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Palestinian Pop Song Calls on People to Run Over Settlers with Their Cars

Car and knife attacks have been on the rise in Jerusalem, as tensions over settlement expansion in the city and the occupied West Bank have erupted into violence.
Image via YouTube

Two Palestinian pop artists encourage people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to run over Israeli settlers with their vehicles in a music video they recently posted to YouTube — riffing on a string of car assaults on pedestrians that left three people dead, including a three-month-old baby, and more than 20 injured in Jerusalem in recent weeks. The video has been viewed more than 80,000 times since it was posted on November 6.

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"They ran over our child," the song's lyrics say, referring to an attack in October in which an Israeli settler ran over and killed a Palestinian kindergarten girl and seriously injured another child, "so we now reply back."

"Run them over en masse, don't let one of them last, Gazans — be patient, the Bank has launched its campaign," the song says, calling for the "scaring" of settlers and Israeli soldiers out of the occupied West Bank. "Run over, run over the settlers," goes its refrain.

The performers were identified by Israeli news media as Sharim Anas Jaradat and Abu Kayed, both of whom are based in Ramallah. They did not immediately respond to a VICE News request for comment, but they have responded to criticism of the song with another video they posted on Facebook, in which they called the song "art with a goal."

Amnesty says Israel's attacks on civilians during Gaza offensive amounted to 'War Crimes.' Read more here.

"We carry a message of resistance, defending the Palestinian people — our people — with our message, people who have been oppressed for sixty years, who have suffered from occupation and the killing of their children, and who have a basic right to respond, at least through the spoken word," the artists say. "We don't feel guilty. We are offering the message of a people, and this is the least we can offer in exchange for the sacrifices that the Palestinian people make."

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Car attacks have been on the rise in Jerusalem, followed more recently by knife attacks, as tensions over settlement expansion in the city and the occupied West Bank have erupted into violence. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces have also flared up in Hebron and Ramallah, prompted by the Israeli military's killing of a 14-year-old boy that it said was preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail, while Palestinian citizens of Israel have been protesting a police killing of an Arab man in the Galilee who stabbed at a police car with a knife.

Video shows Israeli police shooting man with knife as he walks away from them. Read more here.

Clashes in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, on October 25.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli forces during clashes with protesters in Al-Aroub, a refugee camp south of Bethlehem, following the stabbing deaths of an Israeli woman in a West Bank settlement and a soldier in Tel Aviv.

Two Israelis killed in separate stabbing attacks. Read more here.

Video from a Palestinian news network shows 21-year-old Mohammad Imad Jawwabra, the victim of Tuesday's clashes in Hebron.

Calls for what some have called a "run-over intifada" have grown in recent weeks, as tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank have reached levels not seen since the second intifada, which ended in 2005. Car and knife attacks are particularly terrifying to residents because of their randomness and the fact that they need practically no planning or organization.

Cartoons of the Car

— Luay Khoury (@LuayNK)November 6, 2014

Jerusalem tensions escalate as Netanyahu pushes settlement expansion. Read more here.

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi