Read this personal account by Ira Glunts - an American Jew living in Israel - about how the Israeli government has actually used the army to prevent Palestinian cultural events in occupied East Jerusalem and the Arab-Israeli town of Nazareth. Jerusalem was chosen as the Arab Cultural Capital for 2009 and events are scheduled around it. But Israeli authorities have prevented any events on “Israeli” land. A grouping of children with Palestinian flags were blocked from going to the al-Aqsa Mosque and a torch from Damascus - which hosted in 2008 - was confiscated by Israeli troops. Even in Nazareth - far from the tension politics of Jerusalem - Arabs were denied the right to hold events. Mind you that these are not Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza. These are Palestinian in East Jerusalem who have some legal rights in Israel with the Blue pass and those in Nazareth are actual Israeli citizens of the state. But the racist government of Israel refuses to allow its own citizens to hold cultural events. This is a government that bars its own citizens from celebrating their heritage and arrests poets - Mahmoud Darwish - for even mentioning Palestine in their poetry. Imagine a nation that summons its own citizen to the police station solely for the purpose of his poetry. This is Zionism. And then Zionists have the temerity to pounce when people accuse Israel of apartheid.

[Arab Thought Forum.]

Abridged version [full version here]:

The Israeli authorities have prevented all events associated with al-Quds Arab Culture Capital 2009 celebration from occurring in what they consider to be Israeli sovereign territory. The harsh suppression of the cultural expression of Palestinians of which this action is indicative, reflects the very grim reality of the Israeli relationship to the Palestinian people, especially those with whom they live in close proximity. The Arab Culture Capital festival, which is celebrated in a different Arab city each year, hosts artists, officials and tourists from all over the Arabic-speaking world. The Israeli refusal to allow these cultural events to take place in Jerusalem and within Israel’s borders sends a blunt and clear message, not only to Palestinians, but to all Arabs. The message is: We do not intend to acknowledge your rights or your presence here, ever.

On Saturday morning, March 21, 1000 Israeli police were deployed in the Old City of Jerusalem to stop all events associated with the festival. Most of the originally scheduled events had either been moved or cancelled as a result of the Israeli orders. However, according to the Israeli daily Ma’ariv, eight different smaller events were closed down by the authorities during the day. In addition, there were 20 arrests of either organizers or participants.

Events associated with the festival which were shut down by police included a football game, a meeting of youths inside a club building and an attempt by schoolchildren carrying Palestinian flags to enter the area around the al-Aqsa mosque. Hundreds of young students accompanied by their teachers who attempted to stage some modest artistic events in the Old City of Jerusalem were prevented from doing so by police. The authorities also arrested two employees of al-Quds University who were distributing T-shirts commemorating the festival.

In Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, police shut down an event in which there were hundreds of participants, according to the Israeli daily, Ma’ariv. In a separate incident, a ceremonial torch which was brought from Damascus the site of last year’s festival was confiscated by police. In addition to the closings in and around Jerusalem, a conference associated with the Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture celebration which was scheduled in the Palestinian-Israeli city of Nazareth, was prohibited by police order.

KABOBfest also commented:

Have you ever seen a bully steal something and, feeling guilty about the theft, intimidate the victim into remaining passive?

That is how Israel behaves in general towards the Palestinians, but the most glaring examples of such bullying can be seen almost on a daily basis in Jerusalem.

Since the beginning of this year, Israel has served over 200 demolition orders against homes of Palestinians in illegally occupied east Jerusalem. An entire neighborhood, al-Bustan, is due to be demolished in the village of Silwan to make way for a park built for the benefit of Israeli settlers. A Palestinian cemetery is to be razed to make way for the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of ‘Tolerance and Human Dignity’. Schadenfreude?

2009 is the year Jerusalem takes the mantle of Capital of Arab Culture (it was held by Damascus in 2008), and the official celebrations began yesterday across the Arab world. Except that any affirmation of the Arab identity of Jerusalem terrifies the Zionist state, and the bully responded predictably.

All leave was canceled for the Israeli police and army so they could move swiftly to forcibly end the festivities both in Jerusalem and Nazareth, confiscating property and arresting organizers. The police also banned any activities inside Palestinian schools in Jerusalem, going as far to ban unrelated Mother’s Day celebrations in the elementary schools.

The plight of Jerusalem is one of the most under-reported angles of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and dispossession. Palestinian Jerusalemites live an increasingly isolated existence, cut off from the West Bank, annexed by Israel without being granted citizenship and persistently subjugated to policies that attempt to deny their history and links to the ancient city.

Israel’s draconian and wholly unjustified reaction yesterday proves however that despite its monopoly on control and military power in Jerusalem, the bully remains paranoid.

And for those who say “Hamas banned events too.” Yes, Hamas did. And that is wrong and it is way I oppose Hamas, but, really, that is such a weak defense. This is routinely made by Israel’s apologists who state that it is wrong to signal out Israeli crimes because, alas, there are many crimes in the world. This tactic is a weak argument and seeks to shift attention from Israel’s crimes into a game of semantics. Israel has banned the event and so has Hamas, and to state that “well, Hamas does it too” as a defense is to implicitly agree that Israel is engaging in wrong behavior - and apartheid enforcement - but they you just use that weak defense to give Israel cover because another party happens to be engaging in the same action. It doesn’t change the fact that Israel is an apartheid state.

What kind of morally deprived nation behaves like this?