palestinian in Israeli prison after kidnapping and murdering IDF soldier Avraham Bromberg in 1983. Karim and Maher were released two weeks apart in January 2023 after 40 years. Shortly after his release, Maher was detained and questioned by police again for allegedly inciting terrorism on social media. Many more examples have been alleged against the High Follow-Up Committee in the documents submitted in support of the motion.
Adding to the Knesset’s National Security Committee discussion, MK Zvika Fogel (Otzma Yehudit) also supported the motion against the High Follow-Up Committee, saying: “The leaders of the [High Follow-Up] committee should be questioned [as] I was questioned for hours over far less than what they say.”
Fogel is himself under investigation for incitement to violence against Palestinians in the West Bank town of Huwara following a violent rampage there on Feb. 26. Hours after a suspected terrorist shooting attack by a Palestinian gunman against two Israelis near Huwara, hundreds of Israeli settlers blew through the town and other nearby Palestinian villages, leaving one civilian dead and over 100 injured.
Every call to incitement eventually leads to murder, and it needs to be stopped
Btsalmo’s Shai Glick adds that “Every call to incitement eventually leads to murder, and it needs to be stopped.”
The High Follow-Up Committee leadership denies any wrongdoing. They maintain their actions are legal and only constitute support for a counternarrative. MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Ta’al) rejected the motion; adding that “anyone who believes the leadership of the High Follow-Up Committee will toe the line of the consensus that is leaning more and more towards the extremist right, is mistaken. … We are resisting those who are killing our people; the occupation and the fascists.”
Moran Mimoni, director of public affairs at the Abraham Initiatives, argues that outlawing the Follow-Up Committee is a serious and “anti-democratic” violation of the Arab Israeli public’s freedom of expression, and that “such a decision will rightly strengthen the feeling that [the Arab] population is oppressed.”
Glick, among others, disagrees. “I’d be happy if the [Follow-Up Committee] changes course,” he said. He charges that the committee is focused on Palestinian nationalist rhetoric rather than dealing with the real problems of the Arab community in Israel. “Do you know how many rallies against violence in the Arab sector I’ve gone to—and [the Follow-Up Committee] isn’t there? So not only are they inciting violence, they don’t care about their constituents. The committee should be closed and replaced with a new organization that actually deals with the issues at hand,” Glick said.
On August 6, around 5000 participants from more than 30 organizations in Israel came together for a demonstration in Tel Aviv to raise awareness of the violence in the Arab sector. Marchers carried 140 coffins for the 140 victims in 2023 across the city. The High Follow-Up Committee was not directly involved. Although, when asked for comment, Committee Chair Barakeh told The Media Line that organizations under the committee’s umbrella did participate.
