Ugly, racist anti-Palestinian chants on Israeli ‘Flag March’
JVL Introduction
On 16th June, the Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the new Israeli government as “a wonderful demonstration of Israel’s thriving democracy” and looked forward to “further strengthen(ing) ties between the UK Jewish community and Israel”.
The same day it issued a statement on the March of Flags in Jerusalem, condemning the “distressing and threatening chants against Arabs” and “this awful racism.”
If only the separation were so simple! After all, it was the new leader of Israel’s “thriving democracy”, Naftali Bennett, who approved the march as almost his first act as Prime Minister.
The Board seems to think the problem was a few unruly demonstrators. The real problem is the very idea of the march – designed as it is as a brazen assertion of Jewish supremacy over the Palestinians in east Jerusalem.
When the Board condemns that we’ll stand up and take notice.
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- You can see Huthifa Fayyad’s video The Israeli ‘Flag March’ explained on the Middle East Eye website here.
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This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Tue 15 Jun 2021. Read the original here.
‘Death to Arabs’: Israeli ‘Flag March’ features racist anti-Palestinian chants
Among the chants that were reported were “Death to Arabs,” “may your village burn,” and “a second Nakba is coming,” referring to the nakba, or ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, when thousands of Palestinians were massacred by Zionist militias and over 750,000 were forcibly expelled from their homes in 1948.
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I just happened to come across the following yesterday:
7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media today, Tuesday 15 June 2021, published the findings of the Index of Racism, Hatred and Incitement against Arabs and Palestinians. It was shared online in Hebrew from the 6th to the 21st May 2021, particularly at the height of the last Israeli aggression on Palestinians, which included a series of violations that extended to the digital realm and threatened the digital rights of Palestinians. The findings show a 15-fold increase in violent speech compared to the same time period last year.
The findings also show that there were 183,000 conversations that included racism, insults or incitement against Arabs, out of 1,090,000 conversations the report monitored which addressed Arabs and Palestinians generally on the internet. 29% of such speech incited violence, while 31% included insults against Arabs and Palestinians, and 40% included racist conversations against Palestinians and Arabs.
https://7amleh.org/2021/06/15/index-of-racism-and-incitement-an-increase-in-racism-and-incitement-against-palestinians-and-arabs-during-the-last-israeli-aggression
PS During the same period the CST reported a three-fold increase in anti-semitism (in the UK) during the recent conflict.
It is sad to see that Nazi-style methods are being used by those who should know better what the consequences will almost surely be.
Shalom.