(This doesn’t seem to be very widely reported, so I’m having trouble digging up better information. If anyone has the details, I’d appreciate cites. I have found references to the outcry, etc., but no details on the bill itself.)
So it seems that Sharon and some of his cohorts want to pass a bill authorizing “Jewish-only” cities, keeping away the numerous Israeli Arabs that seem to bother them so much.
Seems awfully hypocritical to me, but I’m hoping that I’m just misinformed. Is there any justification for this, other than blatant racism?
Ironic, isn’t it? I suppose the next step would be restrict Israeli Arabs to special “Arab only” sections of the citites, and making them walk around with red cresents on their sleeves. At least, until some one can find a final solution to the Arab question.
Slate has a fuller discussion here, with summaries of and links to reactions in the Israeli press (which are apparently mostly though not uniformly very critical of the idea, e.g., calling it “a blatant declaration of the effective collapse of Israeli democracy”).
I haven’t read the details of the bill either, but it sounds like a serious injustice. “Hypocritical” may not be quite the right word, except perhaps that Israel generally likes to point out that it by and large treats its Arab citizens equally with its Jewish ones, in contrast to the way Jews have been treated in a number of Arab states.
I agree this is a very bad move, and will in all probability not stand up to the Israeli courts. I agree that Israeli Arabs are treated like second class citizens sometimes, and I agree that this should be remedied. But, at most, this is a political move by the National Religious Party during war time to get their way in a cabinet which will fall pretty soon. It is a move during war time that would be unthinkable during peace time, much like what we have seen in the US in the past 9 months.
It is a truly ugly thing, perpetuated by those who are using convenient politics to get their way at the expense of a Democratic Israel. But, at heart, it is a political gesture which will never stand a court test.
OP: not quite right. The only reason they want to pass the law is to overturn a court decision that said that the practice of the Jewish Agency (a quasi-governmental body that owns approximately 90% of the land within the borders of Israel proper [i.e., not including the occupied territories]) was illegal.
The status quo was that non-Jewish Israelis were not permitted to lease land from the Agency. An Israeli Arab challenged that in court, the practice (which has been Jewish Agency policy since before Israeli independence) was determined to be illegal, and now Sharon and a lot of his cabinet want to go back to the status quo.
The “Jewish only” policies of the Agency are nothing new. Given the quasi-governmental nature of the Agency, such policies go a long way in explaining why the original Zionism=Racism resolutions were adopted in the early 70s.
What is amazing is that the majority of North Americans are ignorant about this practice.
That’s the type of sentiment I would expect from a country that we consider to be closely aligned to us. Even a hard-liner like Sharon has talked about co-existence with Palestine in the past. Now he can’t even co-exist with his own citizens, if they happen to be Arab.
It still seems hypocritical for a nation that has bemoaned prejudice against them for such a long period of time (rightfully so, in a large number of cases), to then turn around and governmentally endorse prejudice. I am happy to see that there is quite a bit of outcry in Israel regarding this decision, so maybe there’s some hope after all.
Bryan,
Even though many Israeli newspapers agree with me, I have no issue with dropping that particular word, as that’s hardly the worse thing I’m saying about their government in this situation. Hell, I’d much rather be considered a hypocrite than a racist. Would you care to elaborate why you don’t think it’s hypocritical? Better yet, if you support the bill, would you care to share your reasons?
bagkitty,
Thanks for the additional information. I’ve slowly been finding new sources so I can draw better conclusions.
I questioned the use of the word “hypocritical” in the OP because nothing you originally said gave evidence that Israel was acting in a manner counter to its stated beliefs, especially since you didn’t bother to give details or links to what prompted you to start this thread in the first place. The word “hypocritical” gets thrown around a lot on GD, many times incorrectly.
You are confusing the Israeli Cabinet with the Jewish people. The Cabinet made a bad decision, as do government bodies all around the world, and that decision is rightly being challenged in the courts and in the press. This decision doesn’t even come close to invalidating the Jewish claim on being the victims of systematic violence for decades (or centuries) and I find your linking of the two to be, at best, a kneejerk response taken without thinking. I’m not sure that you are drawing conclusions as much as jumping to them.
As for the particulars, I’ll say again that this is a bad decision, and can only create more division among Isreali citizens, and not just ethnically. At this stage, however, it remains just a bill that has gained the approval of the cabinet. As I understand it, the bill will have no legal strength until and unless the legislature votes to support it. Even then, it faces court challenges.
You’re of course free to challenge Israeli government decisions, as are the Israeli citizens and press, but as soon as you try to raise the spectre of a grieving holocaust survivor, you start to lose credibility. The issues are related, but they are not the same, and one does not invalidate the other.
I couldn’t give details or links, because I couldn’t find the printed source in which I originally read the article, and most media outlets didn’t seem to think this issue was worth covering. I did a search on CNN and Reuters before posting but found nothing. I stated as much in the OP. I did find an archived article on the JPost website, but it required a fee to access. I did ask for more information, but the article I read seemed sufficient for me to come to my original conclusion.
No, I blamed Sharon and his cohorts, not the Jewish people. I was very happy to see (and post) that a large number of Jewish people were strongly against this.
I felt this was more than just a “bad decision”, which is something that governments make all the time.
Care to share with me where I made any such statements? I said that the Jews have bemoaned prejudice over a long period of time. I also said they have been right in a large number of cases. Nothing about invalidating their claims, etc.
Since I never mentioned, inferred, or even thought about the holocaust in relation to this issue, while you did bring it up, who gets to lose credibility?
I was pointing out the fact that Israel is a democratic society, where all are treated equally under the Declaration of Independence, yet the government is doing quite the opposite. Period.
CNN and Reuters hardly constitute “most media outlets”. With a simple google search of “israel cabinet arab land”, I found this BBC article dated last Monday on this topic. Incidentally, an editorial titled “Israel’s step backward” appeared on page B2 of Friday’s Montreal Gazette. Media-bashing is old hat, and the fact that something doesn’t get screaming headlines from every outlet doesn’t mean the issue has been widely dismissed or ignored.
There’s a rather serious contradiction in these statements, though it depends entirely on what you mean by “a long period of time”. Did you mean one year, or ten, or twenty? Such a vague phrase could easily mean 60 years, and there are people still alive who have memories going back this far. I don’t know of a specific post-WW2 moment when anti-Jewish prejudice abruptly started, so how far back does your “long period of time” extend? Strictly speaking, one could trace prejudice back to ancient Egypt, but to keep the discussion reasonably grounded, one may as fall back on the most significant Jewish events in living memory, and those would be the holocaust of WW2 and the founding of Israel in 1948.
The upshot of all this is: if you want to discuss a serious topic, don’t use vague phrases. Or at least don’t act surprised when someone points out how the phrases are damaging to the tone of your argument.
I still don’t see “hypocritical” being an applicable term. “Unconstitutional”, sure. If anything, it should be compared to the interment of Japanese citizens in the United States, also during WW2. Wartime prompts all variety of bad ideas that create more problems than they solve. I’m hoping the Israeli legislature will shoot this idea down, and that it will continue to be blasted in the press. The actions of the cabinet are reprehensible and likely illegal, but that is irrelevant to whatever they have “bemoaned” or the very real horrors visited on Jews in the last century.
As for my “such a long period of time” reference, I was thinking throughout their history, as in many centuries.
As for the other issue, I hate trotting out definitions, but I don’t see any way around it.
hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
The Declaration of Independence (a government document, I presume) professes equality for all.
The government, with this bill, is demonstrating that they don’t actually possess those virtues.
Any questions?
Now can we get back to the question at hand, namely is there any justification for this, one that would make sense to anyone who actually believes in the message excerpted from their Declaration?
This government didn’t write that declaration, they inherited it from a previous government. The word “hypocrisy” doesn’t apply (though, again, “unconstitutional” might). If you could find a recent statement (by which I mean in the last ten years or so) of one of the 17 cabinet members in which Arab Israeli rights are defended, you might have a case for hypocrisy.
Many centuries, hmm? And you “never mentioned, inferred, or even thought about the holocaust”. Riiiiiight… (besides, it’s “implied”, not “inferred”).
Putting that aside, since no-one is (yet) arguing that the cabinet’s move was a good one, it’s so far a rather relaxed debate.
Oooh, I feel so tempted to make a pit-worthy comment. But I can only go by what the OP actually says, not what he/she is thinking. So far, I’m unimpressed.
If passed, the policy is useless, since it only antagonizes large segments of the Israeli population (including Jewish segments) and does not promise to significantly increase internal security. One of the many unfortunate aspects of being at war is that governments have to be seen to be taking steps, even if no useful steps are possible. From a strictly amoral viewpoint, it might be useful to support such legislation as a means of mollifying and appeasing the more extreme elements of the Israeli government. Trouble is, appeasing them is a temporary solution at best.
Well, I’m trying my darnedest to actually debate the issue by introducing a (very) weak “pro” position. So far, everyone (including me) is opposed to the legislation and what it represents. Funny thing is, I don’t accept the false dichotomy offered by the OP to the point where I would call the action one of pure racism. Desperation and cheap politics, sure. Pure racism? Nah.
Ekers you’re on to something, as far as Sharon goes anyway. The man is extremely racist, probably guilty of war crimes in Labanon, Sharon happy condoned the non-lethal ethnic cleansing Isreal commited when they told tens of thousnds of palestinian to leave their homes or suffer violence or death. It was a systematic push lead by the zionists in Isreal to recapure the ‘homeland’, too bad Palestine was home to Palestinians for thousands of years since the zionist’s mythical ‘homeland’, right?
So there is no hypocracy in Sharons actions, he is a shallow and violent beast, sadly he is likely the product of his enviroment, I pity him condesending kind of way.
;j I’m not an anti-semite for you paranoid religious people. I simply oppose the departure from reality thats is characteristic of all religion.