Arab Israelis, police clash after Jewish extremist march (Roundup)

Mar 24, 2009, 11:16 GMT

   Tel Aviv - Hundreds of Arab Israelis clashed with Israeli police after a group of Jewish nationalist extremists marched through their town Tuesday waving Israeli flags, an event they condemned as a provocation.

Some 16 people were lightly injured, with some of them being hit by stones and others needing on-site medical treatment for tear gas inhalation, first aid officials said.

Three policemen, including Deputy Israel Police Chief Shahar Ayalon were among the injured, while left-wing Jewish legislator Ilan Gilon of the liberal Meretz party, who demonstrated in solidarity with the Arab residents, was among those treated for tear gas inhalation.

Some 10 people were arrested, Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Angry residents of Umm el-Fahm, the largest Arab town in northern Israel, waving Palestinian flags in response, threw stones and concrete blocks at the police, who used tear gas and stun grenades to contain the clashes.

Some 2,500 policemen had been deployed at the entrances to the town to prevent contact between the town's residents and some 100 Jewish extremists, who had insisted on choosing the Arab town as the location for their march to demonstrate what they said was their right to wave Israeli flags anywhere in Israel.

   Israeli police had tried to prevent the event, postponing it several times in recent months. But the activists petitioned Israel's Supreme Court, which upheld their right to march.

  Police allocated a route for the march that stretched about 800 metres on a side road on the town's outskirts. The event ended after some 30 minutes, but the angry residents continued protesting afterwards.

   One of the marchers, Baruch Marzel, had also demanded to head a polling station in Umm el-Fahm during Israel's February 10 elections. Police then prevented him from reaching the town after Israel's Central Elections Committee refused to disqualify him, saying it feared setting a democratically dangerous precedent by forbidding him to serve at the polling station.

Marzel, a settler from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, heads the Jewish National Front, the most far-right party in Israel which advocates expelling Arab citizens from Israel. While he is not a legislator, his party forms part of the National Union faction, which has four mandates in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament.

He told the far-right Arutz Sheva radio channel he had put off holding the march in the aftermath of the Israeli elections, as Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu was forming a government.

But he decided to no longer put it off after it became clear Netanyahu, of the hardline but mainstream Likud, was 'afraid' to form a right-wing government and instead was turning to the 'left.'

Netanyahu is fervently wooing the left-to-centre Labour Party, so as to avoid having to form a narrow right-wing government. He has been especially reluctant to include the National Union in his coalition.