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LadyEllen -> RE: Israel is a racist state, says Iranian president (5/23/2009 7:36:47 AM)
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Well, not quite the number predicted, but not a bad page count all in all.
Rather more successfully predicted though was the usual entrenchment of opposing viewpoints, characterised as usual by the overused and often unwarranted premise that criticism of the state of Israel equates with anti-semitism. The subject matter deals with access to and the accordance of equal rights to all, and secondarily, with the nature (for good and ill) of multiculturalism in the modern state – we could here discuss any other state and find items for debate no doubt, (Iran being an excellent example), concerning these two points – and whether these two items are innately rightful or bestowed notions with some agency having the power to deny, grant, withdraw or amend them as it sees fit.
However, the Israel/Palestine situation being a disproportionately large influence in world politics and representing much of the raison d’etre for Islamic outrage and antipathy, as well as the fact that the Iranian president brought the subject up, Israel is the nation under discussion – and indeed it is in the resolution of this particular debate over the nature of the state of Israel in relation to the world and especially in relation to its own non-Jewish citizens and those whom were displaced in its creation and subsequent evolution that we must begin to undo that Islamic outrage and antipathy with a view to a better future for all, not just those located in that region.
But we shall not accomplish this end should we choose to dig trenches and hurl missiles in the debate in a rather bizarre emulation of the more extreme examples of the situation on the ground, nor indeed shall we do should we refuse to engage in the subject matter in hand. And we shall certainly not achieve such a resolution should we choose to ignore the nature of that situation, utterly convicted of the fallacy that any admission of the facts presented by our adversary represents a victory of the unpalatable extremism to be found on both sides and which too often dictates the debate and condemns the possibility for truth, reconciliation and solution.
So, with regard to the facts, let us consider the premise that Israel is a racist state. In doing so however let us first avoid the endless debates over what is racist and indeed whether racism can exist, given that we are one species. We shall here use the legal notion of racism and racist, taken to indicate that on grounds of ethnicity some people deserve fewer rights or none at all, are entitled to lesser protections or none at all under the law and (variously) this is justified and rightful owing to either the supposed innate inferiority of one group against whom racism is perpetrated and/or the supposed innate superiority of another group which perpetrates the racism.
Alongside that in this instance we must consider and establish whether the Jewish population of Israel (here indicted as the source of and perpetrators of racism as the majority group in the electorate and thus definers of the state of Israel), do indeed represent a race in the terms described. This is at best a difficult argument to make – Jewish people to some extent may share sufficient distinctive genetic inheritance such that whatever their apparent race they can be taken to be one people; however whilst such may be easier to demonstrate when dealing with Jews of European origin (for example), we must also consider that Jewry includes a whole host of ethnic groups that could by no means be considered possible to include in a single racial group in these terms. Therefore, inasmuch as racism concerns supposed racial superiority, it is impossible for the Jewish people to be racist per se, since they do not comprise a racial group, despite the arguments of some Jewish religious authorities who seek to defend the “purity of the race” by trying to prevent the integration and naturalisation of non-Jewish immigrants (see below).
However such a definition is only one of the two possibilities for being judged racist, the second being that regardless of one’s own peculiar suppositions about one’s group, one may still be deemed racist should one hold that another group defined by race is inferior. That the majority of the Jewish population of Israel may be considered racist in these terms is established by a poll in 2008 by the Center Against Racism, which found that;
75% would not agree to live in a building with Arab residents.
More than 60% wouldn't accept any Arab visitors at their homes.
About 40% believed that Arabs should be stripped of the right to vote.
More than 59% think that the culture of Arabs is a primitive culture.
Why this is relevant of course, is that the Jewish population of Israel represents 80% of the whole and is therefore instrumental through the electoral system in defining the policies of government – the premise here being that the state of Israel is racist, and to most intents and purposes, the policies of government being representative of the state; so, are there policies of government that might support the idea of racism?
These government policies find expression in many ways against the interests of the bulk of the remaining population – the 20% who are Arab Israelis.
In 2001, Human Rights Watch issued a report that stated: "Government-run Arab schools are a world apart from government-run Jewish schools. In virtually every respect, Palestinian Arab children get an education inferior to that of Jewish children, and their relatively poor performance in school reflects this." The report found striking differences in virtually every aspect of the education system.
According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied territories, "Israeli Arabs were underrepresented in the student bodies and faculties of most universities and in higher professional and business ranks. The Bureau of Statistics noted that the median number of school years for the Jewish population is 3 years more than for the Arab population. Well educated Arabs often were unable to find jobs commensurate with their level of education. According to Sikkuy, Arab citizens held approximately 60 to 70 of the country's 5,000 university faculty positions."
While formally equal according to Israeli law, a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or wrote in The Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the Events of October 2000;
The Arab citizens of Israel live in a reality in which they experience discrimination as Arabs. This inequality has been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, has been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and has also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Although the Jewish majority’s awareness of this discrimination is often quite low, it plays a central role in the sensibilities and attitudes of Arab citizens. This discrimination is widely accepted, both within the Arab sector and outside it, and by official assessments, as a chief cause of agitation
The 2007 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices notes that:
"According to a 2005 study at Hebrew University, three times more money was invested in education of Jewish children as in Arab children."
According to The Guardian, in 2006 just 5% of civil servants were Arabs, many of them hired to deal with other Arabs, despite the fact that Arab citizens of Israel comprise 20% of the population.
Although the Bedouin infant mortality rate is still the highest in Israel, and one of the highest in the developed world, The Guardian reports that in the 2002 budget, Israel's health ministry allocated Arab communities less than 0.6% of its budget for healthcare facility development
The 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices notes that:
"According to a 2003 Haifa University study, a tendency existed to impose heavier prison terms to Arab citizens than to Jewish citizens. Human rights advocates claimed that Arab citizens were more likely to be convicted of murder and to have been denied bail."
"The Orr Commission of Inquiry's report [...] stated that the 'Government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory,' that the Government 'did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action to allocate state resources in an equal manner.' As a result, 'serious distress prevailed in the Arab sector in various areas. Evidence of distress included poverty, unemployment, a shortage of land, serious problems in the education system, and substantially defective infrastructure.'"
Defenders of the Citizenship and Entry Law say it is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and preserving the "Jewish character" of Israel by restricting Arab immigration. Although this law theoretically applies to all Israelis, it has disproportionately affected Arab citizens of Israel; Arabs are far more likely to have Palestinian spouses than other Israelis. Thus the law has been widely considered discriminatory and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has unanimously approved a resolution saying that the Israeli law violated an international human rights treaty against racism.
Of course, Israel is not the only county to have immigrants. But it is the only one to confer nationality automatically on a single category of people: Jews. Jews cannot become illegal aliens in Israel
The Law is racism, say the Palestinians. They are not alone. Can it be legitimate to grant citizenship to Jews who have never set foot on the land, and refuse - or even withdraw - nationality to an Arab who was born there, but has temporarily lived abroad or happened to be absent at the time of the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967?
Of course, given the historical suffering of Jews and especially considering the terrible events of the 1930s through 1940s in Europe that propelled its establishment, it is understandable that the state of Israel will favour those whom it feels have more right to be citizens, even if it does so without necessarily purposefully disfavouring others. Given the evidence above, it would prove difficult to argue that despite the founding laws of the state of Israel, Jewish citizens do not receive a far better deal and cannot expect far better circumstances and outcomes from their state compared to their Arab compatriots. In this we must also take into account the so called “demographic timebomb” proposed by many Jewish Israelis including Benjamin Netanyahu, which holds that the Arab citizenry will in a relatively short period become electorally significant and eventually come to threaten the Jewish nature of the state, which has led to certain proposed policies to avoid that outcome, predicated purely against limiting the Arab people.
The question however is whether the state of Israel is racist. Although without doubt it would appear that the state of Israel in its founding laws cannot be described as racist, it would appear equally doubtless that since that foundation, through the mechanism of democracy that many governments of the state of Israel have represented policies, set laws and established general attitudes that cannot be described as other than racist, informed by attitudes in the bulk of the majority Jewish population that appear to have deterorated over decades from neutral to racist.
This is an important distinction – that whilst the bulk of the Jewish citizenry may be described as racist to varying extents and the governments that are consequently elected may be described alike, the state itself is not racist. Indeed, based on its founding laws, many subsequent laws that sought to suppress the involvement of Arab citizens in the electoral process have been overturned or modified by the state, and the state itself has been active in highlighting issues where Arab citizens have suffered as a result of government policy.
We must therefore conclude an open verdict in this case – the racism or lack thereof of the state of Israel (which in its precepts is not racist) is wholly dependent on the attitudes of the majority of its electorate and the governments they consequently appoint.
(italicised references ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel)
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