Jacob, are you in Israel? Would you care to shed some perspective? For instance, are the races segregated? Are children taught to distrust other races? Are they taught all peoples are equal?
Just an American here, but there is no racial segregation or systematized racism of any kind in Israel. 'Racism' and 'Apartheid' are just thrown around carelessly at Israel by some critics.
No, everything claimed is easy to verify. Races aren't segregated, racism isn't taught (as in, it's not part of the curriculum.) All races are equal under Israeli law. Your education on this subject had to have been seriously skewed to think otherwise.
From what I remember from posts on HN by Israeli citizens, but of ethnically non-Jewish background its not quite the clear picture you paint. Leaving aside Palestinian civilians who do not have recourse to the same civic laws and roads as Israeli citizens, Israeli Arabs do not have the same rights even legally (let alone inconsistent application of existing laws) as Jewish citizens. These discrepancies crop up in different spheres of life, from marriage to permit for visiting cities to owning property.
You really are mistaken. The hearsay of some hackernews posts amounts to zero evidence, while you can verify the legal equality of races in Israel in any decent book. Unless of course, you want to grasp at straws like another poster here and argue that semantically a Law of Return is racist (even though many acknowledged non-racist countries have the same laws) or Arabs having the option to opt out of the draft is racist (which should speak for itself.)
Here is a general observation (not just about Israel).
In places where race is an overt issue, and people at the highest political places earn their votes based on race, and therefore dependent upon people who are conscious of race rights, no amount of laws is going to stop a government from exercising racial preferences in its administration.
You are implying that Israelis vote based strongly on race. This is entirely untrue. There are Jews of many different races in the Israeli government. I suppose every country that hasn't yet had a minority president is racist?
I'd say that not only Israelis, but generally people in Middle East are preoccupied with the notion of race/religion as an identity. It's a state of being, reinforced by decades of conflict/victimisation. I'm not blaming anyone here. Just describing the sad state of affairs.
However, if the US can turn things around in 50 years from a situation even worse than it is today in Israel, it gives us all hope doesn't it?
No, I would rather trust the first person accounts from people whom I have zero reasons to disbelieve. If you would look at my post I mentioned rights on traveling on the same street, equal rights on marriage etc etc.
To give an example: between someone who toes the government line in repeating there arent any gay Iranians and an Iraninan who says he is gay, I would trust the latter. More so if I had other conversations with him that seemed genuine.
You are just reciting the typical myths about racism/Israel. For example you mentioned road use discrimination, instead of that being any sort of discrimination based on race/religion, it is separation based on citizenship of PA or Israel. Arabs and anyone else who are Israeli can use these roads. To say that restriction from use based on different citizenship is discrimination is just laughable. As far as "marriage discrimination", there is no direct legal discrimination, and the arguments that there are indirect discrimination hinge on a law that doesn't grant citizenship to those who marry an Israeli automatically. Grasping at straws.
>No, I would rather trust the first person accounts from people whom I have zero reasons to disbelieve.
This is just a recipe for bias. You don't just trust people you know because one, there experience isn't anything better than anecdotal either, and two, it is difficult for any person to avoid distrust of someone they know and like personally. You should be more responsible than this when you are accusing a whole country of systematized racism.
Israel's High Court has narrowly upheld a law denying
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza married to
Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with
their spouses. -- The Independent
Government was more restrictive in issuing building
permits in Arab communities than in Jewish communities,
thereby not accommodating natural growth."
-- U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
3 times more money was invested in education of Jewish
children as in Arab children.
-- U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
the Law of Return applies to ones religious status, and anyone can convert to Judaism.
--jacobmg on HN (justifying religious discrimination)
Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes
by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948
Arab-Israeli war, but remained within the borders of what
would become Israel, that is, those currently known as
Arab citizens of Israel, are deemed present absentees by
the legislation. Present absentees are regarded as absent
by the Israeli government because they left their homes,
even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a
few days, and even if they did so involuntarily
Regardless of your efforts at justifying it with excuses, it stands up to the definition of discrimination, whatever the excuse or the path to that may be. No racist person or entity in history has ever suffered from lack of excuses.
Given these, I am less likely to believe you compared to someone who has earned my trust. I have never claimed that whole of Israel has systemized racism, you are putting words into my mouth and giving me more reasons to doubt what you say. I am more disinclined to carry the conversation further, for several reasons (i) I dont like deeply nested threads (ii) this is no longer an active topic on HN and I do not come to HN to discuss Arab/Israel issues (iii) after much consideration you seem to be intellectually dishonest, so I do not consider it a fruitful use of my time. I would have more respect for you if you said for instance yes we have these well documented problems but not everyone in Israel is like that.
>> I have never claimed that whole of Israel has systemized racism, you are putting words into my mouth. I would have more respect for you if you said for instance yes we have these well documented problems but not everyone in Israel is like that.
Legal discrimination is systematized discrimination, it does not imply that every law in the country is racist, but since you're accusing the country of legal discrimination I just referred to what you said it as "systematized racism" instead of "legal [race based] discrimination." I may have misquoted the degree of your criticism but you are still arguing that relatively small issues are in fact serious racial discrimination issues (small in the sense that they don't contribute to racial discrimination, not that the issues themselves aren't serious.) I don't even deny that there is racial discrimination from a small portion of individuals but to say that there is strong legal action taken to discriminate in the country is just flatly wrong.
>> Regardless of your efforts at justifying it with excuses, it stands up to the definition of discrimination, whatever the excuse or the path to that may be. No racist person or entity in history has ever suffered from lack of excuses.
No, the country isn't perfect or entirely fair but each of these criticisms has plausible non racist explanations. For example the building permits there are issued just like in the US: you have to pass many different rigorous legal and technical tests before you can build, and it is not entirely impossible that the legwork isn't being done by these Arab communities in the first place. The building-permit process in Israel is widely criticized as unusually slow for any country even in Jewish communities and I believe the OECD just released an evaluation that it takes 3 times as long in Israel as other OECD countries to issue building permits.
And another example: the criticism of education funding is no different than what happens in the US, where some people argue that a community's funding for education should be directly from what that community can extract from taxes. It's not automatically a racist policy.
i) constitutional declaration of rights, Israel does not
ii) I can drive on any road that an American civillian can drive on. I dont need to be a citizen or a resident or convert my religion.
iii) It is accepted that several inequities in US have their roots in racism and US has taken great strides to elliminate them, have open discussions on them. From what I read about Israel I dont see an environment (yet) were a corresponding national holiday to comemorate Martin Luther King is possible.
iv) If I were to be naturalized in US no law states that I cannot unless I convert my religion.
I detect a certain change in your tone after I called you out. But given your previous tone I do not have reasons to take what you say about building permits at its face value. I found too many documents from individuals and institutions that have earned my respect claiming otherwise.
Besides when you try to give an impression that you are quoting me, it is considered bad practice to remove words. Just basic honesty and propriety.
Segregation doesn't have to be official and in the written law for it to exist.
Segregation is a real fact in every day Israeli life, as I saw in a 2 year stint from '04 to '06. Since we're talking AlJazeera, here's a recent article on segregation and mixed Israeli-Palestinian couples: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201112...
I think it is widely accepted that state-sponsored segregation and institutional racism are wrong, and should be removed.
However, its a lot harder to make the case that it is wrong for people to freely choose to separate themselves into ethnic ghettos in the absence of government controls.
To make a comparison to America, consider an Italian living in a "Little Italy"-style enclave, who believes it would be best for him or her to marry Italian-Americans.
Are they a troubling group? Do we perhaps need UN intervention to ease the tension between them and other near by ethnic enclaves?
>Segregation is a real fact in every day Israeli life
Are you referring to the fact that Jewish and Arab populations live mostly separate towns and cities? This isn't segregation, since this is by choice of what communities people there want to live in. Unless you want to argue semantics and say something like "well technically they are segregated even if it's by choice so therefore it's racist."
Evidence of this communal separation and anecdotes of individuals with prejudice does not amount to systematized racism in Israel.
From that I can conclude that you are either ignorant or a liar. Because races are NOT equal in Israeli law. Either in theory OR practice.
Let me give some examples. The Law of Return only applies to Jews. The military draft does not apply to certain ethnic groups, because Israel doesn't want most of them in its military forces.
And that's in theory. In practice it is much worse, as was documented for the Israeli government in the Or report.
I said all races are equal under law, the Law of Return applies to ones religious status, and anyone can convert to Judaism. Besides immigration criteria does not effect discrimination of individuals as citizens since it's merely a selection criteria for citizenship in the first place.
Anyone can volunteer for the military. To argue that not being forced into military service is some sort of prejudicial discrimination is ludicrous.
> From that I can conclude that you are either ignorant or a liar. Because races are NOT equal in Israeli law. Either in theory OR practice.
In theory they are equal
Silly conclusion to jump to. You have no examples of legal discrimination as pointed out above and undoubtedly you have even less "practical" evidence. For example the Or report you mention isn't even on the same subject.
Silly conclusion to jump to. You have no examples of legal discrimination as pointed out above and undoubtedly you have even less "practical" evidence. For example the Or report you mention isn't even on the same subject.
As you indicate, the Or report was a government inquiry into some riots that caused fatalities, and not about discrimination.
Yet as I said, it found that there was widespread discrimination against the Arab minority. It further indicated that this was one of the root causes of said riots.
> The military draft does not apply to certain ethnic groups, because Israel doesn't want most of them in its military forces.
Absolutely fascinating. Where did you hear this?
The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews or in their own units. In fact Druze men have mandatory conscription.
The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews or in their own units. In fact Druze men have mandatory conscription.
Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have been granted to Arabs. The conscription of Druze men is a consequence of their not having been granted a special exemption.
Note that not all branches of the military service are open to minorities. Notably the airforce is not. And having served as a pilot in the airforce is a requirement for being a pilot in the state airline.
Many, many countries have a Right or Law of Return. I always find it interesting that it is particularly bad when Jews do it.
I was not saying it was good or bad. I was citing it as evidence that different races are treated differently under Israeli law.
There are reasons for this discrimination. However discriminating and claiming that you don't discriminate is hypocrisy.
> Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have been granted to Arabs. The conscription of Druze men is a consequence of their not having been granted a special exemption.
True but this doesn't mean non-Jewish Israelis are barred from serving in the military or civil service.
> I was not saying it was good or bad. I was citing it as evidence that different races are treated differently under Israeli law.
Right but if this is practiced in hundreds of countries around the world, it's a moot point.
True but this doesn't mean non-Jewish Israelis are barred from serving in the military or civil service.
True. But there are parts of the military that non-Jewish Israelis are barred from.
Right but if this is practiced in hundreds of countries around the world, it's a moot point.
The fact that many countries discriminate by race doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, discrimination by race.
Incidentally I strongly doubt that we're talking about hundreds of countries. As of 2006 the UN had 192 member countries. And I know that many of them (eg Canada, England and France) do not have anything resembling the Jewish Right of Return.
