Violence against Palestinians is no longer reserved for Israeli soldiers or settlers, who still justify their actions with “security.” The young Israelis who have been attacking Palestinians, unprovoked, on the streets of Western, educated, democratic Israel, have no such excuse. In the last week or so, the number of images of Palestinians laying in hospital beds or being carried away in coffins that has appeared in my news cycle is astonishing. It is not necessarily that there are more incidents of violence (it's certainly plausible though I have not seen any statistical reports yet), but the media is certainly giving…

The issue of racism and Islamophobia among Beitar Jerusalem fans was considered an 'unsolvable problem' – until it was solved. One of the nastiest problem in Israeli soccer is about to get better, if not completely disappear: The issue of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism among fans, players and staff. This is a decades-long problem in some clubs, the most well-known – but certainly not the only - being Beitar Jerusalem, which developed over the year a counter-culture that had a distinctive racist feature in it. The case got much attention lately, but unlike reports in the international media suggested, the problem's roots…

Over-compensated nationalism and the fear of 'the other' all contribute to untenable racist attitudes among Israelis toward Palestinians. But racism doesn't develop in a vacuum and in the context of the current reality, it is entirely unsurprising. By Maya Schkolne Standing in the cold and dark by the checkpoint on Highway 60, the soldier appeared genuinely taken aback. He had called us off the bus after spotting my friend’s Israeli passport. Since we were in Area C, we were legally permitted to be there. But what were two young Jewish women – one Israeli and one South African-Israeli – doing on…

Imagine this: You’re sitting in the bleachers at a Yankee game. You brought The New York Times with you, just in case things get slow. Or at least for the seventh-inning stretch. You read about how Steinbrenner is considering buying a new player from Haiti, or the Dominican Republic. Suddenly, you lift your head and see a huge flag hovering over the fans, written in large black print: “NO SPICKS!” You drop your beer, right? Well, that’s pretty much what happened during a Beitar Jerusalem game. During a league game last night, Beitar fans rolled out a sign saying, “Beitar,…

This video, of Palestinian teens attacking Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, really made me sick. Related PHOTOS: Under the fresh white Jerusalem snow, hatred still bubbles A week in photos: January 3-9

Two pictures I found in my social media today. The first was taken on Agripas street in Jerusalem. The second was taken near the Al-Aqsa mosque, also in Jerusalem.

This has got to be one of the more disgusting videos I’ve seen. The Otzma LeYisrael party, headed by ultra-right wing MKs Aryeh Eldad and Kahanist Michael Ben-Ari have posted their first campaign video to be shown on Israeli TV on YouTube (according to Ben-Ari’s Facebook page). The televised election campaigns kick off Tuesday night, when Israelis can watch the official pitches from the political parties running for Knesset, every evening until the elections. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMtvF8-WgSk The first part of the video is text in Hebrew, blaming Arabs for not paying taxes such as income tax and Arnona (a municipal property…

Haim Mula, a resident of the Shapira neighborhood in south Tel Aviv who was arrested last April in connection with the nighttime arson attack of several African asylum seeker homes and one kindergarten in his neighborhood, has signed a plea bargain that exempts him from jail time. Mula, 20, was originally accused of committing the attacks himself, admitted only to having prepared the firebombs for the actual arsonist, an offense for which he is expected to receive only a few months of community service and no jail time. It will be up to the court whether to approve this fairly…

Examples of racism are abundant in the Israeli press. Both individual journalists and the media outlets that publish them must be taken to task for stereotyping Palestinians, and in some cases, inciting violence against them. By I’lam: Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel It is not altogether true that free expression is under threat in Israel. Sure, one may have been led into believing so, what with the passing in 2011 of the “Nakba Law,” penalizing commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, and the “Anti-Boycott Law,” restricting anyone calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions, including in the occupied Palestinian…

If a campaign ad inciting against Arab citizens of Israel is deemed illegitimate, then why not the party responsible for it, or any of the myriad Knesset members who have also engaged in similar forms of incitement as well, whether against Africans, Palestinians, the LGBT community or Israeli leftists? Israel's Central Election Committee disqualified an ad campaign last week by a new party called Otzma Leyisrael (Strength to Israel), citing that it singles out and incites against the Arab sector in Israel and is therefore racist. The campaign ads, posted on buses and billboards across Israel, included the word "loyalty" in Arabic,…

There has been a lot of nationalism, warmongering and even racism in the Israeli media this past week, and inflammatory militaristic statements are still heard everywhere. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to post this video by filmmaker Itamar Rose. Several months ago, Rose traveled with a Palestinian friend to Sderot, which has been hit by rockets more than any other Israeli town, and asked locals to play the role of Palestinians in front of the camera. The outcome is worth watching. (If you cannot properly see the video, click here to watch it.) Some people might wonder how…

It's hard to say which is worse - the behavior of racist fans, or the tacit approval they get from Israeli sports officials and media. I like to think that if you discount for the century of fighting with Arabs, Israel is still plenty racist, but no more than most societies. I remind myself that even the absolute worst display of Israeli racism - the chanting of monkey noises ("hoo-hoo-hoo!! hoo-hoo-hoo!!") and the throwing of bananas at black players during soccer games - has been going on in Europe, too, and probably elsewhere. But what happened this week to Nigerian-born…

A majority of the public wants the state to discriminate against Palestinians, says a poll published in Haaretz. The findings don't reflect a failure in education, as some might argue, but rather the inherently discriminatory nature of the state and the result of decades-long occupation. Gideon Levy reports in Haaretz today the findings of a survey that reveals deeply-rooted racism in Israeli society, and a desire of most of the Jewish public to practice ethnic segregation between Arabs and Jews. This is the front page story of Haaretz today. The poll was conducted by Prof. Camil Fuchs, one of the…