Apartheid in Israel

by Jehovah Tue May 27, 2003 09:40

The Zionist "statesmen" ridicule the sacred oath which the Creator placed upon the Jews in the Diaspora. Our Torah, in Tractate Ksubos, folio 111, specifies that the Creator, blessed be He, swore the Jews not to occupy the Holy Land by force, even if it appears that they have the force to do so; and not rebel against the Nations. And the Creator warned that if His oath be desecrated, Jewish flesh would be "open property", like the animals in the forest!! These are words of our Torah; and these concepts have been cited in Maimonides' "Igeres Teimon", "Be'er HaGola", "Ahavas Yehonosson", and in "Toras Moshe" of the Chasam Sofer.

by Gaillimhed Tue May 27, 2003 09:34

"Zionism is wrong from the Torah viewpoint, not because many of its adherents are lax in practice or even anti-religious, but because its fundamental principle conflicts with the Torah".

"Zionism is heresy and the existence of the so-called "State of Israel" is illegitimate".

www.jewsnotzionists.org

by Gaillimhed Tue May 27, 2003 09:28

The term Anti-Semitic really is more confusing than helpful. It is used by many to mean Anti-Jewish and is used by the Anti Defamation League and the mainstream press as an interchangeable term which it is not. Semitic is not a religious but a racial term identifying peoples sharing specific languages in the Middle East, West Asia and East Africa. Many modern Jews have racial origins in Eastern Europe and are therefore not Semitic, yet they are presumably just as Jewish as Semitic Jews.

The term Anti-Semitic is of little use now, here’s one reason why: since the influx of non-Semitic Jewish migrants to Israel there are more Semitic Arabs than Jews in the Middle East.

The World Bible Publishing 'Short Dictionary of Life and Peoples of Bible Times' gives the following description under the Semites entry: a group of nations, who, starting about 3000BC, appeared in Western Asia, south of modern Armenia and west of Iran. Semite nations included Babylonians, Assyrians, Syrians, Canaanites, Isrealites, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites.

The term 'Anti-Semitic' as Avi uses it, is an ignorant slur with no basis in fact or reason.

by Semitic Mon May 26, 2003 22:39

Well,some 1400 years ago the Arabs owned only the Arab Peninsula,but since then they have conquered most of the Middle East and North Africa:
1]Egypt-Land of the Copts,the descendents of the Ancient Egyptians.While conquering Egypt the Arabs have destroyed the library of Alexandria and tried but failed to destroy the Pyramids.
Today 12 million Copts live in Egypt,which is called "The Arab Republic of Egypt" .The Egyptians are an Afro-Asiatic people,just like the Semitic,Cushitic,Chadic and Berber peoples,and sadly they are occupied by Arabs,whose ancesetral land is the Arab Peninsula.
2]Iraq-Iraq is the land of the Assyrians,who mostly live in the diaspora.
They hope to live in an independent Assyrian Christian country and to return to their ancient city Ninve.Their land is occupied by 4 countries:Syria,Iraq,Iran and Turkey.
Other native peoples under Arab rule:
Berbers in North Africa,Southern Black Sudanese in Sudan,Maronites and descendents of Phoenicians in Lebanon,Sharawis in Western Sahara under Arab Morrocan occupation,Speakers of South Arabian languages[Mehri,Harsusi] in Oman who face linguacide and Arabization.
The Arabs have almost succeeded to conquer the Whole Middle East and Africa.The Jews are the only native people who overcame the Arab invasion and succeeded to achieve independence in its land.
The problem with the people here is that instead of supporting native peoples in the Middle East who aspire to fend off the Arab invaders and regain independence[Assyrians,Berbers,Copts,Sharawis,black Sudanese,Hebrews] you fall for the Arabs' lies that the Middle east is their land,that their land is somehow stolen.Maybe look at this map and see how the Middle East looked like in the past,and maybe you'll understand that the Arabs are the major colonizers and imperialists in the world and that the Native peoples of the Middle East need your support.http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history%5Fmiddle%5Feast.html

by mick Mon May 26, 2003 20:11

I wonder what would happen if I was a Palestinian and wanted to spend some time with Israelis. Why don't you go to a Palestinian refugee camp for a little while that might straighten you out.

by avi H. Mon May 26, 2003 19:42

Just as other countries give humanitarian aid in disasters, for example, earthquakes, so does Israel. Israel doesn't just help Jews in need, although it is a Zionist state. The level of discrimination against Ehiopians in Israel is not massive, however, anti-Israel people will seize on any little thing they can find to bolster their case. Generally, they and other minorities are well treated.

This includes Arabs, and the only real differences between Jews and muslims is due to the Zionist character of the state. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect anything else. If Arabs want to live in their own state, there are 23 other countries not very far away that they can go to. That doesn't apply to Jews, however: there is no other state they can go to. Again, anti-Israel people will seize on this, but actually, it just shows their ignorance of the real Israel. You ought to go there, folks, spend time among Israelis and get your facts straight.

by Gaillimhed Mon May 26, 2003 16:59

from an interview with Phyllis Bennis, a longtime analyst and activist around Middle East issues, now head of the Middle East Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

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.

rest of the interview can be accessed at
http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story_web00_04.html

by kokomero Mon May 26, 2003 14:36

The very Ethiopian and Eritrean Jews Hah and others make such a noise about are the victims of discrimination in their own adoptive country, due to their skin colour, as has been shown by other posters.

Obviously Israel is a great place if you are Jewish and white. I take it that Avi and the other Israeli posters on this site fall into this category given their rose-tinted view of their home country.

by mick Mon May 26, 2003 13:43

"israel was trying to save some Jews in need." That might sound o.k if you're a zionist- just don't crow about it to the rest of the world as if it was an act of humanity. How did the Israelis react to a humanitarian crisis? Did they rescue children first perhaps or maybe the people in most immediate danger? Either of those responses would have been humanitarian . But no, the Zionists chose to save people solely on the basis of whether they were jewish or not.
Why should anybody who isn't jewish be impressed?

by kokomero Mon May 26, 2003 13:11

The Israel Democracy Institute presented its 2003 "Democracy Index" at a conference on 23 May 2003. The Index concludes that "Israel is not a substantive democracy" and notes that "more than half (53%) of the Jews in Israel state out loud that they are against full equality for the Arabs; 77% say there should be a Jewish majority on crucial political decisions; less than a third (31%) support having Arab political parties in the government; and the majority (57%) think that the Arabs should be encouraged to emigrate".

by Hah Mon May 26, 2003 13:02

Hahah, the anti-Israel people here are pretty funny. They throw away all logic imaginable, and when that doesn't work, the really obsessed ones just lie outright.

Israel is not an apartheid state. Every citizen of Israel has the right to work, vote and more or less do whatever they want. There are Israeli muslim arabs who are in the Israel government as we speak, democratically elected there like everyone else in Israel.

Not even CLOSE to apartheid south africa.

If you want to yell about modern-day apartheid, point to saudia arabia, where it's illegal to even BE a jewish citizen.

As for Israel and Palestinians, yelling "apartheid" just makes you look ignorant. For 35 years Palestinians have been lead by Yasser Arafat, so for 35 years the Israeli "occupation" has continued. Israel offered to end it many times in the past in exchange for peace. Is that what "apartheid" states do? Palestinains always responded to peace offers by continuing to attack Israel. FOr 35 years it hasn't worked, and just 3 years ago Israel offered Palestinians a state yet again in exchange for peace, and Palestinians began their latest intifada.

Well, all the intifada has done is force Israel to clamp down on a lot more land then they had been before. THe palestinian intifada has been totally self-destructive. That's why they're now willing to accept the same offer that Israel made a few years ago that Palestinians rejected.

When Yasser Arafat is your leader, you aren't going to do well. While Israeli leaders are democratically elected and change every few years, Arafat has been the solitary Palestinian leader for 35 years. THat's the problem.

And, the anti-Israel comments above are a JOKE. You Israel haters are a MOCKERY of yourselves. First you yell that Israel is racist. WHen it's pointed out that Israel is NOT racist, that they have citizens of every race, that they even saved black ethiopian jews and air-lifted them to israel, the anti-israel loser above then says "well why didn't israel lift out the non-jewish ethiopians." What kind of idiotic, moot point is that? Israel was trying to save some jews in need, because no one else was. Why in hell would you be against that?

Again, peole who yell "racism!" and "apartheid" have a lot of other countries they should be pointing out before they even think of mentioning Israel.

It's rather sad that the anti-israel people have to make clowns of themselves to try to make their points. Maybe they should reconsider and shift their attention elsewhere.

by Gaillimhed Mon May 26, 2003 10:04

http://indymedia.org.il/imc/webcast/57364.html

by mick Sat May 24, 2003 13:24

Well Avi,if there were no Ethiopians of Irish decent, by Zionist criteria of humanity, the Irish gvt would be justified in not rescuing any Ethiopians.

by Avi H. Sat May 24, 2003 13:02

The idiocy of it can be seen instantly by asking an equivalent one: How many non-Jewish Ethiopians did the Irish government rescue? Or Jewish Ethiopians, for that matter?

by mick Sat May 24, 2003 12:26

How many non -jewish ethiopians did Israel rescue?

by Patrick Fri May 23, 2003 22:15

In the case of Israel, as with South Africa, moral outrage comes more easily. A developing world people is being oppressed by the rightwing government of a modern capitalist country, backed by the US. Territory is being occupied by armed forces, which brings back memories of colonialism. The ideal of a Jewish state smacks of racism. Moreover, the Israeli prime minister looks, and often behaves, like a thug out of central casting. The suffering and humiliation of Palestinians is plain to see.

And yet the comparison with South Africa is intellectually lazy, morally questionable, and possibly even mendacious. Boycotters of South Africa believed that the apartheid system made the government illegitimate. This, after all, was a state which deprived the majority of its people of civil rights because of the colour of their skin. Whatever one thinks of the efficacy of boycotting as a tactic, isolating South Africa was a political act in favour of democracy. The abolition of apartheid restored the legitimacy of the South African state.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but the campaigners for a boycott against Israel are not challenging the legitimacy of the Israeli government. They are against Israeli policies in occupied areas, which is a different thing. Inside the state of Israel, there is no apartheid. In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest minority within its borders of any country in the Middle East. The official figure for Copts in Egypt is 10%. Non-Jews, mostly Arab Muslims, make up 20% of the Israeli population, and they enjoy full citizen's rights. Israel is one of the few Middle Eastern states where Muslim women are allowed to vote.

Certainly, Israeli Arabs are not always treated well, though not nearly as badly as the Egyptian Copts, or the few Jews left in the Muslim world. Israeli Arab towns are neglected and, particularly since the latest intifada, public suspicion has led to social discrimination. To make things worse, some politicians make no secret of their desire to remove the Arabs from Israel altogether. But apartheid, however satisfying it is for the morally outraged to think so, it is not.

There are perfectly good reasons to disagree with Israel's policies in the occupied areas. Killing Palestinians to protect Jewish settlements which should never have been there in the first place is difficult to condone. But this is a terrible reason for boycotting the very people who are likely to share one's disgust. And if military policies in disputed areas were a legitimate reason for such boycotts, there would be no more academic links with many places in the world - and I don't mean just dictatorships.

A more apt comparison with Israeli policies would be India's war in Kashmir. There, too, the victims are mostly Muslims. There is a long history of oppression, bad faith and stupid decisions. And the scale of the violence is much worse. Far more Muslims have been killed or tortured by the Indian army than by the Israeli defence forces. Dozens of Kashmiri victims - the number of people killed in Jenin - would not even reach the news. And if you think Kashmir is brutal, what about Chechnya?

But India and Russia are not litmus tests. Moral outrage against their governments is not a badge of being progressive. No one is proposing a boycott of universities in Delhi or St Petersburg. I can think of one or two reasons for these double standards, but whatever they are, I believe that they tell us more about the boycotters than about the subjects of their rage.

by Better late than never Fri May 23, 2003 21:30

Three months ago,all the members of an Ethiopian and Eritrean refugee group have finally been granted temporary residency by the State of Israel.On 16 February 2003 the last refugee from the petitioning group received his Identity Card, and thus he, along with the others, were granted basic social services and rights.

by Milen Fri May 23, 2003 21:07

Israel flew over 14,000 Ethiopian Falashas to homes, schools, and medical care in 1991.
Ethiopia's history extends back over two thousand years. The ancient Greek poet Homer considered it to be blessed by the gods, but in the past decades Ethiopia has known political and natural disasters of tragic proportions.

In 1974, its emperor was overthrown by the military, which was followed by regional wars, terrible droughts and devastating famines. By 1985 over one million people died, and Ethiopia was one of the poorest countries in the world. By 1990, much of the food aid that was sent to it was being intercepted by unfriendly armed forces.

In the spring of 1991, armed forces advancing on the capital put trapped civilians in peril. In the midst of this dire situation, Israeli officials called on the U.S. government to help. American authorities convinced the rebels to allow the black Jews of Ethiopia (known as Falashas) to be rescued. During May 24th and 25th, 14,324 Ethiopians were airlifted aboard thirty-four El-Al jets in just over thirty-six hours. This dramatic exodus to Israel was known as Operation Solomon.

Eight babies were born on board.

The vast differences in culture and habits between the agrarian Ethiopians and the westernized Israelis presented many unique challenges to both the new immigrants and the Israeli society wishing to absorb them. Nevertheless, there are many welcome signs of adaptation and success. By 1996, the Ethiopian community had representation in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

The Israeli government continues to advocate, both publicly and privately, for the reunification of remaining Ethiopians with their relatives in Israel.

by Lam from Vietnam Fri May 23, 2003 21:04

When Vietnam refugees took to the seas, Israel was among the first to give sanctuary.

On July 19, 1977 on the White House lawn, the following exchange took place between U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin:

President Carter:
"I was particularly impressed that the first official action of his [Prime Minister Begin's] government was to admit into Israel 66 homeless refugees from Vietnam who had been floating around in the oceans of the world excluded by many nations who are their neighbors, who had been picked up by an Israeli ship and to whom he gave a home. It was an act of compassion…. typifying the historic struggle of the people of Israel."

Prime Minister Begin:
"….It was a natural act to us, Mr. President. We remembered, we never have forgotten, the boat with 900 Jews [The St. Louis] having left Germany in the last weeks before the Second World War… traveling from harbor to harbor, from country to country, crying out for refuge. They were refused… Therefore it was natural that my first act as prime minister was to give those people a haven in the land of Israel."

After decades of civil war, thousands of Vietnamese fled in desperation to escape political persecution and torture. Often, they escaped in small unseaworthy boats.

Risking starvation, dehydration, drowning and disease, many refugees were blown off course. Many suffered at the hands of pirates who robbed, raped and killed them. When attempting to land at bordering countries, they were usually turned away and sent back out to sea.

One episode particularly stands out. On June 10, 1977, an Israeli cargo ship came across a boatful of 66 Vietnamese men, women and children. Denied entry by other countries, they were out of food, dehydrated, weak, and lost. The boat was leaking. In spite of desperate SOS signals, ships from East Germany, Norway, Japan and Panama had passed them by.

The Israeli captain and crew immediately brought all the passengers on board.

by Mac Fri May 23, 2003 16:21

they did not import the Ethiopians, they rescued them in an airlift during a bloody civil war.

by Avi H. Fri May 23, 2003 15:40

pontificating about Israel and the Jews when they know so little about them, don't care to find out and won't be told that they are ignorant, either. And that's when we are not dealing with outright racists.

by lady Macbeth Fri May 23, 2003 13:01

Why?

Same as any imperialist state (including our own little racist green isle),
to staff the lowest paid shittest jobs that the natives feel are beneath them.

A little bit of racism affords one the luxury of having your hands washed by a nigerian asylum seeker in the nightclub toilets.

by jews are racist Thu May 22, 2003 18:14

I get emails from a zionist jew and according to him the jews built a monument to honour dr baruch goldstein who machine gunned lots of arabs.

Jews look after their own unlike race traitor whites like you who they encourage in that path.

www.jewishtribalreview.org

by mac Thu May 22, 2003 18:04

The falashas, or Ethiopian Jews, were airlifted to safety to Israel in the 1980's during the civil war in Ethiopia.

by Idi Thu May 22, 2003 18:03

Last week, the Jewish affairs weekly, The Forward, reported that a leading Conservative rabbi in Israel was charging two Orthodox kibbutzim in Israel with discrimination after they refused to admit two Ugandan Jews to their Hebrew language programs. The director of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, Rabbi Andrew Sacks, alleged that the two East Africans -- members of the Abayudaya community of 600 Ugandans whose forefathers embraced Judaism in 1919 -- were not allowed into the classes because they were black. "We have had a myriad of problems with the Interior Ministry in regards to persons of color," Sacks stated. "Virtually every Conservative convert that was a person of color was immediately suspect."

The link between African America and Israel's African Jewry is more than a matter of shared style and global popular culture. In Operations Moses and Solomon in 1984 and 1991, over thirty thousand Ethiopian Jews were airlifted from their East African land of birth to Israel. Eleven years hence, and despite government policies of affirmative action (such as tuition-wavers for Ethiopian university students, and favorable mortgage terms) the situation of Ethiopian Jews, who make up one percent of the Israeli population, remains grave. A report earlier this summer in the Christian Science Monitor stated: "The gap between black and white Israelis seems, with some exceptions, to be growing. For Ethiopians, it is visible in impoverished neighborhoods, soaring unemployment, and the highest high-school dropout rate of any Jewish group in Israel. Twenty-six percent of Ethiopian youths have either dropped out or do not show up for classes most of the time, raising concerns that the community's current difficulties may become chronic. Drug use, including glue-sniffing, is on the rise, and criminal activity, hardly known among Ethiopians before they came to Israel, has been growing." Ethiopians, according to various reports, are the poorest of Israel's Jews: 77 percent of Ethiopian adults are unemployed, and 72 percent of Ethiopian immigrant children grow up in families that are living below the official poverty line.

by Ali H. Thu May 22, 2003 17:32

Avi go back to oiling your Galil for your next massacre (I mean collateral damage) ... that's about all you're good for.

by crunch Thu May 22, 2003 17:09

the space was opened for someone to remind all of those airlifts.
now a link to the story?
what the Israeli state and Israeli people did to help those of Ethopia, Sudan and Eritrea.
it happened just about the same time as the Irish people watched the bigpopconcert.

Why did the airlifts end?

by Mac Thu May 22, 2003 16:46

Israel airlifted and rescued black Jews from ethiopia. You people hate the Jews so much, that when the Jews do a humanitarian color blind act like that, you still demonize them. Next lets hear how Jews poison wells and sacrafice little children. Right out Mein Kampt, Der Sturmer and the anti Jewish playbook.

by Avi H. Thu May 22, 2003 16:16

By the way, 'It's the Jews at it again' is pretty damn anti-Semitic. But I am the only one to notice the obvious??

by Avi H. Thu May 22, 2003 14:52

Same old, same old. The comparison is stupid and inaccurate and serve your biased agenda. It's just the politics of slogans and name-calling: as such, totally useless.

by No to zionist war Thu May 22, 2003 14:37

www.nowarfroisrael.com

www.heretical.co.uk has a story about the murder of palestinians in the uk!

by IPSC Thu May 22, 2003 13:26 supportpalestine at ireland dot com

"Behind the Fence" will be broadcast on BBC 2 on Sunday, 25 May, at 7.15pm.

More info at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/3015081.stm

by kokomero Thu May 22, 2003 12:21

Iosaf I remember taking part in numerous anti-apartheid demos too, and in some ways what is happening to the Palestinians is worse than what the Apartheid regieme perpetrated on Black South Africans.

Certainly it cannot be said that the Apartheid regieme used F16s, helicopter gunships and missiles in urban areas with complete disregard for civilian casualties although their police and army were certainly no less brutal than the Israelis.

One thing the Apartheid regieme never did was to imprison people into these bantustans depriving them of all sources of income, given their reliance on cheap black labour.

By contrast the Israelis have created bantustans, stunted their political and economic development, cut them off from any sort of income, sealed them within their own borders, and in fact are attempting now with the exclusion of ISM and journalists to cut off the Palestinian population completely from the outside world, ensuring that Israeli mayhem and murder remains secret.

For me, Rahan Cohens article explains in detail the mechanics of how the Israelis are implementing their Anschluss of the West-bank and their Endloesung for the Palestinian "problem".

I agree with the poster Mazin that the nature of and motives behind the construction of this wall are not well known and deserve more publicity and debate.

by iosaf remembers. Thu May 22, 2003 12:01

I slept outside an Embassy in London for it, and I listened to great minds speak at length about it as a teenager. So I open file and expect to read something related to Apartheid. Perhaps a nod to the relations between Apartheid South Africa and Apartheid Rhodesia and Israel, or at a long chance maybe a wink at teh treatment of Ethopian, Eritrean and other immigrants to Israel from Africa, but instead I find this article and link.

I am disappointed.