Style

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Is Israel truly an apartheid state?

The following article may shed some light on the current situation within Israeli territory, and one can make up their own mind.
"Israel’s apartheid policies can best be exemplified by its treatment of the Palestinians living within Israel proper. Israel discriminates against its Palestinian minority—20 percent of the total population—by corralling them in ghettos, tying social benefits to military service in the Israel Defense Force, denying jobs to those without military ID, allowing landlords to rent to Jews only, effecting unequal marriage laws, and denying certain purchasing rights of property in the country to non-Jews. Furthermore, municipal services such as street lighting and trash collection are only provided in Jewish areas, and Jewish schools receive four times as much federal funding as Arab schools, which are often kept segregated. According to Amnesty International, 8,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, which is made possible by Israel’s 1979 Emergency Law that states individuals can be held without charge “if the Israeli police or army find that ‘reasons of state security or public security require that a particular person be detained.’” Even Israel’s identification card system is segregated, as markers are used to distinguish Jewish citizens of Israel from Palestinian, Christian, or Muslim citizens. Most recently, Israeli legislators are working to remove Arabic as one of its official national languages, even though it is the native language of the land. They are also trying to pass a law that criminalizes Israeli citizens for supporting the Palestinian Civil Society call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel and speaking out against apartheid.

Israel is an apartheid state according to legal definition, but it doesn’t take legal expertise of international law to understand that what is happening to the Palestinians is anything but apartheid­—it just takes a simple examination of the situation. Hoping to blur the lines of ethics, some might like to call the conditions complicated... Racism, colonialism, and settler-states are not complicated and in fact have existed systematically for many years."
[http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/02/27/israel-practices-apartheid]

Another report describes a specific Arab village in Israel as follows:
Baqa al-Gharbiyya, Israel – This sleepy agricultural village, an hour’s drive northeast from Tel Aviv, feels worlds apart from Israel’s commercial capital. Garbage lines many of the narrow, rutted streets, symptoms of the lower level of government funding bestowed upon the town; unemployed men mill about, complaining that Israel’s policies have hurt the local economy.
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s hard-right foreign minister, has proposed annexing this and other Arab villages to a future Palestinian state. Their inhabitants would be stripped of their Israeli citizenship unless they were willing to leave their land and swear a “loyalty oath” to the state.

His plan is deeply unpopular here and in nearby villages.
[http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011124105622779946.html]

Another Al-Jazeera report talks about the Arab village, stating the following:
Baqa al-Gharbiyya used to be just Baqa, a name still used by many residents. The creation of the state of Israel split the village in half, with Baqa al-Gharbiyya on the west side of the 1948 armistice line and Baqa al-Sharqiyya on the east.

Residents regularly travelled back and forth between the two until six years ago, when the Israeli separation barrier was built. Several streets in the villages now dead-end at an eight-metre-high concrete wall topped with barbed wire.

Those who live in Baqa al-Gharbiyya face what they, and many Israeli and international human rights groups, describe as systemic prejudice. Israeli Arabs routinely face discrimination when applying for jobs, and their towns and villages often receive a lower level of government funding than Jewish communities.

In its 2009 report, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel described the discrimination faced by Arabs as "open and explicit", and warned that the government is threatening "their most basic rights – to equality, education and employment – as well as their very citizenship".

Moreover, Arabic is planned to be removed from schools, different funding schemes are provided for Arab populated villages compared to Jewish ones, and transport to and from Israel and the West Bank provides Jewish-only buses on Jewish-only highways to Jewish-only settlements.

Restaurants don't allow Arabic, and indeed two Arabs were fired for speaking the language.
McDonald's Confirms 'No Arabic' policy at its restaurants in Israel

The Soho restaurant in Rishon Letzion have a no Arabs policy.
No Arabs Allowed

Then there is the Law of Return, that only gives Jews the right of return and the right to live in Israel and to gain citizenship. This can only be extended to non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent.

There is also the Marriage Laws in Israel that provides no option for civil marriage or interfaith marriage, only those who are recognized as Jews according to Orthodox Jewish law can get married in Israel, and members of other religions can only marry spouses of the same religion.
Israel's "Jews-Only" Marriage Laws Explained

Despite this blatant ethnic discrimination, Israelis still use a lot of syntactic ambiguity to deny the apartheid regime that exists in their very own country. They will go as far as diverting the argument by mentioning Arab representatives in the Knesset.

But the real question is, could an Arab ever be elected Prime Minister of Israel if Zionism enforces the demographics to maintain the "Jewishness" of the state? Arab minority is deliberately invoked which is why Israel doesn't want to recognize the Right of Return of displaced Arabs as part of the UN Resolution 194 which would naturally change that demographics of the country.
So much for democracy if the rights of people in the region are denied because of their ethnicity.

Ultimately this mistreatment and discrimination falls under the meaning of apartheid. By definition it is the minority ruling over the majority based on race and ethnicity without the opportunity of equal rights. That is exactly the system Israel adopts.

.

10 comments:

  1. Well well, you see that Israelis are split quite evenly on the subject. That's very democratic I think.

    However when it comes to Palestinians, a new survey http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/07/15/new-poll-shows-real-cause-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/#more-760481 yields the following sort of results:
    "Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62 percent supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53 percent were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools."
    Songs about hating Jews? what kind of education is that for children? Can you possibly agree with it?
    Here's another quote - please recall that we are talking about Palestinians - the people who are supposed to make 'peace' with Israel.
    "When given a quote from the Hamas Charter about the need for battalions from the Arab and Islamic world to defeat the Jews, 80 percent agreed. Seventy-three percent agreed with a quote from the charter (and a hadith, or tradition ascribed to the prophet Muhammad) about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees."
    80% of all Palestinians agree that Jews need to be killed? What kind of 'peace' would that be?
    and you want us to live in the same country as people who hold such murderous thoughts about us?

    Shame on you!

    "unless of course Israelis believe that an Arab could potentially run for Prime Minister of Israel one day." of course we do. We have a deputy speaker of the House who is an Arab. We have Ministers, Judges and any position you like who are Arabs. Meanwhile, Abbas doesn't want a Jew in his Palestine.

    I know that you will delete this Adel Helal but I hope you read it first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your statistics are inaccurate. Recent polls provided by a large sample of Palestinians directly from Palestinian territories will reveal a very different scenario: http://hubofmiddleeastpolitics.blogspot.com/2011/06/will-palestinians-accept-two-state.html.

    I would suggest you provide better sources than those talking about the Palestinian perspective from a non-Palestian source.

    Those quotes are also taken out of context because they are talking about Jewish oppressors not ALL Jews. That would be otherwise considered murder which is a prohibition in Islam.

    It is every persons right to fight against tyranny, and nothing can be further from the truth when describing Likud's current actions of ongoing land confiscations, home demolitions, settlement expansion, systematic deportations, civilian displacements, violent checkpoint misconduct, water resource reallocation, residency revocation, border blockades, airspace "no-fly" zones, and maritime seaport isolation, with a lack of regard for the International Community's request for Israel to adhere to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

    Shame on all those who support this violent regime.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One can equivocate about questionable narratives and statistics. Instead, look at recent verifiable incidents. For example, Yahya Sinwar. He masterminded the Hamas attack. He was sentenced to 4 lifetimes for terrorist activities but was set free in a prisoner exchange where Israel exchanged 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for ONE Israeli soldier. Get that? That's the difference between Jews and Palestinians - the Jews value life but the Palestinian terrorists value death. They use their own people as human shields and hide their weapons in crowded public places like schools and hospitals. The IDF tries its best to minimize civilian casualties and warn the Palestinians to evacuate before they strike, but Hamas prevents people from evacuating because the more dead Palestinians, the more sympathy they get. With all the funding they get, they could have built at least one bomb shelter if they cared about Palestinian life. Instead, they build tunnels to further their terrorist activities. Another fact about Yahya - while in prison, Yahya had a brain tumor. Israeli doctors did surgery and saved his life. Get that? He was a darned terrorist and the Israelis could have just let him die - what do you think the Palestinians would have done to an Israeli prisoner under similar circumstances? Instead, the Israeli Jews saved his life and in return he wants to kill Jews.

      Delete
    2. "Jews value life" only their own.

      "IDF tries its best to minimize civilian casualties". Directly targetting a school or a hospital knowing full well civilians are still inside is not called "minimizing" it's called "maximizing". Terrorism is the word we use for that act. It's not even a grey area of discussion.

      "they could have built at least one bomb shelter if they cared about Palestinian life" that still doesn't excuse killing civilians in civilian buildings now does it. On what planet does the narrative become "it's your fault for not hiding when we said we were going to kill your innocent people."

      You actually sound like the Taliban during the 9/11 attacks when they said "the government hide behind their people in government buildings like the trade centre"

      Delete
    3. Hamas seems to be winning the propaganda war, judging by the number of liberal college students hating Israel. Many of them are gay and trans and have no idea. Send them to Iran, they will wise up. "No one, least of all Israelis, wants to see non-combatants harmed, but let’s not make the mistake of considering all the people of Gaza “innocent.” The rest of the article can be found here: https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/who-are-the-gaza-civilians/

      Delete
    4. And some myths and facts...https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myths-facts-online-exclusives

      Delete
    5. What does this article have anything to do with Hamas? Pay attention to the content.

      Only a psychopath makes excuses for airstrikes that target schools and hospitals knowing full well civilians are still inside. There is absolutely no justification of any kind for that.

      If Palestinian militant somehow managed to find themselves in Tel-Aviv schools, would you expect the IDF to drop a bomb and inflicting the same damage to their own kids?

      You are blinded by your own support of terrorism.

      Delete
    6. Arabs in Israel enjoy the same rights as Jews; they have equal voting rights - including Arab women. They hold government posts, serve on the Supreme Court. Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel. To call this apartheid insults those who actually suffered under apartheid in South Africa. "Despite all their criticism, when asked what governments they admire most, more than 80 percent of Palestinians consistently choose Israel because they can see up close the thriving democracy in Israel, and the rights the Arab citizens enjoy there. By contrast, Palestinians place Arab regimes far down the list" (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myths-and-facts-online-human-rights-in-israel-and-the-territories#o3).
      The real terrorists are Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Iranian mullahs who fund them. Their only goal is to wipe Israel off the map (their official charter proudly states it). They don't even value the lives of their own people. All they know is to destroy because they are incapable of creating anything good. Gaza is a beautiful place with a beautiful coastline. It has so much potential to be a tourist paradise. But these terrorists use all the money they get on weapons and tunnels instead of building hotels and resorts.
      Adel, I'm done arguing. You won't change your mind. I'm just putting this out there for the benefit of others with an open mind.

      Delete
    7. No, Arabs do not benefit from the same opportunity and government funding as Jews as was literally explained in the article with unequivocal accounts of the apartheid, which you have chosen to ignore for your own opinions.

      There is no reason for me to engage in your rhetoric when you clearly are blind sighted by your own undying support of a nation that kills children without hesitation and with all the excuses to help them sleep at night.

      I do not engage with terrorist supporters, so best of luck.

      Delete
  3. Merry Christmas...and peace on Earth.

    ReplyDelete