Palestinians in Israel have been subjected to discrimination after Oct. 7
Israeli, Hamas, and the Families of Kidnapped Palestinians: A Matter of Emotions Towards the Release of Hostages
As Israel and Hamas indicated that they were preparing a cease-fire to free 50 hostages, some families of those abducted to Gaza last month were grappling with conflicting emotions: a growing optimism that their loved ones would return that was chilled by a gnawing fear that the deal might collapse — or worse, that they might be left behind.
Yarden Roman, whose sister was kidnapped from a Gaza border kibbutz in an attack by the Hamas movement, is going up now that she has been freed, said Gili Roman. We are afraid of falling if the higher we go, the deeper we fall. There’s a lot of anxiety.”
Hamas made a statement on Telegram that it had agreed to a four-day cease-fire that would allow for 50 hostages to be exchanged for 150 prisoners held by Israel.
Yifat Zailer — whose cousin Shiri Bibas was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with Ms. Bibas’s husband, Yarden Bibas, and their two red-haired children, Ariel and Kfir — said her anxious wait for news has been tinged by the hope that she might soon see her loved ones and the fear something might go awry.
“I’m trying to take care not to be happy too quickly,” Ms. Zailer said on Tuesday. “It could collapse tomorrow, for any reason. We might see the days pass with the hostages returning and the parents not among them.
Two cousins were kidnapped by Hamas, one of which was a 15-year-old girl. Their father was also taken hostage.
Yarden is likely to stay behind even if the Bibas’ return is part of the emerging hostage deal.
Yagil appeared in a video released on Nov. 9 by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group based in Gaza that invaded Israeli towns on Oct. 7 alongside Hamas. He asked Israel to bring him home in the video. Hostages often appear in these videos and their statements are likely to have been coerced.
Israel’s counterterrorism law declares that “inciting threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7” by Palestinians stating “Nothing is in your Mouth”
Ms.Phillips-Bahat’s family has yet to hear from her cousins if they will come home in the exchange.
Mor and friends painted slogans in Hebrew and Arabic on the banners, calling for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to support each other in this war.
If you don’t open your mouth, they’re going to start saying it’s suspicious. Zoabi says so. “It is not enough if you shut your mouth. It’s necessary that you tell them you agree with them and you identify with them.
Zoabi was arrested for alleged “incitement” and for attempting to protest without a permit, a Nazareth police spokesperson confirmed to NPR. As of early November, Israeli police had issued dozens of indictments for incitement to violence and terror, and had opened dozens of other such cases, since the beginning of the war, according to The Times of Israel. Police have not made up-to-date data public.
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 has been criticized by rights groups groups including Article 19 and Adalah as being ambiguous and far-reaching.
Palestinian-Israel Interaction During the 1948 War Over Israel’s Founding: Samah Abou Shhadeh’s Facebook Story
“We didn’t have the time to hold the banners! We were on our way. We were six people, we were not allowed to stand in the middle of the street without any banners or anything.
“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 landed a coveted job as an economist at an Israeli financial services company two years ago, after graduating from college.
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. At work, she kept her head down, and avoided talk about politics. She told her colleagues about her upcoming wedding.
Over the last half-century, I have seen Palestinians and Israelis do terrible things to one another. But this episode that began with the barbaric Hamas attack on Israelis, including women, little kids and soldiers in communities alongside Gaza, and the Israeli retaliation against Hamas fighters embedded in Gaza that has also killed, wounded and displaced so many thousands of Palestinian civilians — from newborns to the elderly — is surely the worst since the 1947 U.N. partition days.
She shared a clip from the Israeli film Tantura on her social media. It is a story of a massacre in one Palestinian village during the 1948 war over Israel’s founding. The footage was posted without commentary from her. This was stored on her account.
Her manager phoned her the next day. Colleagues were offended. She was asked to remove the clip by him. Human resources wrote to Abou Shhadeh after he refused.
Palestinians are complaining about the “war-discrimination” against Arabs: Israeli medical professionals in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7
More than 20% of Israelis are Arabs or Palestinians, like Abou Shhadeh. Most of them are descendants of people who weren’t killed, deported or forced to flee when Israel was created.
There’s a lot of discrimination. Orly Mor, a Jewish American-Israeli citizen and member of the group, says that many people are starting to question each other’s opinions if they’re condemning the war or sympathize with the Palestinians.
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.”
She is considering a labor discrimination lawsuit. She asked NPR not to name or contact her company. She fears that it could hurt her chances of finding a new job.
This is ridiculous. We are not talking about feelings that are hurt,” says Sawsan Zaher, 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 doesn’t know or represent Abou Shhadeh, claims that she is getting 20 times more queries from Arabs reporting labor abuse compared to before the war.
Source: Palestinians in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7
What Happened When Israel and Palestine Rejoin to Help a Jewish Mum in the Aftermath of the Wedding of Her Husband, An Impossible Dream
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 are paying their mortgage. The wedding was supposed to be held this month but it has been delayed because of the war.
I spent a lot of time this month on my trip to Israel and the west bank observing and probing the actual day-to-day interactions among Israeli Arabs and Jews. These are always complex, and sometimes surprising, and depressing, and uplifting, and often more than you might expect. Because they reveal enough seeds of coexistence scattered around that one can still dream the impossible dream — that we might one day have a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
They aren’t thinking about a Jewish woman in Jerusalem who was awarded a gun license to protect her kids from Hamas and a Palestinian teacher who rushed her children to the school bomb shelter. They are not thinking about the Israeli Arab shop owner who donated 50 bicycles to the Jewish children who survived the Hamas attack.
Those who read this column know I am not a fan of keeping score. My focus is always on how to get out of this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth horror show before everyone is left blind and toothless.
I ask you to give me a few moments of your time to reflect on some of the amazing acts of rescue that they performed on Oct. 7. They will give you more faith in humanity than the headlines around this story would ever suggest.
The Hamas Attack and the Crossing of the Hobbes to the Mondale Cross–Grand Central Limit : How Judena Adbas Perturbed the World
To put it another way, a friend once described my worldview as a cross between Thomas Hobbes and Walter Mondale. I let out my inner Mondale for several days on my trip, to chase some rays of hope through the darkness.
The first thing Abbas said to me about the Hamas onslaught was this: “No one can accept what happened on that day. We can not say that the word “but” has become immoral. There is overwhelming Israeli Arab condemnation of the Hamas attack.
“One of the hardest things today is to be an Israeli Arab,” Abbas said to me. “The Arab Israeli feels the pain twice — once as an Arab and once as an Israeli.”
