The Jerusalem municipality, the police, the Shin Bet security service and other agencies are working together to penalize suspected participants in violent demonstrations in the capital.

Under this procedure, which started a few months ago, names of hundreds of Arab residents, including minors, are supplied to the municipality, the National Insurance Institute and apparently also to the Interior Ministry. The goal is to discover how the people on the list can be “punished” in ways other than criminal charges.

Municipal employees have been asked to target people on the list in any process of law enforcement or tax collection. In recent months, the municipality has taken hundreds of steps against these people; it has handed down demolition orders, seized property and bank accounts, and launched legal proceedings.

The litany of legal and moral problems stemming from this procedure is intolerably long: selective enforcement, violation of the principle of equality before the law, impairment of the public’s faith in the rule of law and law-enforcement agencies, abuse of municipal powers, collective punishment of the suspects’ families, as well as damage to the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the suspects’ right to privacy.

The new procedure also hurts the service the municipality provides to all Jerusalemites, because enforcement is carried out with ulterior motives. Attorney Anne Suciu of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has written a letter to the attorney general on the matter. She notes that the police are prohibited from passing on information, but above all, the new method reveals the municipality’s real view of the city’s Arabs.

The municipality and Jewish residents often complain that Arab Jerusalemites don’t cooperate with the municipality and refuse to take part in local elections. But when the entire city establishment — from inspectors in the field to the mayor — is enlisted to “punish” Arabs, it’s easy to understand why these residents see the municipality as part of the system of oppression and occupation, not an agency designed to serve them.

The attorney general must immediately order this blacklisting to stop and investigate who thought it up and approved it.