Uri Avnery, a left-wing peace activist who in 1982 became the first prominent Israeli to meet in public with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, died on Monday in a Tel Aviv hospital. He was 94.

The encounter took place during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and war with Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), then designated a terrorist group by Israel. Avnery crossed into west Beirut from the Israeli-held east.

“It was the first time Arafat had met with an Israeli, and from this perspective, it could be called a ‘historic meeting’,” Avnery wrote in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in February.

Secret negotiations a decade later led to interim peace deals with the PLO on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, a veteran right-winger, said Avnery had been dedicated to building “a strong and free society” in Israel, praising him despite their “fierce differences”.

Avnery fled Nazi Germany with his family as a boy and became a journalist and politician, serving as one of the most vocal and articulate voices of the Israeli left.

His meeting with Arafat, after he travelled to Lebanon at the invitation of the Israeli military as part of a reporting trip, lasted about two hours and “dealt entirely with the possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinian people”, he wrote.

It was broadcast the same night on Israeli television and Avnery was questioned by police but ultimately faced no charges.

Avnery served as a lawmaker from 1965 to 1974 and, from 1979 to 1981, as head of a left-wing party. His death, after a stroke, was headline news in Israel on Monday.

In 2003, during the Palestinian uprising, Avnery travelled with other Israeli activists to Arafat’s headquarters in the occupied West Bank, to act as a human shield against what they said were Israeli plans to assassinate Arafat after a Palestinian suicide bombing.

Avnery wrote that working to prevent such an act was “the most patriotic thing” to do at that time since killing Arafat would have been a disaster for Israel. Arafat died in 2004.

Thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Israel’s new law declaring it the nation-state of the Jewish people, legislation that has angered the country’s Arab minority and drawn criticism abroad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the law, which says only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic from an official language, saying it is necessary in order to fend off Palestinian challenges to Jewish self-determination.

The protesters, mostly Israeli Arabs, waved Palestinian flags and held up signs that read ‘equality’ in Arabic and Hebrew.

“The law legitimises racism,” said Laila al-Sana, 19, from a Bedouin village in Israel’s southern Negev desert. “It’s very important to show we are here, to resist,” she said.

Israel’s Arab population comprises mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 war at the time of the creation of the modern state of Israel. Hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their homes or fled.

Many of Israel’s Arab citizens also identify as Palestinian. They make up about a fifth of the state’s 9 million people. Israeli law grants them full equal rights, but many say they face discrimination and are treated as second-class citizens.

“When I heard about the law I felt I should defend my hometown, our land, the land of my ancestors,” said 68-year-old Sheikha Dabbah at the rally.

Largely declarative, the law was enacted just after the 70th anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel.

It stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”. It also downgrades Arabic from an official language alongside Hebrew to a “special status.”

“I feel ashamed that after 70 years I have to accentuate my nationalism instead of being generous towards all those who live here,” said Gila Zamir, 58, a Jewish Israeli from the Arab-Jewish city Haifa.

Netanyahu posted on his Twitter page a video from the demonstration of a few protesters waving the Palestinian flag and chanting: “With spirit, with blood we shall redeem you, Palestine” and wrote: “There is no better evidence of the nation-law’s necessity.” Separate TV footage showed a few Israeli flags being waved.

Critics have said the new law is undemocratic because it differentiates between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Its defenders say civil equality is guaranteed in existing legislation.

Arab leaders in Israel have said the law verges on apartheid. Rights groups and Jewish groups in the Diaspora have spoken against the legislation, as have the EU, Egypt and Israel’s own president.

Last Saturday a protest against the law by Israel’s Druze community, which numbers about 120,000 citizens, drew a far larger crowd.

The Druze are ethnic Arab members of a religious minority that is an offshoot of Islam incorporating elements of other faiths.

Their outrage over the law has had more resonance in Israel, despite their small numbers, because of their reputation as loyal supporters of the state. Unlike the wider Arab population, many Druze serve in Israel’s conscript military and security forces, and some have risen high in the ranks.

Druze leaders have voiced a deep sense of betrayal over the law, striking a chord among many Israelis. However, efforts by Netanyahu to appease the Druze community have so far failed.

Israel’s new “nation-state” law has provoked anger among members of its most integrated minority, the Druze, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek corrective legislation.

Netanyahu has defended the law, which declares that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country, from fierce criticism at home and abroad.

But his conservative government appears to have been blindsided by the response from the Druze community, even though parliament passed the law on July 19 after years of heated debate in the Knesset.

In a further effort to calm tensions, Netanyahu convened a meeting with Druze community leaders in Tel Aviv late on Thursday but it was cut short because one of the participants, a retired senior military officer, had harshly criticised the legislation, Israeli media reported.

At a separate event in northern Israel, a Druze man had to be forcibly removed by police after he confronted and heckled one of the law’s main proponents, lawmaker Avi Dichter of Netanyahu’s Likud party who had started giving a speech.

Leaders of Israel’s main Arab minority denounced the law while Turkey called it racist and the European Union expressed concern. Netanyahu took this in his stride, saying it was needed to fend off Palestinian challenges to Jewish self-determination.

But criticism from Druze, who are also Arabs and practise an offshoot of Islam, has had more effect even though they make up only 1.3 percent of Israel’s citizenry.

“We see it as a discriminatory law which doesn’t give expression to our citizenship,” said Rafik Halabi, one of a delegation of Druze leaders who met Netanyahu.

“We told the prime minister unequivocally … we won’t be able to live in a state where part of its population, especially such a loyal and good population, feels excluded,” he said, after the delegation also met President Reuven Rivlin.

Druze communities are scattered around the region, including in Syria and Lebanon. In Israel, Druze men are drafted by the military unlike other Arab minorities, who often identify as Palestinian. Druze are also active in mainstream governance and media in Israel.

The law, which downgrades Arabic from an official language on a par with Hebrew and deems only Jewish settlement as a national priority, has prompted announcements by several Druze that they would no longer serve in uniform. Israel’s top general, Gadi Eizenkot, responded with a call not to politicise the military.

Netanyahu hastily set up a committee including ministers, officials and Druze community leaders to propose new legislation that will address their grievances and ease tensions. These changes appear designed to accommodate the Druze primarily, and not the much larger Israeli Arab minority.

“The team reached an historic outline that constitutes a revolution in the legal status of minority community members who serve in the security forces, particularly the Druze community,” Netanyahu’s media adviser said in a statement.

Akram Hasson, a Druze member of the coalition party Kulanu, said the work would take time. “There is still a long way to go,” he told Israel Radio.

DRUZE DIVIDED

Druze leaders are divided over whether the proposals will calm the tensions. A large rally by the Druze and their supporters is planned at a main Tel Aviv plaza on Saturday.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, one of the committee members, said legislation would be presented when parliament returns for its winter session in mid October.

“To my delight, the Druze community has accepted the outline. We have agreed to work on the details and bring a set proposal to a vote,” he told the Ynet web site.

This would enshrine the Druze’s special status within Israeli society, recognise their service to the state and boost funding for their towns, villages and community institutions.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party also praised the Druze.

“The Druze community does not have to prove to anybody its loyalty to the state of Israel or the strength of the bond between us. Seventy years of statehood prove this beyond any doubt,” he wrote on Facebook.

Druze opposition lawmaker Salah Saed of the Zionist Union said he was not sure the crisis had been averted. “I have read the new proposal and I can live with it, but the problem is that I don’t believe the prime minister,” Saed said, fearing Israel could face early elections before the legislation is finalised.

Elections are set for November 2019.

“(Netanyahu) is stringing us along… We will not play into the hands of this government,” Saed added.

An Israeli court jailed an Israeli Arab poet for five months on Tuesday after convicting her of incitement to terrorism for a poem and remarks she posted on social media during a wave of Palestinian street attacks.

Dareen Tatour, 36, posted on Facebook and YouTube a video of herself reading out her poem “Resist, My People, Resist”, as a soundtrack to footage of masked Palestinian youths throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers.

Tatour published her poem in October 2015 during a spate of deadly Palestinian stabbing, shooting and ramming attacks on Israelis. She was arrested a few days later, and prosecutors said her post was a call for violence. She denied this.

Her case became a cause celebre for freedom of speech advocates in Israel and abroad. It drew attention to the advanced technology used by Israeli security agencies to trawl through social media to identify and arrest users suspected of incitement to violence, or of planning attacks.

Tatour said her poem was misunderstood by the Israeli authorities as it was not a call for violence, rather for non-violent struggle.

U.S.-backed negotiations on a Palestinian state in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war have been stalled since 2014.

Tatour was also charged with supporting a terrorist group. Prosecutors said she had expressed support for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad’s call for an uprising.

“I wasn’t expecting justice to be done. The case was political from the start, because I am Palestinian and support freedom of speech,” she told reporters at the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court in northern Israel.

ARAB MINORITY

Tatour belongs to Israel’s Arab minority, which comprises mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 Arab-Jewish war that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel. Hundreds of thousands fled or were driven from their homes.

The court added a six-month suspended sentence to Tatour’s jail time, according to the official minutes distributed by the Justice Ministry. Her lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said Tatour would appeal both the verdict and the sentence.

Israel says the string of Palestinian attacks that began in 2015 was fuelled by online incitement and it has launched a legal crackdown to curb it.

Indictments for online incitement have tripled in Israel since 2014. Prosecutions by the Israeli military have also increased in the occupied West Bank – most of those charged are young Palestinians.

The campaign against alleged incitement has raised questions about the balance between security and free speech.

On July 18 the Israeli parliament was set to pass legislation that would have empowered the justice system to order Internet providers, such as Facebook and Google, to take down social media posts in Israel deemed as incitement.

But hours before the scheduled vote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shelved the bill. An adviser to Netanyahu, Jonatan Urich, said the law was open to a too-wide interpretation that could allow cyber-censorship and harm freedom of speech.

After the national debate on Antisemitism, the Labour Party has set up a working group to stamp down on Antisemitism, which is to be warmly welcomed. Antisemitism, like other forms of hatred and prejudice, must be tackled and tackled with vigour.

Yet,there is also a unique nature to Antisemitism that we should acknowledge. We also need to be aware of the deep scar of the Holocaust and the over-riding spiritual, religious and cultural trauma that it has caused and will continue to shape feelings and fears within Jewish communities for well over another hundred years. This must be taken into account and reactions also need to be seen through this lens.

European Jewry was, in a mechanised fashion, virtually wiped off the face of the continent and through that lens, we must always understand and empathise with the gut like reaction to Antisemitic discourse that takes place within Jewish communities. However, this does not mean that the policies of the State of Israel cannot be scrutinised and objected to. The latter is legitimate political discourse and there is no getting away from that fact.

Yet, over the last few days, the wider public may have got the impression that Muslims and Jews are completely at odds with each other over Israel and Palestine. As though it is the only thing that shapes relationships between both communities. This has been the impression that many beyond these two communities have got and the furore over the last two days may have further consolidated these positions. However, this is not the full picture.

Work between Muslim and Jewish communities has yielded much that is positive to both communities and to our country. Let  us be clear. Interfaith, conflict resolution, cohesion and integration work between both communities has meant that investment has been injected into local communities in our country. It has ensured the safety and security of both communities and of wider communities. It has ensured that the United Kingdom is seen as a beacon of hope globally of how communities can and do work together. And it has given strength to both communities to reach out and to take on extremist and bigoted groups, for the safety of these communities and our nation.

Much of this is not talked about or mentioned in the headlines. Much of this is not even recognised, but the reality is that it happens every day and goes without notice, yet we all feel the benefits.

Let us therefore remember that even in the darkest of moments, Jewish and Muslim communities hold a candle of hope for a better future. There are others within and beyond these communities who will try and snuff out that light, but they will not be successful. Nor should we let their voices be the enduring ones in the public space. We simply cannot allow them to shape our collective futures.

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A Palestinian toddler died in an arson attack, suspected to have been carried out by far-right settlers. The deceased, an 18-month-old child, Ali Saad Dawabsha slept alongside his family, oblivious to an impending peril.

In the early hours of Friday morning, two masked men entered the village of Duma, in the northern area of the West Bank, outside the city of Nablus. They smashed the windows of two properties (one of which was empty) and threw Molotov cocktails inside. The perpetrators also daubed the buildings with graffiti. The Hebrew text read “revenge” and “long live the Messiah”.

As the flames burned, his father, Sa’ad, escorted his wife, Reham, and four-year-old son Ahmed to safety. But according to witnesses, a lack of electricity prevented him from finding Ali.

The family visited a hospital in Nablus in the West Bank and then the burn unit at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Reports suggest that Ali’s mother sustained between 70 and 90 per cent burns. His father and brother remain in critical conditions.

Politicians across the Israeli political spectrum condemned the murder. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described it as “a clear-cut terrorist attack. Israel takes a strong hand against terror, no matter who its perpetrators are“.

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Moti Almoz said he does “not remember an incident this severe in recent years,” as Zacharia Sadeh, of Rabbis for Human Rights, stated: “This is a terror attack against innocent people who were asleep in their home”.

The office of Mahmoud Abbas said it holds Israel responsible. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Abbas’ spokesman, said in a statement: “We will no longer accept verbal condemnations of such horrible crimes by the international community; we demand operative steps to bring about an end to the occupation and see its criminals brought to justice”.

Previous examples of “price tag” violence targeted religious institutions. Arsons that infuse the language of anti-Arab racism with a religious nationalism not too dissimilar from the ‘Kahanist’ ideology of the Jewish Defence League.

On Wednesday, Israeli prosecutors indicted Yinon Reuveni and Yehuda Asraf for allegedly setting fire to part of the Church of Loaves and Fish and writing “Idols will be cast out” on an adjacent wall. A third man, Moshe Orbach, faces accusations of writing and distributing a document detailing the “necessity” of attacking non-Jewish people and property.

Netanyahu ordered the defence forces to use ‘all means at their disposal’ to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. But some remain sceptical; in 2014, the Israeli Human Rights organisation Yesh Din, found that of the 1,045 Israeli police files opened in the Occupied West Bank between 2005 and 2014, just 7.4 per cent of investigations ‘led to indictments of Israeli civilians suspected of attacking Palestinians and their property’.

Restrictions have been put in place by the Israeli authorities for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

Ali Saad Dawabsha’s death, in an act of terror, has been condemned nationally and internationally.

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