Acre, last Friday, shortly after midnight; cars careen through the old city at excessive speeds, firecrackers boom in the background, youngsters on motorcycles recklessly cross streets and kids on electric bikes race against the traffic, without helmets, unimpeded.
At the end of the street, in front of the open-air market, is a small police post, but it was closed for the weekend. Police patrols were nowhere to be found. On Sunday, during the Shavuot holiday, a few tourists were sightseeing. During the day, the old city is relatively calm and shop owners are welcoming. The trauma from the events of a decade ago is still present. After the riots in October 2008, Jews stopped shopping there – the subsequent economic damage was considerable. The violent clashes erupted in Acre after an Arab driver defiantly drove through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur.
Jafar Farah, head of the Mossawa Center (an NGO that advocates for the rights of Arab citizens in Israel), was still an unknown figure at the time, but his talents as a provocateur were already evident. Farah fights for civil rights almost like the U.N. Human Rights Council fights for human rights across the globe. Ever since the recent Gaza-support demonstrations in Haifa, during which his leg was allegedly broken by police officers and he was later detained, he has been adopted by the media as its latest darling. Adi Schwartz, who in 2008 was a reporter for Haaretz, published a fascinating piece on Tuesday that sheds light on Farah the individual: "A day or two after the riots [in Acre], the residents tried getting things back to normal … until a reporter or camera appeared on the scene followed suddenly by someone who incited a group of about 10 to 20 people, who then start protesting to show everyone that 'emotions are still running high in Acre.' The person who incited in that instance was Jafar Farah [who isn't a resident of Acre]. … At a certain point, he actually stormed the municipality and started running through the hallways, preventing Arab residents of the city from meeting with municipal officials."
Schwartz's own report at the time didn't include these details, but Farah was identified as an agitator. The next day, Schwartz was reprimanded in a phone call with a European Union parliamentarian. It's not surprising, therefore, that the same EU rushed to call for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his injury – a call that came after an investigation had already been launched, justifiably, by the Police Internal Investigations Unit.
All this pertains, meanwhile, to the matter of how the Mossawa Center is funded: Between 2008 and 2014, the organization operated under a budget of $1,238,177 provided by the New Israel Fund. Between 2012 and 2016, the organization received $2 million from foreign state entities. The sum of donations from foreign countries is 83% (!) of its overall budget, according to the watchdog group NGO Monitor.
The Mossawa Center's website says the group "aims to promote the economic, social, cultural and political rights of the Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel, and the recognition of this community as a national indigenous minority, with their own national, cultural and historical distinctiveness." But special attention should be given to a position paper from 2006 where the rhetoric strikes a disconcerting note and strongly corresponds with the recent images (one masked rioter with a knife was arrested) and the sounds ("in blood and fire we shall redeem Palestine") from the demonstration in Haifa.
The following is a list of demands that appear in the aforementioned position paper, which was penned by Dr. Yousef Jabareen on behalf of the organization: official recognition of the Arab minority as a national minority with a national home; legislation stipulating clear recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian-Arab collective; citing the names of former Arab communities in the public sphere; autonomy on matters of education, religion and culture, including the establishment of an independent and separate educational system; the transfer of Waqf assets to the country's Muslim ethnic group (the Waqf is the entity that administers religious affairs on the Temple Mount); altering symbols of the state, the national anthem and flag; immigration and naturalization equality; official recognition of the "Palestinian catastrophe" (the displacement of Palestinian refugees during and after the 1948 War of Independence) and the provision of historical rights. In other words: There would be no Jewish state.
The broken bone in Farah's leg needs to be examined, but the danger of extreme Arab nationalism rearing its head needs to wake us all up.
