Race Card: A poster for council candidate Aryeh King reads: ?Muezzin calling? You need King.? Image by haaretz

Right-wing activist Aryeh King is playing the race card in his campaign for Jerusalem city council, promising to clean the capital’s parks of Arabs and lower the volume on mosques.

The slogans on his campaign posters read along the lines of “Are you afraid in the park?” and “Muezzin cackling?” King, whose primary endeavor in recent years has been purchasing land settling Jews in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, has created a candidate list named the “seam neighborhood list,” which focuses on Jerusalem’s periphery neighborhoods.

Aside from making calls to improve cleanliness and quality of life services in these neighborhoods, King also wants to deal to the “problem” of Arabs in the western part of the city.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“The Arabs have no choice but to go west to the parks,” he said. “The result is that many families stay away from the parks. I have no problem with his, I live with Arabs, but many Jews do have a problem with it, and that’s understandable,” continued King.

According to King, part of the problem is the prohibition on drinking alcohol and socializing with women within the Arab community. “The Jews have alternatives and the Arabs don’t, so they come and do it in parks on the western side of the city. It’s no secret that there are abandoned parks in Neve Ya’akov, Pisgat Ze’ev, and Gilo. They’re abandoned because of the Arabs from the nearby neighborhoods.”

For more go to Haaretz

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount