Two of Israel's border police officers, Yazan Falah and Shirel Aboukaret, were killed March 27 in a shooting in downtown Hadera. The incident was Israel's second terrorist attack in a week, after four Israelis were killed March 22 in a combined vehicular and knife attack in the southern city of Beersheba. A third attack took place tonight in the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak, in the center of Israel. An assailant shot and killed five civilians. Contrary to the March 22 and March 27 incidents, Tuesday's attack was not carried out by an Arab Israeli, but rather a 26-year-old Palestinian from Jenin.

In the two first cases, the Arab Israeli assailants were inspired by the Islamic State. The two shooters in Hadera were residents of the town of Umm al-Fahm. One of them was accused of attempting to join the Islamic State in 2016 and sentenced to 18 months in jail. The assailants made a video of themselves pledging allegiance to the Islamic State that security forces have confirmed is authentic. The attacker in Beersheba is a resident of the Bedouin village of Hura who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 for participating in gatherings of Islamic State supporters.

Both attacks were condemned by political representatives of the Arab Israeli community, including the municipality of Umm al-Fahm, the Hura Local Council, the Joint List, the Ra’am party and even the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, whose announcement received backing from the chair of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Raed Salah.

The attack in Hadera, however, showed that Arab society in Israel is not as homogeneous as it is depicted among the Jewish public. Jewish Israelis tend to relate to Arabs as a single bloc with a single opinion, but nothing could be farther from the truth.