Merciless Israeli mobs are hunting Palestinians

Rania Khalek Rights and Accountability 27 July 2014

Right-wing Israelis rioting in Jerusalem earlier this month.

Tali Mayer ActiveStills

All eyes are on Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s merciless bombing campaign has topped 1,000. 

But back in Jerusalem, where sixteen-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair was burned alive by Jewish vigilantes in a “revenge killing” incited by Israeli politicians early this month, right-wing lynch mobs continue to roam the streets in search of Arabs to attack. 

Their most recent victims are twenty-year-old Palestinians Amir Shwiki and Samer Mahfouz from the Beit Hannina neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. The pair were severely beaten into unconsciousness on Friday night by Israeli youths armed with iron bars and baseball bats. 

Mahfouz told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that he and Shwiki were on their way to the light rail when they were stopped by “a man [coming] from the direction of Neve Yaakov,”  an illegal Jewish-only Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. 

“He said give me a cigarette. I told him I don’t have any, and he heard [from my accent] I’m Arab and went away, coming back with his friends, maybe twelve people. They had sticks and iron bars and they hit us over the head,” Mahfouz recounted. 

Haaretz added, “According to the victims, police officers that arrived at the scene did not call an ambulance, and they were instead evacuated by passersby to receive medical treatment at a Beit Khanina [sic] clinic. They were later rushed to Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem in serious condition.”

Though investigators believe the beating to be racially motivated, no one has been arrested. 

Police complicity

Amir Shwiki and Samer Mahfouz were hospitalized after being beaten by Israeli settlers Friday. (Facebook)

Israeli police have a pattern of ignoring hate crimes against Palestinians, as was the case immediately following the reported kidnapping of Muhammad Abu Khudair. Police did not immediately respond when his family called to report that he had been kidnapped and they actively thwarted efforts to locate those who murdered him by spreading false rumors that Abu Khudair was murdered by his family in an “honor killing” over his sexuality. 

Police also neglected to respond when Abu Khudair’s murderers tried to kidnap ten-year-old Mousa Zalum from the same East Jerusalem neighborhood two days earlier. 

When police aren’t busy ignoring Jewish vigilante violence against Palestinians, they are actively participating in it. 

On Thursday night last week, police teamed up with a Jewish mob assaulting two Palestinian men while they were delivering bread to grocery markets on Jaffa Street in West Jerusalem from their van. 

The men — identified by Ma’an News Agency as twenty-year-old Amir Mazin Abu Eisha and Laith Ubeidat (age not specified) — were encircled and beaten with empty bottles by a mob of some twenty to thirty Israelis, according to their attorney, Khaldun Nijim.  

Rather than assist the men as they were being attacked, Nijim told Ma’an, “The Israeli police stopped them in their van and pointed guns at them.”

Nijim added: “After they drove away a few meters, the police shot at them. They then stopped and were assaulted again.”

After barring an ambulance from transferring Abu Eisha, who sustained head and ear injuries, to the hospital for medical treatment, police detained the two Palestinian men at the Russian Compound police station close to the scene and charged them with “having a knife and obstructing the work of police,” according to Nijim. 

Abu Eisha and Ubeidat were eventually released on bail but are currently under ten days of house arrest. Meanwhile, several of the mob participants filed complaints against their victims, accusing the men of trying to assault them with a knife.

Racist activism on the rise

The same Ma’an article notes that in Jerusalem, “Jaffa street has been covered with flyers warning Arabs not to ‘touch’ Jewish women in recent weeks, as part of a right-wing Jewish campaign to prevent mixing among Jews and Arabs.”

The fliers were probably designed and distributed by Lehava, a fanatical anti-miscegenation group whose sister organization, Hemla, receives state funding to “rescue” Jewish women from romantic relationships with Arab men. 

Leanne Gale, an anti-racist activist living in Jerusalem, recently reported on her blog that Lehava has been holding nightly gatherings in West Jerusalem’s Zion Square and littering all of Jerusalem with stickers and fliers in Arabic that state, among other things, “Do not even think about a Jewish woman.”

Other catchphrases adorned on Lehava T-shirts and stickers include “Jews love Jews” and “The women of Israel for the nation of Israel,” according to Gale. 

Fascist mobs from Haifa to Tel Aviv

Violent mobs of anti-Arab fascists aren’t isolated to Jerusalem.

Last week in Haifa, the Arab deputy mayor and his son were brutally beaten by a mob of Jewish supremacists chanting “death to Arabs” and “death to leftists” in response to a rally against the Gaza onslaught. Police did nothing to stop the assault.

Similar fascist demonstrators have surfaced in supposedly liberal Tel Aviv as well, verbally and physically attacking Palestinians and leftists protesting the war on Gaza. 

Israeli blogger Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has been regularly attending and live-tweeting the racist attacks against anti-war demonstrators in recent weeks, heard a new racist chant mocking the more than two hundred children slaughtered by Israel’s merciless bombing campaign in Gaza: “Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.” 

Incitement from the top

While calls for extermination have been rampant both in the streets of Israel and on Israeli social media for months, the “death to Arabs” sentiment is not isolated to vigilantes. 

Take for example Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked, a rising star in the far-rightwing Jewish Home party, who recently called for genocide by slaughtering Palestinian mothers to prevent them from giving birth to “little snakes.”

Fast forward several weeks, and the United Nations is reporting an alarming rise in miscarriages and premature births in Gaza, where newborn infants are dying due electricity blackouts that shutdown their incubators.

Another Israeli public official inciting violence is Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of the illegal West Bank settlement Kiryat Arba, who issued a religious edict declaring that it is permissible under Jewish religious law for the Israeli army to “punish the enemy population with whatever measures it deems proper,” even if that means “exterminat[ing] the enemy.”

Since then, portions of Gaza have been reduced to rubble in apocalypse-like scenes that look indistinguishable from the flattened cities of Syria. 

With all eyes glued to Israel’s destruction of the besieged Gaza Strip, little attention is being paid to the heightened levels of racism in Israeli society as demands for “death to Arabs” echo across the country with devastating consequences for Palestinians from Shujaiya to Qalandiya to Jerusalem to Haifa. 

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Comments

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tom hall replied on

Fascism is completely rampant in Israel, promulgated, sustained and protected by forces of the state at every level. This is what the EU and USA are financing and defending. The desperate situation of the people of Gaza is a consequence of virulent racism now being pushed to Nazi extremes. Zionism cannot be reformed. It must be combated and ultimately removed from Palestine. One secular state for all its people- Jews, Muslims, Christians- all equal under the law.

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Ron Johnson replied on

The "two state solution" is dead. Israel killed it. After the Camp David Accords, I attended an Israeli/Palestinian discussion in St Louis where the two sides were to demonstrate their unity over the agreement. Well, for a reason I won't get into, all hell broke loose. I approached one of the speakers, the editor of the Jewish Light, and told him that the two state solution implies ethnic cleansing. He haughtily said, no, the Arabs will move to Palestine, and the Jews will move to Israel. And if they don't move, I asked? He waved me away with disgust.

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Chris Baker replied on

The more of this I see; the more I am convinced that Israel does not have right to exist; and I am sure the rest of the planet has come to the same conclusion. From their hubris, mad dog policies in the region, Nazi death - cult fetish and blatant genocidal tendencies that would have made Himmler vommit; and their subversion of western governments; only a drop in the bucket of their crimes against humanity; as far as I am concerned. For every action; there is an equal and opposite reaction; so with every act of violence; they are only sealing their own fates; and driving nine inch nails deeper into their collective coffins. I cannot foresee Israel lasting even another decade if they continue on this ridiculous course under the aegis of psychopathic cheerleaders like Netanyahu. On a further note; I find the spectacle of this mob mentality; and unmerited racial chauvinism utterly nauseating; it is the Crystal-Knocks of 2014; and history will look upon these actions with the same contempt!

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Bronxboy47 replied on

"The beatings, bombings, settlements, and land confiscation will continue until Palestinian morale improves." --Israel

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Judy replied on

To notice;
what?
Take their land, then kill them...and they need to improve their attitudes????
What does not make sense with that statement?

What kind of"crazy" idiot would happily sing about killing children?

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Bill replied on

Maggie, against my will, I am afraid that I have to agree with you. Israelis are becoming more and more like nazis. Israelis will have to bear the shame and disgrace of their treatment of helpless captive peoples for countless years to come. Furthermore, Israeli firsters in the U.S. have managed to seize control of a substantial portion of the U.S. govt. (for you doubters, I can't even believe this myself, although facts are plentiful).

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BasilMcd replied on

To a large degree Zionists have always had a great deal in common with the Nazis. Early in the Nazi regime in Germany, Zionists met directly with Nazi officials to discuss their common project: the separation of Jews from the rest of German society. Zionists wanted Jews to move to a new homeland (Madagascar was suggested); so, surprisingly enough, did Nazis. It was of course found to be impractical for all the Jews to move, the war intervening; but both groups basically wanted the same thing. Both believed Jews should live separately.

Both had the same basic racist ideology. They had a lot in common.

Now they share the same methods.

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Arain replied on

Tom Hall: I agree. This barbarism of Israel surpassed all the limits. Plus full support from so called civilized countries to Israel makes the things worst. A complete Tragedy.

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M R Gooda replied on

If there is formed a "Death to Jews" Vigilante group then the Americans and the pro-Zionist lobby will cry hoarse with condemnation. This very lobby, which controls the media and the world opinion is now cruelly silent. But people with conscience across the religious divide and who have a heart that bleeds with compassion and love for fellow humans are seriously against Zionist cruelty, oppression and inhuman genocide.

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Jeff Davis replied on

I'm an American and a Jew.

We often hear the phrase "Israel's right to exist" and along with it, "Israel's right to self-defense." Hear them endlessly, by propagandists who repeat them endlessly. But endless repetition does not make a thing true. And the seeming "legitimacy" that arises from this endless repetition is not legitimacy at all, but rather the "truth rape" of well executed propaganda.

Yet the truth exists.

And here it is: a fact-based, truth-based, ethics-based summary.

In 1917, the British Imperial elite and the World Zionist Organization colluded in a criminal conspiracy to steal Palestine from the people -- 95% Arab -- who had lived there for 70 generations, and to give it to the Jews/Zionists. That's ***STEAL***, as in take what doesn't belong to you.

This "plan" was a crime of conspiracy then, as the theft and murder in it's execution is a crime today. A crime is still a crime, despite 90 years of control and censorship of the media.
A crime is still a crime despite 90 years of impunity from prosecution or 90 years of protection through propaganda. JUST AS NO AMOUNT OF TIME CAN CONVERT A CRIME INTO A LEGAL ACT, NO AMOUNT OF TIME CAN CHANGE A LIE INTO THE TRUTH; .

The Zionist entity called Israel is nothing less than a geopolitical crime-in-progress. This is the truth that the Jews will never be able to "disappear", and that the digital age and internet have finally set free.

So when next you hear propaganda about Israel's "right to exist", consider: what crime has a "right to exist"?, what criminal enterprise has a "right to exist"? Add to that: what criminal has a "right to self-defense"? What criminal has the right to commit violence in the furtherance of a crime? What criminal has the right to fight back against the lawful authority that arrives to halt the crime and arrest the criminals?

(continued)

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Eileen Kuch replied on

Kudos to you, Jeff Davis! Bravo! I totally agree with you on every word you posted. You're a brave man to do this; as, your fellow Jews will now be calling you a "self-hating Jew". You're absolutely correct in stating that the Zionist Entity was established through the British Mandate, brought about by the Balfour Declaration that dragged the US into WWI.

Keep hounding those satanic Zionist barbarians with your posts, Jeff; you're doing an excellent job so far.

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Jeff Davis replied on

Israel, the Zionists, their enablers, and their supporters are criminals: thieves and murderers on a global scale. They have no "right to exist" (as criminals) and they have no "right to self-defense" as they commit their crimes.

Yet, they do have rights. And I stand in defense of those rights. They have the right to surrender to a competent authority, and not suffer summary execution. The right to a fair trial. If found guilty, the right to a proportionate penalty. And finally, once the offending parties have "done their time", the right to rejoin society and resume a peaceful cooperative existence.

The Zionist criminals cannot be allowed to continue in their criminal ways. And while I feel for the Palestinian and Arab and Moslem victims of this crime worldwide, as an American and a Jew I see with absolute clarity the immense danger these crimes pose for Jews the world over, who, whether it is true or not, will be seen as accomplices in the crime. A new holocaust is being built, and the Zionist criminal project Israel is the cornerstone of that catastrophe.

********************************

Here are the crucial sources for understanding the situation the world finds itself in today vis a vis Israel.

The last three are long, scholarly, and frankly, a bit dry. However, the first, for obvious reasons, is quite entertaining.

"Concerning the Jews" by Mark Twain

www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/18...

The Hidden History of Zionism

http://www.marxists.org/histor...

Behind the Balfour Declaration

www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p389_Jo...

Benjamin Freedman

www.sweetliberty.org/issues/is...

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madvegan replied on

ITS ALL THE FAULT of "RELIGIONS" ban them all~ for a peaceful world NOW!

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lisa replied on

While i agree that Israel's actions are criminal, despicable, and should be stopped i find the comments of hate and violence on this page also despicable. if we become like Israel and preach violence and hate w can not then judge Israel with any moral credibility. and as a Jewish Quaker i believe violence in any form is the problem and never the solution. will you join me in that ?

Rania Khalek

Rania Khalek's picture

Rania Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized.