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A torched bicycle shop, an arrested singer: Arab-Israelis face precarious landscape during Gaza war
TAYIBE, Israel (JTA) – In the days following Hamas’ bloody invasion of Israel, singer and influencer Dalal Abu Amneh posted a Palestinian flag to social media along with the words “There is no victor but God.”
By Tuesday, the post was gone, and Abu Amneh, who is also a brain researcher, was in Israeli prison — arrested for voicing support for Hamas. The musical artist and influencer, who lives in the Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth, is one of a growing number of Arab-Israelis, also known as Palestinian-Israelis, to be arrested in recent days for appearing to support the massacre.
“They tried to strip me of my humanity, silence my voice, and humiliate me in every way,” Abu Amneh posted on Instagram on Wednesday, writing that she was placed in solitary confinement and went on a hunger strike. “They insulted me and handcuffed my hands and feet, but they made me more proud and dignified. My voice will remain a messenger of love, defending the truth in this world.”
Meanwhile, stories have also emerged of Arab-Israelis rushing to save Jewish victims and volunteering to help the stricken communities of southern Israel in the wake of the attacks. A bicycle-shop owner in this central Arab-Israeli city of Tayibe donated 50 children’s bicycles to evacuees from the south and, days later, his shop was burned down. A crowdfunding campaign on his behalf, conducted in Hebrew and English, has since raised more than $150,000.
Indeed, the vast majority of Israel’s approximately 2 million Arab citizens don’t support the attacks. A poll conducted by the Agam Institute in Israel found that 80% of Arab-Israelis opposed Hamas’ attack, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, while just 5% supported it, reported the publication Ynet.
Arab-Israelis say the attack, and Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, has placed their community in a precarious position. Many are mourning Hamas’ attack — which killed at least 15 Arab-Israelis, according to the Arab-Israeli nonprofit Mossawa — while also opposing Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, where many have family and friends. Those strikes have killed more than 3,200 people, per the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
“The majority are against all the casualties, it doesn’t matter which side, because we are all against the killing of innocent women, children and elderly,” said Murad, an engineer from Tayibe. “If someone says something pro-Hamas all of the Arabs are attacked as ‘They are against us!’ But if 100 or even 1,000 people are against Hamas, nobody notices.”
Murad was sitting with friends on Tuesday in the city’s Two Brothers Cafe, discussing the ongoing war over coffee. Like his friends, Murad declined to give his last name, fearful of repercussions for openly sharing his opinion. Israeli-Arab politicians have also denounced the Hamas massacre, along with the killing of civilians in Gaza.
“We should say here and now that the murder of women and children and the elderly, and atrocities against civilians in the south, are worthy of unstinting denunciation,” Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi said in a speech last week in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. “Human morality is not selective. There is no half-morality. Murder of children is murder of children.”
Previous Israeli wars in Gaza have seen friction, conflict and arrests in Arab-Israeli communities and so-called “mixed cities.” In 2021, Arab-Jewish cities in Israel saw fierce interethnic clashes before and during Israel’s conflict that year with Hamas. In 2014, the last time Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza, 1,500 Israeli-Arabs were arrested for protesting the military operation.
Figures provided by the Israel Police say 63 people have been arrested for supporting Hamas or the massacre, and 40 Arab-Israeli students have been suspended or expelled from universities, according to the Arab-Israeli legal nonprofit Adalah.
Shlomo Karhi, the Communication Minister, recently pushed for emergency legislation that would grant the police power to shut off the broadcasts and close the offices of media outlets that “significantly harm national security.” Karhi has taken aim specifically at the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, which has a bureau in Israel and which he called a “terror-supporting station.”
“We are at war!” Karhi posted to social media on Monday along with a copy of the draft regulations. “Whoever wants can petition the Supreme Court afterward, but this station must close now!”
In light of that atmosphere, Murad said he had advised his adult son not to post anything about the conflict to social media.
“There is no space to protest,” he said. “I told my son, who is 27 and an engineer, ‘do not say anything, not even a humanitarian message.’”
Harel Chorev-Halewa, a historian of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University, said that protests have not broken out in Arab-Israeli or mixed cities during the current conflict due to a mix of fear from what will ensue and shock from Hamas’ massacre.
Groups that would foment unrest, Chorev-Halewa said, “know that nobody, including the security forces and the civilians, will wait around for any manifestation of force or things that we saw in May, 2021. People are openly saying, ‘If you will come to my house, if you will come to my street, I will shoot you.’”
Chorev-Halewa said Arab-Israeli repudiation of Hamas’ attack is also “a failure of Hamas’ strategy” to incite Arab-Israelis to rebel.
That calm atmosphere is present in Tayibe, said Abed, the barista at Two Brothers. He said locals are less personally affected by the war because “more than half of Gazans are from the coastal region of Jaffa, Ashkelon, Ramle and Lod,” rather than the center of Israel. Accordingly, life is unfolding relatively normally in the city, save for nationwide school closures, which have kept Tayibe’s children at home as well.
Arab-Israeli grievance toward the government is far from limited to the military operation in Gaza. This year, Arab-Israelis have protested a spike in murders in their communities, with more than 180 Arab citizens killed in violent incidents this year. Arab leaders and activists have long castigated the state for discriminating against Arab-Israelis in a variety of ways — from disparities in funding to policing.
“The Israeli press always asks the Israeli-Arab, ‘What side are you on?’” Murad said. “I ask, what side are you on when they kill 200 of our sons here and no criminal is arrested?” He added that he is also worried about an eruption of violence in the West Bank, where clashes have been escalating this year and where more than 50 Palestinians have been killed since the Oct. 7 invasion.
“It cannot work like that, when you see 700 to 800 babies killed in Gaza,” Murad said. “There are children on both the Israeli and Palestinian side that are both victims.”
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The post A torched bicycle shop, an arrested singer: Arab-Israelis face precarious landscape during Gaza war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) used the holiday of Thanksgiving to “mourn” the “indigenous people” of “Palestine” and elsewhere “fighting for freedom on their own land,” portraying one of America’s most storied celebrations in a negative light.
“This Thanksgiving we mourn the Indigenous people killed by European settlers and the United States in order to steal their land,” Tlaib reposted on Instagram. “From here to Palestine, we stand in solidarity with all Indigenous people as they fight for freedom on their own land.”
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has long been an outspoken critic of Israel. The congresswoman was slow to issue a public statement acknowledging the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, and since the onslaught, she has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid.” She has also alleged that American support for Israel stems from “anti-Palestinian racism.”
US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), another staunch critic of Israel and progressive lawmaker, also used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take shots at America, arguing that the beloved holiday represents “stolen land and broken treaties” for Native Americans.
Lee has been on the receiving end of immense criticism over her anti-Israel rhetoric in the year following the Oct. 7 atrocities. In the weeks following the slaughter, Lee co-sponsored a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. She has similarly accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. In a statement commemorating the anniversary of Oct. 7, Lee only wrote that she mourned “those killed one year ago and those massacred in the year since,” seemingly drawing an equivalence between Hamas’s terrorism and Israel’s defensive military operations.
“Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude and togetherness for many, but it’s also a reminder of stolen land and broken treaties for others. Today, let’s honor Native communities by committing to the fight for sovereignty, justice, and the promises this country has failed to keep,” Lee wrote.
In contrast, some other members of Congress called attention to the American hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza in their Thanksgiving statements.
“As we gather with family today, we must not forget the families who are missing their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas 418 days ago — including New York’s own Omer Neutra,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said. “Let us pray that by this time next year, they will be reunited safely with their families.”
“As you spend Thanksgiving with your family and friends, don’t forget the 100+ families whose loved ones are being held hostage by Iran-backed Hamas for the second holiday season in a row. It’’ been 419 days. Enough! Bring them home NOW!” US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said in a statement, referring to the 101 hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Of the remaining hostages, seven are Americans.
The post Rashida Tlaib Uses Thanksgiving Message to Express Solidarity With ‘Palestine,’ Other ‘Indigenous People’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
The number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin in just the first six months of this year surpassed the total for all of 2023 and reached the highest annual count on record, according to a new German report.
Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) on Thursday released data documenting 1,383 incidents of antisemitism in the German capital from January to June, averaging nearly eight a day.
The figure compiled by RIAS, a federally-funded body, was a significant increase from the 1,270 antisemitic outrages tallied in 2023 and the highest count for a single year since RIAS began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015.
Of the 1,383 incidents documented in the first half of this year in Berlin, two were cases of “extreme violence,” another 23 were attacks (six of which were against children), and 37 were targeted acts of property damage, including 21 acts involving memorials.
In the first extremely violent incident, a Jewish student in Mitte was punched several times in the face on the street and then kicked in the face after he fell to the ground in February 2024. The victim, a member of student groups working to combat antisemitism, had been doxed online as a “right-wing Zionist,” according to The Jerusalem Post.
The second incident also occurred in Mitte, this time in May, when a visibly Jewish Ukrainian was physically attacked by an unknown assailant while on the way to synagogue. The attacker yelled “Free Palestine” while assaulting the victim, and no one reportedly intervened.
RIAS also documented 28 threats, such as direct messages on social media, and 1,240 cases of abusive behavior.
“The content of antisemitism also continued to be more violent and uninhibited. Seventy-one incidents contained threats of annihilation, including graffiti that openly called for the killing of Jews,” the report noted.
In the first half of 2024, 74 antisemitic incidents were documented in educational institutions in Berlin, including 27 incidents in schools. “The nature of the incidents is alarming: Jewish or Israeli children were beaten, spat on, threatened, and treated with hostility by their classmates,” according to RIAS. “Antisemitic incidents occurred in schools in 9 of 12 Berlin districts.”
A striking 71.6 percent of all antisemitic incidents during the first half of 2024 in the German capital were related to Israel.
RIAS previously reported a major spike in antisemitic incidents across Germany since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
There have been 230 antisemitic outrages per month since Oct. 7, 2023, compared to around 50 such incidents per month before the onslaught.
“These data indicate a lasting change in the dynamics of incidents: the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin remained at a significantly higher level in the first half of the year than in the months and years before, starting with the sharp increase following Oct. 7,” RIAS summarized.
However, many antisemitic incidents had nothing to do with Israel or its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
“It can be observed that in this context the boundaries of what can be said have shifted overall and some antisemitic statements seem to be acceptable even to [normative] society,” RIAS wrote. “They range from the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, to antisemitic conspiracy myths, trivialization of the Holocaust and reversals of perpetrator and victim, to open antisemitic insults.”
The antisemitism monitoring group concluded that rates of antisemitism show no sign of letting up in Berlin: “A downward trend is not foreseeable at the time of publication of the report.”
Europe has experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany last year, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview last year.
The post Antisemitism in Berlin Surges to Record Levels This Year, New Data Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence
Soccer Football – Europa League – Besiktas v Maccabi Tel Aviv – Nagyerdei Stadion, Debrecen, Hungary – November 28, 2024 General view before the match as the teams and match officials line up. Photo: Reuters/Bernadett Szabo
The Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv played a UEFA Europa League match on Thursday against their Turkish rivals Besiktas in an empty stadium in Hungary, which was closed to supporters likely due to security concerns following the recent attack on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.
Maccabi won the match 3-1 in the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary, during the fifth week of the UEFA Europa League. Gavriel Kanichowsky secured Israel’s lead in the 23rd minute with a goal, but Besiktas struck back in the 38th minute with a goal by Rafa Silva to tie the score. Maccabi Tel Aviv took the lead again right before halftime by scoring another goal in added time. The Israeli club finished 3-1 with Weslley Patati’s goal in the 81st minute.
Groups of police patrolled outside the venue and the game concluded with no incident, according to the Associated Press.
On Nov. 11, days after the attack against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, the European soccer body UEFA announced that this week’s match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Besiktas, which was originally scheduled to take place in Istanbul, would be moved to Hungary “following a decision by the Turkish authorities not to stage it in Turkey.” Hungary, which has hosted several home games for Israel’s national soccer team since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, agreed to host the match and UEFA said it “will be played behind closed doors following a decision of the local Hungarian authorities.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Zarko Lazetic said after Thursday’s match that playing in front of an empty stadium was hard for the team. “We play football because of the fans, to give them some pleasure, some excite(ment) and to be together,” he explained, as reported by the AP.
The match on Thursday was Maccabi Tel Aviv’s first game in Europe since its fans were violently attacked in The Netherlands during the late hours of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of the following morning. After the team competed against the Dutch club Ajax in a UEFA Europa League game in Amsterdam, anti-Israel gangs chased Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv through the streets of Amsterdam, ran them over with cars, physically assaulted them, and taunted Israeli soccer fans with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans such as “Free Palestine.” Five people were reportedly hospitalized for injuries.
Leaders in Israel and Europe condemned the premeditated and coordinated attack as antisemitic. Amsterdam’s mayor called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” and said the assailants were going “Jew hunting.” Police in Amsterdam said they have already identified, investigated, and even arrested 45 suspects in connection to the incident.
The post Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.