Jerusalem police beat lawmaker, clash with protesters in anti-settlement demonstration
The Joint List’s Ofer Cassif said officers at Sheikh Jarrah were ’going wild, not letting people demonstrate’ as weekly protest in support of the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents draws large crowd
Police officers clashed with protesters and punched an Israeli lawmaker in the face on Friday, during a weekly demonstration against Jewish settlement in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, as the threat of eviction sharpens for several families.
Several hundred protesters participated in the demonstration, which drew a larger crowd than in previous weeks, calling to stop the eviction of Palestinian residents.
Video footage from the protest shows Ofer Cassif, a Knesset member from the Arab-majority Joint List, arguing with officers before they began hitting him. Cassif required medical attention and his glasses were broken.
The police’s Jerusalem District chief, Doron Turgeman, ordered an investigation into the incident.
Jerusalem Police later said in a statement that clashes began when Cassif “assaulted one of the officers, kicking him and punching him in the face.”
According to their statement, the lawmaker refused to identify himself, but after it became clear that he was a Knesset member, he was released from police custody.
Police also said they used “reasonable force” to stop Cassif, and added several officers were also wounded.
Another police source said that officers were told beforehand some Knesset members are expected to take part in the demonstration, but they may not have identified Cassif in real time.
After a tour of the neighborhood, activists advanced toward a park to protest there. But they say an elite Jerusalem Police force blocked the road, shoved them and fired stun grenades. Several more protesters, in a larger demonstration than usual, were injured after falling to the ground.
Two activists were detained.
Cassif told reporters after the incident: “The officers are going wild. They don’t let people demonstrate. They were told I was a Knesset member, they didn’t care… and started beating me. They’re here to protect the damned settlers who are taking over homes. It’s a disgrace.”
This is the second time in weeks that a Joint List lawmaker was hurt by police, after Yousef Jabareen was wounded by a stun grenade, along with the city’s mayor Samir Mahameed, at protests against police inaction against gun violence in Umm al-Fahm in February.
Knesset speaker ’shocked’
Politicians from across the political spectrum condemned the violence against a sitting lawmaker.
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said in a statement that he was “shocked to see the grave incident,” and drew attention to the fact that Cassif is “entitled to freedom of movement under the law in order to be able to fulfill his role” as legislator.
He called on Public Security Minister Amir Ohana to ensure the incident is looked into.
Knesset Member Aida Touma-Sliman, also from the Joint List, tweeted that Cassif was attacked by “the same government and police who are aggressively trying to uphold the rule of the occupation and settlers in East Jerusalem.” She added: “We are committed to continuing the struggle against the occupation.”
Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz said he asked Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai to suspend the officers involved, while fellow Meretz lawmaker Tamar Zandberg called in a tweet to “end police violence,” which she said “undermines the foundations of democracy, particularly when aimed at a Knesset member.”
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said “The violence against Knesset Member Ofer Cassif is outrageous. It’s unacceptable that a person goes out to protest and ends up beaten and wounded.”
Cassif’s political opponents also censured the violence, with Gideon Sa’ar, leader of the right-wing New Hope party, tweeting that he “despises” Cassif’s worldview, “but the brutal police violence against him is a death blow to the Knesset and to parliamentary immunity.”
Bezalel Smotrich from the far-right Religious Zionism party also called the incident “serious and unacceptable in a democratic country. The [parliamentary] immunity of MKs is critical for the fulfilment of their role, and is not an issue of one side or another on the political map. Too many times in the recent period have police violated the law in this matter.”
A decade of protests
Weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah have been happening for about a decade. Dozens of Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah have faced potential eviction for years, amid intensified efforts from right-wing settler groups who assert the land was owned by Jews before 1948, when Israel was founded.
In February, 81 members of the British parliament called on their foreign secretary to put pressure on Israel to stop the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem by settler organizations.
In recent months, Israeli courts have forced Palestinian families to leave their homes in favor of settler organizations, among others Ateret Cohanim. Most of the evictions are based on claims that the Palestinians are living in buildings or on land that was owned by Jews before the state was founded in 1948. Many of the families are refugees or descendants refugees who were removed from their homes in 1948 and prevented from recovering their property by Israel’s Absentees’ Property Law.
Josh Breiner contributed to this report.