Ahead of council election, Israelis in West Bank city launch campaign to drive out Arabs

Arab visitors to the Magic Kass amusement park in Ma’aleh Adumim

Nir Hasson reports in Haaretz on 31 August 2023:

The deputy mayor of Ma’aleh Adumim, who is also a leading candidate for mayor, has closed down a driving school run by an Arab woman, following residents’ demand to remove Arabs from the city’s public sphere.

The campaign against the driving school, on the backdrop of the approaching municipal elections, is part of an escalating racist wave aimed at driving Arabs out of the West Bank city’s public areas altogether.

“It feels to me like they received an order to inundate our city,” rightist activist Shiran Mirzai wrote two weeks ago on the Facebook page of a group called “Returning safety to the city.”

“There isn’t a day on which I don’t receive more than 50 pictures of them in our cafes, parks and shopping mall – there simply isn’t a place they haven’t reached. The law says they are holders of blue ID cards just like ours… but will we allow this law to destroy our city? Together we need to make them uncomfortable to come here, We’ve had enough! Two weeks after a terror attack! We mustn’t give up and we mustn’t shut up! There are so many things that will make them feel uncomfortable without breaking the law – think about it.”

Mirzai is an activist of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir. She is also running on the second slot of the party’s ticket for the Ma’ale Adumim council. She is the driving force behind the Facebook group and two popular Whatsapp groups, consisting of some 2,000 city residents, that seek to force Arabs out of the city. They post pictures of Arab passersby with captions such as “now in Katzefet” (a known cafe in the city), or a photo of a Palestinian woman with a hijab in a city park. Another picture showed Palestinian women on a bus with the caption: “Look at that in the bus; they left no place for the residents.”

In recent weeks the campaign is zeroing-in on a driving school that teaches Arab students. It was opened about a month ago by an Israeli citizen from the north in Ma’ale Adumim’s industrial area. Most of the school’s students are Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the lessons take place in Ma’ale Adumim. The school’s opening triggered a wave of racism. Some people talked about the heavy traffic in the streets but most didn’t hide their desire to get Arabs out of the city altogether.

Guy Yifrah, the deputy mayor and contender for mayor, recently won Likud’s support in the approaching election. On August 1 he wrote on Facebook that he was worried by the entrance of “external bodies” into the driving teaching business in the city. “In recent days I’ve been approached by quite a few dear people – driving teachers in the town whom I love and cherish, who work hard here for a living. I heard of their fear of external bodies beginning to operate in the city and I share their concern and am acting on it,” Yifrah wrote.

Two weeks later Yifrah asked the management of the commercial compound D-City to close down the school. Haaretz learned that after Yifrah’s request the management made an effort to revoke the contract with the driving school, but failed to do so and the school continued to operate. However, Arab driving teachers said the municipal security guards at the city entrance were holding them up, photographing them and demanding ID cards from them and from their students.

Meanwhile, the campaign to force Arab driving students out of Ma’ale Adumim altogether has also accelerated. On social media there has been a flurry of denunciations against driving teachers instructing Arabs. In response, some teachers draped the front of their cars with large Israeli flags as a declaration that they don’t teach Arabs.

But this apparently did not satisfy Mirzai, who recently threatened to use WhatsApp to expose driving instructors who continue to teach Arab students. “The next message is to you the driving teachers in our city,” she posted. “Hanging a large Israeli flag on your car certainly moved us,” she posted, “but when a lady with a veil covering her face sits behind the wheel, it ruins the effect.”

The groups posted pictures of a female student with a hijab during a driving lesson in the town. On Tuesday Mirzai warned that she and her supporters would soon start posting the names of city instructors who teach Arab students, threatening to boycott those who do and offering free advertising in her WhatsApp and Facebook groups to those who message her, vowing not to teach Arabs. “We’ll hurt in the most painful place those who are more interested in money than in our city,” she posted.

In the last few days the racism on social media has spilled over into the streets. One Arab driving teacher said that he had been cursed a number of times, and youths chased his car. In one incident a scooter driver blocked his car and in another a burning cigarette was thrown into it, while he was giving an Arab student a driving lesson.

The groups also call to boycott other places of business that accept Arabs, like gyms. “Recently I’ve received loads of complaints that Studio …. is slowly and quietly becoming Muslim…We’ve already led people to cancel subscriptions in the past,” Mirzai wrote.

Guy Yifrah’s office said in response: “Until the reform to privatize driving tests, students wanting to pass driving tests had to do it in their place of residence. Since the reform passed the restriction was lifted, many students started wandering to small towns where the success rates were higher. This created a significant increase in driving teachers and numerous cars that damaged the city’s transportation fabric, created transport hazards for residents and increased the percentage of students significantly… This is intolerable. I mean to act soon together with MKs to amend the transportation law to return the situation to what it was prior to the reform.”

Mirzai and the municipality declined to comment. D-City management did not respond to Haaretz’s query.

This article is reproduced in its entirety