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Israel’s "Jews-only" Law Under Fire
CAIRO, December 14 (IslamOnline.net) - Israeli critics have warned that the proposed law, allowing Jews to bar Arabs from buying homes in their communities, could expose Israel to a fresh wave of condemnation and could further deepen Israel’s image as an aparthied state.
“If we are not already totally an apartheid state, we are getting much, much closer to it,” former cabinet minister and Meretz party founder Shulamit Aloni told Ha'aretz Tuesday, December14 .
In a decision that set off a storm of debate, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet Sunday, December12 , voted to endorse a bill that would allow areas within Israel which have been designated as “state land” to be devoted to residential use by Jews alone. The bill still faces considerable legislative hurdles before it can be passed into law, the Israeli daily said.
Israeli cabinet minister Dan Meridor also denounced the proposed law as “a grave error” and “flagrantly discriminatory”.
”It is not permissible to allow an Israeli law to state that a non-Jew may be prevented from living in a particular place for security reasons,” Meridor told Ha’aretz.
“This is not a security matter at all. There is no need for flagrant discrimination.”
Indeed, he said, by contrast to discrimination that Jews have experienced in the Diaspora, the Jewish state legally does not discriminate against non-Jews.
”As to the charges that Zionism is racism - what are we ourselves saying here?”
According to the paper, the bill was prompted by a landmark Supreme Court ruling over the efforts of the northern village of Katzir to bar an Israeli Arab from buying a house there.
Katzir residents voted to keep Israeli Arab Adel Ka'adan from buying a plot and building a house there.
After years of legal wrangling, the court in March,2000 , accepted Ka'adan's argument that the policy of the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental body which adminsters state lands for many Jewish villages, discriminated against Arab citizens and was therefore illegal, as per the daily.
Sponsored by National Religious Party MK Haim Druckman, critics said the proposed law was designed to bypass the court decision, formalizing descimination on Israel's lawbooks.
Education Minister Limon Livnat, who spearheaded the cabinet decision to ratify the bill, claimed the purpose of the measure was to clarify de facto policies in founding specifically Jewish communities within the nation.
“This does not stem at all from discrimination, rather from the main basis of Zionism - the return of the Jewish people to its land.”
Livnat dismissed suggestions that the bill was anti-democratic, saying that each sector in israel should be allowed to live among its own. Moreover, she told the paper, “All of us were raised on the same Zionist values, according to which, the state of Israel may, from the standpoint of national security - the wider view of security, not necessarily of concrete security ... foster the value of a Galilee with a Jewish majority.”
The United Nations passed a resolution in 1975 declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
Despite strenuous lobbying efforts by Israel, the resolution remained on the books until the Gulf War and the subsequent Madrid Middle East peace conference led the world body to rescind the Zionism is racism measure in December,1991 .
Over the past two years, however, the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, coupled with Israeli daily collective punishment practices against Palestinians, have revived Arab-led denunciations of Israel as a state that practices racism akin to South Africa's long-repealed apartheid regulations that overtly favored whites over blacks and people of mixed race.
Detention Camps
Aloni, an attorney, told the paper Israel had already put segregation into effect in a number of ways, among them in appropriating Arab-owned land, designating it as “state land,” and earmarking it for use by specifically Jewish towns and villages.
She angrily dismissed suggestions that the law was an outgrowth of Israeli-Arab rioting at the outset of the current Palestinian uprising. “If you see this as a life-and-death matter, that means that the state of Israel views its Arab citizens as the enemy.”
“Perhaps we should turn every Israeli Arab village into a detention camp, like we do in the occupied territories, so that Druckman and the rest of the messianics could take away their land as well,” Aloni said.
“By the right of our might, we are acting as a racist nation. South Africa, as well, was white and democratic. But that was not the intention here.”
The debate over the law split Ariel Sharon's ruling Likud party, with Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, in the past a relative moderate on such issues, left sitting firmly on the fence. “Legislation such as this has international repercussions that are not good for the state of Israel,” said Sheetrit, who abstained in the Sunday cabinet vote.
“I don't think that this must be made into law. I don't believe that you should make a law that specifies that one discriminates against someone from the standpoint of his rights in the state of Israel. On the other hand, I can certainly understand that there are population groups in Israel who wish to live apart, particularly community settlements, like Bedouin, Arab, Jewish, Christian or any other category for that matter.”
Asked why he refrained from voting against the proposed law, Sheetrit said, “There is a central question on this point - Is there a conflict between the values of a Jewish state and of a democratic state? If such a conflict does exist, it must be reduced to the minimum.
“We must reach an understanding, but not by means of laws or Supreme Court appeals to force people to accept into their midst people who will spur disputes and trouble within the community ... But if there's no problem, there's no reason not to let them live there, whether Jew, (Muslim) Arab, or Christian.”
“Israeli killing people!”
As the debate over the proposed law intensified, Livnat said she viewed the decision as “a very great victory for those who view Israel as a democratic Jewish state as opposed as those who see it as the nation of all its citizens. There is no racism in this.”
Livnat bristled when an interviewer on state-owned Israel Radio went further, drawing a parallel to anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany.
“When the Jews came here after the World War Two Nazi Holocaust, perhaps it would not have been expected that Jews would do something like this to Arabs,” the interviewer said.
“Any comparison of this type is totally unacceptable,” Livnat replied. “Are we exterminating a people? Are we killing people, or forcing them into concentration camps? How can anyone make such a comparison?”
On September28 ,2004 , four senior officers of an elite Israeli air force unit hit out at the military's “immoral” policies in the occupied territories in a letter published by Israeli newspapers.
The move came as the casualty toll from Al-Aqsa Intifada went above4 ,500 on both Israeli and Palestinian sides, with an over three Palestinians to one Israeli.
According to the Web site of Palestinian Health Ministry, some 821 children (less than18 ) have been killed by Israeli occupation since the eruption of the Intifada on September28 ,2000 .
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-12/14/article02.shtml
In a decision that set off a storm of debate, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet Sunday, December12 , voted to endorse a bill that would allow areas within Israel which have been designated as “state land” to be devoted to residential use by Jews alone. The bill still faces considerable legislative hurdles before it can be passed into law, the Israeli daily said.
Israeli cabinet minister Dan Meridor also denounced the proposed law as “a grave error” and “flagrantly discriminatory”.
”It is not permissible to allow an Israeli law to state that a non-Jew may be prevented from living in a particular place for security reasons,” Meridor told Ha’aretz.
“This is not a security matter at all. There is no need for flagrant discrimination.”
Indeed, he said, by contrast to discrimination that Jews have experienced in the Diaspora, the Jewish state legally does not discriminate against non-Jews.
”As to the charges that Zionism is racism - what are we ourselves saying here?”
According to the paper, the bill was prompted by a landmark Supreme Court ruling over the efforts of the northern village of Katzir to bar an Israeli Arab from buying a house there.
Katzir residents voted to keep Israeli Arab Adel Ka'adan from buying a plot and building a house there.
After years of legal wrangling, the court in March,2000 , accepted Ka'adan's argument that the policy of the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental body which adminsters state lands for many Jewish villages, discriminated against Arab citizens and was therefore illegal, as per the daily.
Sponsored by National Religious Party MK Haim Druckman, critics said the proposed law was designed to bypass the court decision, formalizing descimination on Israel's lawbooks.
Education Minister Limon Livnat, who spearheaded the cabinet decision to ratify the bill, claimed the purpose of the measure was to clarify de facto policies in founding specifically Jewish communities within the nation.
“This does not stem at all from discrimination, rather from the main basis of Zionism - the return of the Jewish people to its land.”
Livnat dismissed suggestions that the bill was anti-democratic, saying that each sector in israel should be allowed to live among its own. Moreover, she told the paper, “All of us were raised on the same Zionist values, according to which, the state of Israel may, from the standpoint of national security - the wider view of security, not necessarily of concrete security ... foster the value of a Galilee with a Jewish majority.”
The United Nations passed a resolution in 1975 declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
Despite strenuous lobbying efforts by Israel, the resolution remained on the books until the Gulf War and the subsequent Madrid Middle East peace conference led the world body to rescind the Zionism is racism measure in December,1991 .
Over the past two years, however, the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, coupled with Israeli daily collective punishment practices against Palestinians, have revived Arab-led denunciations of Israel as a state that practices racism akin to South Africa's long-repealed apartheid regulations that overtly favored whites over blacks and people of mixed race.
Detention Camps
Aloni, an attorney, told the paper Israel had already put segregation into effect in a number of ways, among them in appropriating Arab-owned land, designating it as “state land,” and earmarking it for use by specifically Jewish towns and villages.
She angrily dismissed suggestions that the law was an outgrowth of Israeli-Arab rioting at the outset of the current Palestinian uprising. “If you see this as a life-and-death matter, that means that the state of Israel views its Arab citizens as the enemy.”
“Perhaps we should turn every Israeli Arab village into a detention camp, like we do in the occupied territories, so that Druckman and the rest of the messianics could take away their land as well,” Aloni said.
“By the right of our might, we are acting as a racist nation. South Africa, as well, was white and democratic. But that was not the intention here.”
The debate over the law split Ariel Sharon's ruling Likud party, with Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, in the past a relative moderate on such issues, left sitting firmly on the fence. “Legislation such as this has international repercussions that are not good for the state of Israel,” said Sheetrit, who abstained in the Sunday cabinet vote.
“I don't think that this must be made into law. I don't believe that you should make a law that specifies that one discriminates against someone from the standpoint of his rights in the state of Israel. On the other hand, I can certainly understand that there are population groups in Israel who wish to live apart, particularly community settlements, like Bedouin, Arab, Jewish, Christian or any other category for that matter.”
Asked why he refrained from voting against the proposed law, Sheetrit said, “There is a central question on this point - Is there a conflict between the values of a Jewish state and of a democratic state? If such a conflict does exist, it must be reduced to the minimum.
“We must reach an understanding, but not by means of laws or Supreme Court appeals to force people to accept into their midst people who will spur disputes and trouble within the community ... But if there's no problem, there's no reason not to let them live there, whether Jew, (Muslim) Arab, or Christian.”
“Israeli killing people!”
As the debate over the proposed law intensified, Livnat said she viewed the decision as “a very great victory for those who view Israel as a democratic Jewish state as opposed as those who see it as the nation of all its citizens. There is no racism in this.”
Livnat bristled when an interviewer on state-owned Israel Radio went further, drawing a parallel to anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany.
“When the Jews came here after the World War Two Nazi Holocaust, perhaps it would not have been expected that Jews would do something like this to Arabs,” the interviewer said.
“Any comparison of this type is totally unacceptable,” Livnat replied. “Are we exterminating a people? Are we killing people, or forcing them into concentration camps? How can anyone make such a comparison?”
On September28 ,2004 , four senior officers of an elite Israeli air force unit hit out at the military's “immoral” policies in the occupied territories in a letter published by Israeli newspapers.
The move came as the casualty toll from Al-Aqsa Intifada went above4 ,500 on both Israeli and Palestinian sides, with an over three Palestinians to one Israeli.
According to the Web site of Palestinian Health Ministry, some 821 children (less than18 ) have been killed by Israeli occupation since the eruption of the Intifada on September28 ,2000 .
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-12/14/article02.shtml
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The bill, initiated by National Union MK Zvi Hendel, was rejected by 40 to 38. It would have enabled the Israel Lands Administration to establish communities with up to 500 families of "only one nationality with the matter not being considered as discrimination."
The legislation cannot be considered again for another six months. Likud MKs supported the bill for the most part, but three - Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, Marina Solodkin and Ehud Yatom - kept it from being approved by declining to vote in favor.
Justice Minister Yosef Lapid announced that the government did not take a position on the bill, thereby giving coalition MKs the right to vote freely. Lapid, whose Shinui party voted against, said he opposed the bill because it "smelled of apartheid."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not take part in the vote. Likud ministers who supported the bill were Yisrael Katz, Tzippi Livni, Limor Livnat, and Likud MKs included Omri Sharon, Yuval Steinitz, Gilad Erdan and Avraham Hershson. The National Union, Shas and United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush also supported the proposal. Rivlin was the only Likud MK who opposed, while Yatom and Solodkin abstained.
Lapid said a Jewish state could not allow itself to separate populations according to religion and nationality after Jews had suffered from such tactics for generations. "This was a famous method of repressing Jews," he said.
Hendel responded that the state was run according to the principle for 50 years, and the measure is only intended for the establishment of small communities.
MK Zehava Gal-On (Yahad) said it was a "disgrace" that the government did not take a stand on the bill. Gal-On said the passage of the proposal is only aimed at circumventing the High Court decision and would mar Israel's image abroad.
MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) called the vote of Likud and Shas MKs "shameful."
The Mossawa Center for Israeli Arab rights expressed relief that the bill had been rejected, but concern that 38 MKs had supported it.
In the Katzir case, an Arab couple that lived near the communal settlement petitioned against the rejection of their application to build a home in Katzir. The community in the Galilee was established by the Jewish Agency via the ILA.
The court ruled in 2000 that the state could not allocate land based on religion or nationality.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1101874928294
It's the jewish homeland, the only place of its kind on earth.
WHy does the world ignore that muslims do something across a massive amount of land, and instead harrass jews for doing it for protective survival reasons across a much, much smaller amount of land?
It's always easier to hound and pick on a nation or people when some of its members are routinely critical of exclusivism in its midst, regardless of the merits of their arguments or lack thereof.
Voice of reason you are not. Quite to the contrary, in fact. It would have been hilariously entertaining if it hadn't been so sad to see someone like you dubbing him/herself a voice of reason.
Since you are the one makiing the claim that Israel is an ethno-state, and a religious one at that,-- even a racial theocracy, the onus is on YOU to prove your allegations as YOU are the one making them.
If you fail to understand why you must prove your arguments, you don't understand one of the basics of proper debate.
Now let's see how well you do providing evidence to prove your allegations instead of trying to get smart on me.
what is this "indymedia is/isnt for" crap?