A few months of not commenting of I/P conflict has got me wishing to tell some truth, against all the Israel Hate spewing out of one too many diaries around here. I was especially upset two days ago to read a series of "Israel is apartheid and Evil!!!" diaries, (even more so as it was Holocaust Memorial Day here) so I decided to write about it. Today I erased what I had written, and brought out Dror-Ben-Yemini's well researched article. He is A columnist for Maariv.
In this Diary I bring a report on Israeli Arabs, how there is no apartheid against them, and how their "oppression" complex makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My thanks to Dror-Ben-Yemini (Maariv) for his article and publishing it.
Original Article - English Link
Original Article - Hebrew Link
For the sake of attention span, I bring here a shorter version. You are free to look at the full article via link.
In this Article, Ben Dror Yemini examines The claims of discrimination of Israeli Arabs and argues that the main problem is the oppression of women.
It covers many issues and give out a lot of info. It is written with the Arab-Israeli reader in mind.
- Update: To avoid Copyright Issues I will publish only two thirds of the original article, even though the writer gave a general wish for this article to be shown in English on the net. The rest can be read via link
Enjoy your read!
Israeli Arabs have become a hot topic all over the world. Their spokespeople, among whom are Jews and Israelis, appear in many forums, disseminating false accusations of the "apartheid" under which the Israeli Arabs are suffering. It is a strange apartheid indeed. The facts are below.
This was important - Everybody realizes that ANY country in the world has differences. Israel is the only country where people think that ANY difference is "Apartheid" that justifies its boycott and eventual elimination.
To further that point - here in Daily KOS we have several extreme diarists that stop at nothing to claim Israel is the Devil incarnate - totally malicious, evil, oppressive, destructive... after reading them so much you really think Israel is worthy of Nazi- style "Solutions". Here is an example:
Example
And a diary about true anti-semitism on Daily KOS:
Hate Meta: 'The Protocols of the Daily Kos'
Any day I'd tell them "Get a job!", but... Back to our article:
Opposition to Jewish self-determination
...A bit of background: In recent months, documents have been published that have attempted to place the various demands of Israeli Arabs on the Israeli and international agenda. The main point, however, is not a legitimate demand for equality. The main point is a negation of the right of the Jews to self-determination. The main point is the absolute adoption of the rejectionist line taken by the Palestinians since the 1937 Peel commission. The document contains a demand that Israel recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination without giving a similar right to the Jews.
People on many posts try to reverse history or leave big chunks out of it as to draw Israel as the Eternal Refusor. I even saw an article that claims that before 1967 Israel was refusing peace, and that it justifies the Khartoum Three No's Resolution.
Comparative data
Since the establishment of Israel, the Arabs in Israel have undergone positive changes that have not occurred in any other Muslim and/or Arab community in the world. This is true in comparison to the citizens of neighboring countries, whose starting point was similar, and in comparison to similar minority communities in European countries.
Jewish populations with similar characteristics (single breadwinner, large family) are in a similar position.
Most of the countries of Europe are welfare states. Some of the Muslims there are second and third generation. They should already have integrated and begun to benefit from the welfare policies, but that is not happening.
The latest and most comprehensive of these is a special report issued by the European Union: "Muslims in the European Union - Discrimination and Islamophobia". Below are some of the data:
This is important, but relies on a single premise - That countries in the world are comparative to each other. If a person considers 50% Muslims as poor in Israel evil apartheid that demonstrates Israel is encouraging ethnic cleansing but 60% Muslims as poor in Britain legitimate, meaning nothing, than this next part of facts is useless.
Income and employment
68% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households in Britain (which are the majority of Muslims there) are living below the poverty line, compared with 23% of the general population. In Israel, according to a report by Amutat Sikui which was recently published, 45.9% of Arab families are living below the poverty line, compared with 14.7% of the general population.
Worse yet, 73% of Bangladeshi and Pakistani children in Britain are living under the poverty line, compared with 31% of the general population. In Israel those figures are 55.7% of Arabs compared with 20.3% of the general population. For the sake of accuracy, in Israel the poverty line is 50% of the median income, compared with 60% in Britain, so the gap between Israel and Britain is probably smaller than what was shown.
In 2003, the unemployment rate for Jews in Israel was about 9%. Among Israeli Arabs, in contrast, the rate was 16%. In the field employment, the European Union shows corresponding data. In Belgium the rate is 7% compared with 38% among the Muslims. In other words, in the European welfare states, the relative status of Muslims is worse than in Israel.
The average number of years of schooling is 12.6 for Israeli Jews and 11.2 for Arabs. The data show that at the beginning of the 1960s, there was a difference of seven years of schooling, but since then the gap has been dramatically narrowed to 1.4 years. Not a single country in Europe can show similar data for narrowing such gaps.
That was interesting, but that was in Welfare-State-Europe.
Lets see how Israeli Arabs compare to Arab countries:
(Some of which even experience the benefits of benevolent Sharia!!!)
Israeli Arabs and the neighboring countries
The life expectancy in Israel is 79.7 years and 76 years for Israeli Arabs. In Syria, the life expectancy is 73; in Jordan - 71; in Lebanon - 72; and in Egypt - less than 70. The same is true for education. In Jordan the rate of illiteracy is 10.1%; in Lebanon - 13.5%; in Syria - 20.4%; in Egypt - 28.6%; and in Israel - 2.9% in the general population and about 6% among the Arabs.
How can that be if Israelis practice ethnic cleansing every day?
Where did the "daily ethnic cleansing" go?
Now supposedly Israel is a slave of Ulta-Orthdox and Super-Right-Wing-Evil-Zionist settlers, Which are all-powerfull.
Lets examine this:
The ultra-orthodox are in a worse position
The basis is therefore not ethnic or national, nor is color the explanation for discrimination or oppression. After all, the accomplishments of the immigrants from India have surpassed the whites (and the Jews) in both the United States and England. The formula for equality lies primarily in another source: culture - primarily the status of women.
Every community that practices repression - primarily the repression of women - is further from attaining equality with the general population.
The same is true among Jews: the situation of the ultra-orthodox, by many indices, is worse than that of the Muslims. The reasons are similar: the status of women, low participation in the workforce and large families.
The status of women - a critical factor
The status of women affects their participation in the workforce. In Israel, 52.5% of Jewish women are in the workforce. Among Muslims the rate is 13.3%, and among Christians it is a 42%. In England, 70% of Muslim women are not in the workforce compared with only 23% of the white women and 30% of the Hindu women.
Societies that practices internal repression can expect lower achievements than the majority. That is the case in countries with minorities and in minority communities. Even enormous oil reserves cannot rectify the damage caused by the repression of women. The per capita income in Israel, in terms of buying power, is $24,382. In Kuwait it is $19,384 and in Saudi Arabia it is $13,825.
Even so, there is discrimination. I never said there wasn't. But it is not much different than most Nations with minorities of radically different beliefs and customs.
Even so, there is discrimination
The following is not intended to deny the existence of discrimination. The BBC checked whether candidates with identical qualifications in Britain are invited to job interviews. As expected, there was a clear preference for whites. The Muslims were discriminated against even more than the blacks.
Even if the Muslims in Israel, Europe and the Arab countries themselves raise justified claims of discrimination, the greatest promoter of change is the status of women. The status of women is not the rationale that explains everything, but it is the best explanation.
In the United States, the Muslims have a higher status, even higher than the average of the general population because there, among other things, there is a real change in the status of the women. It has a far greater impact than the external repression of the West, of the white majority in western countries, or of the Jewish majority in Israel. Around the Muslim world, there are those who know that taking responsibility and ending the self-delusion are the way to get out of the mire. These voices are the hope of the Muslim world.
And now for the biggest push for reality vs. the popular industry of lies. I bolded the most important part...
The United States and Israel, the "Great Satan" and the "Little Satan," are the countries in which, both relatively and absolutely, the situation of the Muslims is far better than anywhere else in the world. But the industry of lies is stronger than the facts. One way or the other, on the basis of the comparative data, the demands of the Israeli Arabs for obliterating the Jewish character of the State are more than puzzling. And they are puzzling both because they have no serious basis in international law and because, if they are implemented, they will cause double damage: both to the Arab minority and to the Jewish majority. This must never happen.
Now to the major I/P problem: Right of Return.
Those that advocate it, like umkahlil Here Know that it is a death sentence. Obliteration. Destruction. Death of all Israelis - men, women, children. Our national and physical end, every nightmare that wakes us screaming in the night with visions of Auschwitz, is embodied in the Right of Return.
No "Palestinian rights are unalienable and supercede all Israeli rights" Post-Modernist mumbo jumbo can change that.
Here Dror talks about it a bit more efficiently:
Immigration and return
The basic demand in the documents is obliteration of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. The Palestinians have the right to self-determination. They have the right to be the majority in their own state. It is also their right to implement the right of return for Palestinians and not for Jews. There is a similar right in the State of Israel, which was established by UN resolution as a Jewish state. There is nothing racist about this.
What is clear is the fact that there is no room for double self-determination, either in the Palestinian state or in Israel. A serious examination shows that Finland, Greece, the Czech Republic, Japan, Ireland, Poland, Norway, Germany and many other countries grant a right of return, at one level or another, on the basis of ethnicity or repatriation, i.e., a return to the homeland.
The international community also recognizes nation states. Even the existence of a national minority does not negate the state's right to preserve its national character. This is the case in many countries that have recently joined the European Union, including Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Romania.
Those opposed to our right to life pretend that being "Jewish and democratic" is a crime. But their goal is our annihilation, otherwise they would be critisizing Egypt's existence as well:
What is wrong with "Jewish and democratic"?
The logic of the Israeli Arab leadership reminds me that several years ago, the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram published a particularly vitriolic editorial against Israel over the fact that it dared to define itself as a "Jewish and democratic state", which involved dreadful racism. I contacted the editor and called his attention to the fact that Egypt calls itself the "Arab Republic" and that Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution states: "Islam is the state religion... the main source of the law is Islamic law (the Sharia). If that is the case, what is wrong with Israel being "Jewish and democratic?" I was told that an explanation would be forthcoming. More than two years have passed - I'm still waiting.
Let's go back to Europe. The immigration laws that have been passed since 2001 attest to a clear direction: a tightening of the restrictions on immigration. When there are no national or ethnic restrictions, there are economic and cultural restrictions (Denmark, Holland, France and England). In Germany and Holland there are entrance examinations with a well-known, albeit undeclared, objective, which is to prevent Muslim immigration, primarily by means of forced marriages.
Post-Zionists and Absolute Human Rights champions say that they want a non-religious bi national nation. Peace and love for all. Well it isn't. Read on:
A country of all its citizens
This solution has all kinds of names. The PLO once called it a "secular estate." Among us, there are those who call it a "country of all its citizens." In the new documents, it is called a "dual language" or "multicultural" state. Thanks, but we’re not buying. The wars between ethnic groups in Sudan, a country with a clear Muslim majority, have left millions dead. The civil wars in Lebanon over the past three decades, based on religion and at ethnicity, have left 130,000 dead. The abysmal hatred between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq has already left hundreds of thousands of people dead. They joined the even larger number of those murdered, primarily Shi'ites and Kurds, who were disliked by the Sunni minority that was in power.
If what the Muslim Arabs are offering to other ethnic groups is mainly unending slaughter, then
please, don't try to sell us your latest hit: Consociationalism. In our region, it doesn't work. This is also the case with multiculturalism.
There seems to be something strange about supporting the "forces of progress" in this unsuccessful formula. It is even stranger that Muslim intellectuals continue to recite it. It would behoove them to heed the prominent Muslim women such as Seyran Ates, Necla Kelek of Germany, Fadela Amara of France, Irshid Manji of Canada, Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud of USA and many, many others. It seems that the Muslim women are the greatest opponents of multiculturalism. They know why.
Taking on the "Original Sin":
Al Nakba
You demand that "the state recognize its responsibility for the injustices of Al Nakba (the catastrophe of the creation of the State of Israel) and the occupation. Why shouldn't the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, recognized their responsibility in the injustices that they have brought upon themselves? After all, the Arabs declared a war of annihilation on the state that had just been established and the result was a catastrophe for them. 630,000 Palestinians were forced to leave. Some ran away. Others were expelled. Still others remained displaced within Israel. In the years that followed, 700,000 Jews arrived from Arab countries. Some of them had run away. Some of them were expelled.
During those years, this was called a population exchange. That is nothing compared with other regions. 7 million Muslims moved from India to Pakistan. A similar number of Hindus moved from Pakistan to India. And there are numerous other examples (as detailed in my article And the World Lies, which was published on October 1, 2006).
In all other nations of the world, that chapter of history is over and done with. But only the Arab world, by conscious and intentional decision, chose to leave the refugees like a festering wound. Let them suffer. That would enable the Arab world to level complaints at Israel. That is what happened in 1967, when the Arabs refused to learn the lessons of the past and launched another war of annihilation. The result is the "occupation."
So how exactly is Israel responsible?
And what would have happened to if there had been an Arab victory? We will remind you only of what not none other than the Secretary of the Arab League said, upon launching the war in 1948: "This war will be a war of annihilation and the story of the slaughter will be told like the campaigns of the Mongols and the Crusaders." And the Mufti, Haj Amin Al Husseini, added his own bit: "I am declaring a holy war. My brother Muslims! Slaughter the Jews! Kill them all!" So forgive us for winning. The other option was a lot worse. And no, this is not just history. This is happening in our time as well. Arabs and Muslims are slaughtering Arabs and Muslims. The slaughtered number in the millions, with no connection to Israel and Zionism (details in my article And The World Remains
Silent, which was published on January 5, 2007).
Based on the fact that millions of Muslims were and are being murdered by other Muslims, and many millions of others have become refugees, your Nakba really is a catastrophe, but try to think what would have happened to you if the enemy was not Jews, but rather Muslims. Horrifying thought, no?
Illusions
There is a good representation of the "forces of progress" among the Jewish majority. These are devout anti-Zionists. And they encourage rejectionism. Among us, they are a weed growing in the garden of democracy and academe. They aid and abet your fantasy of a right of return, a binational state and other nonsense. They only perpetuate suffering. And if you think a bit more, you will understand they are racist Orientalists.
Summing up a Brilliant Essay:
Epilogue
The State of Israel is far from perfect. Bad, irritating and painful mistakes have been made by the Jewish majority, which have only increased the damage and suffering for both nations. The criticism is often justified. But when criticism is not leveled for the purpose of preventing discrimination and distortions, but rather for the sake of damaging the national ethos of the majority, the justified demand for equality is tarnished.
In the tradition of the delusional "forces of progress", you are not dealing with constructive criticism but rather than demonize and delegitimize of Israel. That is a shame. Equality is a worthy goal. But in order to fight the lack of equality you must look at the reality. There is no need to err with illusions, because if your demands were accepted, it would create a situation in which all the citizens of Israel, both Arabs and Jews, would begin to deteriorate. We would integrate into the region in the most negative sense of the word. They create the impression that, rather than fighting to obtain rights (for Arabs), you are fighting to deny rights (of Jews). The words are liberal, but the melody belongs to the elements calling for elimination of the Zionist entity. So don't be surprised if a decisive Jewish majority has no desire to talk about it.
To that end, we have to get out of the mire of self-delusion. In the Arab and Muslim world there is more than just a spark of this sobering awakening. When this prevails, among Israeli Arabs as well, and hopefully that will happen in the not-too-distant future, it will be the beginning of a new partnership. Inshallah.
That is how I feel when I read on Holocaust Memorial Day so many words by so many people on KOS advocating Israel's destruction.
It is also important to give a distinction between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank. Only a two state solution with large scale land and population exchanges will avoid a total conflagration and I support it wholeheartedly. It will not, however, solve the dismal status of Muslims worldwide.
I once believed being progressive and democratic meant many things:
Democracy, Responsible Capitalism, Enviromentalism, Resisting Tyranny and Genocide in the World, etc.
Now I feel it had been hijacked by a hateful alliance of Communists, Post-Modernists, Nihilists, Pacifists, Moral-Equivalenists, Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 cospiracy theorists, Human Rights Cause Hijackers, Third World Tyrants, and Islamic Fundamentalists.
Not my cup of tea, and a group all Kossaks should resent as a barrier to our true values.