In first, Israel convicts Palestinian citizens for chanting slogans
Police arrest 24 protesters in Haifa demonstrating against the Gaza genocide, 24 July 2025
Baker Zoubi reports in +972 on 20 May 2026:
Over the past two and a half years, Palestinian citizens of Israel have seen their political and civic rights — already limited before October 7 — dramatically constricted. They have been arrested for social media posts, publicly humiliated by state officials, persecuted in their workplaces and universities for expressing political opinions, and held without charge in administrative detention. Long subjected to discrimination under Israeli law, Palestinians citizens witnessed the state take advantage of the Gaza war to pass 30 new bills entrenching apartheid and Jewish supremacy.
Now, a new threshold has been crossed: For the first time, Palestinians inside Israel have been criminally convicted for chanting political slogans at a protest.
On April 29, the Haifa Magistrate’s Court convicted 31-year-old activist Mohammad Taher Jabareen and 42-year-old attorney Ahmad Khalifa of “indirect incitement to terrorism” and “identification with a terrorist organization,” charges that carry a combined maximum sentence of eight years in prison. The decision came after more than 30 months of legal proceedings — during which Khalifa and Jabareen were held in administrative detention for four and eight months, respectively, before being released to house arrest.
The conviction was based on political chants heard during an anti-war protest the two participated in on Oct. 19, 2023 in Umm Al-Fahm, one of the largest Palestinian cities in Israel. These were traditional slogans that have been used for decades at demonstrations and public events across Israel, and included no direct calls for violence: from “With soul and blood, we redeem you, Oh Gaza!” to “There is no solution except uprooting the occupier” and “Gaza shall not submit to the tank or cannon.”