"Emile, if what you said were true, there would be neither Arab Israelis, nor Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank."
Not really! The radical Zionist elements and the fundamentalist rabbinical leaders have succeeded in driving out 2,500,000 Palestinians from Israel proper. This Ethnic cleansing has resulted in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The reason there are still Palestinian Christians and Moslems living in Israel is because of the outcry of the international community. Here is article from the Daily Haaretz by a brave Jewish-Israeli human rights leader. Human rights organization have helped in curtainling some of the Zionist racial policies.
Memorandum on institutionalized racial discrimination
by and in the State of Israel
By Elias Davidsson - April 1991 (Revision July 1993)
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations
in 1965, has now been ratified by most member states. Article 1 of
this Convention defines the term racial discrimination as 'any
distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race,
colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or
effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or
exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental
freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other
field of public life.'
This Convention lays down specific obligations on member states to
outlaw racial discrimination and penalize activities of racial
incitement. It must be borne in mind that the term 'racial
discrimination' is not basically a technical term but a term used to
encompass all kinds of discrimination based on a person's being or
origin (for which a person is not responsible). The Nazi persecution
of Jews has been pursued on the basis of 'racialism' and condemned by
the whole world as 'racial persecution', in spite of the fact that
Jews don't constitute a specific race.
When evaluating whether certain conditions or practices constitute
'racial discrimination', it is not imperative that intent is proved.
It suffices that conditions or practices have the 'effect of
nullifying or impairing' equality of rights (see above), regardless of
the declared intent of those conditions or practices.
The State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Zionist state. All
major Israeli parties identify themselves as Zionist. Racial
discrimination against non-Jews is grounded in Israeli laws,
regulations, practices and permeates all fields of public life. The
very definition of Israel as a Jewish State cannot but alienate the
indigenous non-Jewish population of the country, which constitutes -
depending on definition - between 18% and 60% of the population.
Most non-Jews who are living in or originate from areas under Israeli
control, identify themselves as Palestinians. Although most of these
are Muslim, there are also many Christian Palestinians and a few
hundred Jews, both religious and secular, who prefer to identify
themselves as Palestinians.
Zionism took off in Europe at the end of last century. It's aim was to
create in Palestine a state with Jewish majority in spite of the
adamant opposition of Palestinian Arabs (95% of the population). But
the Zionists were more powerful, militarily, economically and
technologically, and succeeded in 1948 in conquering 70% of the area
of Mandatory Palestine. After driving into exile most indigenous Arabs
from the conquered areas, approximately 750,000 people, and razing
most of their villages to the ground - over 370 villages - the
Zionists could finally establish a predominantly Jewish State. Only
150,000 non-Jews remained on territory controlled by the Zionists.
Once the Jewish State was established, it began enacting laws to help
the confiscation of land from native non-Jews, their political
repression and their destitution. This process was described in detail
by Azriel Karlibach, first editor and founding member of the Hebrew
newspaper Ma'ariv in a shattering article published in that paper on
25 Feb.. 1953 and by many other authors. The Israeli parliament passed
laws to make it impossible for non-Jews who temporarily left the area
of conflict to return to their homes or obtain access to their
possessions that were left behind. A law was enacted that enabled any
Jew in the world to immigrate to Israel and automatically become an
Israeli citizen. A law was enacted that enabled the World Zionist
Organisation and the Jewish Agency to act as a semi-official body, for
the exclusive benefit of Jews.
In 1967 the State of Israel invaded Egypt and Syria, under the
fallacious pretext of being threatened, and occupied the rest of
Palestine (the West Bank and the Gaza strip). Thus another 1.5 million
Palestinians fell under its jurisdiction. Its occupation of
Palestinian and other Arab territories is considered illegal by the
international community, as reflected in Security Council resolutions.
Israel has rejected all U.N. resolutions that deal with its treatment
of Palestinians and began without delay to entrench its occupation and
rule over these territories with the aim of annexing them at the
appropriate time. There has been no significant difference between the
Israeli governments concerning this aim, as construction for Jews in
the occupied territories continues unabated until this day. Part of
these territories, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, have already
been annexed by Israel, in defiance of international law, UN
resolutions and the wishes of the population concerned.
The Palestinian people are now divided into three main segments: Those
who remained in Israel in 1948 and their descendants (about 800,000
people), who live in Israel proper and have nominal Israeli
citizenship; those who live in the Palestinian territories occupied by
Israel in 1967 - Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza strip (about
1.8 million people); and those who live in exile, in Jordan, Lebanon,
Syria, the Gulf States and elsewhere (an estimated 2.5 million
people).
It must be emphasized that, although these people live under different
regimes, they are united in their self-perception as Palestinians,
that is as people identifying with Palestine.
All three segments of the Palestinian people suffer discrimination at
the hands of the Zionist State, but in different degrees.
Perhaps those who suffer the heaviest discrimination are those
Palestinians who were ejected from their homeland in 1948 and again in
1967, dispossessed of their homes and land, and rendered stateless.
The one and only criterion used by Israel to prevent these people from
returning to their homeland and receive equal treatment under Israeli
law, is that they are not Jews. Many of them still live in a destitute
condition in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and in the
territories occupied by Israel in 1967, supported by UN relief
agencies.
The non-Jewish population living in the Palestinian and other Arab
territories occupied by Israel in 1967 suffers not only blatant
discrimination but is subject to brutal military occupation. Israel
allows settlement of its own Jewish nationals in these areas and thus
violates the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Jews settling in the
occupied areas enjoy full civil and political rights as Israeli
citizens. Their non- Jewish neighbors who are the overwhelming
majority of the population of these areas, are denied many civil and
all political rights. Their rights of movement, travel, assembly,
expression, the right to obtain a car licence, to start a business and
to buy industrial equipment, the right to educate children, all of
these basic rights are subject to arbitrary rulings by military
authorities and cannot be challenged in court. Only Jewish inhabitants
of the occupied territories are permitted to carry firearms, which
they use to terrorize defenceless non- Jews.
Some 800,000 people in Israel proper are not Jews: Most of them are
Muslim but there are also thriving Christian Arab communities in
Israel. For many years after the establishment of Israel they were
subjected to harsh military control. Much of their land was
confiscated by the State and handed to Jewish organisations for
exclusive Jewish settlement. They have been subject to massacres,
destitution and humiliation. While they enjoy, with Jewish Israelis,
the right to vote, they are discriminated against both through law and
in practice.
Approximately 92% of the surface of the State of Israel within the
Green Line is for all purposes closed to Palestinians who are
second-class citizens in Israel. They may neither legally live on such
land, nor rent or cultivate it. A direct effect of these policies is
that native non-Jewish citizens of Israel are in practice denied
residence and membership rights in the collective settlements,
kibbutzim. Non-Jews are discriminated against in many other ways: The
Government starves local authorities of Palestinian villages and
townships of funds; in some communities Palestinians are unwelcome or
forced to live in ghettos; Jewish families receive higher child
allocations than their non-Jewish neighbors, Palestinian schools
suffer underfunding and understaffing (as compared to Jewish schools);
Palestinian children are forced to learn their own history and
literature as interpreted by Zionists; Israelis who struggle for equal
rights and for the end of racial discrimination, are regularly and in
many ways harassed by the authorities.
The State of Israel refuses to acknowledge itself as the State of all
its inhabitants. Although Israeli governments have never openly
endorsed the 'transfer' idea (the forced removal from the country of
its native Palestinian population, that is, its ultimate Judaization),
Israeli government policies, such as inducing emigration of non-Jews
and forced underdevelopment of the Palestinian sector, have since the
establishment of Israel borne the mark of this ultimate aim. No
serious attempt is made by the Zionist authorities to integrate
Palestinian Arabs into Israeli public life. Thus, although comprising
approximately 17% of the population of Israeli citizens, no
Palestinian citizen of Israel has ever served as Cabinet member, as
director of a Ministry or of a national institution, as judge of the
Supreme Court, as ambassador of Israel, or in any position of power in
Israeli economic or financial life. Even Arab Members of Parliament
(Knesset) are systematically excluded from serving in 'sensitive'
Parliamentarian committees, solely because of their ethny. In this
'enlightened democracy of the Middle East', as Israel is often called,
a Jew cannot legally marry a non-Jew. Since its establishment in 1948,
Israeli governments have consistently rejected demands by the secular
public for the institution of civil marriage. Although intimate
relations between Jews and Arabs are legal, they are frowned upon by
Zionist society as 'befriending the enemy', something near treason.
Zionism rejects the idea of a modern secular state, based on equality
of all citizens. Zionism predicates a state where Jews have privileged
rights. Thus, according to Israeli law, a person born in London, who
has never visited Israel, does not speak Hebrew and professes atheism,
is granted automatic Israeli citizenship, if he can produce proof from
a rabbi that his mother was considered a Jew, while indigenous
Palestinian inhabitants who were born to Christian or Muslim parents
are at best tolerated but never considered as full fledged partners in
Israeli society. Racial discrimination, as defined in international
law, is thus not only reflected in Israeli laws and policies, but is
grounded in the very nature of Israel as a Jewish state, in public
perception and in the Zionist credo.
Any proposal for Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian peace that does
not address the issue of racial discrimination by Israel - that is the
Zionist nature of the State of Israel - is thus doomed to fail.
Selected bibliography
1. Uri Davis: Israel, an Apartheid State, Zed Books Ltd., London 1987
2. Sabri Jiryis: The Arabs in Israel, Monthly Review Press, New York,
1976
3. Ed. A.W. Kayyali: Zionism, Imperialism and Racism, Croom Helm,
London, 1979 (Writings by Arab, English and American scholars)
4. Abdeen Jabara: The Responsibility of the State of Israel According
to its International Commitments; Arab Studies Quarterly,
Spring/Summer 1985, p.27-41
5. Ilan Halevi: Zionism Today; Arab Studies Quarterly, Spring/Summer
1985, p.3-10
6. Roselle Tekiner: Jewish Nationality Status as the Basis for
Institutionalized Racism in Israel. The International Organisation for
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD),
Washington, 1985
7. Dr. W. Mallison and Sally V. Mallison: The Zionist
Organization/Jewish Agency in International and US Law, in Judaism or
Zionism - What Difference for the Middle East; Zed Books Ltd., London
1986
8. John Quigley: Palestine and Israel - A Challenge to Justice; Duke
University Press, Durham, N.C., 1991
9. Dr. Uri Davis: Israel's Zionist Society - Consequences for Internal
Opposition and the Necessity for External Intervention; in Judaism or
Zionism - What Difference for the Middle East; Zed Books Ltd., London
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