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News :: Miscellaneous |
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The World's Last Apartheid State |
Current rating: 0 |
by Wadi Muhaisen
(No verified email address) |
17 Jul 2002
Modified: 11:40:09 AM |
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According to Israeli historian Benny Morris - a harsh critic of Yasser Arafat - in 1948, the newly created state of Israel succeeded in demolishing 385 of the 475 indigenous Palestinian towns and villages that pre-dated the creation of the Jewish state |
There has been a great clamor lately, including in the Rocky Mountain News, about the need to reform Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Palestinians wholeheartedly agree and believe that genuine, democratic and administrative reforms can only bring about positive change.
However, this newspaper and others have been embarrassingly silent about the need to reform Israel's long-standing and blatantly racist laws and policies toward its Christian and Muslim citizens.
According to Israeli historian Benny Morris - a harsh critic of Yasser Arafat - in 1948, the newly created state of Israel succeeded in demolishing 385 of the 475 indigenous Palestinian towns and villages that pre-dated the creation of the Jewish state.
Israel was unable, however, to forcibly expel or kill all the original inhabitants of historic Palestine, and reluctantly granted those remaining a form of "citizenship" (unlike the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza living under Israeli military occupation for the last 35 years).
Nevertheless, the benefits of Israeli "citizenship" are not applied equally and depend exclusively on one factor - one's religion.
Leader of the official opposition in Israel's parliament, Yossi Sarid, was quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on April 23, 2002, commenting on Israeli concern over the electoral successes of racist French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen: "I don't know why people here are so disturbed when we see the rise of a right-wing nationalist fascist in France and we aren't disturbed when we see it happen in our country.
"The decision, for example, to cancel child allowances for Arabs in our country is a Le Pen approach; but when we do it it's OK."
Consider unemployment services in the historically Arab city of Nazareth, which is experiencing an influx of Jewish immigrants.
At the employment bureau, there are two lines for job seekers - one for Jews and one for Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
The Palestinian job seekers stand outside unsheltered in the blazing Mediterranean sun with only one caseworker handling claims.
Next door, Jewish job seekers sit inside a large, air-conditioned waiting room with a water cooler, ample seating, toilets, and three caseworkers handling claims.
Ironically, Israel's so-called "Law of Return" is what prevents Palestinian Christian and Muslim refugees from ever returning to live in their ancestral homes.
The fact that many of them still hold deeds to their family's homes, and were never compensated for their theft, is completely irrelevant under Israeli law.
These refugees are never allowed to live in the place of their birth and the birth of their ancestors for one reason and one reason only - they are not Jewish.
Israel's Agricultural Settlement Law of 1967 expressly forbids Jewish leaseholders of state lands from subleasing them back to Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
Moreover, in 1965, the Israeli parliament passed the Planning and Construction Law, which zoned all land in Israel as residential, industrial, or agricultural/nature reserve, and forbade construction on all agricultural land.
The law was retroactive, which meant that designating any area as "agricultural" immediately made all its pre-existing buildings illegal.
Dozens of historic and ancient Palestinian villages in existence long before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, were subsequently designated "agricultural" by the Israeli government, making them "unrecognized" and illegal.
"Unrecognized" Palestinian villages in Israel receive no access to water, electricity, sanitation, or roads.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian residents of these villages are forced to pay taxes to Israel, which reserves the right to demolish these historic sites at any time.
Coincidentally, no Jewish villages became "unrecognized" as result of this law.
While the United States played a pivotal role in forcing reform of South Africa's apartheid laws, our government continues to encourage and finance Israel's undeniably racist infrastructure with $5 billion a year in tax dollars for weapons, cash and loan guarantees.
For the sake of regional stability and American values, it is time we use our financial leverage with Israel to demand an end to its blatantly racist apartheid system.
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