Galilee Arab towns to receive special budget allotment for first time

[furman]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/771948.html

Last update - 17:43 08/10/2006
Galilee Arab towns to receive special budget allotment for first time
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent

The Galilee Development Authority will allocate at least NIS 500,000 to Israeli Arab entrepreneurs, as part of the plan to rebuild the Galilee after the war in Lebanon.

This comes out of a NIS 1.5 million budget that was gathered for rebuilding the north.

This is the first time the Authority is apportioning a special sum for the Arab public.

The Galilee Development Authority - a government agency subordinate to Vice Premier Shimon Peres - announced in a letter to heads of Arab municipalities that it would fund entrepreneurs in industry, education, environmental fields and "any initiative that will work to improve the quality of life in the Galilee."

Until now, government cooperation with Arab municipalities was limited, and the majority of budget funds were allocated to Jewish municipalities.

The Authority's director, Shmuel (Sammy) Bar-Lev, said he places much significance in cooperation with the Arab population. Bar-Lev said this is a first step in the process to build confidence with the Arab public.

"The Authority represents all 104 municipalities in the Galilee. We would like to be the brokering source between the needs of the Arab municipalities and various government offices," Bar-Lev said.

The "Bimkom-Planners for Planning Rights" organization responded to the Authority's statements and said that "the authority's intention is positive, but it won't reach its goal without using affirmative action. There is no way to make up for years of discrimination."

[shergald]

1. Is this a breakthrough against Israel's apartheid...

policies toward Israeli Arabs? Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens live on 2% of the land in fairly segregated communities because they have no choice. Giving them a few governmental bucks may seem like a serious reconsideration of its segregation policies, but it is highly doubtful that it means anything beyond tokenism, the grand gesture substantiating that Israelis are not prejudiced. But separation, apartheid will continue to be the reality in Israel.

[furman]

2. The correct term is "discrimination", not apartheid

Israel is not an apartheid state.
Everyone in Israel is equal under the law.
Everyone in Israel can vote.
Arabs are represented in the Knesset and on the Supreme Court.
Arabic is an official language in Israel.
The only difference between Arabs and Jews is that Jews are required to serve in the military, where it is optional for Arab-Israelis.

There is no segregation policy in Israel.
People choose to live seprately due to differences in political, religious, and cultural differences.
They wish to maintain their own ethnic identity.
This is the case in many countries, including the United States.

There are unfortunately instances of discrimination.
Israel has strict anti-segregation laws to help improve the situation.
However, discrimination is commonplace in many countries throughout the world.
Israel should not be singled out for this reason.

Please read the article Israel and Apartheid: The Big Lie for a comprehensive report on the subject.

[Tom Joad]

3. The ADL and South Africa Apartheid. Very Cozy relationship

The ADL illegally spied on activists in the South African divestment movement, perhaps because they did not like the idea of activism against an important Israel ally.

http://www.counterpunch.org/adlspying2.html

ADL was once a civil rights organization, but has lost its roots and now champions Israeli policy, and spreads mistruths about those who dissent. It really is a sad story.

The ADL has, for example, supported Bush's choice for "United States Institute of Peace" Daniel Pipes. (Pipes was appointed dureing Congressional recess, and has since served his term) Pipes was having problems being confirmed by a very republican congress because of his extremist anti-Muslim views. Yet the ADL was there to support him.
http://tomjoad.org/adl_supportspipes.htm

Such a pathetic source of information. An organization that supports the extrmist Bush view of the Arab/Muslim world.

[furman]

5. How about commenting on the contents of the report? n/t

[idontwantaname]

10. good move

im sure some would ask why this sort of symbolic action took so long to happen.

on a side note:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

the rabid dog known as the IDF is still running loose. at the rate israel is going im sure we will see some symbolic reform in another... 70 years.

[shergald]

7. Thanks for clarifying on this organization.

Pipes has recently become involved in a Campus Watch program to counteract efforts of university and college students to become apprised of the reality on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian terrorities. There is little question that the US is under a veil of media bias and blackout pertaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the latest ruse being that Israel is fighting the war on terrorism and Hamas is a terrorist group. For that matter, the State Department has swallowed the propaganda lock, stock, and barrel, while being thoroughly aware of the reality.

About 772,000 viewers have seen the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, and The Promised Land, which is a revelation to anyone not aware that white can be black when it comes to media coverage of Israel and its 39 year military occupation of the Palestinian people.

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

[furman]

8. Do you deny that Hamas is a terrorist organization? n/t

[shergald]

11. By definition, terrorism has a political purpose.

As far as I am aware, neither Hamas nor the Fatah associated militants ever suicide bombed Israel for political reasons. In all cases I am aware of, those suicide bombings were retaliatory in response to deaths of Palestinian civilians, especially children, in the West Bank and Gaza. At the start of the second Intifada, which Palestinians refer to as the al Aqsa Intifada after Sharon's instigation, 27 children were killed by IDF, mostly rock throwing youngsters confronting Israeli soldiers in tanks and humvees, most of whom were SHOT IN THE HEAD. It was only after 27 funerals that Palestinians retaliated with a suicide bomber. Israel forces of course retaliated in response to them, killing and wounding many more Palestinians, children included, but nobody refers to those attacks as terrorism, even though they should be. Palestine is under occupation and has been for 39 years. What do you call an Israeli soldier, who aims at and then shots a young boy or girl in the head. After the first three months of this Intifada, among all those wounded, 159 Palestinian children had one eye shot out, presumably by rubber bullets.

Look up the journalist Alison Weir's investigations on her site, If Americans Knew and watch her short documentary, "Off the Charts." She provided the data I am quoting.

The terrorism label is nothing more than a propaganda ploy being used by Israel to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the guise of the war of terrorism, especially in American minds. Even our State Department has agreed to go along with it, but when did it ever not go along with Israel?

Want some truth? Also see the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, and The Promised Land on Google Video. Over three quarters of a million have viewed it in the past few months, it is that good.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[furman]

13. Hamas's purpose is the destruction of Israel. Isn't that political?

It's a very good thing that your views are in the distinct minority in this country.

[shergald]

20. Not really.

A majority of Americans believe that the Palestinians should have their own state. As far as other issues about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you really have to go to Europe to get advised about such things because they are not under the propaganda veil Americans are unknowingly tolerating.

See Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land at Google Video to understand how American opinion is being manipulated.

[Behind the Aegis]

14. Since you are new...

The use of ifAmericansReallyKnew is not allowed at DU for the reasons provided at the link.

[shergald]

21. It is actually, If Americans Knew.

I have been over to that site many times and can only verify that its conclusions about media bias are based on actual studies conducted by Alison Weir and her staff, which are generously quoted. There is nothing on the site that is inflammatory or untruthful and certainly nothing that exceeds what is reported in the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land, which is about the same topic.

I don't think that the locking of the discussion had to do with this site as opposed to discussion of it. I am new here, true, but if I ever learn that legitimate information is suppressed for questionable or biased reasons, I will leave.

[Behind the Aegis]

22. It is an overly biased site.

It is filled with anti-Israeli propaganda and is not seen as a viable source at DU.

[shergald]

24. Can you give some examples of the

antiIsraeli propaganda? I have only seen misinformation and spin provided by one other blogger, and it was distinctly proIsraeli.

[Behind the Aegis]

25. This person does it so much better....

source

But, more importantly, do remember: it is not seen as a viable source at DU.

[Tom Joad]

26. What a very biased website.

Blaming the victim. Some people refuse to acknowledge that the Palestinians are under occupation, and that occupation is illegal. He seems to be saying "it is their fault".

The source you provide is much more biased than allison's site. But of course, i have seen much worse. Some have added outright libel to their websites to deter those who would question Israeli policy.

[Behind the Aegis]

29. I don't think so.

He doesn't blame the victim, but sets apart the idiotic propaganda that it is "all Israel's fault," which so many like to adhere. I saw nothing that indicates that he saying it is the Palestinians' fault.

The source is no more biased than the crap spewed at her site. As a matter of opinion, this is even less so because he de-constructs her propaganda, yet I don't see him using propaganda. There were two "facts" that may be questionable, but he dissects her "work" quite well.

"Some have added outright libel to their websites to deter those who would question Israeli policy." And some sites post outright lies and anti-Semitism, and to those who dare point out the Palestinians are not completely innocent are accused of a variety of lies.

[shergald]

35. How are Palestinians at fault?

The Palestinians had been ethnically cleansed and 80% who had lived in what came to be Israel lost their homes, lands, and villages, 470 of them according to the PA site. Most of those villages were later bulldozed to prevent return. Since 1967, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have been under military occupation, their lives affected daily by military rule.

No one would disagree with the statement that Arafat was not the best of leaders, but when Palestinians were given hope, as during the 1990s when the Oslo talks were ongoing and Rabin extended its purpose further, and there was relative peace in the territories. However, it was in 1996, when Clean Break was concluded, and the right wing view pushed forward again: "no more land for peace. Peace for peace" as Netanyahu put it. It was back to Ben Gurion, Begin/Shamir, and Bibi's right wing extremist Zionist project. That was stated by Begin back in 1948 in response to the British partitioning: "The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, all of it, forever." And that is where it stands today, Olmerts convergence plan notwithstanding, which falsely suggests that withdrawal will lead to a Palestinian state. No way. Convergence is just another plan to annex the West Bank.

This action will conclude the second screwing of the Palestinian people. So whose faults are we talking about here.

[Behind the Aegis]

41. Takes two to tango

Just as Israel is responsible for many things, so are the Palestinians. Yet, in post after post, you only see the Israeli factor. You cannot see that the Palestinians have just as much a role as the Israelis and outside 'players.' You only see Israel as responsible for the situation and that tells me all I need to know.

[Tom Joad]

28. Website you cite contains these nuggets of "wisdom"

" One of the major reasons the Israeli deaths are lower is because the Israeli government takes measures to protect its people, while the Palestinian government goes out of its way to have as many civilians killed as possible to use the deaths as propaganda."

There is no human rights organization on earth that will back this claim. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, B'tselem would all say that Superior firepower and disregard for Palestinian lives makes the difference.

What kind of credibility does a statement like this have?

[Behind the Aegis]

30. Following that "nugget"

"The PA and Hamas have been known to put legitimate military targets, such as weapons factories, near civilian locations, even schools, so when the Israeli army comes to take those factories down they would inevitably end up killing innocent civilians."

This has been backed up by a variety of human rights organizations.

That statement, the one you question, is an opinion based on facts. Now, one could take the fact of the above statement and conclude that because of limited space that legitimate military targets will, sometimes, fall near civilian locales.

[shergald]

34. Will read it in full later, but I already see some...

misinformation and bias in the critique, and unfortunate statements such as,

"(Weir) exploits Palestinian suffering for purposes of demonizing Israel." This has got to be somewhat peculiar. How do you talk about the suffering of Blacks in the pre1964 south without demonizing Jim Crow segregation. Would it have been more appropriate to demonize Zionism? And the point about original Palestine including TransJordan. I will always recall Sharon saying, Jordan is Palestine, when the Jordanians themselves do not consider Palestinians Jordanians. But Arabs are Arabs, and as Frank Luntz recommended to Israel propagandists, talk about Arabs not Palestinians.

Anyone who believes this critique as truth is also selling a point of view, but I will read it more carefully later.

There have also been critiques of Peace, Propaganda, and The Promised Land, but it has not stopped more than 750,000 viewings to date. You might also want to see Interview: Jeff Halper, founder of Israel COmmittee Against Home Demolition. I noticed another point made, that Israel only demolished the houses of suicide bombers. Well, since there have been 11,000 house demolitions since 1967, there must have been quite a few bombings that we never heard of.

Links:

Peace, Propaganda, & The Promised Land (with Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Arik Ackerman, founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, and many others)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

Off The Charts: Media Bias and Censorship in America
(Alison Weir)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-56006779405690...

Interview: Jeff Halper (founder of Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) and Israel's only Nobel Peace Prize Nominee (2006).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=972845012851906...

[shergald]

36. Read enough...

“Weir makes no mention of the leaders of surrounding Arab nations that are fighting tooth and nail to keep the Israeli/Palestinian conflict going.”

The critique does not mention the Arab League peace offers of 2002 or 2006. There is also an alleged and identical Iranian offer in 2003 presented through an intermediary.

“in reality 1050 innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed and 850 innocent Israelis”

Roughly 3600 Palestinians and 1000 Israelis were killed during the first three years of the second Initifada. This statement was the claim that 2600 Palestinians killed were combatants and suicide bombers, but there just isn’t any substantiation or proof whatsoever for this claim. It is just claimed. The Palestinians claim an 80% civilian kill rate.

“One of the major reasons the Israeli deaths are lower is because the Israeli government takes measures to protect its people, while the Palestinian government goes out of its way to have as many civilians killed as possible to use the deaths as propaganda.”

Does this sound like truth? The reason why fewer Israelis were killed is that the Palestinians do not have an army, while being occupied by an army of tanks, F16s, and attack helicopters.

Suicide bombers no doubt direct their attacks against civilians, but as I indicated earlier, they did not commence until many Palestinians had been killed, 27 of them children, and they were retaliatory, just as the IDF retaliated whenever a suicide bomber struck. These cycles of revenge and retaliation obviously drove the death statistics upward.

“Israel NEVER randomly bulldozes houses just for fun as this site implies”

The site implies nothing of the kind. According to Jeff Halper, professor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University and founder of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, there have been 11,000 house demolitions since 1967. Weir is actually underestimating the number. The critique claims that IDF only demolish homes of suicide bombers. That would amount to less than a hundred.

The other claims about UN Resolutions, all of which pertain to violations of international law regarding occupied territory, were usually ignored by Israel.

About US aid to Israel, actual accounts indicate that formally it is about 3 billion, but in actuality, with military aid, it is more like 6 billion.

There is little point going on. Pretty much this article, which seems like a critique, is really just Israeli propaganda, replete with falsehoods and unsubstantiated corrections of Weir's statistics. At least Weir, who is an investigative journalist, attempts to base her assertions on facts, but her concern is mainly about bias in the US media.

See the above links for more about the Israeli propaganda machine and US media bias.

[Phx_Dem]

16. Sharon instigated it how?

Oh I remember, he and a large security detail walked up to the Temple mount, what provocation!

Many of your assertions are debatable or outright wrong, but your parsing of terrorism is particularly disturbing. You understand that social scientists around the world study terrorism, including middle eastern terrorism, are they all propagandists?

[shergald]

23. By no means.

However, labeling a violent act as terrorism because it implicates the death of civilians leads you to the perhaps disturbing conclusion that a state can also be a terrorist organization. And isn't this what you would have to do in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly since Israel has killed 4-5 times as many Palestinian civilians than Palestinian have killed through suicide bombings.

Selectively labeling Palestinians as terrorists also falls into the propaganda trap of turning Palestinians, who have been living under a military occupation for 39 years, into the perpetrators and making Israelis out to be the victims.

For this reason, I would rather stick with the formal definition that requires such acts to have a political purpose, like the IRA or the Basque separatists, or Al Qaeda. By the way, if you were a Palestinian and had lived most of your years under military occupation, how would you fight back? You have a choice: be like the Vichy French or join the French resistance or do nothing.

[shergald]

6. Granted there are differences....

but I don't distinguish much between the concepts of apartheid and segregation, where you could easily supply the same characteristics you listed to the life of Black people in the US pre1964. The latest report from a human rights group that is over 100 pages long on human and civil rights violations against Israeli Arabs in the year 2005, was released last summer. I believe that its content extends beyond the idea of simple discrimination, even though all of these terms somehow become intermingled in practice.

It is not necessary to single out every nation that practices discrimination, including our own, just to talk about one of them in a thread about one of them.

[furman]

15. Are you referring to the Human Development Report?

http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/indicators.cfm?x=1&...

According to this report, Palestinian Arabs are better off than some of their neighbors, such as Egypt and Syria.
Their ranking is 102 out of 177.
Israel was 22.
The US was 10.

[shergald]

19. Several weeks now since I read portions of it...

so I can't say. However, it was about human rights violations. If I come across it again, I'll let you know.

[breakaleg]

4. I totally agree. They threw them a small bone and nothing more.

[sabbat hunter]

9. all citizens of israel

have full and equal rights. the people who live on the west bank and gaza arent citizens and probably dont want israeli citizenship.


if you are arab and a citizen of israel then you are an israeli not a palestinian.

[Spinoza]

17. The 'Apartheid' Canard

Regarding 'Apartheid' you are talking in the case of S. Africa about a state which was entirely based on race, and upon the oppression of one race by another. This was codified in law. The ONLY distinctions under Israeli law between Jews and non-Jews are:

1) Jews may claim immediate citizenship under the 1948 'Law of Return'. Non-Jews may still become Israeli citizens but they must first satisfy a 3 year residency and procedural requirement. All Arabs and their decendants living in Israel as of 1949 were granted Israeli citizenship.
2) Only Jews are subject to a draft in the IDF. Non-Jews may serve in the army as volunteers, but are not drafted.

Of course, as is true of minorities in virtually every other nation including the U.S., there has been discrimination against Arab Israelis by the majority Jewish population. Until recently Arabs could not buy homes in certain Jewish areas just as Jews cannot buy homes in Arab villages. However a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that, in the words of Chief Justice Aharon Barak: "...the principle of equality prohibits the state from distinguishing between its citizens on the basis of religion or nationality.....The Jewish character of the state does not permit Israel to discriminate between its citizens." It is fair to say that Israel, led by its progressive Supreme Court, is making considerable progress in eliminating the vestiges of anti-Arab discrimination that were largely a product of the refusal of the Arab world to accept a Jewish state. It is also fair to say that despite some lingering inequalities there is far less discrimination against minorities in Israel than in any other Middle Eastern nation.

Israel is a democratic state, created by the United Nations, in which its Arab citizens are full citizens. Respect for the rights of others is an express part of Israel's charter. Calling Israel an 'apartheid' state is a pure canard

[Lithos]

18. Not quite true

Much of the civil laws concerning family and marriage and dietary laws are governed by religious courts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_judicial_system

[Spinoza]

40. True,

there are Jewish religious courts and Islamic religious courts in Israel.
>snip "The other major religions in Israel such as Islam and Christianity are supervised by their own official religious establishments (although the Muslim and Druze kaddis judges are also elected by the Knesset), which have similar jurisdiction over their followers, although Muslim religious courts have more control over family affairs."<snip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_judicial_system

While you are right that Jews and Muslims utilize different religious courts, for their different religions, I don't believe this represents discrimination in any form and certainly cannot be compared to Apartheid under South Africa.

[shergald]

39. Couldn't miss this one.

"Arabs and their decendants living in Israel as of 1949"

What about those who were refused return, the majority of Palestinians kicked out in 1948? How democratic.

As I have often repeated. The American experience, a full democracy, tells us that democracy is no guarantee that its people cannot be legally permitted to act in the most vile manner possible, including freely committing murder. Remember slavery and Jim Crow America? Or our treatment of American Indian populations? Remember the Eugenics Movement when thousands of developmentally disabled and normal individuals were forcably steralized? Remember the internment of Japanese-Americans at the beginning of WWII?

Give us a break. Israel, democracy or not, is practicing segregation against Israel Arabs. Call it apartheid if you will. There's no difference as far as I'm concerned.

[Tom Joad]

27. Read this. Discrimination in housing, civil rights, education.

Institutionalized.

http://www.arabhra.org/about/palestinianminority.pdf


Arab Palestinian pupils in Israel are educated in a school system wholly separate from the Jewish majority. Due to biased budget allocations and curricula, the Arab education sector offers fewer facilities and educational opportunities than its Jewish counterpart, which leads to a general education deficit among the Palestinian minority citizens. According to a Human Rights Watch Report (Second Class: Discrimination against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's Schools, 2001); "Palestinian Arab students drop out of school at three times the rate of Jewish students and are less likely to pass the national exams common to the two systems for a high school diploma.
Only a handful make it to university. <.> Israeli government authorities have acknowledged the gaps between Arab and Jewish education but have failed to equalize the two systems."

The growing number of cases of police violence against Arab citizens is another serious institutional problem. Since 13 minority citizens have been killed by Israeli police in October 2000, 15 more Arab citizens have died by the hands of the police. Currently, the HRA.s Research and Reporting unit is investigating the worrying increase of police violence against the Arab minority.

Especially in connection with house demolitions, excessive violence is being used. On February 25, 2004, Israeli police demolished five houses in the Arab village of Bea’na in the Galilee. Witnesses reported that about 1,500 policemen invaded Bea’na, shooting teargas into the village. Police then entered the village with three bulldozers. Dozens of people were injured by teargas and beatings by police officers. About 30 people had to be hospitalised.

[Behind the Aegis]

31. your point?

Has anyone here denied that discrimination exists in Israel?

[breakaleg]

32. When it's systematic and organized by the state, the term

"discrimination" is a gross understatement for what it actually is.

[Behind the Aegis]

33. and your point?

This problem exists in every country. However, Joad's post had nothing to do with the OP.

[breakaleg]

37. It is related to the OP. It's another example of the unjust way some

of the citizens, not surprisingly Arab citizens, of Israel are not treated equally in Israel. To deny this is like wearing blinders.

[Tom Joad]

38. That this one town got a token budget allocation does not negate the

fact that Israel is operating a system where it systemically discriminates against its indigenous population. Unless much more is done it is mere tokenism.

Same with the individual Israeli terrorist who was sentenced to a long prison term. Given the facts that the vast number of Jewish attackers on innocent Palestinians receive little or no punishment, it can't be said that one long sentence (that we will have to wait to see if the attacker actually has to serve it) can be of any significance.

Tokens are not what the world is waiting for. Not while Israel continually does all it can to destroy all hopes for justice for Palestinians, and seeks to impose a "peace" on its terms only. For example, We see the token dismantaling of an illegal settlement and somehow Israel expects the world to rise up and cheer, even while they expand other settlements (and Israel refuses to admit that all of them are illegal, not just the ones Israel chooses to acknowledge as such).

Unfortunatly for Israel, the world sees through this facade. Like other nations at odds with human rights and international law, it should pay a price for its long history of oppression and military aggression.

Divestment. Now.

We must do all we can to end US unconditional support for this state that chooses to ignore basic human rights for people.