Yoav Haifawi
Mondoweiss / August 4, 2024
Since Israel’s genocidal attack began in October, a terror campaign has also been carried out against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, including quashing any signs of solidarity with Gaza. Despite this repression, protests are starting again.
Since Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza began in October 2023, an all-out attack against Palestinians under Israel’s control elsewhere has been underway as well. In the West Bank, which, together with Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel occupied in 1967, there are daily and nightly raids by the occupation army and the settlers. Hundreds have been killed, and almost 10,000 new political prisoners have been taken with many being tortured. In the process, whole communities have been driven from their lands.
In the 78% of Palestine that has been occupied since 1948-49, and where those Palestinians that survived the ethnic cleansing are formally citizens of Israel, all democratic rights were suspended as of October 2023 and a terror campaign started against Palestinians. Hundreds were arrested and tortured for showing the slightest expressions of sympathy with the plight of their sisters and brothers in Gaza. Much of the Israeli Jewish public suddenly became an enthusiastic lynch mob, as Jewish student organizations spied on their Arab counterparts, reporting them to the universities’ leadership, who began expelling them from their studies and turning them over to the police for detention and torture. The same scenes repeated themselves in many workplaces, including hospitals where Arabs constitute a large proportion of the medical teams.
As we reported in Mondoweiss, early attempts to publicly demonstrate against the war were forcefully repressed, including a demonstration that was called for by Herak Haifa on October 18, but was dispersed before it even started. The next day there was an anti-war demonstration in Umm al-Fahm, the only one by 1948 Palestinians in the first months of the war. Two activists who were accused by the police of leading this demonstration were indicted with “supporting terrorist organization” and “inciting terror activities,” spent a long time in prison, and are still awaiting trial under house arrest with electronic leg cuffs, in rented apartments that they had to pay for outside their city. What followed was many months of political paralysis, as people witnessed helplessly the unfolding genocide.
Gradual attempts to resume political protest
On the national level, in 48 Palestine, The High Follow Up Committee, the united leadership of the Palestinian population, and the Israeli Communist Party, both tried consistently to press the police to license anti-war demonstrations. Over several months all requests were refused, and the occupation’s highest court, the so-called Bagatz (Hebrew for “High Court for Justice”), failed to refute the police’s stubborn denial of the right to protest. Almost five months after the start of the war, suddenly the police granted a license for a demonstration in Kafr Kanna (most links are to news items in Arabic, but, even if you don’t read Arabic, you can see pictures there) in the Galilee, for March 2, 2024. People still hardly believed that they would be allowed to demonstrate, and the participants were mostly the cadres of Palestinian political parties and movements.
This was followed by another anti-war demonstration on March 23 in Majd al-Kurum, farther to the north. On Land Day, which Palestinians commemorate every year on March 30, since their historic general strike in 1976, the central demonstration and mass event were held in Deir Hanna, in the center of the Galilee. It was the first real mass Palestinian protest in 48 since October. Families were participating with their kids, buying Palestinian flags for them. The blocks of youth militants were chanting for freedom and liberation. For a few hours you could imagine that the terror regime was suspended. The same atmosphere continued on a wider scale in “The March of Return,” on May 14. In the last 25 years, the march of return became the central yearly political event in 48 Palestine. It is held on the day that Israel celebrates its “independence” (according to the Jewish calendar), which the Palestinians define as their Nakba.
After claiming for months that they could not allow Palestinian demonstrations as they “do not have enough forces to keep public order,” the Israeli police rediscovered the best way to prevent any disturbances in Palestinian demonstrations: their complete absence from the area.
Meanwhile in Haifa
As the war dragged on, there were several attempts to organize protests.
At the beginning of the war, as the police tried to prevent any protest, they even dispersed a “Women in Black” vigil, a quiet weekly vigil by mostly elder Jewish women, that is already held for decades every Friday on the Baha’i Circle. During the next weeks, they were afraid to raise any banners that might provoke a violent response from the police or from the Zionist public. After holding their ground, “Women in Black” gradually re-introduced slogans against the killing in Gaza and against the occupation.
A coalition of “peace movements,” led by Hadash (Hebrew acronym for “The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality,” led by the Israeli Communist Party), succeeded, after a long effort, to receive a license for an anti-war demonstration in Haifa. The conditions for the demonstration were harsh: It was limited to 700 people, not much for a country-wide event, and it was set at mid-day Saturday, January 20, at Paris Square, a deserted area in downtown Haifa. The whole event was “tilted” in a futile attempt to build Jewish public opinion against the war, alienating the limited Arab Palestinian audience. One of the speakers was representing mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza who called for the war to end. The police, after being forced by the “High Court” to license the event, expressed their frustration by intruding between the protesters and confiscating banners that they did not like. Mostly they tried to hunt down any banner that mentioned the word “genocide.” One demonstrator was detained.
Since a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in 2011, the most famous center of Palestinian protest in Haifa has been in the middle of the tourist area of The German Colony, in a place that was named by the local activists, and is now known to everyone as “Prisoner’s Square.” The absence of Palestinian protest was a distressing reality for many, and a group of local Palestinian feminists tried to change that by gathering quietly in Prisoner’s Square. When the police would come, they simply dispersed without resistance.
A local Hebrew WhatsApp group, “Smol Haifa” (Hebrew for “Haifa Left”), used to be a technical platform for spreading different invitations to activities, including Palestinian protests. With the absence of a Palestinian initiative, a small group of activists, mostly of Jewish origin, used this and other chat groups to organize. It was important for us to show that we oppose the massacre in Gaza not from the point of view of “what is good for Israel” but from a principled, humanitarian position. The first two small anti-war pickets, in November and December, were quickly dispersed with some of the participants detained for a few hours.
As this group continued to call for anti-war demonstrations, the police attitude gradually “softened.” On March 14, we stood, a few dozen of us, in Emil Habibi Circle, at the entrance of Wadi Nisnas, the center of Arab Haifa. It was the first clearly anti-war demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza that was not dispersed. Still, the police surrounded us provocatively, forcibly confiscated banners, this time concentrating on the word “murder,” and detained one demonstrator. More similar demonstrations followed on March 27, April 7, April 18, May 2, and May 19. Gradually the police stopped confiscating banners and harassing the demonstrators. Only the occasional raising of the Palestinian flag still inevitably caused police attacks and detentions, just like in the “democratic” era before the war. The question that was on everybody’s mind was what would happen when the Palestinian demonstrations were back?
Palestinian demonstrations back in Haifa
The first Palestinian call for a demonstration in Haifa in solidarity with the people of Gaza (after the October 18th demo) came on Monday, May 27. It read:
“Gaza is being annihilated and the blood and destruction are everywhere. We will not be quiet anymore!! We invite you, the free people of our nation, to take part in the protest against the genocide, the ethnic cleansing and the starvation, all of them are still continuing against our families in the Gaza Strip, the last of it in the massacre in the tents in Rafah.”
The invitation was signed by “Herakat al-Dakhel al-Falestini” – the movements in the Palestinian interior (meaning 1948 Palestine).
As the invitation was published in social media, right-wing Israeli media was quick to report it, claiming that the police, ho almighty god, allowed the Palestinians to demonstrate in support of Hamas in Haifa. Different fascist agitators called for a counter-demonstration to prevent the Palestinian protest. The police hurried to issue a denial and promised that no Palestinian protest would take place. It promised in advance to use blatant force to oppress any such attempt.
At the designated time some 250 Palestinian demonstrators gathered in Prisoner’s Square – much more than was expected according to local standards. On the other side of the road, there was a small crowd waving the Israeli flag, but they were dwarfed by the Palestinian mobilization. The police were clearly present all along the German Colony, but initially, they stood in the middle of the street between the two camps.
After a few minutes, when we were already raising banners and shouting slogans, they came and quickly snatched three of us from the first line of the demonstrators. I happened to be one of these first three detainees. We were held in the fortified back seat of a police car parked just in front of the demonstration. It took almost an hour until the police commander declared that the demonstration was illegal, demanded that it disperse, and soon ordered his troops to attack. Some of our protesters thought it was a sign of lenience, allowing the demonstration to take place for almost an hour. While sitting handcuffed in the back of the police car we could hear the local commander shouting orders in their internal communication system, though we had a different “inside” picture. Apparently, the police were not prepared for the relatively high number of demonstrators and felt that his forces were not enough to attack all along the front. He was calling desperately for reinforcements from nearby towns and for special anti-riot squads. As most of the expected reinforcements arrived, he gave the order to attack. Mounted officers charged at the crowd, inspiring panic. Many demonstrators were beaten and, by the end of the day, there were nine of us detained.
The early “low profile” detention of the first three of us, just as the demonstration began and without declaring the demonstration illegal, seemed to be the commander’s “plan B.” In case the demonstration will disperse before he would have the forces to attack it, he could at least report to his superiors and to the Israeli press that he detained “some prominent inciters.”
Between Prisoner’s Square and Bassel al-Araj Junction
After Bassel al-Araj, the main ideologue of the Palestinian youth resistance, was killed by the occupation army in 2017, Herak Haifa decided to name a major junction in the German Colony after him. It is about a hundred meters up the mountain from Prisoner’s Square.
Just three days after the first demonstration, there was another call for a Palestinian demonstration in Prisoner’s Square in solidarity with Gaza, for Thursday, May 30. This time the police prepared large forces in advance and occupied Prisoner’s Square long before the demonstrators even started to arrive. We gathered in Bassel al-Araj junction instead, gaining some time to raise banners and shout slogans before the police organized to attack.
The geography of Bassel al-Araj junction allowed the demonstrators to disperse in different directions, and the attacking forces lost their focus. Some demonstrators regrouped in the adjacent streets, so that instead of standing and shouting at the side of the junction they were marching in the middle of the street, and even raising the Palestinian flag. The police were chasing demonstrators, beating them, and detaining violently some. The chase and regrouping around the neighborhood continued for two hours. At the end of it, some of the demonstrators even succeeded regrouping in the Bassel junction again, singing “Mawteni” (“My Homeland”) and finishing the demonstration in an orderly way.
The Electronic Intifada published a triumphant report by Mati Yanikov about these two first Haifa Palestinian demonstrations under the title “Haifa protests crack the wall of fear.” And here are some short videos I compiled presenting different stages in the second demonstration.
After these experiences, as it was clear that the police were ready to do whatever it took to prevent us from demonstrating, the next invitation for a demonstration, again signed by “Herakat al-Dakhel al-Falestini,” called to gather on Tuesday, June 4, at 19:30. It promised to announce the exact location an hour and a half before the designated time. As promised, an updated invitation was published on time calling for the demonstration at the Bassel al-Araj junction. And, at 19:30, as the police were gathering in the junction, the demonstrators gathered in Prisoner’s Square.
The unannounced last-minute shift gave us the opportunity to demonstrate for about half an hour before the police readied itself to disperse us. When the attack was imminent, the organizers decided to avoid confrontation and ordered the protesters to disperse. When we were already walking away without banners or slogans, the police commander issued his orders for us to disperse. This was the only one of six Palestinian demonstrations in the last two months that ended without anybody being detained.
The next invitation called for a demonstration on Saturday, June 8, in Prisoners Square. As the police were waiting there, we gathered in Bassel Junction, but now the police were determined not to miss the opportunity to disperse us violently. As if it was not a new event but the missing end of the previous half-demonstration, within less than five minutes mounted police charged at the protesters, and “detectives” in civil dress started hunting for demonstrations, throwing them on the ground, violently handcuffing them, dragging them, and twisting their limbs all the way to the police cars. Even a (female) journalist from a mainstream media outlet was blatantly beaten as she tried to picture the attack on a wretched (female) demonstrator.
This time the attackers continued to follow and harass any suspected demonstrators (we were not as many as in previous encounters) along the adjacent streets, preventing us from any possibility of regrouping. An hour later, when five of us were quietly sitting in a nearby park, waiting to see what was going on, we were almost run over by the heavy horses of mounted police that were still looking for people to disperse.
Still trying
For some time, there were no new calls from the Palestinian Herakat for demonstrations in Haifa. During this time protests were taking place repeatedly in many other towns in the Galilee and the Triangle, most of them uninterrupted. Meanwhile, the “Haifa Left” activists called for another demonstration in Emil Habibi Circle in Wadi Nisnas on Thursday, June 27. It was not clear to us whether, after dispersing the Palestinian protest, the Haifa police would allow this demonstration to really take place.
Apparently, it was not clear to the Haifa police either. One difference is that the “Haifa Left” demonstrations are happening under the radar of the fascists, and the determination of the Haifa police to prevent Palestinian demonstrations stems to some extent from their servitude to fascist Zionist public opinion. Two dozen protesters gathered in Emil Habibi Circle and were not initially prevented from demonstrating. Only after about half an hour, a random Zionist passed by and decided to complain to the police that was standing nearby. The police duly jumped into action, declared the small demonstration illegal, and detained three of the protesters.
The prevalence of local (Arab) criminal gangs, that kill Arab citizens with impunity, is another issue that is deviling the 48 Palestinian society. After a spate of back-to-back grueling execution-like killings, “Herakat al-Dakhel” decided to connect the local “social” menace with the war in Gaza, and called for another demonstration in Prisoner’s Square on Thursday, July 4. The invitation declared: “Against the war, against criminality. Our blood is spilled in Gaza, the West Bank, and the interior. The weapon of criminality is one!”
We were just a few dozen gathering in Prisoner’s Square that day. Even as we were gathering quietly without even carrying banners, the police declared loudly that this was an illegal demonstration and that we would be dispersed. A small group of noisy fascists on the other side of the street went on with cursing and threatening us without interruption. Just standing there for twenty minutes, waiting for more people to join, felt like a small achievement. When we finally raised the banners and started chanting the police immediately attacked, detaining violently five of us.
The latest call for demonstration so far came last Thursday, July 25, under the title “We Continue.” With the experience of not being able to stand our ground in front of police attacks, even fewer people came this time. In Prisoner’s Square itself, half of those present apparently were threatening-looking police detectives in plainclothes. Anybody who is not a battle-hardened demonstrator and thought about joining the protest would naturally distance himself from their view.
As it happened, only three of us held any signs of protest: two pictures of wounded children in Gaza and a small banner in English demanding “Stop the Genocide.” All the others stood quietly by to see what would happen. Very early a detective in civil declared that this was an illegal demonstration and demanded that we disperse. We did not. Then the (newly appointed) uniformed commander of the Haifa police ordered his heroes to snatch the banner against the genocide. They attacked the carrier of the banner and tore it, but did not detain anybody. We stayed standing with the pictures of the wounded children, surrounded by policemen, while the fascists on the other side of the street loudly demanded our demise.
I thought that if we just stood there for an hour, holding those pictures that so much annoyed the police and the fascists, and disperse at our own initiative without any detentions, it might be considered a sort of small victory in this asymmetric warfare. Apparently, the police felt the same. When the time was over, and we were already dispersing, they attacked a car in which three of the demonstrators were on their way home. They violently dragged out the two guys who were in the back of the car, threw them forcefully to the ground, handcuffed them, and detained them. Then they fined the driver for playing loud music in Arabic. Several more demonstrators who protested the violence or tried to film it were beaten and thrown to the ground. Two of them were also arrested, claiming that they disrupted police at carrying their duties. The girl who initially carried the “Stop the Genocide” banner was especially badly beaten.
The nights and days after
As I described above, detentions are a regular part of our protests against the genocide in Gaza. You might wonder what happens with all the activists who are detained. In fact, the demonstrations do not really end with their dispersal and the detentions. If anybody is detained, we continue to spend the evening in front of the police station. Human rights lawyers, most of them from Adalah, but also from Kaza and private volunteers, come to give legal advice to the detainees. In most cases the detainees, or most of them, are released on the same night. Sometimes we wait for them to be released till one or two o’clock after midnight.
If somebody is badly beaten, it is a common police practice to accuse them of assaulting police officers. Then we start a frantic search for videos that prove who initiated the violence. According to the law, a police officer can order a detainee to be held in custody over the night. The next day, the police may request remand in the court. In most cases, the judges in Haifa would release the demonstrators without conditions or with a five-day house arrest. They would typically say that there are justified suspicions of illegal behavior, but that the suspicions are at a low level and do not deserve prolonged detention. They would never respond to our lawyers’ persistent claims that the police did not have legal authority to disperse the demonstration in the first place, and that the detention was illegal.
Gatherings outside the police headquarters and in the court hearings are important political activities in themselves. They allow the activists to forge connections of solidarity and trust with the friends and family of their detained comrades.
Luckily, nobody spent more than a few days in detention during the current wave of demonstrations in Haifa, and no legal action has been taken against demonstrators following their detentions.
Yoav Haifawi is an anti-Zionist activist and maintains the blogs Free Haifa and Free Haifa Extra
