Ira Glunts writes:
Palestinians have long claimed that their freedom of expression and
desire to celebrate their culture has been brutally suppressed by the
Israelis. Well, the Israeli police, according to this report in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, broke up several events celebrating Arab cultural heritage in East Jerusalem earlier today, kicking off the Al Quds Capital of Culture
Festival.
The Israel Defense Forces radio web site reports that a large number of municipal police and Israeli Army Border Guards have been deployed in East Jerusalem and in the surrounding villages to stop “any event related to the festival from taking place.”
According to the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, dozens of soldiers broke into a planning meeting for the festival on Thursday night at the Christmas Hotel in East Jerusalem. The soldiers harassed the participants, seized documents and a laptop.
The Arab Cultural Capital event is a yearly cultural celebration which showcases the arts. Last year the festival took place in Damascus, Syria. This year's Jerusalem celebration will include events in Gaza, Nazareth and Ramallah and Lebanon, in order to include Palestinian refugees. Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to participate in the opening ceremony which will be televised from his office in Ramallah.
The Palestinian Authority, which organized the festival, also had plans to fly a paper glider painted with the colors
of the Palestinian flag over the walls of the Old City. The Israelis
consider this to be a demonstration of Palestinian sovereignty in
Jerusalem, which is illegal. Today they arrested Palestinians who were releasing balloons in a mother's day celebration. The "Palestinian governor of Jerusalem" escaped arrest, according to that report!
This is typical of the Israelis, but American Jews do not know a lot about it. During Oslo the Israelis kept pulling down the Palestinian flag at their "unofficial" headquarters at the Orient House in East Jerusalem. There was a movie a few years ago that had a scene of a balloon with Arafat's face painted on it floating over Jerusalem. It was hilarious. Maybe the glider is life imitating art.
The larger issue: Ma'an News is reporting on Palestinian fears that Israel is trying to destroy Arab cultural identity. This program is not going over well in the Arab world. The National out of Abu Dhabi writes:
Mr [Yasser] Qous, an Old City resident
who has been arrested 12 times since he was a teenager, was not
surprised that Israel would seek to prevent the cultural events from
taking place.
“I think we [Palestinians] need to realise that we
have lost the military and political battles. What is left now is the
cultural battle. The Israelis realise this and we must, too, before it
is too late, before the multilayered history of Jerusalem is buried by
an Israeli sovereignty that recognises and explores only Jewish
history.”
The Associated Press
(…)
Palestinian activists called for Saturday's celebrations to mark the Arab League's designation of Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture for 2009. The 23-nation group chooses a different city for the honor each year.
But Israel said the events violated a ban on Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized the crackdown.
Announcing the ban on Saturday's events, Israel's internal security minister, Avi Dichter, accused Abbas' Palestinian Authority of being behind the activities. Israel does not allow the Palestinian government to have a presence in Jerusalem, saying it undercuts Israel's claim to the city.
At one event, teenage girls at an east Jerusalem Catholic school released a few dozen balloons in the red, white, green and black colors of the Palestinian flag over the walled Old City. Israeli military police and soldiers quickly moved into the schoolyard and popped the remaining balloons, students said.
Zein, an 18-year-old student, said the police popped them with their hands and told them they weren't allowed to release them into the air. She asked not to use her last name, fearing further problems with the police.
An Israeli intelligence official at the school who refused to give his name said the balloons were burst "because they are Palestinian."
Police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby said 12 people were detained. Police also broke up attempts by Palestinian school children to march into the Old City.
(…)
Must give it to Israelis they discriminate against ALL Non-Jewish religions: the Christian Catholic Arabs were not allowed to celebrate their culture with balloons either.
Perhaps that's because Israel defines itself as a Jewish state–Judaism by definition and practice is discriminatory of course.