An Arab, Muslim, and Israeli Officer at the Center of a Storm

[grossproffit]

[quote]For Ms. Samri, a 44-year-old Israeli officer and spokeswoman, police work has been a calling since she joined the force nearly 20 years ago. What makes her devotion all the more unusual is that she is an Arab Muslim citizen of Israel, putting her squarely in the storm of competing loyalties and emotions stirred up by the violence that she has been broadcasting about.

Over the past month, Palestinian assailants using knives, guns and their vehicles as weapons have attacked Israelis, often several times a day, and many of the suspects have been fatally shot by police officers, soldiers or civilians at the scene, generating a furor that has engulfed both sides.

Ms. Samri, whose steady stream of WhatsApp updates starts early in the morning and continues into the wee hours, says she has no inner conflicts about her role amid the surge in violence.

“Democracy is law,” she said. “I believe in the law, not because I want to be more Jewish than the Jews. I am a proud Arab with Palestinian roots, and I am the proudest Israeli.”

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[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/world/middleeast/an-arab-muslim-and-israeli-officer-at-the-center-of-a-storm.html[/url]

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Superintendent Luba Samri with members of a SWAT team at Police Headquarters in Jerusalem. Credit Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

[King_David]

1. Good read

Seems like a no-nonsense type....

When a Palestinian woman tried to ignite a gas balloon in her car as she approached a checkpoint in the West Bank, according to the authorities, Ms. Samri described her on WhatsApp as a terrorist, noting that the woman had cried “Allahu akbar.”

When a journalist asked if the police had ruled out an electrical fault as a cause of the fire in the car and pointed out that Arab women sometimes cried “Allahu akbar” in fear or panic, Ms. Samri thanked him for the educational enrichment and added, in classical Hebrew, “Indeed, I am an Arab woman.”