More surprisingly, Ben Gvir was echoed by the government's police minister, Amir Ohana, who called on "citizens carrying weapons" to work on the authorities' behalf by "immediately neutralising threats and danger". Social media has also been awash with calls from activists to arm themselves and attack Palestinian communities in Israel.
On Wednesday, the results of the incitement were all too evident. Jewish gangs, many of them masked, smashed and looted Arab-owned shops and food stalls south of Tel Aviv. Hundreds of onlookers were filmed by an Israeli TV crew watching as a driver was dragged from his car and severely beaten. Though the rampage had been going on for much of the evening, police were nowhere in sight.
Palestinian residents of mixed cities have been hurriedly organising defence patrols in their neighbourhoods. But with many members of the Jewish far right licensed to carry firearms, the reality is that Palestinian communities have few ways to protect themselves effectively.
Some of the worst scenes have emerged from Lod, where local Palestinians live in a few ghettoised neighbourhoods stranded in the midst of what is now effectively a Jewish city next to Tel Aviv.
Confrontations on Monday led to an armed Jewish resident fatally shooting a Palestinian father-of-three, Musa Hasuna. The next day, his funeral escalated into a riot after police tried to block the mourners' route, with the torching of cars and visible symbols of the Jewish takeover of central Lod, including a synagogue.
On a visit to the city, Netanyahu denounced the events as "anarchy" and warned that Israel would use an "iron fist if necessary".
On Wednesday night, a curfew was imposed on the city, and under a state of emergency, control passed from the local council to police. Netanyahu said he had been working to overcome legal obstacles to give police even greater powers.
Echoing Netanyahu and the Jewish fascist parties, Israeli Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai argued that the explosion of Palestinian unrest had been caused by police being "too soft".
Over the past few days, there have been tit-for-tat violent attacks on both Jewish and Palestinian citizens, with beatings, stabbings and shootings that have left many dozens injured. But claims of an imminent "civil war" in places such as Lod, as its Jewish mayor characterised the situation this week, fundamentally misrepresent the dynamics at play and the balance of power.
Even if they wanted to, Palestinian communities have no hope of taking on heavily armed security forces and Jewish militias.
Eruption of angerWhat the state is doing in Lod and other communities - through the police and proxy settler allies - is teaching a new generation of Palestinian citizens a lesson in Jewish-state civics: you will pay a deeply painful price for demanding the rights we pretend to the world you already have.
Certainly, Netanyahu seems to have no real commitment to calming the situation, especially as violence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens takes his corruption trial off the front pages. It also feeds a right-wing narrative that is likely to serve him well if, as expected, Israel heads back to yet another general election in a few months' time.
But other Israeli officials are stoking the flames, too - including President Reuven Rivlin, who unlike Netanyahu, is supposed to be a unifying figure. He denounced Palestinian citizens as a "bloodthirsty Arab mob" and, in an inversion of the rapidly emerging reality, accused them of conducting what he called a "pogrom" in Lod.
For decades, Israel has tried to cultivate the improbable notion for western audiences that its Palestinian citizens - restyled as "Israeli Arabs" - live happily as equals with Jews in "the only democracy in the Middle East".
Israel has carefully obscured the minority's history as Palestinians - clinging on to their lands during Israel's mass ethnic cleansing operations in 1948 - as it has the systematic discrimination they face in a self-declared Jewish state.
As a consequence, the eruption of anger in Palestinian communities inside Israel is always difficult for Israel to manage narratively.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
