TESTIMONY. "We don’t have the right to express our emotions" : since October 7, the voice of Palestinians in Israel has been silenced by the authorities
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
The voice of the two million Palestinians in Israel is being released very gradually. Since October 7, they no longer have a voice, with the ban on demonstrating or expressing on social networks their solidarity with Gaza or their opposition to the war. But in recent weeks, the grip has loosened a little and they are considered less and less as enemies from within.
Nisrine Murkus is an activist: “I feel empathy. Why does a baby have to be killed just because he’s Palestinian?” She is Arab and presents herself as Palestinian, of Israeli nationality and leads a feminist movement which defends equality and demands an end to the fighting in Gaza: “It feels like we’re living under military rule. We don’t have the right to express our emotions about what’s happening in Gaza. Most Israelis dehumanize the people of Gaza. Why? she asks. For many activists, times are tough. For each demonstration request, we have to wait a long time before obtaining authorization. On social media, they monitor what we write.”
“For years, the Israeli authorities tried to say that we were not Palestinians, but Israeli Arabs, continues Nisrine Murkus. They did everything, particularly in the education system, to tell our children that they should forget that they were Palestinians. And suddenly, after October 7, the Israeli authorities considered us Palestinians.”
Cathy Barah is Jewish Israeli and like Nissrine Moukhous, she is active in left-wing associations: “It’s difficult because many friends, my family, were affected by the massacre of October 7.” And yet, with his group of mothers against violence and the help of Israeli Arabs or Palestinians in Israel to organize rallies: “They were not given a good life in Israel. For 75 years, Arabs have been considered guilty of something. We have never found a way to live together. They are the ones who found, each time, the way to live with us.”
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