Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israeli police beat up and kneel on the face of left-wing Jewish lawmaker

(JTA) — Israeli police beat up a left-wing member of parliament and one officer knelt on his face, drawing outcry from across the political spectrum.

Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish member of the Arab-Israeli Joint List party in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, was at a protest against evictions in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah Friday when he became involved in an altercation with police. The police shoved him to the ground and video from the protest shared on social media shows an officer placing his knee on Cassif’s face.

“The police are going crazy here, they’re not letting people demonstrate,” said Cassif, according to the Times of Israel. “They were told I was a Knesset member, it did not interest them.”

Police are investigating the incident.

Members of Knesset, including those on the right, condemned the officers’ treatment of Cassif.

“Brutal behavior like this toward any citizen is improper, let alone a Knesset member who is entitled by law to freedom of movement so he can fulfill his role,” said Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, according to the Times of Israel. Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker, called it “grave and unacceptable.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.