Behind the uprisings among Palestinians with Israeli citizenship

Recent laws passed in Israel gave "unique" rights to only its Jewish citizens.

LONDON -- The Israeli government declared a state of emergency on May 12 in the Tel Aviv suburb of Lod after a sudden outburst of rioting by Israeli Arabs, as the hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza escalated. The growing tension had ignited in Lod two days previously, after a Palestinian citizen was shot dead by a Jewish resident, sparking a wave of violence in the days after his funeral. At least one synagogue and several Jewish businesses were set alight by suspected Arab citizens. Throngs of Israeli Jews threw stones and attacked a car driven by an Arab. Israeli media reported several instances of these kind of attacks on drivers by both Jewish and Arab suspects. The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin urged calm, warning of a "senseless civil war" between the country's Arabs and Jewish citizens as the violence intensified. The violence led to the death of one Israeli Jew, 56-year-old Yigal Yehoshua, who was hit in the head with a brick. Arab Israelis are Palestinian by heritage, but Israeli by citizenship, and make up more than a fifth of Israel's population of just over 9 million. Beyond the protests and the instances of violence, in a rare show of unity this week, Palestinian citizens of Israel have also held a general strike across the country involving hundreds of thousands of Arab workers.