The Fire Pit is Interesting

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Postby Doodad » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:23 pm

sunny wrote:Caution: Careful forethought to avoid danger or harm.
Close attention or vigilance to minimize risk.Prudence or restraint in action or decision.
A warning or admonishment, especially to take heed. A cautious action; a precaution.


Like I say, there are 2 ways to make the argument. You always chose the one which demonizes Israel. It's always your choice.
Doodad
 

Postby sunny » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:28 pm

apartheid canard


apartheid-An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
The condition of being separated from others; segregation.

Israel/Occupied Territories: Israel must end its policy of closures and restriction of movement
"Israel must put an end to the imposition of disproportionate and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians' movement in the Occupied Territories which have crippled the Palestinian economy and caused widespread poverty, unemployment and increasing health problems," Amnesty International said in a report published today.

Closures, blockades, checkpoints, curfews and a barrage of other restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on Palestinians have made even short journeys between towns and villages difficult, dangerous and often impossible - effectively confining some three and a half million Palestinians to a form of town arrest.

The report Surviving under siege - The impact of movement restrictions on the right to work examines the impact of these restrictions. The restrictions have often prevented Palestinians from reaching their workplaces or distributing their products and factories and farms have been driven out of business by losses incurred, dramatically increased transport costs and loss of export markets. Unemployment has soared to over 50 percent, more than half the population is now living below the poverty line and malnutrition and other illnesses have increased.

Most Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are forced to rely, to some degree at least, on charity for food and other basic needs.

"The existence of charity and humanitarian assistance do not absolve Israel from its obligation to ensure the Palestinians' right to work, so that they can feed themselves and their families with dignity," said Amnesty International.

Israel has the right to take reasonable, necessary and proportionate measures to protect the security of its citizens and its borders from attacks by Palestinian armed groups, including by restricting access to its territory. However it does not have the right to impose arbitrary, discriminatory or collective measures and punishment on the Palestinian population.

As an occupying power, Israel has an obligation under international law to ensure freedom of movement, an adequate standard of living, and as normal a life as possible to the population in the occupied territories. The sweeping restrictions imposed by Israel violate these obligations. Such restrictions also in many cases constitute collective punishment - prohibited by international law.

"Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians cannot be made to pay for the crimes of a handful of individuals," Amnesty International stressed. "Any restrictions on the movement of people and goods should be imposed only in relation to a specific security threat and if they are non-discriminatory, necessary and proportionate in scope and duration."

The construction in recent months of a wall/fence inside the West Bank has resulted in further restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, cutting tens of thousands of people from the rest of the West Bank and/or from their farming land and irrigation water.

"Israel must refrain from constructing walls/fences or other permanent structures inside the Occupied Territories which constitute or result in permanent restrictions on the free movement of Palestinians within the Occupied Territory or in the arbitrary destruction or seizure of their property," said Amnesty International.

Israel contends that the wall/fence is being built to prevent Palestinians from entering Israel to carry out attacks. Yet, the wall/fence runs mostly deep inside the West Bank, and not on the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. This, in order to isolate the local Palestinian communities from nearby Israeli settlements, which have been established in violation of international law.

Amnesty International also urged Israel to put an immediate end to the construction or expansion of Israeli settlements and related infrastructure and to take measures to evacuate Israeli settlers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Israel should have never transferred its civilian population into the Occupied Territories. This is a violation of international humanitarian law. Now Israel must remedy this violation by taking concrete measures to evacuate the settlers," said the organization. "Not only are the settlements illegal, they are constructed and maintained in a discriminatory manner and are the proximate cause of so many of the arbitrary restrictions on movement and other human rights abuses."

Amnesty International also reiterated its call on Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to their policy of killing and targeting Israeli civilians, including settlers, whether inside Israel or in the Occupied Territories.

"Similarly, the Palestinian Authority should take urgent measures to prevent such attacks by Palestinian armed groups and carry out thorough investigations in all cases," the organization said. "The Palestinian Authority must also ensure that those responsible for such attacks are brought to justice in proceedings that meet international standards for fair trial."

Amnesty International reiterated its call on the Israeli authorities to put an immediate end to the practice of extrajudicial executions and other killings of civilians.

For a full copy of the report or the summary, please see:

Israel and the Occupied Territories, Surviving under siege: The impact of movement restrictions on the right to work
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150012003
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150642003
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Postby Doodad » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:30 pm

Israel has been compared to Apartheid South Africa prior to 1994. Is this an accurate description?
Below are some comparisons between the two states:

1. In South Africa black people were forbidden to travel freely unless they had a pass.
* In Israel Israeli Arabs can travel on all public transport, and their cars have the same number plates as Israeli Jews
2. In South Africa there were curfews and black people were forbidden in the streets after that hour, even though they were not terrorists.
* In Israel there is no such curfew
3. In South Africa laws forbade black people to eat in white restaurants.
* In Israel there are no such laws. For example, a recent suicide bomb in a Haifa restaurant, co-owned by a Jew and an Arab, killed both Arab and Jewish customers and staff.
4. In South Africa black people could not buy property in white areas.
* In Israel this is not the case. For example, there is Neveh Shalom, an Arab-Jewish village, and there are areas of Haifa, for example, where Arabs and Jews live side by side. In some areas this has sometimes been more difficult, but a recent High Court case ruled in favour of allowing an Arab family to move into a Jewish village.
5. In South Africa education of black and white children was totally separate.
* In Israel both communities prefer to teach their primary school children in their own language, though Neveh Shalom runs a schools for the Arabs and Jews of the surrounding area where both languages are taught. There are also many examples of joint music and sports projects. An Arab 15 year-old who won a swimming competition announced that she was proud to be an Israeli. There are many schools for handicapped children throughout Israel which cater to both Arab and Jewish children. Universities accept both Arab and Jewish students. In Haifa, where the Arabs form 20% of the population, 20% of the students at Haifa University are Arabs, as is the faculty. They all mix freely with each other. At the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where a suicide bomber killed and maimed both Arab and Jewish students a few years ago, Arab and Jewish students mix freely. In Tel Aviv University an Arab Ph.D. student last year called for a boycott of Israeli universities. He is still there. Bar Ilan University caters to many orthodox Jews, and this atmosphere is attractive to observant Muslims who send their daughters there to study alongside their Jewish peers.
6. In South Africa hospitals were segregated.
* In Israel hospitals cater to both Arab and Israeli patients. They can be seen sharing the wards, and their families use the ward kitchens together. Arab and Jewish doctors and nurses work alongside each other.
7. In South Africa it was forbidden by law for anyone to criticise the apartheid policies of the white government. In Israel there is a free press and anyone can and does criticise the government all the time. Arab MKs (Members of Parliament) frequently not only criticise the Israeli government and its policies, but make statements which clearly show their solidarity with those whose aim is to destroy Israel. Yet they still retain their positions.
8. In South Africa no socialising at all was permitted between blacks and whites.
* In Israel an Arab football team won the championships, and Israel’s team, which was defeated in the European championships in 2004, consisted of both Arab and Jewish players. A recent Miss Israel was a beautiful Arab girl.
9. In South Africa no black person ever served in the army.
* In Israel no Arab is conscripted as it was considered wrong to expect a man to fight an enemy with whom he might have family connections. In addition, there was and still is a fear that some Arabs might be more sympathetic to those they would be required to fight. In spite of this, there are many Druze, who are Muslims, in the Israeli Defence Force, and other non-Jewish citizens also serve.

It is true that there is work to be done until the Israeli Arabs have total equality with their Jewish fellow-citizens. There is some social discrimination in the job market – much of it due to fear of suicide bombers - and more money has to be allocated to infrastructure in Arab villages and towns and to Arab education.

However, it is clear that the human rights of Arabs in Israel are far superior to those of women, Christians and other minorities in the Arab world. Israel is almost the only country in the Middle East which does not allow honour killing and where women have equal rights. There are very few Jews in Muslim countries as most – a much larger number than Arabs who left Israel in 1948 - were expelled in the 1950s simply because they were Jewish. Christians are persecuted in many Muslim countries, whereas in Israel followers of every religion may worship freely, and all religious buildings and sites are protected.

It is the only country in the Middle East where a Bahai Temple is allowed.

In Bethlehem, in the Palestinian Authority, Christians have been subjected to extortion, rape and murder and are leaving in ever-growing numbers. In Kalkilya in the Gaza strip the YMCA was destroyed in May 2006, although it served Palestinians as well as the few Christians who live there. A Christian church in Jericho was torched in June 2006. The new Hamas government has said that it will inaugurate a “Dhimmi Tax”, that is, a tax on all non-Muslims. The Palestinian Authority want all Jews to leave what they regard as their territory, and in Gaza this has already happened. In Israel, approximately one-fifth of the population is Arab.

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/antizion ... theid.html
Doodad
 

Postby sunny » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:52 pm

No Shelters, Sirens for Israel's Arab Citizens
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl? ... 14/1358258

Second-class citizens in their own country
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do0404.xml

Second class citizens
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/20 ... eli_arabs/

Police Used Excessive Force on Israeli Arabs, Panel Says
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9659C8B63

Law quashes the right of Israeli Arab citizens to family life

Families face being torn apart by the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which discriminates on the basis of ethnicity and nationality

http://web.amnesty.org/wire/September2004/Israel

Apartheid in the Middle East
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan06/Larsson12.htm
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Postby theeKultleeder » Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:13 pm

chlamor wrote:First you say "many" then you say "key" quotes so there is an impossibility here. Aren't all the quotes "key" or just a few? Anyway that is rather confusing.

In short prove it.

Let's assume that it is many that would imply how many?

Or if it is just the "key" quotes then which ones?



I retract that statement, it's too broad. Perhaps my impression was mistaken.
theeKultleeder
 

Postby theeKultleeder » Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:19 pm

Doodad wrote:Like I say, there are 2 ways to make the argument. You always chose the one which demonizes Israel. It's always your choice.


See, that's why everyone is butting their collective heads in that region, and hell, on this board.

There must be more than two ways to make an argument. The situation is so much more complex than either-or.

I'm going to re-iterate my proposal for honest analysis. Any analysis must go beyond talking points. A step one could be something we all agree on, like "people shouldn't be treating each other like this."


Here is a proposal for honest debate on the Israel/Palestine conflict:

1) Gather well-sourced and credible news.

2) Remove all cultural, religious, and state identifiers; replace them with variables like "party A, party B," and so forth.

3) Analyze the stories and geopolitical situations without preconceptions; use your natural or God-given moral sense to make judgements as to right and wrong, healthy and sick...

4) Replace the variables with the proper nouns and come to a sane conclusion on the reality of the situation.

5) Stand up for what is right and good, not just what you believe or some sort of tribal affiliation.

Voila! Confusions cleared, moral clarity attained. Time to speak up for humanity.
theeKultleeder
 

Postby H_C_E » Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:30 pm

To the Fire Pit with ye unclean thread!
Abdul, wax the beach with postal regret portions. Nevermind the o-ring leader he got not the cheese duster from the dachshund dimension or even pillow frighteners.
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Postby Doodad » Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:50 pm

H_C_E wrote:To the Fire Pit with ye unclean thread!


But they aren't finished trashing Israel yet. Please don't interfere in their right to be jerks.
Doodad
 

Postby AlicetheKurious » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:26 pm

But they aren't finished trashing Israel yet. Please don't interfere in their right to be jerks.


Israel deserves to be "trashed". The only "jerks" are those who defend the indefensible.

Israel has been compared to Apartheid South Africa prior to 1994. Is this an accurate description?

Below are some comparisons between the two states:...


Anybody notice anything, in Doodad's list?

Hello. In this zionist list, the people over whom "Israel" has had the absolute power over life and death for 40 years, simply do not exist. Nope. Nobody there. Just the 1.3 "Arabs" who reside within the pre-1967 borders.

Uh, I think you forgot to mention something, Doodad:

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who are forbidden to travel, PERIOD, with or without a pass, even to relatives living in neighboring towns and villages, or in or out of their refugee camps.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who not only don't have cars with the same number plates as Israeli Jews, they are forbidden by "law" to RIDE in a car that has "Jewish" number plates.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who are trapped in their homes for days, even weeks at a time, on pain of being shot, even little kids, even sick people who desperately need medical attention.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who are suffering from malnutrition due to the severe shortage of basic food, let alone enjoying a nice dinner out at an Israeli restaurant.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who risk giving birth on roads in front of Israeli road-blocks, or who die because their ambulances are shot at, or prevented from getting through to hospitals.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who know that even if they do reach a hospital, there's a good chance it will lack essential medications and equipment, due to the Israeli siege imposed on the Palestinian population in violation of international law.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who face constant harassment, beatings, humiliation, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without charge, and risk being killed or losing a loved one. Thirty thousand Palestinians have been made homeless by Israeli army bulldozers, almost all to make way for Jewish-only settlements. The numbers would be even greater, if it weren't for those many Palestinians who took family members into their already overcrowded homes.

There are 3.9 MILLION Palestinians who are severely deprived of drinking water and irrigation of their crops, while Jewish settlements boast lush green lawns and swimming pools built on stolen Palestinian land.

Oh. Did I mention the zionist "law" forbidding a Palestinian to be given a ride in an Israeli car? Yes, I think I did, but here are some details:

The details of the Naveh regulation should be presented accurately: It does not deal with the prohibition to transport Palestinians into the State of Israel. The entry of Palestinians into Israel has been forbidden for a long time, in any way, shape or form. It also does not seek to prevent attempts to "smuggle" Palestinians into a settlement, heaven forefend. After all, they are forbidden to enter there too. Maj. Gen. Naveh simply wishes to forbid any joint travel. Including a social gathering inside the West Bank. Or helping a friend transport a load of goods to his home. Or just a trip. Even a 200-meter drive to a coffee shop in order to sit together and talk. And needless to say, a joint ride to a demonstration against the occupation, or to any other threatening event of rapport and reconciliation, will be forbidden from now on.

There are, of course, exceptions: The feudal lords from the settlements will be able to continue to drive their native slaves to their places of employment. After all, it is unthinkable that the comfortable routine of the masters should be disturbed. ...

To tell the truth, even the word "apartheid" is too moderate to describe this abomination. There is no choice but to search for historical precedents in other places as well. Places where the Jews themselves suffered from such unjust laws. Not the blacks in South Africa, the Indians in America, the Arabs in Algeria or the untouchables in India. We can also learn from our own experience. We can also be alarmed by our history and the history of our forefathers, learn from it and draw conclusions and morals.

After all, the laws that were scorched into our flesh were frequently grounded in excuses of "the people's security," and defense against the Jewish enemy that is scheming to sabotage the state and contaminate its demographic purity with its seed.

My forefathers were also forbidden to travel with the members of the ruling nation in the same car. My forefathers were also barred from using means of transportation, save for the purpose of reaching their job with the rulers. My forefathers were also barred from moving around, working, studying, healing, vacationing or worshipping their God, unless the ruling masters had granted them permission.

And now I hold the order of OC Central Command, stare at it with helpless eyes and a contracted stomach, and read:

Palestinians are forbidden to travel in cars with Israelis. ...


quoted in:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publ ... _793.shtml


Let's not even talk about the approximately 2.5 million Palestinian refugees living in camps in neighboring countries, with no passport or citizenship, dependent on the UN for their very survival.

No.

Let's pretend we are all genocidal zionists, and the only "Arabs" worth mentioning, are those within the territories claimed by Israel before 1967.

They're citizens, right? No discrimination, of course not! Such silly, anti-semitic talk.

Well, not quite.


The following information was presented by ACRI [Association for Civil Rights in Israel] in their 2007 report titled “Equality for Arab Citizens.”

The report begins with a very telling statement describing the discrimination faced by Israeli Arabs:

The governments discriminatory policies and biased budget allocations have led to widespread poverty, unemployment, housing shortages, inequitable land distribution, inadequate education facilities, and substantially defective infrastructure that have effectively turned the members of the Arab minority into second-class citizens. Statistics reflect the cumulative effects of this pervasive discrimination as well as the glaring disparities that exist between the Jewish and Arab population groups.”

The above cited statistics provided by the ACRI report are as follows:

50% of Arab families in Israel are currently living below the poverty line, the vast majority of localities that have been hard-hit by unemployment are Arab localities, only 5.5% of the states civil servants are Arab, the average earned income of Arab citizens is 30% lower than that of Jewish citizens, Arab schools are understaffed and under-equipped as a result of inequitable government funding policies, class sizes in Arab elementary schools are more than 25% larger than in Jewish schools, and the percentage of students who do not complete 12 years of schooling is three times higher among Arabs than among Jews (32% versus 10%). Despite the myriad of social and economic inequalities, only 3% of the government’s development budget for 2005 was specifically designated for Israel’s Arab citizens.

To place these statistics into perspective 20% of the Israeli population is Arab. While Arabs make up 20% of the population only 3% of the 2005 development budget was geared toward Israeli Arab communities. In addition while Arabs make up 20% of the Israeli population only 5.5% of these Arabs worked as government civil servants.


In addition we learn that Arabs have suffered discrimination in land allocation, distribution, housing and planning policies:

Since 1948, no new Arab locality has been established inside Israel even though the Arab population has grown eight-fold (from 150,000 to 1.2 million). While the government generously allocates valuable land to Jews, Arab citizens continue to suffer from systemic discrimination in the governments planning policies and distribution of lands.

The acute housing shortage suffered by the Arab sector has worsened significantly as a result of the lack of any government plans to address the housing needs of the Arab community, such as the establishment of new Arab neighborhoods or villages and the provision of public housing and financial assistance plans like those enjoyed by the Jewish sector. Moreover, about half of the 152,000 Bedouin Arabs of the Negev and many Arabs in the Galilee reside in unrecognized villages that are denied access to basic and essential services. It is illegal to build permanent structures in these villages, and those residents who do so are forced to live under the constant threat of eviction notices and house demolitions.

The ACRI report cites the rampant racist attitudes Israeli’s hold toward their Arab population:

In addition to the multiple forms of discrimination that they face, Israel’s Arab citizens are increasingly the targets of the growing racism and intolerance that characterize the current social climate. The Israeli elections in March 2006 exposed the shocking rise in racism against the Arab minority, which was evidenced by the support and legitimacy accorded to politicians advocating for the revocation of the citizenship of Arab citizens living in the Triangle area and the prevalence of the demographic discourse. Furthermore, a recent poll conducted by the Center for the Struggle Against Racism indicates the extent to which racist attitudes have gained favor among large sections of the public, with 68% of Jewish Israelis claiming that they would refuse to live in the same apartment building as an Israeli Arab, and 63% of Jewish Israelis viewing Arabs as posing a security and demographic threat to the state.”

quoted in:

http://israelwatchresearchproject.blogspot.com/


From an Colorlines Magazine interview in December 2000 with Professor Phyllis Bennis:

CL: In this latest intifada, there have been numerous protests by Arabs living within the pre-1967 borders of Israel. What are their numbers and their conditions of life?

PB: Inside what is called the "Green Line"--the unofficial borders of Israel before the 1967 war--there are still about one million Palestinians, just under 20 percent of the total Israeli population. Most Palestinians are Muslim, some are Christian.

From 1948 to 1966, the Palestinians within Israel lived under explicit military rule.

They were considered a military threat to the Israeli state, and they were ruled under a completely different set of laws than the Jewish population.

After 1966, military rule was lifted, but it was replaced by a set of Jim Crow-like laws designed to discriminate against Arabs in Israel. According to Adalah, an Arab rights organization, today there are at least 20 laws that specifically provide unequal rights and obligations based on what the Israelis call nationality, which in Israel is defined on the basis of religion.

Israelis must carry a card which identifies them as either a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian. All non-Jews are second class citizens. The Israeli Supreme Court has dismissed virtually all cases which dealt with equal rights for Arab citizens.


CL: Can you be more specific about how this discrimination works and what it means?

PB: All Israeli citizens, including Palestinians, have the right to vote in elections for members of the Knesset (parliament) and for the prime minister. But not all rights are citizenship rights. Other rights are defined as nationality rights, and are reserved for Jews only. If you are a Jew, you have exclusive use of land, privileged access to private and public employment, special educational loans, home mortgages, preferences for admission to universities, and many other things.

Many other special privileges are reserved for those who have served in the Israeli military. And military service is compulsory for all Jews (male and female), except for the ultra-Orthodox who get the same privileges as other Jews, but excludes Palestinians, who do not.

Over 80 percent of the land within Israel that was once owned by Palestinians has been confiscated. All told, 93 percent of Israel's land can only be leased or owned by Jews or Jewish agencies. Moreover, despite Israel's booming economy, Palestinian unemployment is skyrocketing--Adalah says it is about 40 percent. In 1996 twice as many Arab citizens (28.3 percent) as Jewish citizens (14.4 percent) lived below the poverty line.
Less than five percent of government employees are Arab. And eighty percent of all student drop- outs are Arab.

There are also vast disparities between Arab towns and Jewish towns in government spending on schools, medical systems, roads and electricity, clean water, and social services.

Unlike any other country in the world, Israel does not define itself as a state of its residents, or even a state of its citizens, but as a state of all the Jews in the world.

Jews from anywhere in the world, like me, can travel to Israel, declare citizenship, and be granted all the privileges of being Jewish that are denied to Palestinians who have lived in the area for hundreds of years.


CL: Are Palestinians within Israel participating in the current uprising?

PB: The recent resistance has seen a whole new level of involvement in demonstrations by Palestinians inside the Green Line. They are protesting the discrimination they face in Israel as well as the occupation itself and Israeli brutality against Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. Such protests are not completely without historical precedent; in 1976 there were a series of demonstrations on what became known as Land Day which protested continuing Israeli seizures of Palestinian land. Six Palestinian demonstrators, citizens of Israel, were killed by Israeli forces.

But this time there is a vast increase in the participation of Palestinians inside the Green Line. Their demonstrations have been met with the same brutal military tactics used against Palestinians in the West Bank. So, far 13 Israeli Palestinians have been killed.

These tactics are in sharp contrast to the methods used by Israeli authorities in response to demonstrations by Israeli Jews.

In 1982, for example, when there was an upsurge of Jewish protests against the Israeli war in Lebanon, one Israeli Jewish protester was killed and there was such an enormous outcry that people remember his name to this day--Emil Grunzweig.

But when a Palestinian is killed by Israeli military occupation forces, that is not considered news. We might hear a body count, but we never hear their names, who their parents or children are, what they did for a living.

On the West Bank and Gaza, as well as inside the Green Line, police randomly fired live ammunition into crowds of unarmed Arab demonstrators that were throwing stones. The racist double standard is everywhere. A mob of Israeli Jews even attacked the house of an Arab member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara. But the police would not act against the rioters.

Unfortunately, the years of occupation have created, or have allowed to flourish, an incredibly racist vantage point among the majority of Israeli Jews. The majority of Israeli Jews are willing to accept the killing of Palestinians and collective punishment of the Palestinian population as justified state policy.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BEN108A.html


Israel has all kinds of racist laws. Apartheid laws, as it were. One example is the latest restriction on marriages, discussed here by Jonathan Cook:


In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel's Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges' decision, in the words of the country's normally restrained Haaretz daily, was "shameful".

By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel -- what in legal parlance is termed "family unification" -- did not violate rights enshrined in the country's Basic Laws.
...

Applications for family unification in Israel invariably come from Palestinians in the occupied territories who marry other Palestinians, often friends or relatives, with Israeli citizenship. One in five of Israel's population is Palestinian by descent, a group, commonly referred to as Israeli Arabs, who managed to remain inside the Jewish state during the war of 1948 that established Israel.

As there is no principle of equality in Israeli law, human rights groups who challenged the government's 2003 amendment were forced to argue instead that it violated the dignity of the families. Mixed Israeli and Palestinian couples are not only unable to live together inside Israel but they are also denied a married life in the occupied territories, from which Israeli citizens are banned under military regulations.

Most of the judges, however, seemed incapable of grasping this simple point. In an earlier hearing, Justice Michael Cheshin suggested that mixed couples wanting to build a family "should live in Jenin", a Palestinian city in the West Bank besieged by Israeli military armour.

Cheshin again demonstrated an other-worldly logic this week when he justified the majority view of his colleagues: "Beyond this [measure] stands the state's right not to allow residents of an enemy country to enter its territory during time of war."

The problem is that the Palestinians are not another "country", enemy or otherwise; they are a people who have been living under Israeli military occupation for nearly four decades. As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for their welfare, though it has happily passed on that burden to international players with deeper pockets.

And the suggestion that the Palestinians, who have no army, are waging a war against Israel, one of the world's strongest military powers, expands the idea of war into the realms of doublespeak. Palestinians are resisting Israel's occupation -- some violently, others non-violently -- as they have a right to do under international law.


Few observers in Israel, however, believe that their government passed the law in 2003 on security grounds. Of the 6,000 Palestinians given residency rights in Israel during the Oslo period, a tiny number -- only 25 -- have been questioned on security-related matters, according to figures the government reluctantly published during the case. How many of this number were actually involved in attacks has still not been clarified.

The real reason for the law is to be found elsewhere. It springs from the same impulse that prompted Israel to "disengage" from the 1.3 million Palestinians of Gaza last year and is now spurring the government on to "consolidate" its West Bank settlement blocs behind a wall designed to annex Palestinian land but not the Palestinians themselves.

The ban on marriages and the drawing of final borders share a single guiding vision: one of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state with a "massive Jewish majority", as former prime minister Ariel Sharon phrased it shortly before the Gaza withdrawal.

Until it was amended, the family unification provision in the Nationality Law offered Palestinians in the occupied territories the sole route to Israeli citizenship. But if Israel is building its walls to establish an expanded Jewish state, an ethnic fortress, it is hardly going to leave the back door ajar to let Palestinians achieve what Israelis regard as a right of return, through marriage, to Israel.

The interior ministry has done much to fuel a demographic and racist hysteria by inflating the figures to suggest that more than 100,000 Palestinians from the occupied territories have gained Israeli citizenship through marriage in the past decade.
In fact the real number is a few thousand.

If the judges were too embarrassed to admit that demographic concerns prompted the amendment to the Nationality Law, few others in Israel have been as reluctant. A Jerusalem Post editorial this week admitted the government's security arguments for the law were "weak", observing instead: "Israel is openly threatened with annihilation -- not just physically, by a potential Iranian nuclear capability, but demographically, by Palestinian claims of a 'right of return'."

Yoel Hasson of the ruling Kadima party hailed the court's decision as "a victory for those who believe in Israel as a Jewish state", while the immigration absorption minister, Zeev Boim, added: "We have to maintain the state's democratic nature, but also its Jewish nature. The extent of entry of [Palestinian spouses] into Israel's territories is intolerable."

The government's ban on family unification between Palestinians and Israelis is currently a temporary measure (of three years standing) but that is likely to change now that the court has given the law its blessing. This week justice minister Haim Ramon vowed to establish a new Basic Law that would permanently block entry to Palestinians, as well possibly as other non-Jews.

This is in line with the recommendations of the government-appointed Rubinstein Committee, under the chairmanship of Israel's foremost constitutional law expert Amnon Rubinstein, which has been preparing an immigration policy for non-Jews.

In its report, issued in February, the committee proposed draconian limitations on non-Jews' rights to Israeli citizenship through marriage. (All Jews, meanwhile, will continue to qualify for citizenship based on another piece of legislation, the overtly discriminatory Law of Return
.)

According to Rubinstein's recommendations, Palestinians and inhabitants of "hostile" (read Arab) states who marry Israelis (read Israel's Palestinian citizens) will be banned from rights to either citizenship or residency in Israel.

Other non-Jewish spouses (read mainly Europeans and Americans) will face age and income requirements and be expected to affirm a loyalty oath -- not to Israel, but to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. In keeping with current policy, non-Jews are unlikely to receive citizenship but may be eligible for residency rights.

As one seasoned Israeli observer, Shahar Ilan, commented in Haaretz: "It is doubtful that there are many issues that elicit such broad consensus in the [Israeli] political system as that of closing the gates to family unification [of non-Jews]."

Such changes will make Israel unlike any state we have seen in modern times. In 1980, at the height of apartheid in South Africa, the courts there refused to approve legislation much like Israel's ban on family unification, arguing that it contravened the right to a family life.

In Israel, on the other hand, faced with a new wave of racist legislation, no one -- not even the country's "liberal" Supreme Court ­ is prepared to safeguard the most basic rights of the land's native people
.


http://www.counterpunch.org/cook05192006.html

Man, I could go on and on. About Israel's oppressive marriage laws for Jews, about the open racism of Israeli politicians at the highest levels of government, the daily racist harassment of Arab citizens...

These things are not exactly a secret, except in the hermetically sealed world of the zionist apologists, and those who use them as a source of information.
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Postby theeKultleeder » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:58 pm

I don't know why Doodad is defending the actions of a state as if it were a person. We have people like that in the US, they are called Bush supporters.

I don't know why Alice has to frame the debate in terms of Arabs and Zionists. It immediately ties the discussion down to group affiliation.

Why should passion rule where reason should reign, especially on an internet forum where everything is based on text and information?

Two robots, both programmed with propaganda from opposed factions cannot employ reason in the service of humanity; they can only serve as amplified echoes of the propagandists.

I personally don't care about Arabs, or some imaginary entity called "Israel." I care about tender and peaceful children being raised in the stifling culture of conflict and pain. Even the perpetrators are unfortunate humans.
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Postby chlamor » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:12 pm

Doodad wrote:2 ways to make the argument.

1.Israel should MUST end the occupation because it needlessly harms Palestinians. Here is some proof that they don't need to occupy to secure their safety...........

2. We must threaten to do the following things to Israel...............because they MUST end the occupation because they are committing genocide and Apartheid.

The first would be a good honest argument.

The second is repetition of jingoism.


You didn't answer the question. I didn't ask "how to make the argument."

It was as straightforward and simple as possible I simply asked where it was that sunny was being jingoistic and you skirted the very simple question.

I also asked very straightforward and simple questions in the "FirePitted" thread and you ran off. This speaks volumes.
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby Doodad » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:14 pm

theeKultleeder wrote:I don't know why Doodad is defending the actions of a state as if it were a person.


I don't defend HER actions. I castigate HER critics who are propagating canards and propaganda. I have explained several times the use of the idioms her and she. Should I do it a THIRD time?
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Postby chlamor » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:39 pm

I don't know why Alice has to frame the debate in terms of Arabs and Zionists.


This is a complete inaccuracy in comparative political(?) terms. One is a people one is an ideology.

One is a matter of geography one is a political movement.

For the record.

Recommended reading:
Image

"I wish I could say that general understanding of the Middle East, the Arabs and Islam in the United States has improved somewhat, but alas, it really hasn't. For all kinds of reasons, the situation in Europe seems to be considerably better. In the US, the hardening of attitudes, the tightening of the grip of demeaning generalization and triumphalist cliché, the dominance of crude power allied with simplistic contempt for dissenters and "others" has found a fitting correlative in the looting and destruction of Iraq's libraries and museums. What our leaders and their intellectual lackeys seem incapable of understanding is that history cannot be swept clean like a blackboard, clean so that "we" might inscribe our own future there and impose our own forms of life for these lesser people to follow. It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar. But this has often happened with the "Orient," that semi-mythical construct which since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in the late eighteenth century has been made and re-made countless times. In the process the uncountable sediments of history, that include innumerable histories and a dizzying variety of peoples, languages, experiences, and cultures, all these are swept aside or ignored, relegated to the sand heap along with the treasures ground into meaningless fragments that were taken out of Baghdad."

- Edward Said

It's all connected:
Image

Columbus Day is near in America. Maybe a thread about The Scripture- The Holy Land- The Pilgrims- The Savages etc.... is in order? Shift this to the sands of the Middle East. See any similarities? It's all connected.
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby Jeff » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:40 pm

Sunny can defend herself just fine, but I have to say I think it's absurd that she should need to from a charge of "jingoism." I've never seen anything from her that resembled it.

Doodad, you're entitled to make your case, but please avoid making it personal, and smearing the judgment of an exceedingly fair moderator.

Any serious objection to fire-pitting this one?
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Postby Doodad » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:56 pm

Jeff wrote:Sunny can defend herself just fine, but I have to say I think it's absurd that she should need to from a charge of "jingoism." I've never seen anything from her that resembled it.

Doodad, you're entitled to make your case, but please avoid making it personal, and smearing the judgment of an exceedingly fair moderator.

Any serious objection to fire-pitting this one?


well, it may have been better to say abetting jingoism. i will try to do as you wish jeff but no one's judgement is perfect even if it is exceedingly fair.

I still have to maintain that one can criticize Israeli policies without resorting to obvious propaganda and canard. there's no way I can see it any other way.

If I could, then I would be wont to suggest Palestine should not get a full fledged state because it is run by terrorists. Instead of that canard, I would argue that until its leaders prove they can control terrorism, occupation and negotiation must continue. Some could then disagree with me but at least I wouldn't be engaging in stereotypical accusations since I know full well that the current accepted leaders are former terrorists who have come to the table. Many won't agree with that either but in terms of negotiation, sometimes that as good as it gets if you want to get anywhere. All the yapping and propaganda and bullshit is just window dressing at that point.
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