[News] Merciless Israeli mobs are hunting Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Merciless Israeli mobs are hunting Palestinians

Submitted by Rania Khalek on Sun, 07/27/2014 - 16:41*
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/merciless-israeli-mobs-are-hunting-palestinians*

All eyes are on Gaza, where the death toll from Israel's merciless 
bombing campaign has topped 1,000 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/26/palestinian-death-toll-1000-gaza_n_5623370.html>. 


But back in Jerusalem, where 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/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 20-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 /Ha'aretz/ 
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.607312> 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 Ya'akov,"  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 12 people. They had sticks and iron bars and they hit us over the 
head," Mahfouz recounted.

/Ha'aretz/ 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 
<http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Two-Palestinians-hospitalized-after-being-severely-beaten-by-Jewish-mob-in-Jerusalem-369021>, 
no one has been arrested.


    Police complicity

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 
<http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=709574> 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 
<http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/07/02/israeli-police-plant-false-story-murdered-palestinian-boy-was-gay-flood-social-media-with-disinformation/> 
that Abu Khudair was murdered by his family in an "honor killing" over 
his sexuality.

Police also neglected to respond 
<http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/palestinian-murdered-answers.html> when 
Abu Khudair's murderers tried to kidnap 10-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 
<http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=715794> as 20-year-old 
Amir Mazin Abu Eisha and Laith Ubeidat (age not specified) --- were 
encircled and beaten with empty bottles by a mob of some 20 to 30 
Israelis, according to their attorney Khaldun Nijim.

Rather than assist the men as they were being attacked, Nijim told 
<http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=715794> Ma'an, "The 
Israeli police stopped them in their van and pointed guns at them." 
Nijim continued: "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 a 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 10 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 noted 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 
<http://972mag.com/campaign-calls-on-arab-men-to-keep-out-of-jlem-away-from-jewish-girls/54263/>, 
a fanatical anti-miscegenation group whose sister organization, Hemla, 
receives state funding 
<http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/a-strange-kind-of-mercy-1.364417> 
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 
<http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/i-have-never-been-more-conscious-of-my-womanhood-than-right-now-in-jerusalem.html> 
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 <http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.606240> 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 <http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/death-arabs-jerusalem.html>, 
verbally and physically attacking 
<http://forward.com/articles/202383/tel-aviv-is-under-red-alert-in-many-ways/> 
Palestinians and leftists protesting the war on Gaza.

Israeli blogger Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has been regularly attending and 
live-tweeting <https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/493147263430950913> 
the racist attacks against anti-war demonstrators in recent weeks, heard 
a new racist chant mocking the more than 200 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 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jimmy-johnson/watch-profound-and-haunting-short-film-death-arabs> 
and on Israeli social 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/bombing-gaza-children-gives-me-orgasm-israelis-celebrate-slaughter-facebook> 
media 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/kill-palestinian-every-hour-says-new-israeli-facebook-page> 
for months, the "death to Arabs" sentiment is not isolated to vigilantes.

Take for example Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ayelet-shaked>, a rising star in the 
far-right-wing Jewish Home party, who recently called for genocide 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes> by 
slaughtering Palestinian mothers to prevent them from giving birth to 
"little snakes."

Fast forward several weeks, and the UN is reporting an alarming rise 
<https://twitter.com/unrwa/status/493120739310989313> in miscarriages 
and premature births in Gaza, where newborn infants are dying 
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/24/born-in-hell-the-gaza-maternity-ward.html> 
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 
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.606688> 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 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/children-are-majority-those-injured-shujaiya-massacre-says-doctor> to 
Qalandiya 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/nine-palestinians-killed-protests-across-west-bank> to Jerusalem 
to Haifa.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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