Israeli nationalists chanted “death to Arabs” and scuffled with Palestinian shopkeepers and left-wing activists ahead of Tuesday’s so-called flag march in Jerusalem.
Held every year to mark the occupation and conquest of Palestinian East Jerusalem, the event sees hundreds of Israeli nationalists march through the Old City of Jerusalem waving Israeli flags and intimidating Palestinian merchants and residents of the city.
This year scuffles broke out between the marchers and Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists, who had gathered along the route.
Other chants included “let your village burn”, a reference to the 1948 Nakba, in which Zionist militias ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages to make way for the establishment of Israel.
It is the stated aim of many on Israel’s far right to expel those Palestinians who remain within the borders of modern Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
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Footage shared online by journalists, showed the right-wing activists circling Palestinian women in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.
According to the Times of Israel, Israeli police arrested a Palestinian youth who was involved in scuffles with the marchers.
In the march last year, the Israeli activists attacked Palestinian residents, as well as journalists covering the event.
Israel’s far-right is ascendant in the wake of the war on Gaza and includes several ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Israelis no longer blush at calls for Palestinian extermination
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A majority of Israelis back the expulsion of all Palestinians from territory controlled by Israel, according to a recent poll by Pennsylvania State University.
The survey, conducted in March and published by Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, found that 56 percent of Israelis support the forced expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
It also revealed that 82 percent of Israeli Jews support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, 47 percent of Israeli Jews answered yes to the question: “Do you support the claim that the [Israeli army] in conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites did when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, ie to kill all its inhabitants?”
The reference is to the biblical account of the conquest of Jericho.
