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Israeli police accused of targeting Jerusalem's Arab residents
A leading civil-rights group has accused Israeli police of systematic discrimination against the Arab residents of East Jerusalem as growing numbers of hardline religious Jews take up residence in Palestinian areas.
A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbors had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints.
Israeli authorities "practice selective law enforcement and fail to provide even the most minimal protection to Palestinian locals," ACRI claimed. "Law-enforcement authorities have become complicit in violating Palestinian rights; in many cases, they do not enforce the law or do so only in a discriminatory manner." Palestinians claim that they are often arrested as suspects when they make complaints against Israelis, that their children are arrested in circumstances that flout Israeli law on the treatment of minors, and that widespread surveillance cameras violate their privacy.
The Israeli police rejected the allegations. A spokesman claimed that many of the incidents contained in the report were blown "out of proportion." Most disturbances, he said, are initiated by Palestinians throwing stones at Jewish residents.