{"id":253659,"date":"2024-02-05T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=253659"},"modified":"2024-02-01T11:06:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T11:06:27","slug":"israeli-police-repressing-anti-war-protests-with-iron-fist-say-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/02\/israeli-police-repressing-anti-war-protests-with-iron-fist-say-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Police Repressing Anti-war Protests with \u2018Iron Fist,\u2019 Say Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israeli activists protest against the arrest of members of the Arab High Follow-Up Committee earlier in the day, Tel Aviv District Police Station, 9 Nov 2023.\u00a0 (Oren Ziv)<\/p><\/div>\n

24 Jan 2024 – Since 7 Oct, Israel’s police have systematically banned, restricted, and attacked protests against the army’s assault on Gaza, instilling a sense of fear among Jewish and Palestinian citizens alike.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the evening of Jan. 16, several dozen activists gathered in front of the Kirya in Tel Aviv, home to Israel\u2019s Defense Ministry and army headquarters. It was one of the first Jewish-Israeli demonstrations explicitly condemning the military\u2019s assault on the Gaza Strip since the war began, and the police acted swiftly<\/a> to suppress it: dozens of officers were deployed in advance, and they refused to allow the protest to take place in its intended location. They confiscated signs reading \u201cStop the massacre\u201d on the grounds that these offended public sentiment<\/a>. One activist was arrested, and several others were assaulted by police.<\/p>\n

This sequence of events is far from exceptional. Since October 7, Israel\u2019s police have been implementing a consistent policy of preventing or limiting any protest against the war \u2014 in contrast to protests in solidarity with the hostages and their families<\/a>, which have been permitted in certain areas. This policy is still in effect despite Israel\u2019s Supreme Court issuing an interim injunction<\/a> earlier this month prohibiting National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from interfering with the policing of demonstrations; in large part, police appear nonetheless to be enforcing the minister\u2019s desired crackdown on freedom of expression during the war.<\/p>\n

Anti-war activists across the country \u2014 Palestinian citizens as well as Jews \u2014 who were interviewed for this article all mentioned one word: \u201cfear.\u201d Even veteran political activists say they have never been so fearful of protesting. They are afraid of being arrested, which for Palestinian citizens could spell months in prison. More than ever, they said, it is dangerous to show solidarity with the people of Gaza, and they feel that politicians\u2019 belligerent rhetoric is directly impacting police behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the early days of the war, it was clear that this was the policy,\u201d Maysana Mourani, an attorney with the Haifa-based human rights and legal center Adalah, told +972 and Local Call. \u201cThe police have taken on new powers to immediately repress protests, even when a protest permit isn\u2019t required, because of their supposed \u2018lack of manpower.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Adalah has petitioned the Supreme Court several times since October 7 to challenge such police bans on the right to protest. Despite the Court\u2019s intervention earlier this month, however, it has repeatedly failed to intervene on numerous other occasions, meaning the police have had broad discretion to decide which protests to permit. \u201cIt depends on the identity of the demonstrators and the slogans,\u201d Mourani said.<\/p>\n

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Israeli activists protest against Israel\u2019s war on Gaza outside the Kirya, Tel Aviv, 16 Jan 2024. (Oren Ziv)<\/p><\/div>\n

TO READ FULL TEXT Go to Original – 972mag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 Jan 2024 – Since 7 Oct, Israel’s police have systematically banned, restricted, and attacked protests against the army’s assault on Gaza, instilling a sense of fear among Jewish and Palestinian citizens alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":253660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[725,100,87,865,88,427,99],"class_list":["post-253659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-culture-of-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-structural-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253664,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253659\/revisions\/253664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}