Israel's Supreme Court Orders Jewish National Fund to Find Way to Sell Land to Arabs

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's Supreme Court on Monday gave the country's main land distributor three months to change its policy of selling property only to Jews — a practice that Israel's Arab minority deems racist.

The policy also has provoked criticism of the Jewish National Fund — one of world Jewry's most beloved organizations.

Supporters of the fund insist it has the right to refuse to market its lands to Arabs.

The case points up a basic contradiction Israel has been grappling with for decades: maintaining its Jewish character while offering equality to its Arab minority in the framework of a democratic regime.

Read more: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/art...

[Josh]

1. The rule of law in action

[kirby]

2. It WILL be ignored... n/t

[LeftishBrit]

5. What makes you so sure?

[kirby]

6. Because...

it seems everytime there is a ruling like this, it gets waived or postponed on 'security' reasons.

[pretty_lies]

3. Love That Doublethink

How can a democratic state be "for" one ethnic group?

[UndertheOcean]

4. The same way the USA is just for whites

[Shaktimaan]

7. Most states are.

It's easy to forget in America because nearly everyone here has immigrated from somewhere else during the past few hundred years. So we have a mix of ethnicities that you really just don't see anywhere else in the world. Most countries are pretty homogenous ethnically and nationalities were born of these ethnic and cultural similarities. Think of Japan or Korea or Sweden or Iran or India.

It isn't that these states are dedicated to a specific ethnicity, persay, as much as they are to a certain specific culture. It is just that usually that culture is identified as being specific to a certain ethnicity. So, having a Jewish state isn't really much different than having a Japanese state in theory. It becomes a problem when you have racism as policy that denies minority ethnicities equal rights, like the JNF land allocation laws. For that reason I'm happy to see this ruling passed down. Since Israel is in a pretty constant state of war with the same ethnicity/nationality that makes up 20% of its population it is in a particularly tough situation for ensuring equal treatment for everyone. (You can't really conscript Israeli Arabs and force them to serve in the territories, can you?) Despite this they've been making steady progress towards real equality, the law that this ruling strikes down remains one of the last examples of institutionalized racism towards Israeli Arabs.

[Zhade]

8. "DEEMS racist" - it IS racist!

That's not even up for debate!

[Shaktimaan]

9. No question about that.

On a purley academic note though I'd like to point out that some racist policies, depending on the specifics, are considered acceptable or even preferable by the progressive community. Racism isn't always considered bad, in other words, there's a sliding scale for it that hinges on the potential for good versus its ill effects of society. A great example would be affirmative action, racism by any measure.

So the question with the JNF's policies is not whether it is racist, but whether they cause more harm to Israeli society than good. (I think they're reprehensible myself.) Since all racism is just some form of affirmative action we need to ask if its need is justified. Which is stickier than just labeling it "racist" = bad and moving on.