| One of the key strategic elements to Israel’s control over Palestinians has been the establishment of a focused system of fragmentation of the Palestinian community. Palestinians have been forcefully divided into distinctly separate categories, each with a different legal system, economic system, leadership, and community-specific concerns. These include: Israeli Citizens, East Jerusalemites, West Bankers, Gazans, and the Diaspora (lacking any status whatsoever). Israel adamantly refuses to interact with the Palestinian people as a unified entity and insists on dealing with each component separately, sometimes making it physically impossible for members of each group to communicate with, trade with, or even intermarry with members of the other Palestinian communities. An explicit hierarchy of rights and privileges has also been established by Israel between each category. The highest level (within the Israeli hierarchy of control) are those Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship, who managed to remain in the land in 1948. There are currently about 2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, constituting approximately 20% of the Israeli citizen population. They enjoy the highest standard of living, the greatest freedom of movement, and some of the benefits of Israeli society because they do hold citizenship. Some of them are occasionally trotted out as proof of the tolerance and equality in a “democratic” state of Israel, as promised in the not-legally-binding Declaration of Independence. This community often complains of systematic discrimination, in a state which openly declares itself to be a Jewish state and NOT a state for all its citizens. Yet, compared to other Palestinians, their situation is truly enviable. It reminds me of free blacks living in the American North during the pre-Civil War era. Often victims of terrible discrimination, but surely they are to be envied when compared with those living under brutal conditions of chattel slavery. I have been curious as to how this segment of my people are faring these days. In my travels this month, I met and talked with many of them, particularly in the Galilee, where (in addition to the Negev) most Palestinian citizens of Israel today live. In addition to their usual situation, as Arabs (second-class citizens) in a Jewish state, they had two major concerns. First, is the rampant criminality in the Arab Community, which the Israeli police—particularly under their Minister of Police Ben Gvir—is doing very little to curb. Protection rackets, municipal corruption, shootings and homicides are frightening daily occurrences. Already, 55 homicides have been reported this year, with the vast majority not “solved” by the police. In fact, it has even been admitted by the authorities that many of the criminal elements have special relationships with the Shin Bet (Israeli secret service) and perform “valuable services” to the security of the state, giving them wide latitude if not outright immunity. Second, they report that since October 7 there has been open hostility, hatred and repression, particularly on free speech and political expression. While Israeli Jews daily demonstrate, block roads, disrupt government offices, and debate intra-Jewish differences almost to the point of civil war, Palestinian citizens of Israel are often forced to cower in fear. They face persecution, the loss of jobs, criminal charges and jail time, with long sentences for even the mildest expressions of concern for the victims of the Gaza genocide or even expressing “grief for the innocent babies” being killed in Gaza. Technical eavesdropping and artificial intelligence is used to monitor, report, and prosecute any postings on social media, or even “likes” on individual posts, that show sympathy for the people of Gaza. Such expressions are considered “support and sympathy for terrorism” and are being harshly repressed. Even Israeli Jews opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies feel some of the heat, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel there does not exist even the semblance of democracy or freedom of speech. A friend of mine told me, “The Israel that you knew previously no longer exists. There is not even the pretense that we have democracy or freedom of expression.” One well-known TV journalist lost her job and was threatened with criminal persecution when she commented on the apparent good health of some of the released female Israeli hostages. One university student was jailed and persecuted for tweeting on her social media that “God is Victorious.” An attorney colleague of mine said, “I feel like this is the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad on steroids. You have to watch every word and especially anything you say on the phone or on social media. I can still say some things in court that I would not dare put in an email or say on my Facebook account. I do not know how long this will last.” I even heard on the radio a “Public Service Announcement” urging anyone who hears or sees anything suspicious, anything appearing to reflect enemy propaganda giving aid and comfort to the enemy, to “call *911 and report it to a special unit that fights hostile cyber propaganda!” Indeed, many reports about outlandish behaviour by the police seem to be in response to complaints by Jewish citizens upset at the utterances or “unpatriotic behavior” of Palestinian citizens. One Jewish lawyer lodged a complaint to the bar association against a Palestinian lawyer who dared to write on her social media “Good Morning Gaza!” a few days after October 7. This complaint is being investigated. The Arab members of the Knesset and leaders of the community who usually speak fearlessly in the Knesset on behalf of their community have been silent, and everyone seems intimidated. Genocidal language by Israelis against Palestinians, clearly in violation of Israeli law, is widely tolerated. Yet, the mildest expressions of Palestinian views, symbols, or even sympathy are immediately investigated and prosecuted. The fear among Palestinian citizens of Israel is that the wrath being visited upon Gaza, and now the West Bank, may next be turned on them. The thin façade of democracy and freedom seems to have been removed, and they find themselves facing the full force of unmitigated bigotry, racism, and anti-Arab hatred. It does not bode well for future coexistence. |
