During a Voices for Solidarity Justice and Peace webinar hosted by Jewish Voices for Peace and WESPAC, panelist Suha Salman Mousa, Executive Director of Mossawa center, shared her family's experience of fleeing during the Nakba and sneaking back to their village of Ibelin in the Galilee. Mousa spoke about the ongoing struggles faced by Palestinians in Israel, including incitement,discrimination,poverty, and the immediate demolition threat to thousands of homes. She called for the empowerment of the Arab community, focusing on activists in the mixed cities to fight for their human and civil rights, emphasized the importance of countering negative media portrayals of Arabs, and urged for more Palestinian-led protests to challenge the status quo.
Mousa highlighted the need for building trust and peace among other marginalized communities and stressed the importance of engaging women and youth to provide them with the necessary tools and skills to lead the way. She discussed how the Mossawa Center provides legal support for those who have been injured and arrested during May 2021 demonstrations and criticized the Israeli government's use of the nation-state law to divide and conquer minority groups.
Mousa also expressed her grievances about the current wave of protests and the use of Israeli flags to show the Arab community that protesters do not care about their oppression.
The current messages and cries of the protesters are not to reform the judicial system, let alone the state at large or to rid it of its oppressive nature. They simply want to keep the status quo. Protesters are simply reacting to the Netanyahu-led so-called reforms, not proactively challenging the current system.
Mousa called for Palestinian citizens not to join the ongoing Israeli protests, they must lead them to real reform for both the judicial system and the state at large.
She invited the American community to actively do their part and talk to their congress members, to visit mixed cities and Naqaab, and emphasized the need for collective action to challenge the status quo and build a more just society.
Mousa's remarks have sparked a renewed call for action and solidarity in the Palestinian community, highlighting the ongoing struggles faced by Palestinians in Israel.