Hundreds of Palestinian citizens demonstrate against the demolition of homes in the Arab town of Qalansuwa earlier this week In a week during which the Israeli media focused mostly on itself and Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest corruption scandal, we in the Arab community focused on our homes, and our basic right to live on this land. This past week the government destroyed 11 homes in the town of Qalansuwa striking a blow against a fifth of the population The prime minister shared a Facebook post titled “Our forces destroyed Arab homes,” unleashing the venom of his followers since blaming Arab citizens for arson is no longer effective The Joint List called an emergency meeting as did the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee Social media networks were flooded with photos of bulldozers and armed security forces diligently destroying homes whose status was in the process of being formalized It was an underhanded move; no one could oppose it or even expect the bulldozers at 6 a.m The message delivered to the average Israeli went as follows: the government takes action against illegally-built homes in both Qalansuwa and Amona. But the only thing these two places share is that they are built on Palestinian land: in Qalansuwa the residents built the homes on their land, and in Amona the settlers stole land that does not belong to them and built their homes using the public’s money while the residents of Amona are taking their fight to the High Court to prevent the demolition of their outpost The residents of Qalansuwa will not be afforded alternative housing the settlers will be handsomely reimbursed with both housing and money everything is possible — as long as the people keep supporting him The news of the demolition “calmed” supporters of human rights following claims that no one was living in the homes that were demolished (which turned out to be false) The Arab leadership was roundly criticized for using the tired tactic of calling for a general strike in the Arab sector There were calls among the community to rebuild the homes shutting down the streets with mass demonstrations and other ideas that simply won’t advance a construction master plan for Israel’s Arab communities that has been delayed for 30 years The turnout for the general strike was very good regardless yet the event received scant coverage in the Hebrew media Immediately thereafter came the call for a mass rally in Qalansuwa on Friday to be held after the noon prayers in protest at the Israeli government’s hostile policies I published a critical post with the question: “Who will speak at the rally?” When it comes to our protests this is the million dollar question — after all Arab politicians have few opportunities to speak directly to the people the head of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee surely has a free pass to speak; everyone else needs to work hard to have that opportunity But will women be given the chance to speak That’s when I got the typical responses of “what’s the connection between women and home demolitions?” and “we need to focus on the struggle and not trifles.” Except that those responses came from my mother — so I shut my mouth (something I am unaccustomed to doing) and did not respond The lecture I was supposed to deliver at the joint Arab-Jewish village Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom on the joint struggle between Arabs and Jews This allowed the young leaders from mixed Arab-Jewish cities to take part in the protest I walked alongside the masses toward the rally that filled the streets of the rural town walking between spacious homes and beautiful fields full of strawberry bushes Israel is a terrorist state,” “Unity between Arabs and Druze Islam and Christianity,” and “Hand in hand we will build our homes on our land.” The rally organizers handed out water and coffee to the thousands who arrived from all corners of the country chose verses that speak about tolerance and adhering to the path of justice faith and patience will bring relief in the end Barakeh further explained why a general strike was necessary (I was not convinced railed against the calls for the Joint List MKs to step down arguing that doing so would only serve the government I happen to agree with Barakeh on this point — if Arab elected representatives resign the next step will be physical confrontation and a far more difficult struggle Although the idea of a Zionist Knesset without Arabs is rather entertaining — it will be interesting whether we would be able to distinguish between coalition and opposition in their circus performance in the plenum Barakeh also powerfully quoted Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziad: Barakeh even called on the masses to support the upcoming protest actions Shu’a’a Masarwa Mansour spoke after Barakeh He is a rising politician who was elected to lead one of the most tough cities in Arab society after years of being governed by an appointed committee and it seems that after Friday’s rally we can crown him as the “Head of the Southern Triangle” (the area in which Taybe and Qalansuwa are located) The elderly woman sitting behind me was enthusiastic about him he addressed the Hebrew media and spoke directly to the prime minister: “We still believe in democracy we want to live in peace and tranquility with our neighbors and develop Your policies are pushing our youngsters into a situation of no choice Anyone who saw the forces that took over Qalansuwa understands that the Israeli government destroyed this place just like Aleppo and at the end of his speech he addressed Barakeh and told him: “I attacked you I apologize before everyone here.” This was a touching moment of Arab magnanimity that I liked very much coming from the man who has suffered the greatest pain this week A representative from the Druze community also spoke telling the crowd: “You do not have to thank us for coming There were demolitions in Hurfeish (a Druze village in the Upper Galilee) as well.” But the most passionate and forward-thinking speech came from veteran left-wing activist Gadi Algazi: “The police knows exactly how to get to the prime minister’s residence A government that demolishes Arab homes and builds Jewish homes does not want peace there are not many Jews with you today — this is the result of years of separation Only by working together will we be able to build a different place here.” I expected one of the Joint List MKs to deliver a speech and I decided to leave so as not to get stuck in traffic I heard a woman’s voice giving a speech and stopped to listen without being able to see who was speaking passionately about Palestinians belonging to this place It turns out that she was one of the family members whose home was demolished Shortly before the end of the rally, I was told that the organizers managed to bring another woman to the podium: Na’ama Ghazawi, advisor to Qalansuwa’s mayor on women’s issues. While this shows just how worried the leadership is by powerful women on the stage, it is progress compared to the demonstration in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran a few months back where a young girl was permitted to read poetry Our path toward having a woman deliver the keynote speech in national events is long but this young woman’s energy renewed my hope that this day will undoubtedly come On the way home I asked myself why this rally was so successful and I came to the conclusion that the timing was perfect This was a harsh blow that we have not experienced for years and a just struggle over thousands of homes that are threatened by demolition And all this in the shadow of the suffocating planning policy of successive Israeli governments This was the perfect mix that drew entire families on a clear Friday afternoon to Qalansuwa This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here Samah Salaime is a feminist Palestinian activist and writer Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7 Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives Can we count on your support +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening Site developed by     Copyright © Yedioth Internet 2021 (WAFA) – Hundreds of Palestinian protesters took part in two rallies today in the city of Umm al-Fahm and Qalansawe, in Israeli-occupied historical Palestine to express their resentment over Israeli police tolerance of criminality and collaboration with outlaws and criminal gangs hundreds of protesters performed Friday prayers and held a vigil outside Israeli Police station in the city chanting slogans that condemned the police for failure to end an ongoing crime wave and even collaboration with outlaws protesters gathered at the east entrance to the city and blocked the main road to the traffic The protesters chanted slogans against criminality and violence and against Israeli Police's failure to investigate civil crimes in the Arab-majority communities in the country two Palestinian young men were killed when a gunman raided a home and opened gunfire at them at point blank range in Qalansawe The latest crime beings up the number of Palestinian nationals of Israel killed in domestic crimes since the beginning of the year to 21 Arabs in today's Israel are f Palestinians who stayed on their land following the creation of the occupying state in 1948 and their descendants They make up about 20 percent of the country's nine million people their rights are equal to those of Jewish citizens But in practice they suffer discrimination in employment Palestinians have long blamed the Israeli police for turning a blind eye to gun violence among Arab Israelis and even complicity with criminal gangs The fact that the occupier declares his refusal to be ‘the enemy’ of the oppressed is simply not enough Israelis must go one step further and refuse to lord over Palestinians A few hours before Saturday evening’s Arab-Jewish protest in Tel Aviv the town of Qalansuwa held a conference to mark the international day of solidarity with Palestinians in Israel This is the second year in a row that we mark this day I had the honor of speaking at the conference on Saturday, and as far as I could tell I was the only Jewish person in the room. The event ended early enough for me to head to the march in Tel Aviv. Yet somehow at the end of the event, the protest seemed less relevant. Qalansuwa is less than an hour from Tel Aviv, yet it exists in what feels like a parallel universe It seems to me that we needed to invest a bit more energy in learning about this universe before we celebrate on the streets of Tel Aviv Don’t get me wrong — these days every act of joint Arab-Jewish resistance is praiseworthy But one can also wonder how it is that we always play the role of the “host?” Why do these acts of joint protest almost always take place in Tel Aviv which gets to — once again — show the world how liberal it is while Palestinians are forced to make yet another pilgrimage to the White City from across the country One can also wonder about demonstrations where Hebrew is the dominant language Where they call for equality and refuse to be enemies Yet these are the same rallies where Jews refuse to openly say that the reality we see today is the logical conclusion of Zionism itself — not a detour They cannot say that this is its natural course and that there is no way to reach “equality” without building an alternative to Zionism They dare not speak of a state for all its citizens I assume that much of this will sound like political purism that subverts honest attempts by well-meaning Jews and Arabs to create spaces for partnership The organizers and participants are my allies and part of my political camp But we must be able to have this discussion within our movement where dominant voices often silence those who deserve to be heard Holding Jewish-Arab protests is an incredibly important thing in its own right One of the most prominent expressions of this imagined symmetry is the flagship slogan of these protests: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” On paper especially in these days when hatred and enmity are running wild But this slogan also hides an asymmetry that we must be aware of The fact that Arabs refuse to be enemies of their occupier and oppressor is worthy of our deepest appreciation The fact that the occupier refuses to be the enemy of the oppressed is certainly not enough Jews should not refuse to be the enemy — they should refuse to be masters Among the thousands of participants in Saturday’s demonstration were many Jews who have no real problem with a regime that grants them privileges at the expense of non-Jews yet feel compelled to make clear that they “refuse to be enemies.” Perhaps it is the nature of these slogans to all-encompassing so that they include as many people as possible But we must also ask whether the number of attendants alone is enough to measure the success of a protest and we are allowed to ask what kind of change a demonstration is trying to bring about when it refrains from slogans that actually touch on the root of the problem And the root of the problem is not that Jews and Arabs want to be enemies — it is that same regime of privileges that even good Jews — some of whom even spoke onstage Saturday night — refuse to let go of This thinking not only dictates the slogans we hear It is no coincidence that the rally was supposed to include a representative of the Zionist Union It is no coincidence that not a single member of the Balad faction was invited to speak and won’t likely be invited to these kinds of demonstrations If all it takes to participate in the protest is the willingness to declare that we “refuse to be enemies,” it means we are including representatives of a party that has not yet decided whether it supports or opposes a law that could expel a Palestinian elected official from the Knesset — while leaving out that very same official and not only because I am a member of Balad This is not a question of political ego or petty rivalries While I praise my organizer friends for the successful protest I believe we must be aware of the blind spots that leave people out of our movement After a trip through the streets of Qalansuwa and an hours worth of doing my best to understand the speeches in Arabic — an experience that Jewish activists do not partake in very often — my optimism slowly dissipated This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here and a translator of Farsi poetry and prose She is the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board and an activist with the Balad political party Her writing deals with the lines that intersect and define her identity as Mizrahi a temporary migrant living inside a perpetual immigrant Site developed by     Copyright © Yedioth Internet. All rights reserved. Thousands of people left work on Wednesday in protest over the demolition of 11 Palestinian homes declared illegal by the Israeli authorities  Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Arab citizens of Israel have gone on a nationwide strike after Israeli authorities destroyed 11 Palestinian homes they said were illegal in the central town of Qalansawe “We condemn the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally for these crimes,” Mohammad Baraka a representative body for Palestinian citizens of Israel The committee called on Arab citizens of the Jewish state to stand together to repel “the new attack that the government has taken against us” Workers in both the public and private sectors were encouraged to participate in Wednesday’s symbolic one-day walk out It is estimated that of Israel’s 1.5million Arab citizens The dispute comes after buildings in the Arab-majority town of Qalansawe were demolished for allegedly being built without proper planning permits The residents whose homes were destroyed said they had been denied permits several times Israel’s Finance Ministry released a statement on Wednesday saying that the buildings were not inhabited because they were still in varying stages of construction and built on land outside the town’s approved borders “The Arab population at times builds in an unregulated manner because it hasn't been given the possibility of building,” Zionist Union politician Zuhair Bahloul said “Illegal Arab building is needed because the current policy is failed and discriminatory… It’s a provocation against.. [Prime Minister] Netanyahu is telling them Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the controversy with a statement on his Facebook page which said that: “We are continuing to implement equal enforcement in Israel.. “The same law which necessitates the evacuation of Amona necessitates the evacuation of illegal construction elsewhere in our country.. Amona a wildcat outpost in the West Bank built without government permission is currently being emptied of residents after a high court ruling last year deemed the settlement illegal More than 5,000 Arab homes in Israel have been destroyed in the last 20 years and Palestinians control of just 2.3 per cent of the state’s land which activists say is indicative of their status as “second class citizens” of the country Strikes are a common method of protest for Palestinian citizens Critics have interpreted the demolitions as an attempt to deflect attention from the ongoing scandal. 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