Arabs are the largest minority in Israel, accounting for nearly a fifth of the population.
Though the country was established as a democracy, Israel's Arab citizens have been regularly discriminated against by the government, receiving much fewer resources than Jewish citizens.
Within the Israeli society, it is not rare to find Jews who relate to the Israeli Arabs as second class citizens, and some even consider them a fifth column.
Never-the-less, (most) Israeli Jews embrace democratic values and reject racism. Direct and public incitement against the Arab minority was not socially accepted or politically correct in the country's first six decades of existence. But recently, that has been changing.
In November 2010, dozens of leading Israeli rabbis -- including some who are employed by the state as municipal rabbis -- published the "Rabbis' Letter," a religious manifest calling for a ban on selling or leasing land to non-Jews (translated version of the manifest).
The "Rabbis' Letter" was followed by a wave of small but noisy anti-Arabs demonstrations, where protesters shouted racist slogans. Then, a second religious manifest, this time published by a group of wives of rabbis, called Jewish women to stay away from Arab men.
Labor party politician Isaac Herzog, who was Israel's Social Affairs Minister until he resigned last month, compared the recent outbreak of racial tensions in Israel to Alabama in the 1940s.
Following the events, I prepared this video report examining the "Rabbis' Letter," its affects and the circumstances which led to it:
The final interviewee in the video report, Professor Esther Webman (Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East Studies in Tel Aviv University), argues that the recent anti-Arab wave is derived from the growing number of Israeli Jews who believe that the Arabs' ideology is to eliminate Israel as a Jewish nation state.
But there are other arguments. Professor Daniel Gutwein (Jewish History Department in the University of Haifa) explains the recent anti-Arab wave as a class struggle that is happening as a result of the growing economic difficulties in Israel's lower classes:
According to Professor Gutwein, the people who signed the "Rabbis' Letter" and those who support them, have strayed away from the original Zionist idea, which is that Israel will be a homeland for the Jewish people while also being a democratic state to all its citizens. He says there is no contradiction between Jewish and democratic values.
The struggle to maintain a unique national identity without compromising the minority's democratic rights is one that not only Israel faces. Recently, a public debate on this issue arose across European countries, such as Germany, England and France. Douglas J. Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute (who served as the U.S. Under-Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2005), points out that on the issue of preserving national identity, there is a big difference between the "New-Settlements" democracies to the democracies in Europe and East Asia (Wall Street Journal, October 2010):
"The United States is unusual in this regard. It is among the most liberal of democracies, in the sense that it is committed to the principle that laws should, in general, ignore group identities (ethnic, religious or regional) and treat citizens equally as individuals. Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- likewise lands of new settlement -- are among the other countries on this liberal end of the democratic spectrum.The democracies of Europe and East Asia and those in the former republics of the Soviet Union, meanwhile, tend to cluster on the ethnic side of the spectrum. Numerous laws and institutions in those nations favor a country's principal ethnic group but are nevertheless accepted as compatible with democratic principles. Christian crosses adorn the flags of Switzerland, Sweden, Greece and Finland, among other model democracies, and the United Kingdom's flag boasts two kinds of crosses."
The Israeli democracy is similar to the European democracies in that it favors one ethnic group. Due to the ongoing Middle East conflict, the relations between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs are even more tense and unstable than the relations between majorities and minorities in Europe's multicultural societies. But according to rabbi and scholar Donniel Hartman Israel can and should preserve its Jewish character while also providing a sense of belonging to its non-Jewish citizens.
Rabbi Dr. Hartman suggests creating a broader Israeli narrative, one that will be accepted by all Israeli citizens (Haaretz, December 2007):
"We Israeli Jews have to understand that Israel, as a Jewish and democratic state with both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, must have multiple narratives that inform its national identity. There must be a Jewish narrative and a broader Israeli narrative that creates a collective space with bonds of loyalty toward citizens of the State of Israel who are either non-Jews or for whom the state's Jewishness is not the central feature of their national self-understanding."
Links:
• The "Rabbis' Letter" Controversy, Wikipedia
• Israel's intolerance shows up everywhere, L.A. Times, January 2011
• Deteriorating conditions for Israeli Arabs, Al Jazeerah, July 2010
• 44% of Israelis support "Rabbis' Letter", Haaretz, December 2010
Follow Yermi Brenner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yermibrenner
Rabbis in Israel warn Jews not to rent or sell property to non ...
Israel's legal establishment to examine rabbis' letter forbidding ...
Rabbi Sid Schwarz: Israel's Legitimacy: A Prophetic Strategy
Barak: Anti-Arab letters by rabbis and rabbis' wives leading ...
Israelis don't BUY land in Palestine. for the most part. They STEAL it! Squatting is illegal in the US. Those people would be locked up, over here.
No. "Palestine" isn't "made up." That's old-fashioned Hasbara revisionist cant. Your OWN Tanakh says that Abraham left mesopotamia (now called Iraq), and moved in with the King of Palestine. So, Palestine pre-existed all of the Abrahamic religions:
Here are two maps of historic Palestine during two different eras. I can find them for any OTHER era that you may prefer. Palestine has always been there. Judea and Samaria, not so much:
Palestine in 1530:http://www.mapsorama.com/map-of-palestine-in-16th-century/
Palestine in 1020: http://www.mapsorama.com/palestine-in-11th-century/
The agreements that founded Israel say the European Jews would be given a homeland within PALESTINE. Not "Israel," and not the entirety of historic Palestine.
Both Bibles and pre-'50s maps of the region show Palestine very clearly.
None of them show Judea and Samaria-- because they went the way of Navarre and Bohemia-- EXTINCT. Due to internecine infighting among sects. Like now, in modern Israel. They only lasted about two centuries, in toto.
i
If you want to talk about killing, vandalism, and mayhem, let's discuss the settlers. Many of the American ones were rejected by American Jewish communities for being CRAZY. About 30% of the Russians are not Jews, at all.
They kill, steal or destroy native houses, steal or destroy crops, poison water sources, defecate into water sources, and steal native wells, wall them off, and rename them. The shoot, poison, or burn entire herds of native farm animals ALIVE. They bulldoze or burn 400 year old family-owned olive groves. Or, they steal the fruit. People like that would be imprisoned, or incarcerated into mental institutions in MOST countries.
And, not ONE has ever been convicted of these crimes.
The crimes started with terrorism by the Stern Gang and Irgun in the late '40s. 450+ Palestinian villages were destroyed, the villagers chased off or killed. Also killed by these European terrorists were the VERY Brits who GAVE the Europeans part of Palestine (the bombing of the King David Hotel) and a war hero who saved 30,000 Jewish lives from Hitler (Count Bernadotte)
Israelis really need to reflect on, the racist elements in their socieites and, how these racists affect Israeli's foreign policy. I think that Israel needs to address the oppression of variouis minorities in Israel. All of this, racism/sexism/religious bigotry, contributes to the occupation and the destruction that has caused.
Take, for example, how women are treated.
"It's looking more and more like Israel has its own brand of intolerant, fundamentalist "Taliban" extremists, bullying the majority of the Israeli people and now, re-defining what it is to be a Jew, so most American Jews are not Jews and most American rabbis are not rabbis.
Ultra Orthodox Jews have pretty much taken over Israel law, so it is illegal for women to carry a torah, at least at the wailing wall. and we all know that when rights are taken away, they start with a small incursion... "
http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=Want-To-Find-the-Worst-Ant-by-Rob-Kall-100718-469.html
Imagine what would happen if say, Poland or India or modern day Germany did this. Israel is the only country that designates itself as a "Blank" state and has special rules for the "Blanks" and another set for the "Non-Blanks".
All countries have rules and privileges for citizens and rules for non-citizens. Countries have rules for those born on the soil and those not born on the soil. This is common. But having laws and privileges that corral citizens born on the soil because of their religion is unique to the State of Israel. In israel's case, it is anti-Semitism as much so if one can shout anti-semitism anywhere.
You mean the way the Arab states such as Saudi Arabia do?
Abraham today would be considered an Iraqi, Moses, Aaron would Eyptians (even though they were the fathers of Judaism)...Muahmmed an arab would still be a Saudi Arabian...make sense
For example: Jews are not allowed to own land in Jordan. Jews are not allowed to set foot in Saudi Arabia. In America a whole host of laws are set around Christian standards. In some states you can't buy alcohol on Sundays. Why? because Christians celebrate Shabbos on Sunday (Why? I have no idea. It wasn't a secret that the Jews celebrate it on Saturday). Federal workers get paid overtime to work on Christmas.
As for your antisemitism concept. Just as putting wings on butter doesn't make a butterfly, things that are discriminatory to Semites of any variety are not "antisemitic". Antisemitism is a word with a unique history and meaning. In case you somehow missed it, the word was coined to mean "against Jews". Its meaning hasn't changed just because some people don't like the fact that it has the specific meaning that it does.
Israel isn't the isolated beacon of freedom and democracy that its supporters claim.