HAIFA, Israel (AP) — Amal Oraby is usually a fixture at street protests. But as tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated for months against a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary, Oraby is sitting this one out.
An activist and lawyer, Oraby is one of the many Palestinian citizens of Israel who have stayed on the sidelines of some of the country’s largest and most sustained demonstrations — a glaring absence in a movement that says it aims to preserve the country’s democratic ideals.
“I don’t see myself there,” Oraby said.
As minorities long plagued by systemic discrimination, Palestinian Israelis have potentially the most to lose if the plan, which would likely weaken the judiciary’s independence, is implemented.
But the community harbors a deep sense that the system is already rigged against it and always has been — and sees the demonstrations as an exclusively Jewish movement unwilling to include issues that matter to Palestinians and blind to the longstanding injustices against them.