discrimination in Israel

Israeli security and rescue forces at the scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Tamra, June 15, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Unprotected from Iranian missiles, Palestinians in Israel decry neglect

The tragic death of four members of one family in the Arab city of Tamra has highlighted the systemic discrimination in Israel’s civil defense infrastructure.

By Baker Zoubi June 17, 2025

The scene where a missile fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon landed and caused damage in the Palestinian town of Majd Al-Krum, northern Israel, October 16, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Palestinians in Israel’s north ‘abandoned’ by authorities as rocket deaths soar

Palestinian citizens are disproportionately bearing the brunt of Hezbollah’s missiles due to their lack of shelters and proximity to Iron Dome batteries.

By Suha Arraf November 22, 2024

A Black Panthers protest in Jerusalem, 1971. (Yosef Hochman, courtesy of the Yad Yaari Research and Documentation Center)

Who is reaping the fruits of the Israeli Black Panthers’ struggle?

Half a century after setting off a political earthquake from the impoverished streets of Jerusalem, the radical Mizrahi movement has been largely forgotten. A new book seeks to untangle their contested legacy.

By Ben Reiff July 26, 2024

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Police officers fire tear gas in St.Paul and Minneapolis during protests following the killing of George Floyd, May 28, 2020. (Hungryogrephotos/Wikimedia)

The police were designed to take Black and Palestinian lives, not protect them

The knee that choked George Floyd is part of the same oppressive force that walked away from Ayman Safiah and that pulled the trigger on Iyad al-Hallaq.

By Ashraf Ghandour June 2, 2020

Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israeli activists protest against the Jewish Nation-State law in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv on August 11, 2018 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90).

‘When the constitution becomes racist, it’s difficult to define what racism is’

One year ago, Israel passed a constitutional amendment declaring that Israel belongs only to its Jewish citizens. The head of Israel’s premier Palestinian rights group discusses what has changed in Israeli courts, but also overseas. ‘The debate soon will be whether Israel is apartheid.’ In the year since the Israeli parliament passed the Jewish Nation-State Law,…

By Henriette Chacar July 26, 2019

Illustrative photo of Israeli children preparing for the first day of kindergarten in Jerusalem. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Jerusalem orders kindergartens not to let ‘minorities’ visit

The municipality’s security department sends instructions to kindergartens in the city ordering that foreigners and ‘minorities,’ a euphemism for Arabs, not be allowed onto their grounds. Anti-racism group demands the city retract the orders. Public kindergartens in Jerusalem were ordered by the city’s Emergency and Security Division not to allow “foreigners” and “minorities” into educational…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 18, 2019

Israeli troops check the ID of a Palestinian woman and her child at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, May 18, 2018. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

A new framework for viewing Israel’s regime in the West Bank

The existing frameworks we have for addressing Israel’s rule over the Palestinians are flawed and becoming less relevant. Comparing it to other regimes that share one of its prominent characteristics, institutionalized discrimination, can create space for new ideas. By Yariv Mohar In the 51 years since Israel seized control of the West Bank and Gaza,…

By +972 Magazine January 31, 2019

Tens of thousands of protesters joined the Druze community in rejecting the Jewish Nation-State Law at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on August 5, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Tens of thousands of Druze protest for equality in Tel Aviv

Demonstrators filled Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest the Jewish Nation-State Law and demand full equality. Will that be enough to pressure Netanyahu to backtrack? By Meron Rapoport Could it be that the “Israeli state” was born in Tel Aviv’s central square Saturday night? Perhaps it’s a bit early to say, but if…

By +972 Magazine August 5, 2018

Palestinian women cross the Qalandiya checkpoint outside Ramallah, West Bank, into Jerusalem to attend the first Friday of Ramadan prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, July 12, 2013. (photo: Activestills.org)

I don’t need a law to remind me of my inequality

I do not need the Jewish Nation-State Law to remind me that I am not equal to my Jewish friends. And yet, I was born here, I grew up here, this is my homeland. I have no intention of going anywhere. By Yasmeen Abu Fraiha Write it down, I am an Arab woman Born to this land…

By +972 Magazine July 24, 2018

A Jewish Israeli man holding an Israeli flag confronts a Palestinian woman holding a kaffiyeh on the sidelines of the ultra-nationalist "Jerusalem Day" march, May 13, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A state that belongs to only some of its citizens

According to the proposed ‘Jewish Nation-State Law,’ Israel does not belong to Israeli citizens, more than 20 percent of whom are not Jewish. Instead, it is the state of the Jewish people, roughly half of whom are not even Israeli. There is a form on the Israeli Interior Ministry’s website, where one can order duplicate…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man July 13, 2018

An El Al pilot hangs out the window of one of the carrier's planes. (Illustrative photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Boycotting these Israeli companies won’t get you on any blacklists

Israelis from across the political spectrum are calling to boycott of two major companies for discriminatory practices against women and Ethiopians. But what about that one boycott Israelis will simply not abide? Israelis, despite their vociferous claims to the contrary, do not fear the power of boycott. In fact, for many Israelis, boycotting companies that profit off discrimination…

By Edo Konrad June 26, 2018

Right-wing demonstrators protest in front of a demonstration against the Israeli attack on Gaza, in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, July 26, 2014. Right-wing activists protested nearby and attacked left-wing activists during and after the protest. One left-wing activists was hospitalized with a head injury. (Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

When racism and segregation are perceived as ‘legitimate rights’

Protests against Arab families moving into Jewish cities are a reminder that until everyone is free to choose where they want to live, the Israeli regime will remain segregationist and racist at its core. By Suhad Bishara Jewish residents of the northern Israeli city of Afula protested last week against the sale of a home…

By Haokets June 21, 2018

A Bedouin woman from the unrecognized village of Al-Araqib sits in front of an Israeli police van. Israel has demolished al-Araqib over 100 times. (Illustrative photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The most radical thing you can say in Israel

The Knesset won’t even allow this law to be discussed, let alone voted on, because it proposes making Israel a ‘state of all its citizens.’ Why is that so threatening? The presidium of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, decided on Monday that a proposed law seeking to define Israel as “a state of all its citizens”…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man June 5, 2018