StevenFM
Well-known member
De impact van de Iraanse raketten laat zich ook op verschillende wijze voelen in Joodse en Arabische gemeenschappen in Israël.
www.theguardian.com
‘They just see you as an Arab’: Israel’s Palestinian citizens given cursory protection from attack
Deaths of four family members sheltering in supposed ‘safe rooms’ in Tamra highlight racial inequality of Israel’s defence of its citizens
The war between Israel and Iran involves powerful modern weapons that can turn a human body into vapour and scraps in an instant. Israel also has modern air defences which have managed thus far to intercept most of the incoming Iranian missiles. And for three-quarters of the country there are underground bunkers, a virtual guarantee of survival.
But the Khatib family did not have a bunker. They were Palestinian citizens of Israel, like the rest of the 37,000 population of this old hillside town in the Lower Galilee. And in common with most Palestinian-majority towns, Tamra does not have a single underground shelter. Like much else in Israel, there is nothing equal about the way death comes from the sky.
“The Israeli government, since the creation of the state, didn’t invest in one public shelter for the Arab part of society,” Tamra’s mayor, Mussa Abu Rumi, said. The reinforced “safe rooms” in new-build houses are an inferior alternative, as the fate of the Khatibs showed, and Abu Rumi said only 40% of Tamra residents even have those.
It was only afterwards, when the tape recorder was off, that another neighbour came forward to vent his anger, which he claimed was shared by all of Tamra, at a video that had circulated since last night.
It was filmed from a nearby Jewish town, and showed missiles and Israeli interceptors streaking across the black sky, but when a missile falls short and slams into Tamra, you can hear people around the camera rejoicing.
“To the village! To the village!” one man cries, and then several women’s voices join in, someone starts clapping and together they sing a verse that has become a Jewish extremist anthem. It consists of one line: “May your village burn” sung over and over again.
“Please write about this,” the neighbour said. “If I say anything I will have 20 police cars at my house.”
“We are trying to engage with Israeli society all the time,” the mayor said. “What we find is hatred, and people who don’t see you as a legitimate human being in this place.”
He said the centre in Israeli politics had collapsed, and with it the few protections Palestinian citizens of Israel could count on.
“The political power that the settler parties have in government is creating this division,” he said. “They just see you as an Arab no matter where you are from.”

