Haaretz in English today:

The National Road Safety Authority will hold its first training day for Islamic religious leaders today, as part of its “emergency campaign” to fight traffic accidents in Israel’s non-Jewish communities. The conference, in Shfaram, is expected to draw 250 imams for a day of lectures on child safety, accident prevention and the Muslim belief in fate versus personal responsibility.

(Scroll down. It’s right at the end.)

So this is quite interesting. The original story in the Hebrew print version has more details. Apparently this belief in fate is such, that people don’t believe they can prevent traffic accidents by changing their behavior (my translation):

“It is convenient for a lot of people to define everything as fate”, says Sheikh Muhammad Amara, the imam of the village of Zelafe, “I want to refute this. We believe in fate, but we don’t know what the fate is, so one must behave as if there is no fate. You can’t drive while drunk, destroy a family and then say it was fate.”

[…]

The proportion of casualties of traffic accidents in the Arab sector is considerably higher than its proportion in the population. From the beginningof the year 86 Arabs were killed in traffic accidents, out of a total 244. That’s 35%, nearly double the Arab percentage in the population. 22 children (under 18) were killed in traffic accidents, which make up 65% of all the children killed on the roads. 10 of the children were killed in “yard accidents”, that happen near residential houses, and are unique to the Arab sector. These accidents usually happen when a car drives out of a car park and hits playing children.

So it’s excellent news that the religious leaders are taking this issue to heart. Sheikh Amara, who is to speak at the conference, goes on to say

“I can be a bridge, passing on the message and increasing the (awareness of the) importance of human life and of adhering to the traffic laws. In Islam, human life is of paramount value.”