Normalising pogroms against Palestinians
Outright lies, faux scientific racism, and intimidation: How to justify Israeli settler violence and lynching of Palestinians even when they are Israeli citizens
By Yoana Gonen • Translated by Sol Salbe
One of the lowest moments of Amit Segal’s career (and let’s face it — his career is replete with them) was the “poll” in which he “asked”: “Do you agree with the proposition that the government relies on terror supporters?” That survey was intended to incite against Arab citizens of Israel and had no base in reality. But two years have since passed, and with a lot of faith and hard work, we succeeded, thank God, in fulfilling our dream and arrive at a government that does indeed rely on terror supporters.
When it comes to the realm of support for terrorism, MK Limor Son Har-Melech truly stands out. In the Knesset yesterday it was she who, with great ferocity,y defended the devoted righteous individuals who attacked four women and a toddler, residents of Bedouin town of Rahat in Israel, who found themselves in the Givat Ronen outpost. It’s not easy to find a way to come to the defence of such an incident, but when it comes to justifying settler violence, Har-Melech can perform more spectacular somersaults than Simone Biles. Her floor routine rests on three elements that we have become accustomed to seeing in her performances: outright lies, faux scientific racism, and intimidation.
Har-Melech argued that the vehicle had “non-Israeli licence plates” (ie, the rioters thought they were Palestinian, and that therefore they could be burnt), stressed that “this is not any Israeli family” (under Har-Melech’s racial laws, only Jews are Israelis), stressed that “such an innocent episode can be an espionage episode” (they were Arabs, well, they even utilise toddlers in espionage), and clarified that “there are no compromises in this sort of episodes” (“this sort of episodes” — women driving cars, “there are no compromises” — you mow them down and burn their car.)
It is no coincidence that Har-Melech focused on the tangential issue of the licence plates. Settler violence is a routine that is often ignored, but since this time the victims are Israelis, the media still devoted a bit of time to them. “They set the car alight the car when we were inside it… A normal person can’t understand that,” Lamis al-Ja’ar told Channel 12’s news anchor Adi Zarifi, describing how one of the settlers threatened her toddler daughter with a gun and mocked her: “Cry, cry some more.”
Faced with these disturbing descriptions, Zarifi fell into Har-Melech’s trap — like many others yesterday — and repeatedly questioned al-Ja’ar about whether the vehicle was indeed Israeli. Thus, Har-Melech achieved two goals: first, normalising pogroms against Palestinians, as if the question of whether it is permissible to burn a person depends on the colour of their licence plates [Israeli plates are yellow, Palestinian are green]; Second, the marking of this lynching as an exceptional incident, stemming from a human error, and not as part of systematic violence whose perpetrators enjoy complete immunity and state backing.
Givat Ronen settlers often attack residents of nearby villages precisely because they know that no one cares when the victims are Palestinians. So Har-Melech may not have been able to justify the current lynching, but she has certainly succeeded in focusing the media debate on a tangential claptrap rather than the ongoing reality of riots protected by law — as long as they are directed against people with the appropriate licence plates.
