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Is Israel an apartheid state? Read and decide for yourself.
July 29, 2010 The Guardian (UK) - Ethnic cleansing in the Israeli Negev
July 17, 2010 Jonathan Cook - Israel Stops Listening to Its Judges
April 10, 2010 EI - Lawsuit challenges Israel's discriminatory
citizenship definition
March 5, 2010 Rabble.ca - Israeli apartheid by any other name still stinks Israelis do not use the word "apartheid" -- they have their own word, "hafrada," meaning separation -- but as it amounts to more or less the same thing, it makes little sense to use with the public a word most people are unfamiliar with. A few facts about "hafrada" highlight the striking similarities with apartheid. January 6, 2010 Haaretz - Knesset rejects bill for equal Arab-Jewish land distribution The Knesset on Wednesday rejected by a majority vote a bill proposed by Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am Ta'al) which would enforce equal distribution of land between Jewish and Arab citizens. "Since the foundation of the state, the Israel Lands Administration is solely used as Jewish land administration. The director of the Israel Lands Administration has used all the tactics, with the help of the Jewish Agency, to allocate state land only to Jews. Despite the bitter attempt over the decades, not even one Arab town has been established since the state's foundation."
October 26, 2009 Press TV - Netanyahu insists Israel is only for Jews "Israel is not a bi-national state," AFP quoted Netanyahu as saying on Saturday. "It has non-Jews who live here with full, equal rights, but it has two things that assure its special character." "It's the homeland of any Jew. And there is a very broad consensus in Israel that the Palestinian refugee problem should be resolved outside Israel's borders," he added. [Comment: Israel's proponents are constantly insisting that Israel is a democratic state but this is clearly so only for its Jewish inhabitants - in fact, Israel does not want peace until it has gotten rid of as many Palestinians as possible.]
August 15, 2009 EI - Little recourse for Arab girl rejected from Israeli day-care An
Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli
day-care center on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages,
accusing her of racist incitement against their child.....However,
human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism
legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low. July 28, 2009 Counterpunch - The War is With the Arabs Israeli racism rarely shocks me anymore, but its blatant display still makes me stop and catch my breath as I translate it into other contexts. Imagine driving through the middle of a predominantly black neighborhood in a US city or town and seeing a enormous sign that says, “The war is with the Blacks.”
August January 23, 2009 Although it is true that Israel has a democractic system of government, one must not confuse democracy with equality. Israel does not have a constitution or a Bill of Rights and Palestinians living in Israel do not have the same benefits and rights as Jews. Some insight into this reality can be gained from this article from the Israeli Newspaper Haaretz: Haaretz - Supreme Court revokes ban on Arab parties from national elections Israel's Supreme court overruled on Wednesday a parliamentary panel which had decided to bar Israeli Arab parties from running in next month's parliamentary election. The court issued its decision in response to an appeal filed by Arab politicians against the ban. A spokesman for the Courts Administration said judges overturned the ban in an unanimous vote Wednesday. December 26, 2008 Haaretz - The facts speak for themselves
The facts, indeed, speak for themselves and prove that since the
previous report, inequality between Jews and Arabs has increased in
every area. The infant mortality rate, for example, is 3.6 out of every
1,000 live births among Jews, and 8.4 among Arabs. There is also a
difference in life expectancy, to the Arabs' detriment, and in recent
years a greater proportion of Arab citizens have suffered from
diabetes, obesity and heart ailments - diseases of the poor.
November 6, 2008 A MUST READ article. A concise but comprehensive list of all the methods used by Israel to gain control of more and more Palestinian land. JPost - UN General Assembly head accuses Israel of apartheid General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said the international community should consider sanctions against Israel including "boycott, divestment and sanctions" similar to those enacted against South Africa two decades ago. July 31, 2008 [Here is another example of Israeli "creative" ethnic cleansing - dumping tons of garbage in Arab neighbourhoods. Israel claims to be a democracy but democracy does not guarantee respect of the rights of the minority in Israel. ] Bt'selem - Jerusalem Municipality allows criminals to turn Arab neighborhood into a garbage dump For years, in 2007 in particular, dozens of privately-owned garbage trucks have come from West Jerusalem and dumped large amounts of construction, medical, and industrial debris in areas adjacent to residents’ homes. The unsupervised and disorderly dumping is done for free, while fees of dozens of shekels a ton are charged at the regulated dumping sites located relatively far from the city. July 12, 2008 Independent (UK) - This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the segregation endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa. Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank. June 20, 2008 Yet another trick law to deny the rights of Israeli Arabs..... Haaretz - A law that must not pass The bill, which is to be presented to the legislature for its second and third readings in the coming days, would amend the Basic Law on the Knesset so that a person who has visited an enemy country would not be able to stand for election to the Knesset. Such a visit would be considered "supporting the armed struggle against the State of Israel." The prohibition would be retroactive for seven years, starting from when the amendment is passed. The law refers to all citizens of Israel, but is intended to prevent Arab citizens from visiting Arab countries. The prohibition is a sweeping one; it does not matter what the purpose of the visit has been.
May17, 2008 South Africans' statement on 60 th anniversary of Apartheid Israel We fought apartheid; we see no reason to celebrate it in Israel now!
December 14, 2007 The Nation - Israel's Palestinians speak out
December 8, 2007 Gwynne Dyer - It's peace or apartheid "If
the day comes when the two-state solution collapses," Olmert said, "and
we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights for
Palestinians in the [Occupied] Territories, then the state of Israel is
finished. .... Now the Palestinians are within sight of becoming a
majority in the whole of the territory between the Jordan and the sea,
and some of them are starting to abandon that compromise goal. Let us
have a single democratic state in all of these lands, they say, and we
don't mind if Israel never returns to its 1967 borders. We will just
demand our equal democratic rights within this larger country that
includes all the land now controlled by Israel. May 13, 2007 Kasrils says Israel's behaviour worse than apartheid
April 25, 2007 Counterpunch - Israeli Democracy (For Jews only?) All of Israel's one million plus Palestinian residents the survivors and descendants of the 1948 Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine - have long felt discriminated against, despite Israel paying lip-service to their democratic rights. They also felt on the sidelines of what was being played out in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, that is until Azmi Bishara, the outspoken political leader of the National Democratic Assembly (NDA) or Balad in Israel and a Knesset member, began campaigning for the collective rights of Palestinians. His vision is not just for change inside Israel, but involves an all-inclusive civil rights struggle against political Zionism - the racist and colonialist policies that have dispossessed, marginalised and oppressed all Palestinians for almost 60 years. This is what Israel is at pains to put down by any means. It cannot afford to have someone like Azmi Bishara rallying people to his way of thinking. Now, after many attempts to muzzle him, Israel has finally succeeded in getting him to resign from the Knesset and to stay out of the country. A list of unpublished charges were drawn up against Bishara whilst he was abroad - charges so serious that they would likely have landed him in jail on his return. While the charges themselves are not known, it is not difficult to guess at what they involve. Bishara has been previously charged with undermining the "Jewish nature of the state", but the charges have always been dropped. This time it seems that Israel's state security services may have formulated charges that not only label Bishara a national security threat, but accuse him of treason and espionage. The media is not allowed to discuss any of it and even Bishara himself is reticent on the matter, no doubt to protect himself from being further arraigned because he is adamant that he will eventually return to Israel.
Jaffa house demolition prevented, threat still pending(Note: These demolition are taking place in Israel, not in the West Bank or Gaza. Such is Israeli democracy.) A massive demolition wave was about to begin today with the destruction of a building that is a home to a family of 5. The family was able to get a judge to issue a 14-day injunction early in the morning, after spending the night barricaded in the house with dozens of activists. Roughly 300 demolition orders were issued recently against homes of Israeli-Palestinians in Ajami, the largest Palestinian neighborhood of Jaffa. The wave is part of a plan to Judaize and gentrify Ajami from its poor, largely Palestinian community.
February 2, 2007 Haaretz - Adalah center issues report on Israel's treatment of Arab minority January 29, 2007 Univ. of Massachusetts - Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem, Israeli Style
Israeli authorities are carrying out a process in East Jerusalem that
accurately be described as ethnic cleansing. It is plainly geared to
uproot Palestinians from an area that historically has been known as
Arab East Jerusalem and convert it into an integral, permanent part of
the capital of the Jewish state. IMEMC - Israeli Knesset passes law to revoke citizenship of 'unpatriotic' Israelis A new law passed Wednesday will allow the Israeli government to revoke the citizenship of citizens considered unpatriotic to the Jewish state of Israel. The law is expected to be applied especially to the 20% of Israeli citizens who are of Palestinian origin. January 27, 2007 Counterpunch - Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel (A must read article by a former Israeli cabinet minister) January 12, 2007 MSNBC - Carter's Palestine book prompts resignations Comment: Some media outlets are reporting these resignations with great glee. This article reports that 14 members of the board have resigned, others are reporting 25. Indeed, even 14 resignations from the board of directors of any organization would be serious. However, as this article explains, the 14 members who have resigned were members of the Board of Councillors which is a 200 membre board. The 200-member board is responsible for building public support for the Carter Center. It is not the organization's governing board. The board's members “are not engaged in implementing work of the Center,” Carter Center Executive Director John Hardman said Thursday in a news release.
January 11, 2007 Letter from Israeli peace activist A number of times these years that I have had the privilege of communicating with you, I have written about or mentioned the problems of Israeli Palestinians. Among these are the difficulties suffered by the Bedouins in the Negev. The existence of many of their villages predate the State. But as with Palestinian land in the OPT, here in Israel, too, Israeli Palestinian lands are stolen. January 6, 2007 Counterpunch - Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown A t long last the Boston Globe published an op-ed by former President Jimmy Carter, defending his book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid," from the predictable, scurrilous attacks .... the Globe, like the New York Times and other major papers, has not given "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid," a best-selling book by a former president and Nobel Prize winner, a legitimate review. If that is not testimony to the power of the Israeli Lobby, I do not know what is. The only opening in this anti-Carter phalanx came from the readers of the Globe themselves in the letters to the editor, which appear to run strongly in Carter's favor... January 4, 2007 Y Net - Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel (This item by Shulamit Aloni, the Israeli Prize laureate who once served as Minister of Education under Yitzhak Rabin, is from Yediot Acharonot, Israel's largest circulating newspaper, which appeared in the Hebrew Ynet but not in the English-language Ynetnews. Hebrew original) A new order issued by the GOC Central command bans the conveyance of Palestinians in Israeli vehicles. Such a blatant violation of the right to travel joins the long list of humans rights violations carried out by Israel in the [Occupied] Territories.
Is
there a clearer example of apartheid than the fact that large areas of
the West Bank are off limits to the Palestinian population through
military closures, but access is freely given to settlers? How about
the city of Hebron, where entire Palestinian neighborhoods have been
locked and shuttered by the Israeli Army in order to allow the militant
settlers unfettered access? Is this not apartheid? Perhaps the editors
have a better name for it.
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