Racist stereotypes in legal proceedings: Israeli authorities claim that Jawaher Abu Rhamah’s death after a tear gas attack in Bil’in needs not be investigated because her family arranged the funeral “ with relative quiet, without the agitation they tend to display for ‘shahids’.”
While the Palestinian village of Susya faces the threat demolition once again, the Israeli defense ministry threatens to call the police to intervene against activists overwhelming it with faxes calling for a halt to the demolition order.
A new regulation that will exclude many Palestinians and migrant workers from seeking justice in the Israeli court system will go into effect next month. When basic human rights are considered mere privileges, they can be doled out selectively, based on legal status, which in Israel often corresponds to national identity.
Some Israeli #J14 activists have openly refused to serve in the IDF. Their refusal is a response to the breach of the social contract between the Israeli state and its (Jewish) citizens. Although this act of civil disobedience is not an ethical protest of Israeli military policy and practice in Palestine, hopefully it does deepen the cracks in Israeli society’s uncritical embrace of its military forces.