Trying to identify the biggest myth is a little like trying
to decide which size circle is the most round. But you can’t identify Israel without myths.
Among the list is: A land without a people for a people
without a land. Neither side of that is true.
More Jews were living outside Israel, with success and respect, than
have ever lived in Israel, before or after the establishment of the state.[1] Nor was Palestine a land without people. In
fact, Israel brags about ethnically cleansing over 700,000 Palestinians from
their homes during the first year of establishing their state of Israel. Without doubt, A land without a people for a
people without a land was a big one. But, probably the most significant myth of
our day is the claim that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East.”
When I think of a democracy, warm feelings come to mind of a
nation seeking the best education, health care and well-being of all its
citizens. That has certainly been my experience. However, this is not true in
Israel and it is even less true for those trapped in the occupied territories
of the West Bank and Gaza.
When I think of a democracy I think of a land where every
man or woman has the right to vote, where anyone is free to live in any community,
buy any home they can afford, to send their children to a school of their
choice, to drive on the public highways, use the public library and be cared
for in a hospital in case of an emergency.
When I think of a democracy, I do not think of Israel where
none of these freedoms are respected. In Israel, half of the people living
under its military rule cannot vote,
I can imagine two major parties in Israel’s democracy; The
Zionist, the party in power, and the Palestinian “party”. However, in Israel’s
democracy, only one of these is privileged. The other, well:
The (privileged) regime allows even
the lowest-ranking soldier in the IDF to rule, and ruin their lives. They are
helpless if such a soldier, or his unit commander, decides to demolish their
homes, or hold them for hours at a checkpoint, or incarcerate them without
trial. There is nothing they can do.[2]
Some would say that a democracy has a responsibility to care
for the weakest and most needy among them.
Ilan Pappe says, “the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ behaves as a
dictatorship of the worst kind.”[3]
Of course, Israel says that all these undemocratic measures
are temporary. But, it has been temporary for fifty years, and more. In the
meantime, this only democracy in the Middle East continues to brutalize the
people under its control, including children, confining them to ghettoes, killing
and torturing them in Israeli jails, confiscating their land and stealing their
water.
Some democracy!
Thomas Are
June 20, 2017
Some democracy indeed!
ReplyDeleteTo quote an expert: Hendrik Verwoerd, then prime minister of South Africa and the architect of South Africa’s apartheid policies, 1961: “The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for over a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.” (Rand Daily Mail, November 23, 1961)
ReplyDelete“Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons. ‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state”
EXCERPT: “Similarities between the ‘original apartheid’ as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in ISRAEL [my emphasis] and the West Bank today ‘scream to the heavens,’ added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted.” (Times of Israel, February 21, 2013)
The U.S. State Department’s report on International Religious Freedom: “Arabs in Israel…are subject to various forms of discrimination [and the government] does not provide Israeli Arabs…with the same quality of education, housing, employment opportunities as Jews.”
In its 2015 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor acknowledges the “institutional and societal discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel.” (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor)
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015 Israel and The Occupied Territories
“Construction, Not Destruction”
“While Israeli Arabs constitute 20 percent of the population, Arab communities’ jurisdictions occupy just 2.5 percent of the state’s land area, and the process of approving new construction in Arab towns takes decades.” (Haaretz Editorial, April 4, 2017)
To the best of my knowledge, Israel is the only country in the world that differentiates between citizenship and nationality, i.e., “Israeli” nationality does not exist, only Jews and non-Jews, and each citizen carries an appropriate identity card. While the implications of this absurdity for discrimination and racism against non-Jews are obvious, it has been upheld by Israel’s Supreme Court.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyyUvxHLYr4
Israeli TV Host Implores Israelis: Wake Up and Smell the Apartheid
One example of apartheid within Israel:
“Jewish town won’t let Arab build home on his own land ”
Excerpt: “Aadel Suad first came to the planning and construction committee of the Misgav Local Council in 1997. Suad, an educator, was seeking a construction permit to build a home on a plot of land he owns in the community of Mitzpeh Kamon. The reply he got, from a senior official on the committee, was a memorable one. ‘Don’t waste your time,’ he reportedly told Suad. ‘We’ll keep you waiting for 30 years.’” (Haaretz, 14 December 2009)
The effect of Israel’s blatantly racist “Citizenship Law” and more than fifty other restrictions (http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-DatabaseIsrael's) Arab citizens have to endure is well expressed by writer and Knesset member, Ahmed Tibi, “…dutifully defining the state [of Israel] as ‘Jewish and democratic,’ ignores the fact that in practice ‘democratic’ refers to Jews, and the Arabs are nothing more than citizens without citizenship.” (Ma’ariv, 1.6.2005)