Nazareth Mayor Ali Salam took a bold step in expelling the chairman of the Joint List, Knesset member Ayman Odeh, from his town Oct. 11, even if it caused a ruckus in front of the TV cameras. Palestinian-Israeli journalist Lucy Aharish was no less bold Oct. 14, when she spoke from the heart during a live broadcast, accusing the Arab Knesset members of fanning the flames and calling on them to come to their senses and help restore calm. Both moves attracted the media’s attention and hundreds of thousands of views on social media. Their bold, painful statements showed how weak the Israeli Arab leadership is, particularly those Knesset members from the Joint List.

Aharish, a successful young Muslim woman of 34, is a familiar media figure. She looked outraged when she launched her piercing, agonizing monologue, which was nothing short of an indictment of the Arab Knesset members. “I don’t see the Arab leadership trying to restore quiet. … They are inciting the public even more,” she said on Channel 2. “What kind of God would allow children to kill innocent victims? What kind of woman with a hijab, who prays to God, would pull a knife out of her bag and try to stab people? You’re encouraging thousands of young people to take to the streets. With your own hands, you’re ruining their future. These children are paying with their lives, with their blood, because of your incitement.”

Salam is a popular, well-respected mayor who spends his days managing Israel’s largest Arab city. As part of his job, he is intimately familiar with the crises facing the Israeli Arab sector and knows exactly what it needs. In the 2013 municipal elections, he easily defeated Knesset member Haneen Zoabi for the post. Zoabi believed that since she was a well-known figure and the "star of the Gaza flotilla,” she would win handily. But even the young people weren’t very excited by her candidacy, and she suffered a humiliating defeat with barely 10% of the vote. The elections in Nazareth showed the real priorities of the local population.

Ever since the recent wave of violence erupted, Salam has been wandering about his city, anxious and worried about its economic well being, which relies on the delicate relationship between Jews and Arabs in their day-to-day lives. He watched sadly at the end of last week as commerce in his bustling city ground to a halt. Jews stopped coming to visit out of fear of the recent wave of knife attacks. When he saw Odeh being interviewed in Nazareth after participating in a particularly turbulent demonstration that left tires and trash bins torched, Salam decided he could take it no longer. Standing in front of the TV cameras, he shouted at Odeh, “Get out of here!”