Israel: Racist, violent policing is at the heart of apartheid

The author describes how the Israeli police made extensive arrests of Palestinian citizens during the Israeli’s 11-day attack on the Gaza Strip in May. Israeli police also failed to protect Palestinian citizens from the far-right Jewish extremists. This verdict did not come from the oppressed Palestinians, but rather from an Amnesty International report. This report shows that Israeli police consider the Palestinian minority in Israel as “an enemy” and not as citizenry. Amnesty also detailed that while the Palestinians are beaten and tortured by the Israeli police, the police also ignore or show slow response to any threat to Palestinians from far-right Jewish extremists. Jewish politicians who even publicly instigated violence against Palestinians, such as former president Reuven Rivlin and mayor Yair Revivo, did not face any consequences. The author argues that the police policy against the Palestinian minority is rooted in the “ugly ideology of Jewish supremacism.” For Israel to solve these racist policy policies, the country must examine its apartheid structures, which is an alliance of Jewish supremacism by police and its far-right allies, and the “silent complicity of wider Israeli Jewish society.”