Over 750 Palestinian Citizens, Residents of Israel Detained by Israel Since Beginning of Attacks on Gaza

Ameer Makhoul, Executive Director of Ittijah: Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, is one of many prominent Palestinian citizens of Israel who were brought in for questioning by the Israeli authorities, for being outspoken against Israel's military attack on the Gaza Strip.

According to Ameer Makhoul, Executive Director of Ittijah: Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, who himself was brought in for questioning by the Israeli General Security Services, over half of those detained are minors under the age of 18. “This is part of the policy of harassment of political protest by the Arab public,” notes Makhoul. “(Israel) wants to break the spirit of the young generation,” added Makhoul.  

In addition to the detention of demonstrators, Israel conducted interrogations and preventative detentions of Palestinian leaders in Israel. The Chairperson of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), Awad Abd al-Fatah, spent a night in detention and was subsequently released without charges. The Chairperson of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), Ayman Odeh, was interrogated by the GSS, as were leaders of the Abna al-Balad, Muhammad Canaane and Raja Aghbariya.  

On 12 January, Israel’s Central Elections Committee acquiesced to a request by the radical right wing National Unity political party to ban the National Democratic Assembly (Balad) and Ra’am-Ta’al from participating in national elections scheduled for February. The Elections Committee, a partisan body composed of representatives of the political parties, voted overwhelmingly to ban the parties, which represent an estimated 2/3 of Palestinian voters in Israel. The Labor Party representative on the committee, Eitan Cabel, also voted for the ban despite his party’s decision not to support it, citing personal fury that Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalkha (Balad) openly admits to conversing with former Member of Knesset Azmi Bishara, who left Israel for fear of political persecution and legal prosecution. Although analysts predict that Israel’s Supreme Court, to which a petition in this matter was scheduled to be submitted yesterday, will overturn this partisan and racist decision, the decision is reflective of Israel’s institutional attempts to disenfranchise Palestinian citizens of Israel.   

The detentions are additionally part of Israel’s mostly successful campaign to conceal internal popular protests against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Israel, both Palestinians and Jews, have taken to the streets in public protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Protests throughout Israel have occurred almost every day since Israel commenced attacks on 27 December; the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee has organized three massive demonstrations in Palestinian towns and villages in northern and southern Israel, attending by over 200,000 people, and the Coalition against the War has initiated local and national demonstrations with tens of thousands of participants. The concerted campaign by the Israeli government and Zionist political parties from the “left-wing” Meretz through the far right has succeeded, however, in creating a local and international illusion that there exists no opposition to the military attacks within Israel.