# US State Dept: Israel Treats Arabs like 2nd Class Citizens **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 20, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192 "2006-10-20T05:15:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/101 "2006-10-21T16:56:37Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] My mistake; you _did_ give a linear-scale number for Israel and 1970s South Africa, an 8. Of course now I’m curious what constitutes a 9 (halfway between Israel and Nazi Germany). [/QUOTE] I see you posted before I did. There doesn’t have to be a 9. This is a scale of Apartheidness, not general opression or ethnic violence, no? So stuff like Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Kampuchea don’t really rate so high, AFAIK, because theyre essentiall class genocide not race/ethnicity. AFAIK.. MAybe Stalinist Russia rates a 9, I here there was a lot of ethnic-related Gulag occupancy but no real “Final Solution”-type extermination there. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/102 "2006-10-21T16:59:17Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] So what the fuck was all that “Jew-lover” sarcasm about, then, if you were’nt perceiving me as anti-semitic? [/QUOTE] You perceived me as someone more careing of Jews than non-Jews, and said so in your post. Which was as silly an assumption as the one you are making your OP-- in both cases there are more reasonable explanations. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/103 "2006-10-21T17:08:07Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] That is just plain stupid. It’s **you’re** responsibility to prove that the assertion is correct, which you have failed to do. You offer one interpretation that might be correct but which certainly needn’t be correct and isn’t even likely to be so. Then you extrapolate one unnamed State Dept. official’s comment to mean “the State Dept.” and then you extrapolate what you claim to be a recognition of second class citizens to apartheid. You have proven **nothing** other than that you think Israel = bad. [/QUOTE] My interpretation _hasn’t_ been shown to be invalid. That’s good enough for me. The existence of alternative explanations doesn’t invalidate mine. Only something showing where my interpretation is actually wrong would do that, all you’re saying is that we both think what we think because of our own biases. > [@](#): > > You perceived me as someone more careing of Jews than non-Jews, and said so in your post. Which was as silly an assumption as the one you are making your OP-- in both cases there are more reasonable explanations. It was a snarky comment because I always see 6 million rather than a more accurate figure (allowing for extermination method, of course - see, I do learn). That hardly equates to “Filthy Jew-lover”, which you’ll have to admit comes from the phrasebook of the anti-semite, which I am certainly not. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/104 "2006-10-21T17:20:40Z")
Oh, and here’s a little math lesson. If Israel is an 8 or 9 on a log scale compared to Nazi Germany’s 10, then Israel is a 0.1 or a 1.0 on linear scale. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/105 "2006-10-22T01:11:30Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] …and that’s where you lose me [/QUOTE] Were you under the impression the Palestinians _were_ Israeli citizens, or that they wanted to be? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/106 "2006-10-22T05:59:16Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] I’d say the blame is shared equally between Israel and the neigbouring states - so that Israel shares…ermm, 1/5 of the blame, is it? While Israel _is_ _better than its neighbours_ by a long chalk (although I had some hopes for Lebanon), this doesn’t give it a pass on the shit it does do. [/QUOTE] It needs a pass for giving its Arab citizens and their offspring citizenship but for not giving Arabs from out of the country citizenship? Wow. Just wow. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/107 "2006-10-22T07:29:21Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Oh, and here’s a little math lesson. If Israel is an 8 or 9 on a log scale compared to Nazi Germany’s 10, then Israel is a 0.1 or a 1.0 on linear scale. [/QUOTE] Only on log base 10. But I meant it informally and you know it. All I meant was that the jump from 8-9 (Apartheid) to 10 (Extermination camps) was a vast one, whereas 7-8 (jim Crow-era states) to apartheid wasn’t that great. But continue the pointless nitpick, and refuse to address the meat of the issue. > [@](#): > > Were you under the impression the Palestinians were Israeli citizens, or that they wanted to be? Neither, AFAIK. _They_ want to be _Palestinian_ citizens in a non-occupied Palestine, is how I see it. Of course, for a sizeable percentage of them, that unoccupied Palestine includes current Israel, and\* that isn’t right\*. But at the moment, they are “citizens” (that’s sarcasm, BTW) of a non-state where, really, Israel calls all the shots. So yeah, a Bantustan. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/108 "2006-10-22T09:39:26Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] Neither, AFAIK. _They_ want to be _Palestinian_ citizens in a non-occupied Palestine, is how I see it. Of course, for a sizeable percentage of them, that unoccupied Palestine includes current Israel, and\* that isn’t right\*. But at the moment, they are “citizens” (that’s sarcasm, BTW) of a non-state where, really, Israel calls all the shots. [/QUOTE] Considering the underlined portion, and considering that the “sizeable percentage” includes their elected leadership… what would you have us do? Specifically, what would be the _smart_ (and not “_right_”) course of action? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/109 "2006-10-22T10:43:45Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Considering the underlined portion, and considering that the “sizeable percentage” includes their elected leadership… what would you have us do? Specifically, what would be the _smart_ (and not “_right_”) course of action? [/QUOTE] Give them complete sovereignity over their own territory (all their territory), and then seal your borders, I guess. Affirmative Action within Israel for Israeli Arabs. Relax the immigration ban for Palestinian spouses of Israelis. Basically, I don’t think you’re in the wrong with dealing with your security issues, I think you’ve taken it a little to far in regards the ingrained discrimination, though, and the way you deal with the OTs. Give it back. Give it all back. Sure, some settlements will have to be given up. That’s the knock your hardliners will have to take. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/110 "2006-10-22T10:47:36Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] It needs a pass for giving its Arab citizens and their offspring citizenship but for not giving Arabs from out of the country citizenship? Wow. Just wow. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure of the reason for your surprise. Israel prevaricates on what is and is not part of Israel. With control comes responsibility, in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/111 "2006-10-22T10:49:07Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Considering the underlined portion, and considering that the “sizeable percentage” includes their elected leadership… what would you have us do? Specifically, what would be the _smart_ (and not “_right_”) course of action? [/QUOTE] This is an interesting comment. If it’s all about what’s smart and not what’s right, why do you even bother defending Israel’s position when someone accuses it of doing things that are not right? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/112 "2006-10-22T11:24:26Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] This is an interesting comment. If it’s all about what’s smart and not what’s right, why do you even bother defending Israel’s position when someone accuses it of doing things that are not right? [/QUOTE] Because pragmatic people have to balance what is right with what is smart - and in matters of life and death, the latter weighs much more heavily. I can assume I know what he thinks is right. I’m interested in in reading what he - and you - think is smart. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/113 "2006-10-22T12:58:54Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Because pragmatic people have to balance what is right with what is smart - and in matters of life and death, the latter weighs much more heavily. I can assume I know what he thinks is right. I’m interested in in reading what he - and you - think is smart. [/QUOTE] As the Irishman said when asked directions to Cork, “Well now, if it’s Cork you’re wantin’ to be goin’ to, you wouldn’t be startin’ from here.” Smart is not living in a religious and cultural powderkeg. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2006, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192/114 "2006-10-22T13:07:59Z")
[shrug] It’s home. Besides, I like it here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-state-dept-israel-treats-arabs-like-2nd-class-citizens/377192.md?page=5)