Apartheid in Israel

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Ming
Well... at least you got the simple part right. On the historian part... not even close

You are just a worthless troll who has no clue except to cut and paste stuff that somebody else put together for you... and the sad part is, the people that put it together don't really have a clue either.
Enjoy

What a pity you are unwilling to share the fount of your 'revealed knowledge'....
I presume you dislike debate?

[Ned]

It looks like Kroeze is setting up a complaint under the new ICC, which goes into effect this July. There, the crime of apartheid is defined as follows:

"(h) "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

The acts in paragraph 1 are

"(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health."

Which have the following definitions:

"For the purpose of paragraph 1:
(a) "Attack directed against any civilian population" means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
(b) "Extermination" includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;

(c) "Enslavement" means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;

(d) "Deportation or forcible transfer of population" means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;

(e) "Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

(f) "Forced pregnancy" means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;

(g) "Persecution" means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity;

(h) "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

(i) "Enforced disappearance of persons" means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time."

[Ming]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze

What a pity you are unwilling to share the fount of your 'revealed knowledge'....
I presume you dislike debate?

No... I do like an honest debate... but I prefer to debate with somebody who actually knows what they are talking about vs a copy and paste artist who is just sprouting an agenda that they don't really understand.

Around here, we call that troll.
Have a nice day

[ZoboZeWarrior]

There's legal or gouvernment seggregation in Israel, for sure.

Through there's "illegal" seggregation. I mean that the Israeli gouvernment didn't promote it but this is certainly less easier for a arab-israeli to find a good job or a good flat, to loan money to a bank, ... because he's arab-israeli.

Of course, this situation is not typical from Israel. In France too at a lesser scale, if you look like an "Arab", you'll have more difficulties to increase your social situation. But acts of seggregation is punishable and is punished (it depend of our gouvernment ...).

But the situation is worsen by racism, fear and anger.

Seggregation could be fight only if a gouvernment has the will to fight it (eg : USA sending army or federal agants to protect black kids going to school on some south states). A democratic or republican should impose its values to its citizens out of their privacy !

I don't think that the actual Israeli gouvernment have the will to fight the seggregation.

[Urban Ranger]

Ming,

When did you become a defender of the Israeli state?

[Grrr]

We have already had this thread 3 months ago

[laurentius]

I think S.Kroeze is trying to have an honest discussion here. He has some intresting points and it would be nice if the moderators woudn't try to shut him off.
And also,I rhink in the long run the left-wingers love israel the most.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze
Dear Sirotnikov,

Thanks for trying to have a debate!

Thanks for not responding to any of my posts which actually contain content.

Yet as usual you are not reading carefully and fantasizing about what is my opinion on some issue.
And though you are the only one who at least tries to refute arguments, you never base them on sources. Another recent, scholarly study would qualify.
Nor do I think it is relevant, which political movement do support some view. It is the evidence that decides.

1. Then you better explain your opinions instead of cutting and pasting wierd paragraphs which show lack of understanding.

2. I don't need sources since I'm a source. After all, books rely on books which rely on books, which eventually come down to a human source which wittnessed an event.

3. If you would like me to quote the actual paragraphs of the Israeli law, I could try. Meanwhile I'm basing my views upon my personal knowledge and "Being Citizens in Israel: A Jewish and Democratic State", Hanna Adan & Varda Ashkenazi and Bilha Elpherson, Teaching Programs, Maalot Publishing, 2000.

Let's use the issue about the 'mixed' marriages.
In my opinion the sentence of Thomas is rather muddled:
"Occasionally the Supreme Court will intervene, but generally it does not intrude on rabbinical rulings, e.g., concerning the validity of Jewish marriages outside the orthodox form or the prohibition of marriages of Jews to Moslems or Christians."

I understand this sentence as follows: The rabbinical courts didn't want to allow marriages between Jews and Christians/Muslims, BUT because the Supreme Court intervened it was finally allowed. So in the end we seem to agree that 'mixed' marriages are allowed (since when?). Yet is still surprises me that the legislator(parliament) did NOT decree by law. In a democratic constitutional state that would have been the only possible procedure. This incident -the way I understand it (and please correct me by some source when I am wrong)- shows that the possibility of 'mixed' marriages was not matter-of-course.
And this NOT being matter-of-course is suspect in my view!

I can disprove you by simply mentioning that I know mixed couples which married even during the Marshall Law (before 66). This is based on a program describing the life of one such family, and the life of their children, who serve in the IDF.

And you do completely misunderstand the text.

Let me again explain it to you:

The Supreme court does not interevene unless there is an anti-democratic decision. The religious marraiges are not it's responsibility. It can, however, and does, intervene in cases of custody and such, especially when one of the sides is not religious, and does not accept the rabbinical court's authority.

Never has it been disallowed for marraiges between anyone to occur. I am clueless as to how you have gotten that from the text.

I am also pleased that you are at least willing to consider the possibility that some rulings and proceedings of the government could be interpreted as 'apartheid'. This shows you are willing to discuss things.

I think that the fact I answer every single paragrph as honestly and accurately as I can, should show that.

That does not mean I agree with that interpertation.

And in any case, your interpertations, are by far the more loonie and ungripped in reality.

I'm used to people seeing the almost-autonomous PA as part of an Israeli appartheid against the PA.

I've never seen people deduce that mixed marraiges are not allowed, simply because they are not in the jurisdiction of rabinnical courts.

I have never claimed to have read those list of books, though I visited the library today, trying to get hold of some of them.
I only showed that the Britannica recommends several studies used by B.Thomas, a study I have read indeed.

And apparently misunderstood

And this study by B.Thomas was immediately dismissed as propaganda, because the Zionists do not like his conclusions.
When you can show me -giving chapter and verse as I have consistently done- that his text I copied verbatim (obviously I made a selection, but I did not cut within his paragraps, because that is 'bad practice') contains factual errors, please do! When it concerns 'hard facts' (like amount of university posts) this is quite easy, especially when you live in the country.

1. Sadly I do not know any texts meant specifically to answer your misneterpertations. I can only tell you hard facts which you can believe or not believe. If you don't believe me, there's no reason to bring sources, since you won't see them reliable as well.

2. A difference between ethnicities in statistics, does nto automatically suggest 'appartheid'. Please pick your favourite minority in your country, and check whether it has proportionate unviersity posts. Does it?

I do not believe in Affirmative Action, and neither do most institutions in Israel. It's just another, opposite discrimination.

I agree that socio-economic differences alone do not justify the label 'apartheid'.

good.

[*]that there is not one single Arab Israeli among the more than six hundred managers and directors of Histadrut-controlled industry,

Arabs are not represented in the Histadrut since they hardly participate in the parts of the industry controlled by the Histadrut.

Arabs were traditionally farmers, and later became workers in "black works", and now have moved on to either indepenent bussinesses or academic proffessions.

There are ever growing numbers of Arab B.A.s and M.A.s and PhDs in every scene, from Law, to Medicine, to Philosophy.

Look at the Arab Knesset Members - Mr. Tibby is a Doctor. Mr. Barake is a Philosopher.

I was treated by Arab doctors. I shared rooms with Arab patients.

I failed to see "appartheid".

Infact, just recently there was a CNN show, detailing, how wounded and captured Palestinian terrorists were treated in the same hospitals as their Israeli victims, often bed to bed, treated by the same Israeli, Jewish and Arab doctors.

That does not seem "appartheid" to me.

[*]when it would be true that some 40,000 Palestinian Arabs living in Israel were disqualified from citizenship,

When? Over which period of time? Due to what circumstances? According to which law?

Did they have citizenship before, or did they never had it?

I wish to bring to your attention that there is a big group of arabs who refused to accept Israeli citizenship, claiming we are not the legal rulers.

when it would be true that 40 percent of Arab-Israeli villages are without electricity,

I would have to check this number, as I would imagine it to be less, considering it is mainly beduins, who aren't 40%.

I already explained the reasons before - those are mostly nomadic tribes, which suddenly decide to settle 20 homes in the middle of nowhere, and call it a village.

Israel tries to promote urbanizing and making large settle points to solve this problem.

when it would be true that almost all Arab property was confiscated, while most Arab refugees were kept at gunpoint(!) from returning,

This is a very mixed sentance.

Which arabs are you referring to? Those who fled? Those who stayed?

Those who fled were at times even encouraged to return. But admittedly it were short times.

Mostly, we didn't want them to return, since they most obviously had ties with our enemies and infact, many of the refugees fled / were deported exactly for that reason.

There was no peace agreement signed between us and the arabs. Letting in possible rogue agents wasn't the smartest of things to do.

when it would be true that of the thousands of Histadrut firms and factories not one is located in an Arab village (I could add that according to my sources unemployment has substantially been higher among Arabs, so this lack of industrial employment was truly harmful to them,

As I said, most arabs tend to have different professions and didn't involve themselves in industry.

A factory has to earn money to exist. It has to have workers. To build a factory in a small village, of several hundred people, none of whom are industry workers, seems absurd to me.

I would conclude that this label of 'apartheid' is justified.

Sure. That's why I share an appartment building with both muslim and christian arabs. That's why I purchase most groceries in arab run stores next to my house.

That's why i had arab teachers. That's why i had arab doctors.


I think you better learn what apprtheid means, before you jump to conclusions.

In my country there are also socio-economic differences, yet I could prove that the Dutch government consistently tries to reduce them.

And I can prove that the socio economic differences are getting smaller by the year.

In 1951 49% of the arabs were uneducated and almost none went to academic institutions.
In 1996 8.3% are uneducated and more than 7% went to academic institutions.

In 1998, a third of the poor families in Israel were arab families. A big part of the problem is that on avarage, arab families have more than twice as many children.

Percentage of Arab Students studying for
1974
BA - 3.5
MA - 1.3
PhD - 0.3
1995
BA - 7.0
MA - 3.0
PhD - 3.5

Percentage of Students which get pass graduation exams:
1991
Jews - 67.3 Arabs 45.5
1996
Jews 67.4 Arabs 49.4

You may also notice that I do not make personal insults, though I understand that for you the idea of 'apartheid' in Israel is offending. Based on the information presented by B.Thomas I think that living conditions of the Arab Israelis are gradually improving -yet far too slowly.

"far too slowly" by whose count?

I'm sure you are not aware of all the conditions making this far more difficult.

For a long time, until the late seventies, the arab society was far too traditional, and it was very hard to "pull it out". You have to understand that prior to 1948, the life of arab farmers here, was just like in the middle ages europe.

Admittedly - there are discriminating policies, which suck. but they are now more due to political power, than anything else.

In any case, those policies are changing, and have been changing for years now.

One of my goals in my future, is to, hopefully, fully integrate Israeli Arabs into Israel, assuming they are willing to.

I do not think that someone living in a country will be more objective about its domestic affairs.

I think that someone living in a country will have a clue.

I would also like to remark that the general public is hardly interested in history, so lack of indignation doesn't prove anything! Before the Gulf War Iraq did hardly get any attention in the media.

How does that relate?

I study history and politics and israeli history and law in school. I also study it personally more, since i'm interested in the subject.

For me the complete history of Israel is relevant, even the days before 1948. I hadn't even mentioned this 'Martial Law', which doubtless also was most disagreeable!

I mentioned martial law myself.

I admit also that that phenomena was anti-democratic, though based on reality. The arabs in Israel, were, mostly, not very different in mind from those who attacked it on 1948.

And of course it is easy to consider 'academic' research as superfluous, but this argument will not convince me!

Your research is hardly academic.

Again a small example: you seem to concede that indeed 40 percent of the Arab villages lack electricity, but you immediately add it is their own fault, because they refuse to live in the city.
I could remark that in a 'free' country people can make a choice whether they want to live in the countryside or in the city. The fact that they seem to prefer their illegal buildings without electricity, makes me suspicious about the alternatives offered to them. I guess they have some good reason for their preference.
I will try to learn more about it.

They have a reason for their preference - tradition.

This is another hole in your academic research. You have no idea how tied are the local arabs to tradition and beduins are to nomadity.

I remind you again, that this was a middle ages society here, prior to the brittish mandate.

PS: Would you consider the "Old South" (before the 60s 'apartheid'? I would.

Why apply it only to the south, and not whole of america?

I think that america in general was racist in several senses, but appartheid only existed in the south.

And accepting that definition, I can tell you that Israel is in no way an appartheid state.

Nowhere did I say that there aren't discriminating policies. There are. Mostly to do with political power than 'ethnicity'. The governments in Israel are blackmailed by the orthodox parties to allocate huge funds to thier institutions. Since arabs have had the smallest representation, they couldn't get funds. That is changing now.

But it's not 'appartheid'.

[Ned]

S. Kroeze, Even if everything you said was true, I still doubt it makes out a case for Israel being guilty of "apartheid." The very first element requires that there be two "races." As many posters have often reminded us here, both Arab and Jew are the same race.

[Adam Smith]

Just to pick up on a point that HisMajestyBob touched on, how many of the conditions cited in Israel would also apply to other countries in the region or the world, and possibly to a much greater degree?

Off the top of my head possible suspects include:
Lebanon (christians vs. moslems)
Syria (campaign by Assad the Elder against minorities in the country)
Iraq (Kurds)
Turkey (Kurds)
Iran (much more theocratic government than Israel)
Ditto Afghanistan under the Taliban
India (moslems)
Sub-Saharan Africa (any number of countries with tribal issues)

By raising the issue specifically with respect to Israel, does this wind up supporting the Isreali argument that whatever standards are applied selectively to them when there are many other and possibly much worse cases to be considered?

On another issue, it is my impression that even in the late 1970's, most leftists in the US and around the world strongly backed Israel for many years, in large part because of the collective nature of society, as exemplified by the kibutz. Is this the case? If so, was there any specific event that brought a change of heart? Or did people just wake up one morning and be "shocked" to find that the Isrealis were "racists"?

[Az]

No. the first left wingers were following the decisions of their respective parties , with the communist parties of many countries being under the control of the USSR. before the 56' war, Israel was non-alligned. but after 56' with the Soviets backing Nasser, Israel joined Britain and France against the Egyptians. ( ).

[ZoboZeWarrior]

It's a was military victory until USSR bashed us on diplomatic soil ("Our words are backed with nuclear weapons").

[Az]

well, WE sure as hell didn't have to join you guys. ( and btw, you've failed miserably, together with the brits, in your landings in Port Said. We sweeped across the Suez like a Katana through butter. Check latest history books. really.)

[Eli]

Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior
It's a was military victory until USSR bashed us on diplomatic soil ("Our words are backed with nuclear weapons").

You mean, operation "Kadesh" was a military victory and operation "Musketeer" was a huge defeat. You entered the war days after you were supposed to, did nothing important during the two days you actually fought and were the first to surrender to US-USSR pressure. French cowards.

[Maid Marion]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze


Dear Ming,

Thank you for your kind words and valuable contribution to the discussion!
Since I am just a simple historian -accustomed to give chapter and verse- and only able to form an opinion AFTER I have read a book, I am most grateful to you for sharing your insight with me about a professional study you will never read. I rather envy you for this ability.

Well done, you stand up to him. There is nothing worse then an ignoramus except perhaps one with some power and a little willy

They don`t call him Minger for nothing you know!