Israeli and Palestinian psychological cultures grow together
The Demonization of the Palestinians: A Call to Revisit Israel in the Light of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict
The demonization knows what it’s doing. Since the Hamas attack last month, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has spoken of fighting “human animals.” Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau, has described Israel as “neo-Nazis supported by colonial forces.” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has in turn called Hamas “the new Nazis.”
The fates of the sons of Abraham and his descendants go back to the biblical times, including the emergence of Islam and the plights of the estranged sons of Abraham.
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence, is the Nakba, or catastrophe, to Palestinians. Each side invokes ‘genocide’ as Nakba competes with Holocaust.
The consequence is a psychological chasm so deep that Palestinians are invisible as individuals to Israeli Jews, and vice versa. There are exceptions, of course: Some Israelis and Palestinians have dedicated themselves to bridging that divide. The narratives of the two sides differ and bury any perception of shared humanity.
The director of strategy at the Givat-Hiva Center for Shared Society in Jerusalem said that each side wanted the status of five-star victim. Everyone else is victimizing and dehumanizing if you are stuck in victimhood.
The Palestinian perspective on antisemitic persecution in Jews was awakened by Oct. 7. The terrorist attack by Hamas appears to be insignificant. Mutual empathy is very hard to find.
One Israeli lawmaker, Ofer Cassif, has alluded to “pogroms” against Palestinians to describe the relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza, a word whose specific historical meaning is the slaughter of Jews and a word that many Israelis have used to describe the killing by Hamas of some 1,200 people last month, according to the Israeli authorities.
The Standing Together group says it is meant to bring Jewish and Palestinian citizens together to pursue peace, equality, and social and climate justice.
Palestinians cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7: “Israelis are threatening to attack us,” Israel’s war,” says a Palestinian activist
They will make you open your mouth if you don’t do so. Zoabi says so. “It is not enough if you shut your mouth. You should mention that you agree with them and identify with them.
Zoabi explained in an interview withNPR that she and her colleagues went to a public square in her hometown of Nazareth in northern Israel to hold a peaceful protest. They’d applied for a permit to protest, but police turned it down. They made banners that read “Stop Genocide” and “Stop the war in Gaza.”
Palestinians also have been arrested under an amendment added earlier this month to Israel’s counterterrorism law, making “consumption of terrorist materials” — reading pro-Hamas content online, for example — a new criminal offense. The law was criticized by some rights groups as being ambiguous and wide-reaching.
We didn’t have time to hold the banners. We were on our way. The police didn’t let us stand in the middle of Nazareth even though we were six people.
Palestinians in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7: A woman’s story about her life in Tel Aviv
“Every phone call is people who are being fired from their jobs or suspended from colleges and universities,” she said. “But they’re also being arrested, and indictments are being submitted.”
Samah Abou Shhadeh was hired at a financial services company in Tel Aviv after graduating from college two years ago.
She commuted daily from her home in Jaffa, an ancient Arab quarter of what is now Tel Aviv, where her family has lived for centuries. She didn’t talk about politics at work. She regaled her colleagues with a story about her wedding.
But everything changed on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked multiple locations in Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping about 240, according to the Israeli government. More than 11,000 have been killed in the bombardment of Gaza by Israel.
Source: Palestinians in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7
A human rights lawyer in Israel says the Gaza war is “racism, militarism and hypocrisy” and that “the Palestinian medical system is being bullied”
She shared a clip from a documentary called Tantura on her IG. It’s about a massacre in one Palestinian village during the 1948 war over Israel’s founding. She posted the footage without commentary. Her account was where this was located.
Her manager phoned her the next day. Colleagues were offended. He asked her to remove the clip. The letter from human resources was sent after Abou Shhadeh refused.
At least 20% of Israelis identify as Arab or Palestinian, like Abou Shhadeh. They are descendants of people that weren’t killed, expelled or compelled to flee when Israel was created.
Many people say they feel like second-class citizens. Human rights advocates say this Gaza war has spawned a wave of abuse and further discrimination.
This month, three Palestinian doctors in Israel penned an open letter decrying “racism, militarism and hypocrisy” in the Israeli medical system, where they say their Jewish colleagues have been “cheering for the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.”
In the HR letter outlining her dismissal, which Abou Shhahdeh showed to NPR, the company says it supports freedom of expression, but that during wartime, more sensitivity is expected from employees. Abou Shhadeh crossed a line, it reads.
“This is all absurd. Sawsan Zaher is a human rights lawyer based in Haifa, Israel. “We are talking about a massive wave of political persecution against Arab citizens inside of Israel.”
Zaher, who does not know or represent Abou Shhadeh, says she’s getting 20 times more queries from Arabs reporting labor abuse inside Israel compared to before the war.
Source: Palestinians in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7
She is afraid of the consequences of a lawsuit against her ex-employee for $bf a kbar k$
She worries that taking legal action against her former employer might hurt her prospects for a new job — which she desperately needs. She and her fiancée have a mortgage to pay. They were supposed to get married this month, but the wedding is delayed because of the war.
