Palestinian protests show Israel’s “unprecedented” unity New Israel-Palestine Conflict

Last week, the Israeli raids They entered the area of ​​the Al-Aqsa Mosque and attacks on the occupied eastern district of Jerusalem followed Sheikh Jarrah Israel’s savage military attack has blocked many Palestinians on the blocked Gaza Strip.

But an extraordinary phenomenon has also taken root within Israel, where thousands of Palestinian citizens have taken to the streets, towns and so-called “mixed” cities while living in a self-defined Jewish state that claims their identity.

“Notable in the 48s [modern-day Israel, with reference to the 1948 declaration of the state], Palestinians who have long been excluded or considered “Arab Arabs” are once again strongly reaffirming that they are Palestinians, ”said Layla Hallaq, a Palestinian activist based in Haifa.

Hallaq told Al Jazeera that the current demonstrations are “unprecedented” and that it is a popular movement of solidarity between the Israelis, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Palestinians in the diaspora.

“Their protests are not only solidarity, but the shared cause and mutual pain that all Palestinians are experiencing.”

About one-fifth of the Israeli population now has about 1.6 million Palestinian citizens.

Unlike most Palestinians, they were ethnically cleansed before and during the founding of the State of Israel by the Zionist paramilitaries in 1948, these Palestinians are the descendants of those who managed to stay in their villages and towns or were internally displaced.

They are sometimes referred to as “1948 Palestinians” to refer to their location in the territory where the state of Israel was forcibly taken. It also describes the territory as being “within the Green Line”, referring to the line that separates Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories under its control.

Despite having Israeli citizenship, they have rights groups documented several Palestinian Israelis who discriminate against Palestinian citizens in a wide range of issues, including education, housing, political participation, and the just process. They are treated as second- and third-class citizens.

Crowded protests

Last week, Palestinian protests took place in towns and cities across Israel, starting in the southern Naqab (Negev) desert, in the central Ramla, Yafa and Lydd (Hebrew Lod) ”region and in the north of Haifa and Nazareth.

Demonstrators gathered in solidarity with the Palestinians family Sheikh Jarrahen, who are facing immediate relocations and against the Israeli storm of the Al-Aqsa compound that has left hundreds of Palestinians injured.

It is not the first time Palestinian citizens of Israel have protested against Israeli policies.

In 1976, six Palestinians were shot and killed for protesting the mass expropriation of Israeli land – an event known as Earth Day and is commemorated annually on March 30th. As of October 2000, there were 13 Palestinians shot dead When they joined the Second Intifada, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was prompted by a visit to the Al-Aqsa complex.

However, Israel has pursued a policy of partitioning the Palestinian population that has historically been under its control, both within the country and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, making it increasingly difficult to show lasting solidarity among Palestinians.

Experts say Israel’s ongoing protests show how connected Palestinians are.

“Recent events highlight not only the unity of the system of colonial oppression, but also the unity of the Palestinian struggle,” Nimer Sultany, a public law lecturer at the School of East and African Studies at the University of London, told Al Jazeera.

“As in previous rounds of protests, such as in October 2000, Palestinian protesters in 1948 demonstrated the need and practicality of a struggle against colonialism.”

The image shows burnt cars and a rubbish bin in the city of Lod on 13 May [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]

‘Colonial purpose’

Sultany said Israel is maintaining policy Jewish majority Within the Green Line there is no difference between demographic engineering in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Palestinians work to evict them from their lands and imposed rather than a Jewish presence.

The colonial goal of maintaining “Jewish demographic control” or “Jewish sovereignty” and judging Palestine in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the same as in Naqab (Negev), al-Jalil (Galilee), in ‘mixed cities’. ‘, and Triangle,’ ‘he said.

One example is the city of Lydd, a city 25 kilometers from Tel Aviv, which has now become an incentive for protests. The city, once home to 19,000 Palestinians before Israel was created, was ethnically cleansed by most of its population in July 1948. More than 200 people were killed in the massacre that Yitzhak took over as former Israeli Prime Minister Rabin.

Lydd currently has a population of 77,000, 30% of whom are Palestinians. Palestinians have been denouncing institutional racism for years, which leads to marginalization and poverty. Tough Jewish settlers have also moved from the occupied West Bank Since 2004, feeding tensions.

Palestinian Israeli citizens waved and waved Palestinian flags at the funeral of Mousa Hassouna near Tel Aviv in the middle of the city of Lydd on May 11th. [AFP]

May 10, as a tension increase In East Jerusalem, due to forced expulsions of Palestinian families by Israel and attacks on Al-Aqsa, a Palestinian flag was set on a streetlight in place of the Israeli Lydden. That same night, a Jewish settler shot dead a Palestinian neighbor named Moussa Hassouna. The next day the settlers attacked his funeral.

Violent confrontations continued, with heavy Jewish settlers being sent by bus from the occupied West Bank.

Mayor Yair Revivo, who is accused of pushing against the Palestinians and is next to the caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he lost control of the city last week. On May 11, Revivo met Netanyahu and then announced a state of emergency for Lydden — the first since 1966 — when at least 16 Israeli border police units were also deployed.

“The Jewish state will not accept pogroms against our citizens,” Netanyahu said in a televised appearance Saturday night. “We will not allow the lynching of our Jewish citizens … At the same time, we will not allow the Jews to interfere in the law and attack the innocent Arabs.”

Settler violence

But while Israeli police have said they have arrested a suspect in Hassouna’s murder, Israeli Public Security Minister Amir Ohana has called for the release of the gunman.

“The arrest of Lod and his friends, who were apparently in self-defense, is horrific,” Ohana said. he said. “Those who legally comply with citizens who carry weapons are a multiplier force for the authorities to immediately neutralize the threat and risk.

Fadi Abu Kish, Hassouna’s neighbor Lydden, told Al Jazeera that settlers were coming from outside the city and “burning Palestinian cars, attacking a mosque, vandalizing our cemetery and marching in places where Palestinians live.”

The mob is made up of far-right fascist groups such as Lehava, Hilltop Youth and football La Familia and Beitar Yerushalayim, and sometimes other Israelis in the cities also join, Abu Kishhek said.

“Settlers are encouraged and attacked, Palestinians respond by defending themselves, [and] the police arrive at the scene and start throwing sound bombs and arresting Palestinians, “he said.” This is the reality we face. “

Jamal Abu Kasher, a resident of Lydd, looks at some of the vandalized graves in a Muslim cemetery on May 14, 2021 [Heidi Levine/AP Photo]

Other cities have seen attacks by Jewish settler troops, some of whom have taken to the streets under the protection of Israeli police, shouting “death to the Arabs”.

Bat in Yam, a city in central Israel, the crowd was lynched in a scene broadcast by a Palestinian man on Israeli national television, while videos and images shared on social media showed Palestinian homes and families attacked in front of children attacked in Haifa and Akkan (Acre). Two Palestinian children also suffered severe burns when Molotov cocktails were thrown at a family home in the Ajami neighborhood of Yafa.

Adalah, the legal center for Israeli Palestinian citizens, reported that Israeli far-right Jews have used social media to organize attacks in recent days, and have sent messages to each other saying they are “killing Palestinians.”

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has sounded the alarm over the outbreak of violence in Israel.

“I am particularly concerned that Israeli police are not intervening in places where Israeli Palestinian citizens are being violently attacked, and social networks are being used by ultra-right groups to gather people to bring weapons, knives, clubs, knots.” ‘To be used against Palestinian citizens of Israel,’ Bachelet said he said.

Israeli settlers burned down a Palestinian house there #Jaffa yesterday. This Palestinian child inside the house suffered severe burns.

Groups of settlers roam the streets of cities and towns calling for the Arabs to attack.pic.twitter.com/4sMPT7uIIY

– Maha Hussaini (@MahaGaza) May 15, 2021

Meanwhile, at least 800 Palestinian civilians – including dozens of minors – have been arrested in a week, lawyer Janan Abdo said. “Many of the detainees needed medical treatment, and there are many head injuries,” Abdok said in a statement.

Coexistence ‘lie’

Both Hallaq and Sultany rejected the description of the ongoing violence as an “inter-community conflict,” saying the statement did not recognize Israel’s power imbalance as a colonial power and among the colonized Palestinians.

“What we saw last week is the natural reaction of people who have been facing occupation, oppression, siege and discrimination for 73 years,” Hallaq said. “State-sanctioned racist and systematic attacks on the Palestinian minority in Israel,” Sultany added.

According to Abu Kish, a resident of Lydd, Israeli protests against recent protests have sparked repression over Palestinian oppression throughout historic Palestinian Palestine – and have ripped off a sheet of “coexistence” from so-called “mixed” cities. Within Israel.

SEE: The Israeli Jewish crowd stones cars with Palestinian drivers while Israeli police look at Raml. pic.twitter.com/Czhc0TcEOg

– IMEU (@theIMEU) May 15, 2021

“This motto of coexistence is directed at the West and is a complete lie,” he said.

“Israel has taken over the past, the present and the future. They treat us like we should thank them for letting us live here when our land is here. ”