JERUSALEM - Israel's Shin Beth internal security service has warned that Israeli Arabs are becoming more radicalised, the Maariv newspaper reported on Tuesday.
"Israeli Arabs are identifying more and more with terrorist organisations in Iran," the Jewish state's archfoe, the paper quoted Shin Beth chief Yuval Diskin as telling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a closed briefing.
Diskin said the development could pose a "strategic danger" in the long term for Israel.
To fight the tendency, the Shin Beth is recommending improving the situation of Israeli Arabs, who are often treated as second-class citizens, the paper said.
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament, Mohammed Barakeh, slammed the comments, saying in a statement they "reflected the mentality that inspires the policy of racial discrimination practised against us as Arab citizens."
Israeli Arabs, who make up nearly 20 percent of Israel's population, are descendants of those 160,000 or so Palestinians who stayed behind when the state of Israel was declared in 1948 and who did not join the refugee exodus.
In February 2006, the Supreme Court recognised that Israeli Arabs faced discrimination.
A poll published in Maariv on Tuesday showed that a chasm of misunderstanding remained between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens.
The poll showed 63 percent of Jews avoid entering Arab Israeli towns or neighbourhoods, 64 percent are worried by the high birthrate among Israeli Arabs, that 68 percent worry about a popular revolt, and 73 percent doubt their loyalty to the state.
At the same time, 74 percent of Israeli Arabs fear violence on behalf of the state, 71 percent fear violence on the part of Jewish citizens, 60 percent a forcible transfer, and 80 percent worry their lands could be confiscated.
03/13/2007 15:06 GMT