Palestinians experienced the bloodiest and most brutal year of all time in 2022. They witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of settlers, settlement expansion, martyrs, and confiscation of lands, especially in Jerusalem. The occupation’s relentless endeavours aim at uprooting the Palestinians in Jerusalem by controlling more Palestinian lands. They try to impose facts on the ground by building and expanding settlements and legitimizing building settlements, especially in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is like no other city in Palestine. Israel’s ideology puts more greed in Jerusalem than any other city in Palestine. The focus on Jerusalem pictures a conflict between two histories, two geographies and two very different identities. It includes the Palestinian Arab native and the trespassing zionist. Accordingly, Israel’s ideology directs at eliminating the cultural landmarks of the capital or the Holy City. In addition, it aims to fake history aimed at reshaping the city with its exclusive Jewish output. They make it after erasing the Arab historical identity and its expression of Christian and Islamic diversity. Consequently, taking into consideration all intense practices to uproot the Palestinians in Jerusalem. 

Geographical and Demographical Judaization

Israel’s Jewdization ideology plan started its first steps in Jerusalem by initially cutting off Jerusalem from its perimeter. Their point was isolating Arab Jerusalemites from their civil, national and administrative institutions and from any activity that would maintain their interdependence. Their first planned step was initiating a vast campaign to isolate Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings, politically, geographically, economically, socially and demographically. They also erected the apartheid wall around the Holy City as well as settlement belts around it entirely. Israel also constructed and strengthened settlements in the heart of Arab neighbourhoods and the Old Town in  Jerusalem.
Read more on this: Israel is Hiding Crucial Demographic Facts About Palestinians

Land Confiscation

Moreover, Since Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has begun confiscating lands inside Jerusalem, and other Palestinian cities until it expanded to the ghetto of the Old Town which Arabs inhabited and had no trace of Jews. Land confiscation expanded until it reached the Mughrabi neighbourhood, Beit Safafa village, Beit Jala, al-Nabi Ya ‘qub, and Sheikh Jarrah area lands. Land confiscation has been happening and still happening until this day under Israel’s false pretexts. Israel has also promulgated legislation and laws prohibiting construction in large areas covering various areas of the city. In addition, they have announced other areas as “green areas” for no building. 

To this day, The Israeli occupation exploits the classification of Palestinian lands according to the Oslo Accord (a, b and c) to tighten control over Palestinians, especially in areas classified as (c) under its full control over security, planning and construction. Israel’s occupation directly exploits 76% of the total area classified as (c); 63% of which regional colonial councils control. Equally important, the areas confiscated for military bases and military training sites represent about 18% of the West Bank area, as well as the apartheid wall and expansion that isolated more than 10% of the West Bank area. 

Shamelessly, Israel’s military forces forcibly expel Palestinian citizens from their homes, inhabit them by Jewish settlers arriving from abroad, and transfer Palestinian properties to the settlers. For example, Sheikh Jarrah’s neighbourhood has been suffering from this issue. In 2008, the occupation authorities forcibly expelled the first Palestinian families from the neighbourhood and were repatriated by Jews. They expelled the Al-Ghawi family by force of arms from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. To date, 28 Palestinian homes remain threatened with expulsion and transfer of their homes to settlers. 

Demolishing “Unauthorized Construction”

In order to build homes in East Jerusalem and Area C, Palestinians must apply for a permit from the Israeli authorities, who control these areas. The vast majority of demolition orders are issued because a home or structure has been built without an Israeli permit. Every year Israel demolishes hundreds of Palestinian homes under the pretext of what Zionists call illegal construction in East Jerusalem (unauthorized construction).

Zionist authorities impose doubled penalties on Jerusalemites such as high financial fines reaching tens of thousands of shekels, actual imprisonment, and instructions requiring Jerusalemites to prove ownership of their land by highlighting the land registry. They would also oblige Palestinians to obtain the consent of their neighbours including the Mukhtar of the village or the village chief. Generally, demolition orders are based on false pretexts that Israel considers demolishing their homes itself or even making the situation harder by issuing self-demolition for the Palestinians.

Residence, Mariage, and family reunion

In order to maintain its grip over Jerusalem, Israel took racist Judaizing uprooting practices for the Palestinians in Jerusalem. They included the withdrawal of Jerusalemites’ identities, based on a series of racist regulations, laws and judgments. This policy abolished the residence right of Palestinians living in Jerusalem, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and outside Palestine. In that case, when the families of the banned Palestinians from entering Jerusalem apply for permission to visit them, they grant them an exit permit without returning, nonetheless.

Israel has also applied a compulsory approach to students studying outside Jerusalem. It requires them to renew their identity cards in a manner that disrupts their studying. The right of residence is revoked for those who spend seven years outside Jerusalem for the sake of education. Israel can, under its laws, easily deprive any Palestinian of residence in the city. Internal staff shall apply these instructions automatically without referring to any other reference.

Apart from this, Israel prohibits Palestinians from marrying or reuniting with their spouses from the West Bank and Gaza. As racial discrimination reflects the demographic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Consequently, all these tyrannical practices serve the interest of Israel to forcibly uproot the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
For more: Israel Has No Right to Exist if Palestine Has No Right to Exist

General view

Psychological warfare is Israel’s best-known ideology for uprooting Palestinians to clamp down on Palestinians compelling them to leave their lands.  Palestinians will never forget Israel’s true face. They will never forget the execution of the veteran journalist Shirin Abu Akleh. They will never forget the illegal assassinations, willful injuries, arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, persecutions and collective punishments against Palestinians, including many children. violence has always been a key feature of Israel. Palestinians will never forget. And they will never forgive.

In the part of the world considered to be the West, multiculturalism initially originated in the nineteenth century in the American context. Even then it was a broad phrase that was difficult to define since it has descriptive, strategic, and normative connotations. This discussion to this date still often pops up in political debates and government gatherings in Europe aimed at discussing what all things should be considered to encompass it. However, the generic definition refers to a society’s cultural, ethnic, and religious variety on an empirical level and clearly differs from monoculturalism or the presence of only one culture in a society. To understand the crises of multiculturalism in Europe, its important to understand generic meaning of multiculturalism.

Terence Turner, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago attempts to define multiculturalism in his 1993 essay in the following terms:

“In calling for the formal equality of all cultures within the purview of the state and its educational system, multiculturalism represents a demand for the dissociation (decentering) of the political community and its common social institutions from identification with any one cultural tradition.” (Turner)

Unlike other western countries such as the United States, Australia, and Canada, European countries were not very quick to welcome cultural diversity until the late twentieth century. Even the contemporary reality of Europe, keeping in view particular incidents like hate crimes in places like London and Germany against Muslims to the passing of laws such as the veil ban in France; dictates a crises of multiculturalism in Europe.

Read here, The Scope of inter-religious pluralism within Islam

When did European Nations Embrace Multiculturalism?

It is a widely held belief that European nations did not outrightly embrace multiculturalism until the late twentieth century. And that it was specifically the post-war immigration and country-specific measures to integrate incoming immigrants seeking asylum in Europe that preceded this newly approved transformation. As a result, when considering crises of multiculturalism in Europe, multicultural policies and in fact understanding this colossal concept in its entirety are almost always limited to the integration of immigrants who arrived during the post-war wave of migration.

The tense relationship that Europeans have with religiously and ethnically diverse minorities, notably Muslim immigrants, is at the center of both national and international discussions and disputes.

These current disputes and the debatable state of Muslim minorities in Europe, however, cannot be understood in isolation solely from the point of view of the present migrant or refugee crisis.

Even before the tragic 9/11 attacks or attacks in other parts of Europe like the London bombings on 7 July 2005 referred to as 7/7, ethnic and religious conflicts had already begun to prompt a reconsideration of multiculturalism as a sustainable ideology for Europe.

Multiculturalism, on the other hand, has become ingrained in most European countries’ daily lives and it won’t be incorrect to say that it cannot possibly be entirely reversed. However, issues arising at both the institutional and decision-making levels, as well as on the societal level through general public opinion, have made daily life more difficult for Muslims of various ethnocultural groups who are either living or wish to live their lives according to their religious and cultural traditions.

Also, read Communalism and Economic Marginalisation of Muslims

The question of Muslim migration in Europe

Europe has seen a record surge of asylum seekers from countries that are predominantly Muslim in recent years. This influx of Muslim migrants has sparked a huge debate in some nations concerning immigration and security policy, as well as concerns about the existing and future numbers of Muslims in Europe. The crises of multiculturalism in Europe is dictated to a very large extent by the question of the Muslim migration. Migration has been a contentious subject almost since the time of its inception.

But the more intriguing debate around the question of migration is always the largest influx of Muslim migrants. However, it is important to understand the history of Muslim migration in Europe. There are primarily two reasons why Muslim migrants were coming to Europe in large numbers and at a fast pace.

The first reason was the economic migration of Muslims from third-world countries in search of jobs and earning opportunities. The second reason was the numerous and continuous wars in predominately Muslim nations that pushed the fleeing Muslims to migrate to Europe.

Read here, Islamic Democracy: Is Democracy Compatible with Islam?

Economic migration of Muslims from third-world countries

Those who had previously left their nations in quest of work, social benefits, and greater earnings were the earlier migrants. The vast majority of these first-generation migrants arrived from third-world countries in the 1950s and 60s when they were young and looking for work. They had no intention of settling permanently, rather they only planned to come to earn enough money to save in order to send it back home. These migrants rarely got white-collar jobs and usually were restricted to doing manual work in factories and industries regarded as the “unprofessional work sector”.

Overall, these migrants helped towards the economic prosperity of many European countries by building railroads and roads, cleaning and maintaining the streets, government, and private offices, working in coal mines and industries, and taking up occupations that Europeans were unwilling to do themselves.

In Western Europe, there was no “migrant crisis” till then and, by extension, no “Muslim migration influx” until 1970 as such. In public spaces, migrants were mainly unnoticed, and Europeans were not only insensitive but indifferent to them. These migrants did not explicitly exhibit any radical or specific religious obligations, nor did they demand any space for it, since they did not want to dwell permanently in Europe.

Muslim migrants were not explicitly discriminated against or prejudiced due to their identity because they contributed to the well-being of European societies. While there was classism as well as racism, there was no manifestation of anything that would be recognized as Islamophobia. In short, migration was regarded as a benefit rather than a burden, and even less so as a threat.

Read here, The Forgotten Jammu Massacre

Muslims fleeing war and conflict in predominantly Muslim Nations

The second reason for the Muslim migrant influx in Europe is people fleeing war and conflict zones. Millions of people have been forced to escape their homes around the Muslim world due to a variety of such factors, including interstate conflicts, civil wars, US-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to a variety of other natural calamities like earthquakes and Tsunamis. Many people have crossed national boundaries and are now living as refugees in neighboring nations. Most of these migrants however preferred to go to European countries in search of asylum and larger educational and earning opportunities, but besides everything for a safe war-free environment.

While fleeing war and death in their own countries millions of Muslim migrants are still in limbo waiting for confirmation on whether they can make stable lives for themselves in European countries. However, many of the migrant Muslims who were seeking asylum in Europe and did actually manage to get in are still unsure if they can call Europe their home.

Despite the fact that the Muslim migrants were escaping war, they were later subjected to intolerance, discrimination, and violence in the countries in which they sought refuge.

Since, unlike the earlier economic migrants, these migrant Muslims came to Europe looking for a place to call home, they were exhibiting their religious identity in public, and it did not settle well with the Europeans this time. These Muslims living in Europe were started to be seen as outcasts based on the visibility of their “Muslimness’. Any outward display of Islam like the wearing of a hijab by Muslim women or the growing of a beard and wearing a skull cap by Muslim men started to be seen with contempt and resulted in the phenomenon of Islamophobia. While the roots of Islamophobia are widely contested, it only came to be recognized as an existing phenomenon around this time.

Also, read How Practical is the Secular Democracy of India? Curbing of Religious Freedom in Kashmir

Farha is a Jordanian movie directed by Darin Sallam depicting the Israeli-Palestinian ethnic cleansing setting at al-Nakba 1948 or the catastrophe. It is the most brutal coming-of-age movie about a 14-year-old Palestinian girl called Farha living in a Palestinian village. She dreams of attending school and pursuing an education with her best friend Farida in the city while other girls are excited about their friends’ marriages. Nevertheless, things went as unexpectedly; the Israeli gangs barbarically attacked the village, committing massacres against the Palestinian villagers. While waiting for her father to return, she watches through a small hole in the wall as Israeli soldiers execute a family including two young children and a baby. This brutal scene makes Israel backlashes against Netflix over the Jordanian Film Farha.

Sallam has said that the movie is based on the true story of a friend of her mother, who lived years later as a refugee in the Al Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria and recalled her experience as a young girl during the Nakba. Sallam describes the film as a means of helping process a painful memory of that time. The 15-minute scene has angered Israeli officials and the pro-Israelis as well.

Israel is Furious

The film has caused Israel deep chagrin regarding the 15-minute scene. Several Israeli officials blasted the portrayal of the 1948 Nakba in the movie. “It is crazy for Netflix to release a movie that aims to incite hatred and make false excuses against Israeli soldiers,” Avigdor Lieberman said. He stated that the Israeli soldiers would not allow anyone to damage their reputation. Lieberman said that the film is provocative and full of lies against Israeli soldiers. Furthermore, Lieberman revoked state funding to a theatre in Tel Aviv’s suburb of Jaffa that screened the film, with the “goal of preventing the screening of this shocking film or other similar ones in the future.

The campaign also included downvoting of the film’s ratings online and a social media campaign. It calls on people to cancel their Netflix subscriptions. “After more than two years of subscription, I have decided to cancel it due to Netflix’s support for the anti-Israeli film.” one streamer said. “Netflix supports such a shocking and unrealistic scene that is not in line with Israeli and Jewish morality at all. I cannot subscribe to a site that has endorsed such a shocking scene in which [Israeli] soldiers are portrayed as vile as murderers without heart and without any humanity,” another subscriber added.

What is actually “Crazy” is their reaction toward the Film. They do not want people to see it, through all means, and under any circumstances. Consequently, Palestinians’ right to process their suffering through art is being denied unfairly by shutting down screenings of this film.

Palestinian Right to Process Pain through Art

Israel has tightly orchestrated and controlled its own narrative of its birth. Before the military opened its archives of the 1948 war, it issued a policy forbidding the release of any documents. These documents include detailing the forced deportation of Palestinians; any human rights violations, including war crimes, committed by Israeli forces. They also included anything that might “harm the [Israeli Defense Forces]’s image” or expose it as “devoid of moral standards.”

This is neither the first nor the last time that movies depict Palestinians’ suffering through art. Many masterpiece works were made previously including Al-Taghriba Al-Filistinia, The Tower, Inch’Allah, and most notably “Tantura”. Yet, this is almost the first time to air a Palestinian movie on a global platform like Netflix to go trending. We cannot deny that the more the situation complicates, the more the film spreads, affecting prevailing the truth and exposing the heinous crimes of the Israeli thoughtless soldiers.

The movie represents a quantum leap in the artistic field regarding the Palestinian cause. Ironically, from a tiny hole in the wall, the movie exposed Israel to its heinous massacres in 1948, causing chagrin and anger in Israel. The massacre in the movie is nothing compared to what happens nowadays, especially in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. On the same day Israel denied and condemned streaming the film by Netflix, they brutally shot dead the Palestinian youth Ammar Mufleh at point blank. How sarcastic!
see more on this/Israel is hiding crucial demographic facts about Palestinian

Truth is Unsilenced

It is also a story that Palestinians have never stopped telling. Yet, there is something unique about hearing it from the perpetrators themselves. “The Palestinians know the story. They’ve been talking about it, and the world has heard from them, but the world believes the Israeli side a lot of the time, and Israelis do not admit to this story,” said Schwarz. “This is a story of Israel looking the other way.” “We robbed them of their history,” he said. “We not only ethnically cleansed them, took them out, denied their return, but we also robbed them of the true story. Schwars added, “We robbed them of the right to remember, and that is terrible.”

Most importantly, In “Tantura,” a movie named after a Palestinian prosperous fishing village near Haifa that was wiped off the map during the Nakba, Schwarz sets out to investigate the massacre of an unknown number of villagers that was carried out just a week after the establishment of the Israeli state. Releasing Tantura, especially these days while the Palestinian cause is taking over the scene in Qatar World Cup 2022 as well as the Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an official mandate to form a new Israeli government, is precarious for Israel’s image, consequently.
See more/ Israel Has No Right to Exist if Palestine Has No Right to Exist

Schwarz says that people were killed in different ways and different places in the village. It took about two weeks to bury them. There are testimonies of bodies that have not been buried for 8 to 10 days. In a dehumanizing language, over 90-year-old Israeli soldiers confess to committing heinous massacres in Tantura. Actions cannot be reversed but the evidence is present. For more on this click here.

Farha is currently streaming on Netflix

Despite Israel’s backlashes on Netflix over Farha, it is now available to millions of people to watch on Netflix with a rate of 8.6. Despite attempts to shut down its production, there is a solid case to deepen hatred over terrible events that happened. The film should stand as an acknowledgement of the other side of a historic story about the creation of Israel. A brutal story that people have ignored or denied for too long. You can support the truth by watching the movie, rating it, and sharing the truth even with a trembling voice. Eventually, the truth will prevail.