‘They Came Here to Attack Arabs.’ Welcome to Life in Israel’s ‘Mixed Cities’
AJ+
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2,312,378 views Aug 6, 2021
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“Inside Israel, we are Palestinians too.”
When solidarity protests erupted across the country in May, a Palestinian resident in the city of Lydd (or Lod, as Israel renamed it) told AJ+ that local Jewish Israelis marked their homes with red paint so they could be targeted for attacks by armed settlers.
This is part of a much larger project happening in Lydd, where ultranationalist Jewish Israelis have been moving into the city for over a decade with resources and support from the state. The group is called the Garin Torani, or “Torah Seeds,” and its goal is to create a Jewish majority in Arab-majority neighborhoods. Residents we spoke with say that while the city has welcomed these Jewish settlers, it has also ignored the basic needs of Palestinian citizens.
In the aftermath of recent violence that left two people dead, one Jewish and the other Palestinian, new levels of mistrust and generational trauma are haunting these residents.
AJ+ went to Lydd to find out how Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are challenging the country’s de facto policy of divide and rule while demanding freedom from colonial oppression.
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Transcript
0:00They came here to attack Arabs.
0:033 secondsYou're watching Jewish Israelis, some armed with baseball bats, headed in the direction of a mosque.
0:088 secondsLocal Jews marked Arab houses [with] a red spray, so the ones who come from outside will recognize our houses and attack us.
0:1717 secondsISIS did it, and the Nazis did it. And now they are doing it for us.
0:2525 secondsThis is the city of Lydd, or Lod, as it's been known since Israeli forces took control of it in 1948.
0:3636 secondsIt's one of just a handful of binational cities where Palestinians and Jewish Israelis live together.
0:4444 secondsResidents here told us that right-wing Jewish settlers are moving into Arab-majority neighborhoods in a deliberate effort to dilute the population.
0:5656 secondsWe want the Palestinians to accept this is our land. This is our country. This is our city.
1:011 minute, 1 secondIn the aftermath of a violent crackdown, new levels of mistrust and generational trauma are haunting its victims.
1:111 minute, 11 secondsWe're in Lydd to find out how Palestinians are challenging Israel's de facto policy of divide and rule while demanding freedom from systemic oppression.
1:291 minute, 29 secondsThe minute that set [off] everything, and the police lost it, is when an Arab boy climbed that electric pole over there,
1:381 minute, 38 secondsand he moved the Israel flag and he put instead a Palestinian flag.
1:431 minute, 43 secondsFor activist Ghassan Munayeer, massive protests this spring signaled a kind of reawakening for the descendants of Palestinians who resisted efforts to violently force them out in 1948.
1:541 minute, 54 secondsInside Israel, we are Palestinians too.
1:571 minute, 57 secondsThey tried all their best to tear us from our people and our nationality and our identity.
2:062 minutes, 6 secondsThey failed.
2:082 minutes, 8 secondsWhat happened next was several days of violence. Two men were killed. One was Jewish and the other Palestinian.
2:292 minutes, 29 secondsMarwa Hassouneh's husband, Moussa, was just a few minutes from home when he got caught up in protests that turned deadly.
2:402 minutes, 40 secondsThe father of three children was shot dead after a settler fired his gun at protesters.
2:542 minutes, 54 secondsReligious settlers have been moving into Lydd from the occupied West Bank for over a decade with resources and support from the state.
3:013 minutes, 1 secondTheir group is called the Garin Torani, or "Torah Seeds" in English.
3:053 minutes, 5 secondsThey're expanding their community into Arab neighborhoods with the express goal of establishing a Jewish majority.
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsMarwa visits her husband's grave daily with her family.
3:243 minutes, 24 secondsSuspects were detained in Moussa's killing, but released shortly after.
3:273 minutes, 27 secondsMarwa says it's a testament to the ways Palestinians are treated differently by the justice system.
3:433 minutes, 43 secondsPalestinians with Israeli citizenship face dozens of discriminatory laws that limit economic opportunity, restrict their movements and deny them access to their land.
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsAnd they live in a climate of pervasive fear and punishment.
3:553 minutes, 55 secondsBut Marwa and her family are determined to fight back.
4:084 minutes, 8 secondsFor Marwa's 6-year-old daughter, Mila, what's left is hopelessness and confusion.
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsThe Hassouneh family is one of the oldest Indigenous Palestinian families in Lydd, who, like so many others, were forcibly expelled during the 1948 creation of Israel.
5:335 minutes, 33 secondsMoussa's great-uncle, Ramadan, survived the Nakba, or catastrophe. That's when over 750,000 Palestinians were violently forced out of their homes.
5:565 minutes, 56 secondsIn Lydd, more than 200 men, women and children were murdered as they sought refuge in the Dahmash Mosque. Ramadan recounts what happened afterward.
6:186 minutes, 18 secondsSome 50,000 people in the city became refugees overnight. Historical accounts called it a death march.
6:366 minutes, 36 secondsAfter a few years, Ramadan's family found a way back to Lydd.
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsThe city's name was changed to Lod, and their farming community was now jobless and completely dependent on the Jewish state that had taken their land.
7:007 minutesAnd until 1966, they continued to live under military rule in virtual ghettos surrounded by barbed wire because they were considered a threat.
7:087 minutes, 8 secondsBy the time they were granted Israeli citizenship, the state had taken away pretty much everything they had.
7:187 minutes, 18 secondsJewish Israeli resident Yigal Yehoshua was the other victim of deadly demonstrations in Lydd. Yigal’s brother Effie showed up at the Hassouneh family home to offer his sympathy.
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsFor Palestinians, it's not a question of "just getting along" or achieving "coexistence." It's about living alongside Jewish Israelis who refuse
7:537 minutes, 53 secondsto recognize the brutality of their past and current experiences.
8:278 minutes, 27 secondsDuring filming, thousands of right-wing extremists marched through East Jerusalem, waving flags and celebrating the day in 1967 when Israel occupied the city.
8:378 minutes, 37 secondsThe crowd cheered as one Palestinian counterprotester was pulled away by his neck.
8:418 minutes, 41 secondsAs police dragged away a Palestinian woman, a group of youth shouted, We want the Palestinians to accept this is our land.
8:518 minutes, 51 secondsThis is our country. This is our city.
8:538 minutes, 53 secondsAnd then, if they want to live here, they come to live in peace and don't have problems for nothing.
8:588 minutes, 58 secondsAs new housing projects for hard-line Jewish settlers persist, Lydd's mayor has been accused of emboldening their growth with discriminatory policies and anti-Arab rhetoric.
9:089 minutes, 8 secondsA few years ago, he barged into the Dahmash Mosque - the same site where Palestinians were massacred during the Nakba - and demanded they lower the volume.
9:239 minutes, 23 secondsAt an Arab primary school, parents say armed members of the Garin Torani stormed the property and demanded the school turn over its playground to the city so it could be used as a tourist walkway.
9:489 minutes, 48 secondsIncidents like this have signaled a new level of aggression that Palestinians in this city haven't seen before.
9:539 minutes, 53 secondsArmed extremist Jewish Israelis trying to enforce their own rule and order.
10:0210 minutes, 2 secondsAJ+ requested an interview with the Garin Torani. They didn't reply to our request.
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsDemocracy without equality doesn't exist. What we see here is apartheid.
10:1410 minutes, 14 secondsGhassan showed us a 10-foot wall on the north side of the city that separates a wealthy, thriving Jewish neighborhood from a poor, struggling Arab one.
10:2210 minutes, 22 secondsThe building of this wall reflects how the Jewish majority looks at us. They don't want to see us.
10:3110 minutes, 31 secondsSo we build walls in order not to see you and not to see your miserable life and your misery.
10:3910 minutes, 39 secondsMost of the Arabs in Lod are second and third generation of 1948 refugees. We will not leave this place.
10:4810 minutes, 48 secondsWe will not leave this place. This is our homeland. This is my city.
10:5410 minutes, 54 secondsAs Marwa and her family are left to confront new layers of trauma, she responds to Yigal's brother Effie in fluent Hebrew.
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