The year when Israel began treating its Palestinian citizens officially as enemies
Israeli policemen disperse a rally by Palestinian citizens of Israel and left-wing activists to protest the war, Umm al-Fahm, 3 August 2024
Orly Noy’s interview with Hassan Jabareen, published in Middle East Eye on 10 November 2024:
This is an interview of Dr. Hassan Jabareen, director of Adalah (The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel), by Orly Noy, chairwoman of B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) and a regulator contributor of Middle East Eye. It was originally published in Hebrew by the online Israeli-Palestinian media Siha Mekomit and has been translated by MEE without editorial changes.
It is still difficult to assess the full consequences of the year that has unfolded since the Hamas massacre in the southwestern Negev region last October, the kidnapping of over 250 people as hostages, and then the war of devastation in Gaza that is still ongoing. Tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed, Israel is facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, and meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been turned into refugees.
But one thing is clear enough: this was a year that produced profound and probably irreversible changes in the lived reality of all the inhabitants of the space between the [Jordan] River and the [Mediterranean] Sea.
Among all the arenas of Israel’s actions since last autumn, one of the least-discussed is about what Israel has been doing vis-a-vis the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. Under the aegis of the war on Gaza, Israel for the last year has been engaged in a multi-dimensional campaign against these people, who represent some 20 percent of its own citizens.
This has involved unprecedented persecution promulgated not just by official state institutions, but also by key civil society agencies and actors. On this front, even the bodies of deceased Palestinian citizens have been weaponised by the state.
Although Israel has never treated the Arab population in Israel itself as equal citizens, what has been happening since 7 October is unprecedented, says Dr. Hassan Jabareen, director of Adalah, in a special interview summarising events of the past year.
He points out that, in relation to Arab citizens, the positions advocated by far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir have been adopted not only by the Israeli government, but also by the universities, the national bar association, even the attorney general.
‘Arab citizens are the enemy’
Hassan Jabareen: We have been through the violent escalations of October 2000, the Second Intifada [200-2005], [Israeli military operations] Defensive Shield in 2002, Rainbow in 2004, Cast Lead in 2009, Pillar of Defence in 2012, Protective Edge in 2014, the [repression of the Palestinian civilian] Great March of Return in 2018, Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021 – but since 7 October, we are experiencing for the first time unprecedented things in the realm of civil rights.
Notably, this is the first time that we are being officially identified by the prime minister as an enemy.