• Home
  • Perspectives
  • Articles
  • Columns
  • Platform
  • Poetry
    • Literature
  • Shop
    • Cart
    • My account
  • Support
    • Donation Confirmation
  • Write for us
Search
46.2 F
Los Angeles
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Sign in
Welcome! Log into your account
Forgot your password? Get help
Privacy Policy
Password recovery
Recover your password
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Media Monitors Network (MMN)
  • Home
  • Perspectives
    • Jerusalem Israel Palestine Dome of The Rock Golden Dome

      The Abraham Accords undermined much-needed peace with Palestinians

      World Map

      Global disturbing disparities

      Globe Algeria Niger Mali Africa

      There is always a price to pay for befriending the Zionists

      Illegal Israeli Settlements

      Antisemitism claims mask a reign of political and cultural terror across…

      The Flower - Pakistan Monument at Night

      Israel in the vanguard of India’s mounting conflict with Pakistan

  • Articles
    • Man studying religious book

      Ishmael and Isaac: An Essay on the Divergent Moral Economies of…

      Mahmoud Abbas

      May Your Home Be Destroyed

      Netanyahu Lighting Hanukah Candles with His Wife and Sons

      Bibi’s Son or: Three Men in a Car

      The Map of Greater Israel

      The Man Who Jumped

      West Bank - Palestine

      Cry, Beloved Country

  • Columns
    • Progressives Must Fight With -- and In -- the Democratic Party

      Steps Left for Electing Progressives and Defeating Republicans in the Midterms

      Tax Revelations and Corporate Media Won’t Defeat Trump

      Nancy Pelosi Could Get Us All Killed

      Tax Revelations and Corporate Media Won’t Defeat Trump

      ‘Fortress Mentality’ Among U.S. Leaders Has Trapped Us in a Cycle…

      Progressives Must Fight With -- and In -- the Democratic Party

      Grassroots Organizing Should Dump Biden and Clear the Path for a…

      Corporate Media Are Focusing on Race -- and Dodging Class

      Biden Refuses to Mention the Worsening Dangers of Nuclear War. Media…

  • Platform
    • Hanukkah Lights

      Hanukkah is not hypocrisy

      The Washington Post

      “Preemptive war could risk millions of casualties. But….”

      When they shout: "We strongly condemn…"

      68

      Why Iran won’t attack Israel

      Is One Iraqi’s Self-Hatred Newsworthy?

  • Poetry
    • Literature
  • Shop
    • Cart
    • My account
  • Support
    • Donation Confirmation
  • Write for us
Home Perspectives Israeli police shoot ‘hated’ Arab legislator in back :: Protest met with...
  • Perspectives

Israeli police shoot ‘hated’ Arab legislator in back :: Protest met with rubber bullets ::

By
Jonathan Cook
-
October 28, 2010
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
WhatsApp
Linkedin
ReddIt
Email
Print
Tumblr
Telegram
Mix
VK
Digg
LINE
Viber
Naver

    Israeli police injured two Arab legislators on Wedensay in violent clashes provoked by Jewish rightwing extremists staging a march through the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.

    Haneen Zoubi, a parliament member who has become a national hate figure in Israel and received hundreds of death threats since her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in the summer, was among those hurt.

    Ms Zoubi reported being hit in the back and neck by rubber bullets as she fled the area when police opened fire. In an interview, she said she believed she had been specifically targeted by police snipers after they identified her.

    Police denied her claims, saying they had used only tear gas and stun grenades.

    Some 1,500 police were reported to have faced off with hundreds of Arab and Jewish demonstrators in the town.

    Shimon Koren, the northern police commander, admitted special paramilitary forces had been used against the Arab counter-demonstration, as well as an undercover unit more usually deployed at Palestinian protests in the West Bank.

    An officer disguised as an Arab demonstrator, from the so-called “mistarvim unit”, was among the injured, apparently after police fired a stun grenade at him by mistake.

    Ms Zoubi harshly criticised the police violence. “The police proved that they are a far more dangerous threat to me and other Arab citizens than the fascist group that came to Umm al-Fahm,” she said.

    The march was organised by far-right settlers allied to Kach, a movement that demands the expulsion of Palestinians from both Israel and the occupied territories. The movement was formally outlawed in 1994, but has continued to flourish openly among some settler groups.

    The organisers said they were demanding the banning of the Islamic Movement, which has its headquarters in Umm al-Fahm.

    The Islamic Movement’s leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, has angered Israeli officials by heading a campaign in Jerusalem’s Old City to highlight what he says is an attempted Israeli takeover of the Haram al-Sharif compound that includes the al-Aqsa mosque.

    He was also on the Mavi Marmara aid ship to Gaza in May, and claimed at the time that Israeli commandos had tried to assassinate him. Nine passengers were killed, some of them by close-range shots to their heads.

    The sheikh is currently serving a three-month jail sentence over clashes with the Israeli security forces close to the al-Aqsa mosque.

    Michael Ben Ari, a former Kach member and now an MP with the rightwing National Union party, who attended the march, said Israel must not be a “stupid democracy and let people who want to destroy us have a voice”.

    Baruch Marzel, one of the march organisers, told Israel Radio: “If the Kach Party was outlawed, then the Islamic Movement deserves to be outlawed 1,000 times over.”

    On hearing of Ms Zoubi’s injuries, he added: “It was worth going to Umm el-Fahm. She is our enemy.”

    Afu Aghbaria, an Arab MP with the joint Jewish-Arab Communist party, was also hurt. He said he had been hit in the leg.

    Arab leaders said the clash had been triggered by undercover police who began thowing stones from among the demonstrators — a tactic that the unit has been caught on film using at protests in the West Bank.

    Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Higher Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab citizens, who comprise a fifth of the total population, condemned the police actions.

    “Racism is no longer found only in documents or on the margins, like with Marzel, but has become a phenomenon among decision-makers and carried out on the ground. What happened today in Umm al-Fahm is a menacing escalation.”

    The committee demanded a state investigation into what it called “exaggerated violence” by the police.

    Police said nine Arab demonstrators had been arrested for stone-throwing.

    Four police officers were reported to be lightly injured. The far-right marchers were escorted away by police, unharmed.

    Ms Zoubi, a first-term MP, shot to notoriety this summer after she was among the first passengers to be released following Israel’s violent takeover of the Mavi Marmara.

    Ms Zoubi contradicted the Israeli account that the nine passengers had been killed by commandos defending themselves, accusing the navy of opening fire on the ship before any commandos had boarded. She also claimed several passengers had been allowed to bleed to death.

    She was provided with a body guard for several weeks after receiving a spate of deaths threats and general villification in the parliament.

    The Israeli police have been criticised in the past for lying about the strong-arm methods used to quell protests by the country’s Arab citizens.

    A state commission of inquiry found in 2003 that the police had used live ammunition and rubber bullets, in violation of its own regulations, to suppress solidarity demonstrations inside Israel at the start of the second intifada.

    Thirteen Arab citizens were killed and hundreds injured in a few days of clashes in 2000. Police had falsely claimed that the deaths had been caused by “friendly fire” from among the demonstrators.

    A recently parliamentary report revealed that there were only 382 Muslims in Israel’s 21,000-strong national police force –” or less than 2 per cent.

    The establishment of the undercover “mistarvim” unit against the country’s Arab population caused outrage among civil rights groups when it was first revealed last year.

    The far-right march in Umm al-Fahm was timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary this week of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded Kach. At a commemoration service in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel told hundreds who attended that the government was allowing the Palestinians to “establish an Ishmael state in Israel”.

    ————————————————————————

    A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

    • TAGS
    • about
    • account
    • actions
    • after
    • against
    • Al-Aqsa Mosque
    • allowed
    • among
    • anniversary
    • apparently
    • Arab
    • ariel
    • arrested
    • article
    • assassination
    • attempted
    • banning
    • become
    • before
    • began
    • being
    • bullets
    • called
    • campaign
    • carried
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Pinterest
    WhatsApp
    Linkedin
    ReddIt
    Email
    Print
    Tumblr
    Telegram
    Mix
    VK
    Digg
    LINE
    Viber
    Naver
      Previous articleA popular but problematic position
      Next articleBread and the Circus
      Jonathan Cook
      Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His new website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).

      RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

      Jerusalem Israel Palestine Dome of The Rock Golden Dome

      The Abraham Accords undermined much-needed peace with Palestinians

      World Map

      Global disturbing disparities

      Globe Algeria Niger Mali Africa

      There is always a price to pay for befriending the Zionists

      Google Search

      MMN @ Google Play Store MMN @ Amazon Appstore

      MMN @ TwitterMMN @ FacebookMMN Feed

      EDITOR PICKS

      Progressives Must Fight With -- and In -- the Democratic Party

      Steps Left for Electing Progressives and Defeating Republicans in the Midterms

      August 31, 2022
      Tax Revelations and Corporate Media Won’t Defeat Trump

      Nancy Pelosi Could Get Us All Killed

      August 1, 2022
      Tax Revelations and Corporate Media Won’t Defeat Trump

      ‘Fortress Mentality’ Among U.S. Leaders Has Trapped Us in a Cycle...

      July 25, 2022

      POPULAR POSTS

      167

      The Origin of Freemasonry: The Crusaders & Templars

      April 23, 2003

      Sharon to Peres: We Control America

      November 20, 2001
      Qibla - Kaaba

      Direction of Al-Qiblah

      February 23, 2003

      POPULAR CATEGORY

      • Perspectives13563
      • News6688
      • World5879
      • Asia4837
      • Columns1370
      • Africa923
      • Articles786
      • Australasia612
      • Health598
      ABOUT US
      Media Monitors Network (MMN) is a non-profit, non-partial and non-political platform for those serious Media Contributors and Observers who crave to know and like to help to prevail the whole truth about current affairs, any disputed issue or any controversial issue by their voluntary contributions with logic, reason and rationality.
      Contact us: [email protected]
      FOLLOW US
      • About MMN
      • Disclaimer
      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms and Conditions
      • Contact
      Copyright © 2000 - MMN International Inc. All rights reserved.
      Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
      All other brands, logos, and product names are registered
      trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
      ResponsiveVoice-NonCommercial licensed under 95x15
      MORE STORIES
      OIC condemns desecration of Holy Qur’an, calls for joint action to stop its recurrence

      OIC condemns desecration of Holy Qur’an, calls for joint action to...

      January 31, 2023
      IOM steps up support as Rohingya refugee numbers rise in Southeast Asia

      IOM steps up support as Rohingya refugee numbers rise in Southeast...

      January 31, 2023