For the past year Palestinian store owner Azzam Maraka has been displaying posters of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in his store windows near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Today Israeli police arrived for the fifth time since the posters were hung to fine Mr. Maraka 475 Israeli shekels (equivalent to approximately 130 US dollars) totaling 2375 shekels (~$650) to date.
Azzam Maraka argues with Israeli police over his right to display posters in store window.
Maraka considers Erdogan a friend of the Palestinians partly due to Turkey’s participation in the 2010 flotilla to Gaza. Diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated after Israel refused to apologize for the killing of nine Turkish passengers on board the Mavi Marmara, a ship loaded with humanitarian aid bound for Gaza.
According to Maraka, the citations were issued in violation of a law prohibiting signs of any kind to be displayed on the street on which the store is located. Yet the signs of neighboring businesses and public buildings are of similar size and have not been targeted.
Maraka believes that he is being singled out because of political reasons related to strained relations between Israel and Turkey.
Israel’s seemingly political crackdown is further complicated because the neighborhood where the store is located is behind the green line, the internationally recognized border dividing Israel from the Palestinian West Bank.
Mr. Maraka intends not to pay the fines and is prepared to have the issue heard before the courts.
The author of this post is currently traveling in Israel/Palestine and would prefer to remain anonymous.
More fascism, and beyond the green line no less.
When will Israel will go into a full-throttle demonization
campaign against Erdogan? Give it 2 years.
israel sure is trying hard to be like nazi germany…
“Live #AND# let live!”
Maybe Erdogan will pay the fine! Or, better, work to end application of Israeli laws in occupied EJ (cannot believe a no-signs law was in effect during the Jordanian occupation, but always willing to learn).
Not to nitpick, but the Green Line of 1967 is merely a ceasefire line. It is not an internationally recognized border. It is, however, an internationally recognized ceasefire line.
Final status of that line is to be determined by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people.
Israel had illegally annexed occupied East Jerusalem. As a result, Israeli law (In contravention with international law) puts East Jerusalem under the municipal control of ‘Jewish Jerusalem’ or West Jerusalem, hence the police (As opposed to the military).
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Police uniforms in Israel are usually light blue in color, modeled after Australian and South African police.
That style was changed in recent years. The policeman in the photo is wearing black police uniforms with the Israeli flag on the shoulder sleeve, a cheap imitation of many American police uniforms.
Incidentally, vehicle license plates in Israel were historically solid yellow. Several years ago, the Israeli ministry of transportation changed the plates in an imitation of EU license plates — the addition of a blue country identifier on the end.
I’m not sure about the rationale behind all these imitations; are they supposed to make tourists and foreign visitors feel as though Israel is a western country? Or, are they a failed attempt at giving itself the illusion that it is a western country?