Hi Lazarus Long; Re: "Who?"
There are dozens of reports of Israeli civilians taking it upon themselves to commit criminal acts [i.e. terrorism] against the Palestinians. Not as many as the Palestinians, but then again, the Israelis have their government to rely on for satisfying their revanchist sentiments. Here are some examples, selected from random google hits:
State Department lists terrorist groups
CNN, October 5, 2001
...
The Israeli extremist groups Kahane Chai and Kach have been merged into one group, under the name Kahane Chai. Baruch Goldstein, who opened fire on a Hebron mosque in 1994, killing 29 Muslims as they prayed, was linked to the group.
cnn.com
Hebron shooting doesn't deter peace talks
CNN, January 1, 1997
...
Earlier in the day, the talks were postponed briefly after an off-duty Israeli soldier sprayed bullets at Arabs in a Hebron market Wednesday, wounding seven in an attempt to sabotage a possible deal on handing over Hebron to Palestinian rule and an Israeli troop withdrawal.
...
Wednesday's shooting stirred memories of the 1994 Hebron mosque massacre, when settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshipers inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs. He killed 29 Palestinians.
...
cnn.com
Try to learn something about these groups:
Gush Emunim Underground
Terror Against Terror (TNT)
Machteret Underground
Livni Cell
Here's another link:
The leniency with which the Israeli government treated organized Jewish terror groups like TNT in the years preceding and during the intifada sent a clear signal to both Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian opposition to military occupation, even legitimate nonviolent political acts, was swiftly and often violently crushed. Militants from Israeli groups like TNT, by contrast, served light sentences for aggressive and violent acts against innocent Palestinians, if they were brought to court and tried at all. This double standard further deepened Arab resentment to Israeli occupation and indicated to Jewish extremists that acts of violent provocation carried few longterm legal consequences.
...
At the end of March 1994, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva released a report concerning the Hebron massacre which stated that the Israeli "settlers seem largely immune from the legal consequences of criminal acts against Palestinians. " The ICJ, which has addressed Israeli violations in the occupied territories in the past, reiterated that "issues related to the arming of settlers and the inaction of Israeli forces, police and courts in the face of this violence are of primary concern. " The ICJ also noted that the Israeli government has issued more than 9,000 weapons to settlers in the territories and that security at the mosque the day of the massacre was "unusually lax. "
washington-report.org
Re: "Eh? My understanding is that they have full citizenship rights."
Your understanding is wrong. They're treated somewhat similarly to how we used to treat blacks. I know that a lot of people don't trust anything that the Palestinians say, but the unfairness of the laws and the culture in Israeli is admitted by the Israeli government itself. From the right wing Israeli Debka site:
Or Commission Milestones Israeli Jewish-Arab Alienation
Debka, September 3, 2003
Israeli governments have never formulated any clear, consistent policy towards the country’s Arab citizens, who today number some 1.3 million, representing one fifth of the population. This evasiveness is reflected in the justice meted out by the judicial system to the members of this minority. Many Israel Arabs admit freely to living in an intolerable no-man’s land betwixt and between their Arab and Israeli identities, especially in times of conflict. At the same time, justified or not, policy-makers in Jerusalem claim “security considerations” as their rationale for selling Israeli Arabs short on civil rights and equality of opportunity. At least three generations of this minority have learned to view “Israeli justice”, as a synonym for separate codes of justice for Jews and Arabs.
These longstanding grievances and sense of injustice were behind the bitter skepticism with which Israeli Arab leaders greeted the state commission’s findings published on September 1 on how 13 Arabs came to be shot dead by Israeli police in the course of tumultuous, admittedly anti-Israel, riots staged in most Arab centers in northern Israel in October 2000 in support of the Palestinian confrontation.
...
debka.com
Re: "I think an ideal solution would be for the US simply to walk away and let them shoot it out."
I agree.
Re: "That isn't going to happen, though, because of US domestic politics."
Each year more and more Arabs become US citizens and get the vote. Their numbers are increasing, while the numbers of US citizens with similar ties to Israel continues to decrease. In addition, the earlier Arab immigrants are starting to get established here and to therefore have the money that is so important in influencing political action. Eventually these trends will force our politicians (too bad we have no statesmen) to have a more balanced approach to the Mideast. Here's a reference to the demographic trends:
...
Metropolitan Detroit is the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the Middle East. Over 350,000 people of Arabic heritage call Metro Detroit home
The Arab community of Detroit has one of the highest educational attainments of any ethnic group. While one in five (20.3%) of all Americans has graduated from college, almost two in five Arab Americans (36.3%) have a college degree.
...
allied-media.com
aaiusa.org
The Arab birth-rates are huge. Compare:
The Post-Emancipation Exodus: the shrinking of world Jewry
World Jewish Congress
...
The condition of world Jewry can be characterized by a contemporary paradox: for many Jews across the world, who enjoy great personal freedoms and security, equality of opportunity and the ability to integrate into society mean that life has never been so good. At the same time, assimilation proceeds apace and even accelerates, so that it is reasonable to assume that if existing trends continue the Jewish population in the Diaspora will decrease by half in the next generation. Some large and long-established communities are hard hit by assimilation - a situation most apparent in the US, France, United Kingdom and Argentina. Rates of assimilation in these countries are consistently estimated to be as high as 50%. This trend is compounded by affiliating Jews' tendency to marry later in life and to have smaller numbers of children.
...
wjc.org.il
The Israelis are worried that the Arabs will outbreed them in Palestine. I think they should be worried instead that they will be outbred in the US, since it is our support alone that keeps Israel a religious state.
-- Carl |
