Why Israel is angry

The protest action that began in Jerusalem engulfed the entire nation. We were one in rejecting the forced evictions and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, the infringements on religious rights of Christian and Muslim Palestinians and the brutal bombardment of Gaza. On May 18, Palestinians across historic Palestine closed their businesses and lifted the Palestinian flag, joining an historic general strike against Israeli colonialism

Palestinians were not deterred by the barbaric bombing of civilians in Gaza, nor by the Israeli lynch mobs which attacked Palestinian citizens of Israel, nor by Israel’s increasingly violent policies targeting Palestinians in the occupied territories.

This unity has terrified the Israeli state. After the ceasefire announced between Israel and the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, it launched a revenge campaign, targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel. The campaign, dubbed “law and order”, aimed to intimidate and terrorise into silence and submission the Palestinians who dared to take to the streets in a show of national solidarity.

Adalah, a human rights organisation and legal centre based in Israel, called the mass arrests by Israeli police a “militarised war against Palestinian citizens of Israel”, adding that the police intended to “intimidate and to exact revenge – ‘to settle the score’ in the police’s own words, as punishment for their political positions and activities”.

Predictably, there was no security campaign to restore “law and order” in Israeli communities that went on a rampage, attacking Palestinians, their homes and businesses. In fact, the Israeli police picked up where the lynch mobs left off, ramping up the racist, colonial violence against Palestinians.

In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police subjected to “stop and search” and violently assaulted and arrested Palestinian youths. Palestinians were even detained for “giving police the finger” and in some cases, the complicit Israeli courts approved police requests to extend detention as further punishment.

Since the beginning of May, the Israeli authorities have issued 155 administrative detention orders against Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. This means 155 more Palestinians are now arbitrarily jailed for a minimum of six months without charges, with the total of administrative detainees in Israeli jails now reaching 500.

The raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque, which triggered the escalation in the first place, did not cease either. Less than three days after announcing a ceasefire with the Palestinian factions in Gaza, Israeli forces stormed the premises of the mosque again, attacking worshippers, forcing many out while arresting youth who protested. Their aim was to clear the way for extremist Jewish activists to enter Al-Aqsa, in a move of showing Israeli dominance over the Muslim holy site.

The Israeli wrath was also unleashed on to Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where forced evictions of Palestinians shocked the world and put the international media spotlight on the issue of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.

Excerpted: ‘Why Israel is angry’

Aljazeera.com