Israel Is Now Convicting Palestinians With Israeli Citizenship For Anti-Genocide Slogans.

Even within its own borders, Israel is not a "democracy".

A report from the Israeli magazine 972 has revealed that Israel is now prosecuting Palestinians with Israeli citizenship for chanting anti-war and anti-genocide slogans at protests.

The magazine noted , “Over the past two and a half years, Palestinian citizens of Israel have seen their political and civic rights — already limited before October 7 — dramatically constricted. They have been arrested for social media posts, publicly humiliated by state officials, persecuted in their workplaces and universities for expressing political opinions, and held without charge in administrative detention. Long subjected to discrimination under Israeli law, Palestinians citizens witnessed the state take advantage of the Gaza war to pass 30 new bills entrenching apartheid and Jewish supremacy.”

But with a new prosecution, the magazine noted, “a new threshold has been crossed” adding, “For the first time, Palestinians inside Israel have been criminally convicted for chanting political slogans at a protest.”

It noted that, “On April 29, the Haifa Magistrate’s Court convicted 31-year-old activist Mohammad Taher Jabareen and 42-year-old attorney Ahmad Khalifa of ‘indirect incitement to terrorism’ and ‘identification with a terrorist organization,’ charges that carry a combined maximum sentence of eight years in prison. The decision came after more than 30 months of legal proceedings — during which Khalifa and Jabareen were held in administrative detention for four and eight months, respectively, before being released to house arrest.”

The report added, “The conviction was based on political chants heard during an anti-war protest the two participated in on Oct. 19, 2023, in Umm Al-Fahm, one of the largest Palestinian cities in Israel.”

It noted that “These were traditional slogans that have been used for decades at demonstrations and public events across Israel,” which “included no direct calls for violence”.

The chants included, “With soul and blood, we redeem you, Oh Gaza!” , “There is no solution except uprooting the occupier” and “Gaza shall not submit to the tank or cannon.”

Despite the fact that “the police and the state acknowledged that the slogans themselves contained no reference to Hamas or other banned organizations, an offense which is indeed illegal under Section 24 of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law”, “the prosecution’s interpretation of the slogans’ meaning, without specifying in its ruling which ‘terrorist organization’ the alleged offense of ‘identification’ supposedly referred to.”

Human rights activist Mohammad Zeidan noted that this “ruling raises profound questions about the future of freedom of expression for Palestinian citizens,” noting that it “opens the door to new legal precedents, whereby in the future any slogan chanted at a protest could be treated as an offense warranting punishment, based on interpretations that may rely more on presumed intentions than on facts”.

He added, “A ruling like this can be understood as a deterrent message to others, not merely punishment of the defendants — especially because it targets prominent and influential activists who demonstrated leadership during the war.”

Israel, while slaughtering and detaining journalists and activists on the regular in Gaza and the West Bank, likes to claim to be a “democracy” within the borders of the occupation.

But this story goes to show that even within occupied Palestine, Palestinians with “Israeli” citizenship do not have a democratic right to speak out against the occupation or its slaughter of Palestinians.

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