Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Inside the Israeli City That Sits on the Divide Between Jews and Arabs

https://ift.tt/3frnoEv

It’s the Sabbath, and dozens of Jewish young men are strolling through a mostly Arab neighborhood wearing yarmulkes and white shirts, M-16s slung over their shoulders or pistols in their waistbands. They move as if this were a settlement in an Arab city in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and they were the locals, even the landlords.

But the young men aren’t locals, and this only feels like the West Bank. It’s Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city around 15 miles from Tel Aviv, and the new front in the ­Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two peoples have contested the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the river Jordan for a century. And on maps, each has its own area. But the reality on the ground is the 300 armed men afoot in Lod. They are Jewish settlers who rushed from the West Bank, interrupting their assertion of dominion on land in nominally Palestinian territory to reinforce Jewish residents of Lod intent on “settling” an Arab neighborhood within Israel proper.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“It’s not a militia,” insists Ari Elon, a tall, husky 24-year-old from Cleveland who immigrated to Israel, served in the Israeli army and lives in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut. Like the others here, Elon answered a call to his settlement’s WhatsApp group for armed men to go to Lod to protect the homes of scared members of an ideological Jewish nationalist religious community called Lod Garin Torani (Lod Torah Seed). The city had been in turmoil after Arab youths began rioting a few days earlier.

The volunteers gather in what they call the War Room, located in the midst of the mostly Arab neighborhood of Ramat ­Eshkol, where a growing number of Garin families now live, welcome or not. Their reinforcements from the West Bank, all with military experience, pore over maps of the neighborhoods and take calls from foot patrols and Jewish residents. “Is there a car burning near the mosque?” Ronen Algavish asks after one call. “I’m certain no Jews set any cars on fire today,” says a young man named Yoni. A whiteboard lists neighborhoods and the number of armed volunteers each has posted to it. The floor is strewn with helmets and armored vests.

In terms of deaths, damage and inter­national attention, the events in Lod were overshadowed by what unfolded in the Gaza Strip a week later. The militant group Hamas fired rockets from its coastal enclave into Israel, killing at least a dozen people. The Israeli air force responded with airstrikes that left at least 248 dead. For the international community, it was the focal point for an urgent round of diplomacy to deliver the cease-fire that halted the conflict on May 21.

But for Israel, a war with Gaza is containable and finite. What Jewish and Arab Israelis heard exploding in their neighborhoods was something new. In Acre, and in other mixed cities where Arabs and Jews live side by side, neighbors turned on each other. Now Israelis fear the crumbling of a coexistence that for seven decades has allowed the country’s Jewish majority to live in peace beside the 20% of the population who, if their homes were in the West Bank or Gaza, would be called Palestinian. Many actually prefer that to “Israeli Arab,” which implies a compatibility that, in any event, is no long assumed. And nowhere is the deterioration more visible, and potentially more combustible, than in Lod.

At the mosque in the old city center of Lod, young Palestinians gather on the roof to prepare their defense before expected clashes on May 12, 2021.
Laurent Van Der Stockt—Getty ImagesAt the mosque in the old city center of Lod, young Palestinians gather on the roof to prepare their defense before expected clashes on May 12, 2021.

‘After 70 years, there’s no faith in the state’

On May 10, Israeli police stormed al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, two days after blocking Israeli Arabs from visiting the Mosque for a special Ramadan prayer. As the news filtered out, Muslims in Lod planned a protest in front of the city’s al-Omari Mosque, known as the Great Mosque. Musti, a 24-year-old Arab who feared giving his full name, says he was there that night.

“The police gave us permission. We walked out orderly with just some signs that said, ‘Leave Sheikh Jarrah’ and ‘Don’t destroy Al-Aqsa’ and we shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great). The police were waiting for us with helmets and weapons.” After one hoisted a Palestinian flag, the police started shooting stun grenades at protesters, and the crowd responded with stones and burning tires.

“From this point on, there was no control,” says Sheikh Yusuf Albaz, the imam of the Great Mosque. Youths set dumpsters on fire and threw rocks. But the situation­ escalated sharply with the killing of Moussa Hassouneh, 32, a young Arab father of three, that night by members of the Garin, whom the Arabs call “settlers.” The Jewish men said they opened fire when Arabs threw stones at them. Hassouneh’s father Malek said his son was not even involved.

“Sure, the Arabs threw stones,” says Sheikh Albaz, a big man with a brown beard whose Hebrew is almost like his mother-tongue. “After everything that happened, they threw stones. But the stones are not the point. The point is that the youth don’t believe in the country anymore. After 70 years, there’s no faith in the state.”

The police arrived and dispersed the crowd without arresting any Garin members. Hours later they arrested four Jews, all of whom said they acted in self-defense. Israel’s Minister of Public Security called for their release, and they went home two days later. Hassouneh’s father, Malek, wants his sons killers to go to jail. Yoel Frankenburg, 34, a member of the Garin, said he thinks they should get the Israel Prize, the highest cultural honor in the country. “They saved our lives,” he said.

When Hassouneh was buried the next day, police shot stun grenades at the funeral procession and clashes broke out. Youth set a police car on fire and threw Molotov cocktails inside synagogues, burning rooms. Yigal Yehoshua, 52, a Jewish father of two, was injured when Arabs pelted his car with stones and died a week later. Elsewhere across the country, Arab riots were answered by anti-Arab Jewish ­extremists, including “volunteers” from settlement outposts. On WhatsApp, more than 100 groups formed to organize attacks on Arabs. One message told volunteers to bring “flags, bats, knives, guns, brass knuckles, wooden boards, pepper spray, anything that would hurt them. We will restore the honor of the Jewish people.”

Violence begot violence between mobs of Jews and Arabs in a spree of vandalism, stabbings and beatings in Lod, Acre, Haifa and elsewhere. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for years has suggested that Israeli Arabs are a fifth column, now urged reconciliation. “Our goal is, first, to halt the violence,” he said. “After­wards, to rehabilitate the relations between Jews and Arabs. We live together in this state, and we need to get back on the track of coexistence, cooperation and partnership in the great success called ‘the State of Israel.’”

A burnt car after the riots in Lod on May 12, 2021.
Ilia Yefimovich—picture alliance/Getty ImagesA burnt car after the riots in Lod on May 12, 2021.

No choice but to live together

The tensions within Lod have existed since the then-Arab city called Lydda fell to Jewish forces in the 1948 war that founded Israel. Most of the city’s Arab population was expelled, and Jews moved in. When the city fell on hard times in the 1980s, Arabs moved into housing tenements vacated by Jews. Then, about 20 years ago, the Garin members began buying apartments in those neighborhoods too. They describe it as a project of upkeep. “The goal was to attract young religious couples to help the economic situation of the city,” says Frankenburg.

Others see a different agenda. “They want to Judaize the area, show sovereignty and push the Arabs, the Arab culture and the Arab language out of Lod,” says Amnon Be’eri-­Sulitzeanu, co–executive director of the Abraham Initiatives, a nongovernmental organization in Lod that works to advance coexistence between Jews and Arabs.

The Arabs of Lod, who make up about 30% of the city’s residents, say Mayor Yair Revivo has prioritized services and facilities for nationalist religious Jews in Arab neighborhoods. “The mayor only takes care of the Jews,” said Musti, the protester. “He doesn’t care about the Arabs. He’s happy if we just kill each other.”

Their biggest grievance is over housing. Revivo, a former campaign manager for Netanyahu, has intensified demolitions of old Arab buildings, prevented Arabs from buying new homes, and also from buying the government homes they live in, all while building new neighborhoods exclusively for the religious Jews.

He has also suggested that the Arabs of Lod pose a strategic threat, and in December sparked an uproar by saying, “Violence is part of the Arab culture,” and promising to deport families of criminals.

In a statement, the Lod municipality said that during Revivo’s seven years in office, $100 million have been spent to improve the lives of the Arab sector, that he works to strengthen the co-existence in the city and that all claims otherwise are lies and incitement.

But Arabs point to the reality of their lives in Israel: they are just over 20% of the population and about half of the poorest municipalities. Netanyahu’s government passed a law in 2018 that removed Arabic as an official language and gave Jews an “exclusive right to national self-determination.” In 2019, the Prime Minister wrote on Instagram that “Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people—and only it.” “What we see in Lod is what we see in Israel,” says Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, “but much more extreme because the disparities are greater and the municipality’s support for the [Garin] is much more.”

If peaceful coexistence in Lod was an illusion before, it is shattered now. Sporadic attacks on Arabs and Jews continued in late May. The Jewish paramilitary operated its War Room with 10 armed volunteers on a rapid-response team and 20 more stationed on rooftop lookouts around Ramat Eshkol. At the centuries-old Great Mosque, Muslims slept inside at night to protect it. “We will return to living together because there is no choice,” says Sheikh Albaz, the imam.

Across town, ­Esther Ochigava, a secular Jewish resident, went to visit her Arab neighbor when he came home injured after being beaten by Jews. “I apologized to him,” she says. But the situation has changed: “At traffic lights, I never looked at who’s in the car next to me, but now I do.”

With reporting by Leslie Dickstein/New York

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bihar: Stages collapse during Congress rallies in Darbhanga, West Champaran https://ift.tt/37QFnks

The stage on which Congress candidate from Jale assembly seat, Mashkoor Ahmad Usman was addressing a rally broke and collapsed in Bihar's Darbhanga on Thursday. In a similar incident, another stage collapsed and took down party leaders Imran Pratapgarhi and Akhilesh Singh along with several party workers who were on the dias, during a Congress rally at Bagahi Deoraj in Champaran.

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes By Kate McCarthy An inspector manages Muni service. New dashboards that help inform changes to Muni service are now live at SFMTA.com/MuniData Many factors inform our decisions about Muni service adjustments. These include making sure changes to service support the SFMTA’s values, which are economic vitality, environmental stewardship, trust and equity. We also evaluate travel patterns. You can now explore these patterns using the new Muni data dashboards  (SFMTA.com/MuniData). When looking at possible Muni service changes, the first thing we do is turn to the Muni Service Equity Strategy for guidance. Using the Muni Service Equity Strategy, we prioritize providing Muni service along routes that more often serve people of color, members of low-income households, and/or those who are dependent upon transit service, including people with disabilities and seniors. We also use ridership data to analyze where riders are boa...

India reports first 6 cases of new coronavirus strain after UK returnees test positive https://ift.tt/3pA0T2j

India on Tuesday reported the first six cases of the new coronavirus strain after six people who had returned from the United Kingdom were tested positive for the new UK variant genome. According to the details, the new coronavirus strain cases were reported from Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. Samples of 3 UK returnees were tested and found positive for the new UK strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru. The other two cases were tested at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; while the last case was tested at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

FOX NEWS: Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest.

Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3wsn8uI

PM Modi lauds IFS officers for their work towards serving nation, furthering national interests https://ift.tt/36HoEzw

Greeting Indian Foreign Service officers on IFS day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that their work towards serving the nation and furthering national interests globally are commendable. Their efforts during the Vande Bharat Mission, which was launched to bring Indians home from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic as international travel came to a halt, and other related help to our citizens and other nations is noteworthy, Modi added.

FOX NEWS: Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar.

Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/ZkQ1Rpt

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown By Enrique Aguilar To better connect southeast San Franciscans with downtown, the SFMTA debuted the 15 Bayview Hunters-Point Express in late January, coinciding with the return of T Third train service. Within weeks, average daily boardings reached 1,000 customers on this new service. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express  We added this route based on community feedback from the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018, which prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. With the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impacts on communities in the Bayview and Hunters Point, fast-tracking the project became critical to our transit planning. Adding service capacity and a direct connection between these neighborhoods and downtown is a crucial step in supporting the City’s economic recovery and increasing job access for essential workers using transit. Using data from the SFMTA Equ...

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni By Eillie Anzilotti   A map of San Francisco showing Muni lines that offer direct service to Golden Gate Park, including: The 18 46th Avenue, the 29 Sunset, the 5 Fulton and 5R Fulton Rapid, the N Judah, the 44 O’Shaughnessy, the 33 Ashbury/18th Street, the 7 Haight/Noriega, the 43 Masonic and the 28 19th Avenue. Around each bus route shown on the map, a red zone shows the range within 1,000 feet of a stop, orange shows within 2,000 feet of a stop, and yellow shows within 3,000 feet. Here’s a fun fact: 70% of San Franciscans are within a 15-minute walk of a transfer-free Muni ride to the largest public space in our city: Golden Gate Park.   Especially as COVID-19 has heightened the importance of outdoor recreation and park access, SFMTA has made efforts to update Muni service to get people to Golden Gate Park. As of now, ...

New top story from Time: ‘I Should Be Presumed Innocent.’ Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Criticizes His Arrest

https://ift.tt/342b8VJ Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said he was arrested on “trumped up” charges, pushing back against landmark national security legislation that has raised questions about press freedoms and the future of the democracy movement. “They’re trumped up. I can’t go further on the details,” Lai said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday morning. “Before any evidence, they just claimed and presumed that I’m guilty. This isn’t the way the law is. I should be presumed innocent. We have never supported the independence of Hong Kong.” He said Hong Kong’s future as Asia’s main financial hub was uncertain if there was no respect for the rule of law under the new security measures. “The future of Hong Kong is the future of any other Chinese city,” he added. “Without the rule of law, the international financial center will be finished.” He added that the law sent a “very negative” message to the business community in Hong Kong and overseas. Lai has ...

अगर मैंने आत्महत्या की तो लोगों को पता होना चाहिए किसकी वजह से की - फूटकर रोते दिखे विकास गुप्ता

सुशांत सिंह राजपूत की आत्महत्या हर किसी को एक गहरा सदमा दे गई है और अब सुशांत के करीबी दोस्त विकास गुप्ता ने एक वीडियो में अपनी आपबीती सुनाई है। विकास इस वीडियो में बेहद टूटे हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/vikas-gupta-reveals-people-want-him-to-commit-suicide-cries-his-heart-out-for-sushant-singh-rajput-090284.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.213.205.12&utm_campaign=client-rss