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April 23rd, 2021 
Awake Goy Palestinians in Jerusalem are reeling from a night of racist, anti-Arab violence that left over a hundred Palestinians wounded and dozens detained, following an ultra-right wing Israeli demonstration in the city.
On Thursday evening hundreds of Israelis marched from the Zion Gate outside the Old City to the Damascus Gate area — the entrance to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City — as part of demonstration organized by the far-right, anti-Palestinian group Lehava.
During the march, which was advertised as a demonstration to “restore Jewish dignity” to the city, crowds of Israelis chanted various anti-Palestinian slogans, including “Death to Arabs” and “may your village burn.”
According to Israeli media, the march was widely publicized on social media in the days leading up to Thursday, with many of the Israeli activists calling for violence and urging people to arm themselves.
Haaretz noted that one of the social media groups was administered by Israeli Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir. In the group, one member allegedly called for Palestinians to be hanged, while another said “We’re burning Arabs today, the Molotov cocktails are already in the trunk.”
Videos and photos of Israeli mobs harassing and attacking Palestinian pedestrians, and attacking Palestinian buses and homes with rocks, flooded social media. One video of a group of Israeli youth pelting rocks at a Palestinian home inside the Old City, as the screams and cries of children inside the home could be heard in the background, was widely shared on Palestinian social media accounts.
Another video was shared widely on Twitter and Instagram, purporting to show an Israeli man driving through East Jerusalem, which is predominantly Palestinian — save a few thousand Israeli settlers living in the neighborhood illegally — shooting his firearm in the air, seemingly in order to intimidate Palestinian residents.
Other videos surfaced of a Palestinian mother and her terrified child fleeing a mob of right-wing Israelis as they tried to exit the area where the demonstration was taking place.
Israeli media reported that Israeli police prevented the far-right groups from entering the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, but other reports from Palestinian media and local activist accounts claimed that some Israelis did enter into the neighborhood and attacked several homes.
Dozens of Palestinians attempted to gather in a counter protest against the far-right Israeli groups, but were largely suppressed by Israeli forces, who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades, and skunk water at Palestinians.
As a result, dozens of Palestinians were injured and tens more were arrested by Israeli forces. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 105 and Palestinians were wounded, 22 of whom were hospitalized in moderate condition.
One Palestinian was reportedly hospitalized for a head wound as a result of Israeli border police fire.
At least two Israelis were injured during the ensuing clashes, including a soldier who was videotaped being thrown in the face with a stone, and an Israeli civilian was beat up by a group of Palestinians, and his car subsequently set on fire.
According to Haaretz, more than 50 people were arrested throughout the course of the night, including Palestinians and members of the far-right Israeli groups.
Palestinian media reports, videos, and eyewitness testimony seemed to indicate that the majority of arrests targeted Palestinians. One video published by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center showed Israeli police arresting the center’s director, Jawad Siam, seemingly unprovoked, as Siam was standing by filming the police during the night’s events.
Another video showed Israeli police officers pointing their guns and shooting at Palestinians who were filming the night’s confrontations.
Palestinians took to social media to express their frustrations over what they say was a double standard in the way Israeli police and authorities handled the violent Israeli crowds versus Palestinian counter protesters.
While the Israeli demonstration, in which participants explicitly called for anti-Arab violence, was allowed to go on with little interference from police, Palestinian activists were reportedly called and threatened by Israeli intelligence agents, warning them not to participate in any counter protests, according to local media reports.
Additionally, the vast majority of those arrested and injured were reported to be Palestinians.
The culmination of a week of violence
The racist anti-Arab march on Thursday and the ensuing violence came after a week of tension in the city, and reports of several violent incidents and attacks on Palestinians throughout Jerusalem and other cities inside Israel.
Just two days before, a large group of Israeli youth were recorded marching through the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs.” Israeli media reported that the group were “looking for Arabs” and would attack anyone who they found to be Palestinian.
Other videos posted on social media earlier in the week showed groups of Israeli youth harassing and attacking Palestinian pedestrians and passersby in separate incidents.
Palestinian writer and poet and resident of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood Mohammed el-Kurd posted earlier this week on Twitter saying that he and a friend were approached by a massive group of Israelis, who aggressively interrogated the pair about whether they were Arab or not.
When the two, in fear of their safety, responded “No” in Hebrew, the crowd reportedly left them alone, and proceeded to chase down a Palestinian teenager with stones.
On Sunday, Israeli police fired water cannons and stun grenades at a group of Palestinians who were protesting against the recent installation of fencing around Damascus Gate that prevents people from gathering in groups and sitting on the steps outside the entrance to the Old City — a historic gathering place for Palestinians year round, particularly during Ramadan.
While Israeli police claim the fences were set up for safety reasons and to control the flow of traffic in and out of the Old City, Palestinians in East Jerusalem see it as an affront to the few spaces they have left in the city, and a sign of even further Israeli control and restriction over their lives in Jerusalem.
A number of the Palestinians who protested the fences were violently arrested by Israeli forces.
According to Israeli media, the spate of anti-Arab attacks in Jerusalem as well as Thursday’s mob-like demonstration were in response to a video of a young Palestinian man slapping slapping an orthodox Jewish man on the Jerusalem light-rail earlier in the week.
The video was filmed by and posted on TikTok by a Palestinian user, and made its rounds on Israeli media networks and social media sites, causing uproar. The Palestinian suspect, reportedly a resident of the Shufat refugee camp, was arrested by Israeli forces shortly after the incident.
On Friday morning, Palestinians in Jerusalem marched in the hundreds towards the Al-Aqsa mosque for dawn prayers, chanting “God is great” and “we will redeem you, Jerusalem.”
Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City, chanting national slogans, and demonstrating against the violence they faced the night prior.
The rule, not the exception
While Israeli media largely framed Thursday night’s racist march and the recent spate of anti-Palestinian violence as a response to the assault of the orthodox Jewish man, and the rhetoric of a few right-wing Israeli politicians, Palestinians say the recent events are in fact part of a long history of state-sanctioned anti-Palestinian violence in occupied East Jerusalem.
Palestinians argue that the anti-Palestinian violence is not a result of one attack against a Jewish civilian, but the result of decades worth of Israeli policies that favor the rights of Jews over Palestinian residents in the city, and years of race-bating and anti-Palestinian rhetoric on part of the highest members of the Israeli government.
IfNotNow, a US-based progressive Jewish organization called Thursday night’s events a “pogrom,” adding that framing the events as fringe and isolated is not only misleading, but untrue.
“Every time the Israeli government demolishes Palestinian homes, detains Palestinian children, expands settlements, shoots at protesters, and prevents Palestinian access to the outside world, they were sending the same message that was chanted in the streets tonight: that only Jewish lives matter to the state,” the group said in a statement.
The group highlighted the fact that the current violence comes on the heels of Israel’s fourth election, in which Israeli politicians openly voiced their support for policies advocating for the separation of Jews and Arabs and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
In East Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians are currently under threat of being forcibly evicted from their homes, and replaced with Israeli settlers — all of which is sanctioned by the Israeli judicial system.
There are some 350,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Following the occupation of the city by Israel in 1967, they were given “permanent residency” status, compared to Jewish residents of the city who have full citizenship.
For decades, Palestinian life in the city has been characterized by home demolitions, forced evictions, expulsion and residency revocation, political suppression, violent policing, and massive detention and arrest campaigns carried out by Israeli forces against their communities.
Despite the fact that Palestinians make up 40% of Jerusalem’s population, Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality has zoned only 15% of the land in East Jerusalem for residential use.
In addition to discriminatory zoning laws, Israel makes it extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits through lengthy application processes that costs tens of thousands of dollars — an impossible feat for Palestinian families in the city, many of whom live below the poverty line.
According to UN documentation, at least a third of all Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem lack an Israeli-issued building permit, placing over 100,000 Palestinians at risk of displacement.
In addition to navigating Israel’s permit regime, Palestinians in East Jerusalem struggle to hold onto their homes in the face of Israel’s rapidly growing settler movement in the city. With the support of the state, Israeli settler organizations have taken control of dozens of properties within Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and have launched lengthy legal battles against Palestinian families in efforts to evict them from their homes.
In 2019, Israel demolished a record number of homes in occupied East Jerusalem, the most in the past 15 years, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
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