Jew World Order

Since Sunday, May 9, events in Haifa have been moving so fast that I couldn’t write fast enough to describe them. Every night there are mass detentions of Palestinians – activists and other residents that happened to pass in the police’s trail. Every morning dozens of relatives, friends, and comrades gather in front of the Haifa court, hoping to see their dear ones released, or at least to learn what is going to happen with them. Every night local hospitals accept groups of detainees and other citizens that were hurt by stun grenades, tear gas, police beatings, or attacks from fascist Zionist mobs. Every evening everybody is tuning into social media or patrolling the streets to find where the next attack may come from.

I wanted to write an analytical article, explaining the background and giving a political perspective, but I’m exhausted. We spent the day in the courthouse, where we heard that, in addition to the 38 people who were arrested in Haifa’s streets last night, there are at least seven more who were arrested in raids on their homes in the early morning. And there were also more than 50 political detainees from the nearby Palestinian towns that were brought for remand before the Haifa court, and the hearing of the Haifa detainees didn’t start until 3:00 pm, even though it is Friday and the court was supposed to close by 2:00 pm. We were sitting on the pavement in front of the court house, which we were not allowed to enter (only one person from each detainee’s family was allowed in), discussing the next steps in the struggle. Luckily, in the best of Arab tradition, some good people brought us water, cold drinks, and falafel, so we didn’t all starve.

As we came back to our poor Arab neighborhood, we went to check on what happened last night in Hussein St., where the police shot tear gas at residential buildings. The neighbors were supposed to be celebrating Eid al-Fitr, at the end of the month of Ramadan. But the neighborhood is quiet and there is no Eid. We find the house of the Bushkar family, and they tell us how a police unit that was stationed in the main street, on the other side of the garden, shot tear gas canisters toward the row of four-story residential buildings without any provocation. One canister exploded in the stairway just in front of their door and another entered a room from the window. It is illegal to shoot teargas at people at closed spaces, as it becomes even more dangerous, but the police wanted to take revenge on the neighborhood at large after a police car was burned on the main street the previous night. Everybody in the house suffocated and a pregnant mother lost consciousness. They called an ambulance, but the police stopped it and didn’t let it enter the neighborhood. Only after a long delay, where more neighbors intervened and shouted at the police, they let a neighbor escort the ambulance in and the woman was taken to the hospital. The neighbors, in the spirit of crowdsourced media, filmed their argument with the police and published it.

Later we walked around the neighborhood to see what was going on. There was one group of police at the main entrance to the neighborhood. People told us that a patrol of the border guards just entered our street. There was hardly anyone braving an attempt to get out.

So, in short, what happened this week in Haifa?

Sunday, May 9

Five Palestinian movements called for a demonstration against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The invitation included Herak Haifa, Tal’at (Palestinian Feminist Initiative), The Student’s National Democratic Alliance (Tajamou), The Haifa Youth Movement and The Alternative Palestinian Path. A few hundred people, mostly youth, gathered in “Prisoners Square” in the German Colony, Haifa’s tourist center. The police didn’t wait long before it attacked the participants with a barrage of stun grenades and started to chase protesters and detain them.

Monday, May 10

Some unaffiliated youth posted on Facebook for another demonstration in Prisoner’s Square. I was not there but heard different estimates of the number of participants, between a few dozens and the hundreds. Police wanted to disperse them and there were clashes all over the area.

Tuesday, May 11

The five movements that organized Sunday’s demonstration called for a new protest at 20:30 in Prisoner’s Square, now also against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. More Palestinian movements promised to join. Women in Black (which organizes vigils against the occupation) called for a protest in the Bahai (UNESCO) Circle for 7:30, that drew a  big crowd, and some of them joined the Palestinian protesters. Some fascists organized a counter-demo in the German Colony, which was attended by only a few dozens, under heavy police protection.

As the Palestinian protest started, and had not even moved from the original gathering site, mounted police rode into the crowd, followed by a barrage of stun grenades. There are more protesters now and they hold their ground, they dispersed and gathered again all along the main section of the German Colony. Clashes with sporadic detentions continue in the main street for some two hours as the side streets are blocked with burning barricades.

The presence of the fascists, who chant “Death to the Arabs” and cheer the police when they attack the demonstrators inflamed the atmosphere further. After a long time a big group of police, that had been chasing the Palestinian protesters, turn to the fascists. To tell you the truth, I thought they might tell them to disperse, to lower the tension. But, instead, the police organized the fascists in a small column and marched them through the main street of the German Colony, all with their Israeli Flags and their enthusiastic “Death to the Arabs” chants. Some of them threw stones at Arab passers-by from behind the thick police wall defending them. If any Arab tried to oppose them, he was chased by the police, like you can see in the video above.

So, if I initially thought that the police came to prevent demonstrations or limit the freedom of expression, I was proven wrong. They came to promote the right kind of unlicensed demonstration. In fact, the police proved itself in the most obvious way to be the uniformed and armed vanguard of the fascist mob.

After their demonstration the fascist mob went on to attack random Arab civilians in the area. The police were defending them but at the same time there was an unprecedented popular uprising as hundreds or even thousands of Arab Palestinian youths took control of the streets, raised barricades, and defended their homes and neighborhoods.

Wednesday, May 12

There was another Palestinian demonstration planned, this one by The Democratic Front, but it was cancelled due to the tension. All day we followed news on social media about a planned fascist attack on Arab neighborhoods. Toward evening the youth took control of the streets again.

The fascists gathered in “Kiryat Eliezer” – a mostly Jewish neighborhood to the West of the German Colony (to its East is Wadi Nisnas, the center of the Palestinian population in Haifa). The police attacked the youth gathering in Wadi Nisnas and at the same time allowed the fascists to attack isolated Arab families and Arab businesses in Kiryat Eliezer and the German Colony. They chased and arrested any Arab that tried to come to the aid of the attacked.

The Catholic Sun reports that, “about 30 Jewish men attacked the three daughters of Wadie Abunassar, honorary Spanish consul and spokesman for the Assembly of Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land. The men beat the young adults with flag poles flying the Israeli flag and threw stones at their cars.”

The fascists didn’t come close to the Arab neighborhoods, but the police attacked there, with violence and detentions.

Thursday, May 13

After last night’s events the Arab population was more tense than ever, everybody discussing what to do to defend against fascist attacks. At 17:00 there was an open-air meeting in the middle of the Wadi Nisnas market, with activists from the Arab parties and maybe a hundred of the youth that were leading the action. They felt that the Arab neighborhoods are more or less safe, but the problem was how to defend Arab homes in mixed neighborhoods, where Arabs are a minority. It was decided to gather in Kiryat Eliezer before the fascists came again, not in a demonstration, but just stand quietly on the side of the street, in order to defend the residents.

The peaceful defensive gathering was promptly attacked with extra force by the police, which brought a big reinforcement from the military “border guards”, trained in brutal oppression in the West Bank. Hundreds of youth dispersed all the way east to Wadi Nisnas and Hadar, and clashes erupted in many streets and alleys.

Throughout the evening the police and the soldiers were actively terrorizing the civilian population in their neighborhoods, streets, and homes. Many soldiers were moving in the streets in civilian cars just to suddenly stop in the middle of the street, stopping the traffic, pointing their guns at the drivers and bystanders, pulling people out of their cars and searching them and the cars and performing random detentions. Walking patrols covered the streets, seeking violent “contact” and shooting teargas randomly at residents. You can see one such patrol, which I succeeded in filming just as they shot gas randomly in Wadi Nisnas, in this video. Later I heard how someone who was filming the soldiers nearby was shot by a rubber bullet in the chest and had three ribs broken.

The fascists also continued their rioting in Kiryat Eliezer. Later they went to another neighborhood, Wadi Jamal, and shot live bullets at Arab homes.

Friday, May 14

The police and the army were still coordinating forces to terrorize the Arab population. Now they are invading houses and arresting people, day and night. The fascists are planning for a new demonstration in the German Colony for tomorrow.

When I was in Barcelona in 2019 I saw graffiti on a wall that said: “When you don’t move, you don’t feel the chains”. Now that Palestinian Arabs in Haifa moved, the real nature of the Zionist state is crystal clear. Palestinian Haifa is an occupied city and its police is basically a hateful Jewish supremacist militia. The situation in other “mixed” occupied cities, al-Lid, Ramlah, Yaffa and Akka, is even much worse than in Haifa. 

But when you struggle for your rights, for your freedom, you are also full of pride, solidarity, love and hope. These are historic moments and the people of Haifa are rising like they haven’t since the Nakba of 1948. And, more so than since 1948, they are part of a united Palestinian struggle against their oppressors.

It is already 3:00 am and I will finish this report for now.

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