Civil and Human Rights
Looking Deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israel is portrayed as a democracy that shares American values. Is this true? Do all its citizens enjoy the same civil rights before the law? What about the human rights of those under occupation?
Monday, December 10, 2007
Israeli soldiers greeting Palestinian women ... all these machine-guns against few old women??!!!
Israeli soldiers greeting Palestinian women
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It's sad to watch how the Nazis treated the Jews, um wait a second...
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Look how they are treating them. This isn't even that bad compared to some other fascist operations like point blank executions that have been carried out by Israelis in Gaza. I wonder if it's an overlooked psychological condition that stems from post second world war trauma? Maybe Israel needs to go for counseling because it seems to have all the conditions of a psychosis.
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all these machine-guns against few old women??!!! ...
"Israel is a democratic state for Jews and Jews only,": Discrimination inside Israel falls broadly into four categories ...
Israeli Democracy: Arabs Need Not Apply | Ellen Davidson | December 9, 2007

NAZARETH— Israel is frequently cited as "the only democracy in the Middle East." The 1.2 million Palestinians living inside Israel’s borders, would beg to differ.

Beginning with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, Palestinians have been treated as second-class citizens and enemies from within. Each of the "Basic Laws," the foundation of the Israeli legal system, begins with a statement that Israel is a Jewish state. For example, the purpose of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom is "to establish the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

From 1948 until 1966, Palestinians inside Israel were subject to military law, while Jews lived under civilian law. During that time, 66 percent of Arab-owned land was confiscated. In 1947, Jews owned 6.7 percent while Palestinians held the rest. Today, Israeli Palestinians, 20 percent of the population, own 2.5 percent of the land.

Discrimination inside Israel falls broadly into four categories, according to Mohammad Zeidan, general director of the Nazareth- based Arab Association for Human Rights (AHR): laws that give different privileges and rights to Jews and non-Jews; indirect discrimination not specifically linked to religion; institutional discrimination, such as allocation of municipal funds; and racism in public life, including cultural discrimination.

The legal discrimination can be seen explicitly in laws that offer automatic Israeli citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world, while non-Jews who are married to Israeli citizens face a difficult process for acquiring citizenship.
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Legal discrimination also plays a role in land allocation. Nearly 20 percent of Israeli land is controlled by the Jewish National Fund, which is legally mandated to use the land only to benefit Jews. Much of this land was confiscated from its Palestinian owners by the military or taken away under the "absentee" laws of 1950, which declared that landowners who were not occupying their land in the years 1948 to 1952 forfeited their rights to it. ...
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Indirect discrimination is equally insidious: Many social services such as student and housing loans are predicated on having a military service number. Since Palestinians are exempt from military service, few Israeli Arabs have this number. Orthodox Jews are also exempt from military service, but they can go to the military service office and get assigned a number, giving them the same access to the privileges associated with military service. Many help-wanted ads specify that the position is open to candidates "after military service," another way of saying, "Arabs need not apply." ...
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Institutional discrimination crops up in community development plans, where Palestinian neighborhoods are held to existing land allocations, while Jewish neighborhoods grow unchecked. In the Arab city of Nazareth, for example, the population of 13,000 Palestinians in 1947 lived on 3,000 acres. In 2007, with a population of 70,000, the city occupies only 3,100 acres, with strict limitations on any expansion. ...
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Municipal funding is also plagued by inequity. In Jerusalem, for example, the population of approximately 700,000 includes 270,000 Palestinians. Social services in mainly Palestinian East Jerusalem receive 12 percent of the city budget. Education in East Jerusalem gets 15 percent of the budget. Per capita income in East Jerusalem is 1,311 shekels per month (or $341), versus 5,968 (or $1,520) in West Jerusalem.

Israel maintains two educational systems, one in Hebrew for Jews and one in Arabic for Palestinians. [Separate but equal? Ed.] According to Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community-Based Organizations, 75 percent of Jewish schools have career and vocational guidance services, while only one-quarter of Arab schools do. Government-funded preschools do not operate in Arab towns.

Cultural discrimination flows from the other three forms of discrimination, says the AHR’s Zeidan. Israeli culture is steeped in racism, he says. More than half the population believes that political rights such as voting should be withdrawn from Palestinians living inside Israel. The Ysrael B’tenah Party, which with 12 seats is the fourth largest party in the Knesset, openly speaks of "transfer" of the Palestinian population. ...
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"Israel is a democratic state for Jews and Jews only," says Fida Ibrahim Abu Ata, public relations director of Ittijah. "And that is how it should be stated, as plain and vivid as this."

Ellen Davidson is a longtime Jewish- American peace activist from New York who traveled to Palestine on a delegation with the Middle East Children’s Alliance, mecaforpeace.org.
Israeli troops execute injured Palestinian in Gaza, eyewitnesses say
Israeli troops execute injured Palestinian in Gaza, eyewitnesses say | Maan News |
November 28, 2007

Gaza – Ma'an – Local residents in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip told Ma'an's correspondent that Israeli forces executed a Palestinian man after he was wounded in the Israeli air strike on Wednesday afternoon.

Jabir Khalil from Jabalia, near the former Erez industrial zone, in the northern Gaza Strip, was shot.

Nineteen-year-old Amina Abu Jarad said Israeli troops, stationed in northern Beit Hanoun, discharged machinegun fire at two injured Palestinians lying on the ground in front of her uncle's house.

Twenty-eight-year-old Samahir Abu Jarad said: "What I saw with my own eyes was unbelievable. Israeli forces executed two people using tank machine guns after they were injured by a missile. My eight-year-old daughter Hadil and my five-year-old son Muhammad went into shock and they refused to enter the house where the young men were killed." ...

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