Ghousoon Bisharat
Last Saturday, I joined thousands
in the streets to protest the genocide. But the ensuing backlash has made me
question whether I'm welcome in my own city.
Protesters march through the streets of Haifa calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, May 31, 2025. (Yahel Gazit)
I would like to start with a
confession: this was the first time I joined a demonstration against Israel’s
genocidal war on Gaza. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, like many other
Palestinian citizens, I was afraid — not just of the war itself, but of
Israel’s escalating campaign of police repression.
According to Adalah, a
Palestinian human rights organization and legal center based in Haifa, more
than 400 Palestinian citizens were arrested or detained from October 2023 until
the end of March 2024. Later, between May and July 2024, at least 34 protesters
were arrested for taking part in peaceful demonstrations against the war.
As a mother of two children — 11
and 5 — my primary concern was their safety and mine, so I could be with them
during these difficult times. In Haifa, where we live, Hezbollah’s missiles and
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon last year brought the war much closer to home.
Even so, the tension in the north felt like a distant echo compared to the
devastation being unleashed on Gaza.
I also believed that my work as a
journalist, alongside my colleagues at +972, was enough — that reporting on and
exposing Israel’s crimes might contribute to stopping the war. But then
something changed.
I felt I could no longer stay
home. I needed to take to the streets to scream against the war and to call, at
the very least, for a ceasefire. For months, I had wanted to join a
demonstration that would actually be seen and heard by the Israeli public — not
one of those small protests in Palestinian villages and towns. There, we shout
until our voices break but no one hears us except for the police, scanning for
Palestinian flags or banners with the word “genocide,” eager for an excuse to
make arrests.
So when the opportunity came this
past Saturday to march through the streets of Haifa — a mixed
Jewish-Palestinian city, home to more than 40,000 Palestinian citizens that
make up around 11 percent of the population — I knew I had to be there.
Still, I found myself uneasy
about the language used to promote the protest. The flyers and social media
posts proclaimed: “Enough with war,” “Yes to peace,” and “A Palestinian state
now.” I wasn’t sure what “peace” meant anymore, or whether a Palestinian state
was a real possibility at this moment. But I felt no hesitation when it came to
one message: enough with this war.
Breaking down the fear barrier
The demonstration was organized
by the Peace Partnership, a broad coalition of dozens of organizations and
political parties united around a shared call: an immediate ceasefire, a deal
to bring the Israeli hostages home, and a commitment to full national and civil
equality for all people.
The backbone of this coalition is
the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash/Al-Jabha), the only
Arab-Jewish party in Israel, though the vast majority of its members and voters
are Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Ahead of the protest, Reem Hazzan, a leading activist in the
Hadash/Al-Jabha party and the head of the party’s Haifa branch, told me “the
main goal of this demonstration is to break the fear barrier among Palestinian
citizens of Israel — the fear of taking to the streets and calling to end the
war.”
Earlier that day, I noticed that
the route of the demonstration route only went through the Arab-Palestinian
part of downtown Haifa. It felt, once again, like a protest confined to an Arab
space — as if we were back in an Arab town or village, out of sight and out of
mind. I still knew I needed to be there, but despite the organizers urging
families to join, I decided to leave my children at home.
I was afraid of the police
violence that has long been part of our lives, something I’ve seen since I was
a child, but never had to confront as a mother. I didn’t know how I would react
if I saw a police officer shove my 11-year-old son, or if my 5-year-old
daughter would start screaming in fear. I was scared that my instinct to
protect them would put us all in danger, and I couldn’t bear the thought of
them watching their mother being detained or arrested.
Later, Reem explained the
rationale behind the route. “The police tried every possible way to stop us
from demonstrating. Our original plan included Ben Gurion Street — a slight
detour into a more mixed space — but the police warned us that that clashes were
likely,” she said, reminding me of when right-wing activists beat up protesters
at a demonstration against Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza “We wanted demonstrators
to feel safe, so we shifted the route slightly to avoid confrontation.”
As I walked toward the meeting
point on Bishop Hajjar Street, the first thing I noticed was the large police
presence — heavily armed officers, standing at every corner, watching, waiting.
For a moment, I feared that there were more police officers than demonstrators.
But as I got closer, I was relieved to see that a crowd of 2,000 had already
gathered, made up of mostly Palestinian citizens of Israel, with a significant
number of Jewish Israelis.
While no Palestinian flags were
flown, the national colors — red, green, black, and white — were a dominant
visual theme throughout the demonstration. Protesters carried a large
watermelon structure, a symbol long used to circumvent bans on displaying the
Palestinian flag, and posters adorned with flowers in the flag’s colors.
Former MK Yousef Jabareen
(Hadash/Al-Jabha) joined the march and told me this was the first time an
anti-war demonstration passed through the streets of a mixed city. “We know
people are afraid. I hope this demonstration — and the presence of such a large
crowd, especially so many young people — will encourage more people to express
their national, moral, and human stance and oppose the war.”
When asked about the absence of
Palestinian flags, Jabareen was frank: “People have the legal right to raise
Palestinian flags, but it’s clear there are orders from [National Security
Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir not to allow it. It’s a dilemma. I think the
organizers didn’t want to risk the demonstration being shut down.”
‘Gaza won — and Gaza will win’
Among the most powerful visual
elements of the protest were photographs of children killed by Israeli attacks
in Gaza — more than 17,000 since October 7. I spent a few minutes walking
beside Adi Ronen Argov, who held a photo of 9-year-old Olina Bakron, killed on
May 26 in the bombing of Gaza’s Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school, which had been serving
as a shelter. In Adi’s poster, Olina holds her second-grade certificate of
excellence, beaming with pride.
I found myself wondering what she
might have gone on to achieve if she’d had the chance to finish high school and
graduate from university. Would she have become a doctor? A musician? A dancer,
an engineer, maybe a lawyer? Now, those questions about Olina’s future — the
same ones I ask myself when I look at my own daughter — no longer have space to
exist. They’ve been buried with her.
Adi is the editor-in-chief of The
Daily Files, an independent volunteer initiative documenting Israel’s war
crimes in Gaza. She and her friends attend every anti-war demonstration,
carrying the portraits of Palestinian children whose lives were taken. I didn’t
interview Adi. I didn’t know what to ask her — I just kept looking at the
photos of the little kids. We marched in silence.
By the time we reached the
parking lot of the Saint John Greek Orthodox Church, the final stop of the
march, only about half the demonstrators remained. I felt a wave of relief that
the demonstration ended peacefully. At the gathering point, friends shared how
protesting allowed them to “breathe,” even if the ongoing war has made it even
harder to see any viable end to Israeli occupation or apartheid.
Soon I understood why many had
already left: this was the part where the speeches began. And after more than
600 days of living through this nightmare, who really wants to listen to
speeches anymore? But then I heard MK Ayman Odeh, from Hadash/Al-Jabha saying
from the stage, “This is genocide. This is ethnic cleansing. Israel has become
a pariah state across the world, among all nations and in the West.’ [Prime
Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu normalizes the war and we will normalize the
resistance [against the war]. It’s a
historic loss to the right-wing ideology that was crushed in Gaza. Gaza won —
and Gaza will win.”
Those final words stayed with me:
“Gaza won — and Gaza will win.” I wasn’t sure how to process them. From
everything I know, and from what I hear daily from colleagues and friends in
the enclave, Gaza is devastated. I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable with
his assertion, so I called him the next day to better understand what he meant.
But before I could do so, his
speech became fuel for a familiar backlash.
‘Not welcome in our city’
Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, was
quick to respond to Odeh. “Anyone who shouts at a demonstration in Haifa that
Gaza has won and will win, or speaks of the State of Israel and the IDF in
terms of war crimes and genocide, is not welcome in our city. The demonstrators
are not seeking peace and reconciliation, but incitement and inflaming
passions, and that will not help them. Even such an extreme and nationalist
minority will not break the coexistence in Haifa.”
Yahav’s statement was just the
beginning of a wave of incitement targeting Odeh and Hadash/Al-Jabha. Although
the Jewish-Arab party is part of Yahav’s governing coalition in Haifa’s
municipal council — an unlikely alliance that includes figures from the Likud
and Yisrael Beiteinu parties — right-wing members of that same coalition are
now demanding the party’s expulsion.
In addition to Odeh, these
members are directing their ire at Hadash city council member Raja Zaatry, who
is one of the organizers of the demonstration. Images of Zaatry at the march,
particularly one showing him beneath the symbolic watermelon structure,
circulated rapidly through far-right social media groups in Haifa. When asked
for comment about these calls to expel Hadash from the coalition, the mayor’s
spokesperson, Ofer Harel, did not respond; Zaatry told me that he hasn’t heard
from the Mayor.
But the backlash didn’t remain
confined to Haifa. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, formally
appealed to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding that Ayman Odeh be
stripped of his parliamentary immunity so that police could investigate him for
“incitement” and “support for terrorism.” Likud MK Tally Gotliv accused Odeh on
X of being a “terror supporter,” claiming his speech had “assisted the Gazan
enemy.”
Avigdor Liberman echoed the
rhetoric, calling Odeh a “terrorist supporter” and writing, “whoever says that
‘Gaza has won and will win’ while our hostages are still in Hamas captivity,
and while IDF soldiers are fighting for our security — his place is not in the
Israeli Knesset, but in Gaza.” Energy Minister Eli Cohen labeled Odeh “a fifth
column,” and demanded his parliamentary immunity be revoked so that he could be
“sent to jail or to Gaza.”
Later, Odeh clarified on X what
he meant: “Supporting Gaza in the face of the war of annihilation, being led by
Ben Gvir and Netanyahu, is the moral and humanely necessary position. And there
are hundreds of thousands of citizens who share this position. There cannot be
victory over the bodies of thousands of dead children, shattered families,
starving civilians, and utter destruction … Because annihilation is not a
victory. Life is a victory. Only someone who sees Gazans as “born terrorists,”
as the Israeli government does in practice, could distort my words in such a
vile way. Yes. Gaza will win. Life will win. And the Palestinian people will
receive what they deserve – as every people deserves: no less, no more.”
Now, 70 MKs have signed on to a
petition to begin impeachment proceedings against Odeh, a move led by Likud MK
Avichai Boaron. Among the signatories are several members of the opposition:
all six lawmakers from Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, along with
four MKs from Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, although Gantz himself did
not sign. To finalize the impeachment, 90 MKs must vote in favor once the
petition reaches the Knesset plenum.
Odeh, who announced in May 2023
that he would not seek re-election, does not take the impeachment personally.
When I spoke to him, he explained that his phrase “Gaza will win is a visionary
one. The Israeli government killed, destroyed and made life unbearable in Gaza,
but did not achieve any political victories over the Palestinian people. In the
end, Gaza — a symbol for the Palestinian people — will win. This is an
historical inevitability.” In response to Yahav’s statement, he noted, “My
grandparents were in Haifa before Yona [Yahav] was even born. I suggest he take
back those words.”
A demand for life
The day after I spoke to Odeh, I
texted Yahav’s spokesperson, Ofer Harel, and asked: Why does the mayor oppose
holding anti-war demonstrations in Haifa? And why is Odeh — a native resident
of Haifa, and former municipality council member — “not welcome” in his own
city?
“The mayor has made it clear more
than once that the city of Haifa is a symbol of coexistence, and any party that
tries to undermine this is not welcome here,” Harel replied. “Yesterday’s
demonstration is exactly an example of this.”
I’ve been living in Haifa for 15
years and I call it home, so I pressed Harel further to understand if I am also
not welcomed in my city. “How can a city be a ‘symbol of coexistence’ when
residents are unable to freely express their opposition to a war in which tens
of thousands of civilians, including children, have been killed?” I asked. “I’m
a resident of Haifa. And I — along with many other Palestinian citizens of this
city — agree with Odeh’s statement that Israel is committing war crimes,
perhaps even genocide, in Gaza.”
Harel wrote back: “Israel is a
democratic country and everyone can demonstrate and say what they want, subject
to the law. The mayor emphasized that he has no desire to see demonstrations in
Haifa by those who try to stir up the atmosphere instead of calming it. And it
doesn’t matter which side of the political map they are on: coexistence in
Haifa was built with great effort, and there is no desire for it to be
destroyed.”
It seems that Yahav’s idea of
“coexistence” requires silence about the mass killings in Gaza. To demand the
end of a genocidal war is not a threat to “coexistence” or “co-living” as I
prefer to call it. It is a demand for life — one that will only strengthen
Haifa as a space for a shared society.
During the demonstration, I
eventually found a Palestinian flag. It was small, painted on the cheek of a
little girl, maybe nine or ten years old. About the same age as Olina, whose
photo Ronen Argov had carried through the march. I hoped the police wouldn’t
notice it and that her parents wouldn’t be questioned. Next time, I hope to
bring my own kids. After all, it’s for them that I march.
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