The discriminatory laws that do not discriminate

[shira]

Last edited Sat Aug 13, 2016, 08:52 AM - Edit history (1)

...This law prohibits trade with “enemy nationals.” It is discriminatory against Arab citizens, Adalah claims, because “Thus far, all “enemy states’ all of are Arab and/ or Muslim states” [sic]. Israel could presumably cure this “discrimination” either by allowing free and untrammeled intercourse with Syria and Iran or by adding Great Britain, France and Switzerland to its list of enemies.

Adalah claims that laws designed to protect citizens against terrorism are discriminatory because the predominant majority of terrorists are Arabs. What democratic country would repeal laws defending against terrorist attacks because the suspected terrorists caught and charged were predominantly Muslims or Arabs? Laws that provide equal rights for both majority and minority groups are nevertheless labeled discriminatory by Adalah. The Law and Administration Ordinance (1948) that defines the country’s official rest days, and the Law for Using the Hebrew Date, both explicitly exclude institutions and authorities that serve non-Jewish populations.

All members of minorities are guaranteed a day of rest on the day specified by his/her recognized religious faith or on Saturday, at the employee’s option. Apparently, Israeli law on Saturday is discriminatory, but not Moslem and Arab countries with Friday or Christian countries with Sunday (most of which do not protect minorities’ day of rest). But one thing is for sure, no Jew is discriminated on his day of rest in most of the Arab countries, because the Jews were kicked out in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Adalah outdoes itself by including the Golan Heights Law on its list. The Golan Heights were captured in the 1967 war started by Syria and Egypt. The law in question grants citizenship and equal rights to all inhabitants of the Golan Heights. The only minority residents living there are Druze, and the law prohibits any and all discrimination. This law granting equality to all residents is denounced as discriminatory against Palestinian Arabs, none of whom live or work there.

Every single one of the 57 laws listed by Adalah list is proven by the Institute for Zionist Strategies study to be non-discriminatory. Anyone can read the laws and the Institute’s conclusions on the IZS site to verify this fact for him/herself. One can also visit the Adalah site, for many of its claims are absurd on their face.

more...
http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=463677

[Little Tich]

1. Yet another piece of hasbara aimed at a "low-level information" audience.

It's only in hasbaraland that an organization that promotes equal civil rights for all Israelis can be considered to be trying to "nullify Israel as a Jewish state". The core of Adalah's advocacy is to promote equal rights for all Israeli citizens, not to give Palestinian refugees the right of return.

Here's a list of the "nefarious" activities Adalah currently is involved in:

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
Source: Wikipedia
(snip)

Legal advocacy
Many of Adalah's cases involve first-time legal challenges and affect Arab citizens as a collective group. Adalah’s legal advocacy focuses on appealing to the Israeli Supreme Court. Between 1996-2000, it brought over twenty cases before the court dealing with equality for Arab citizens, including language rights cases, budgets of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, health and education in the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in Israel.

Adalah’s legal department is divided into three units: Land and Planning; Economic, Social, and Cultural; and Civil and Political (including Criminal Justice and the Occupied Palestinian Territory).

Land and planning rights
Adalah is challenging discriminatory land and planning laws and policies in a wide range of fields. Its litigation efforts include petitioning the courts and planning committees against forced evictions and home demolitions in the Naqab; challenging the policies of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for making land available only to Jews; challenging the state's refusal to recognize or provide services to Arab villages and neighborhoods; objecting to planning decisions which prioritize Jewish settlements over Arab towns; and seeking to overturn policies which discriminate against Arabs in the provision of mortgages and housing assistance.

Economic, social and cultural rights
Some of Adalah's main litigation includes: ensuring that the state implements a 2006 Supreme Court decision which declared that the 'National Priority Area' discriminates against Arab citizens; seeking to secure basic social services – such as water, electricity, schools, roads, and mother and child health clinics – in the Arab Bedouin unrecognized villages; challenging regulations which prohibit Arab citizens from opening their stores on Saturday (Sabbath); and achieving equal treatment for the Arabic language on road signs and in governmental operations, as befits its status official status.

Civil and political rights
Adalah's litigation activities include ensuring citizens' right to peaceful protest, including the representation of demonstrators; defending Arab MKs in political criminal cases; challenging laws which violate freedom of expression, including laws that restrict Nakba commemoration; and demanding investigations and accountability when the state employs violence against its own citizens, as it did in October 2000 with the killing of 13 Arab protesters.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
Adalah's work focuses on Gaza, occupied East Jerusalem and the rights of prisoners and detainees. Adalah monitors rights abuses in the OPT, both during and outside of military offensives, and submits impact litigation cases to expose and challenge these practices. Adalah has argued cases dealing with the denial of tort compensation to Palestinians harmed by Israeli military operations, demanding investigations into home demolitions; fighting against techniques of collective punishment imposed against the civilian population; and seeking an end to inhumane detention conditions at Israeli prisons.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalah_%E2%80%93_The_Legal_Center_for_Arab_Minority_Rights_in_Israel

It's pretty clear that the writer of the OP doesn't know the difference between a democratic ethnocracy and a "normal" democracy. In all other democracies, like Germany for example, all citizens have the same rights and there are no laws giving preference to ethnic Germans, directly or indirectly. In the nation-state of the German people, all citizens are Germans, but in the nation-state of the Jews, not all citizens are Jewish - quite a fundamental difference, actually. The author of the OP makes the following argument:

A basic underlying presumption used to condemn 21 of the 57 laws, is that any enactment defining or promoting Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel (e.g., the flag law and the law to support Yad Ben Zvi, a prominent institution promoting Zionist study and values). But this flawed premise would delegitimize the vast majority of the world’s democracies, which are also nation states – that is, states established by and for a predominant ethnic or religious majority. As I pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article explaining the proposed Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, “Most of the more than 60 democracies are built on the ethnic identity of a predominant group, which molds the character of the state while affording minorities full civil and religious rights. In this regard the Jewish state of Israel is a typical democratic country.”

Ethnic discrimination is still ethnic discrimination when it's done to promote the ethnic identity of the predominant group, sorry. The closest comparison to another country with a similar ethnic democratic system like Israel would be the American South during the Jim Crow era, where African-Americans were considered second-class citizens and were legally discriminated against.

Israel has a number of laws that differentiate between Jewish citizens and non-Jewish citizens, which give preferential treatment to Jewish citizens. They even have different forms of citizenship; all and only Jewish Israelis derive their citizenship from the Law of Return, while all other Israelis are considered naturalized citizens.

Adalah has a list of discriminatory laws, and from my understanding, every single one of them would be considered unconstitutional in the US or in contravention with the European Convention on Human Rights in the EU. The Adalah list can be found here:

The Discriminatory Laws Database
Source: Adalah, 30/05/2012
http://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771

The OP lists a number foreign donors to Adalah, which is completely in line with the current attempts among right-wingers to expose human rights NGOs as "foreign moles".

Finally, as an example of how Israel discriminates against Arabs in Israel, here's a story about how Israel rewards Arab citizens who serve in the IDF:

Palestinian mom of Israeli soldier in 21-year fight for citizenship
Source: Times of Israel, August 11, 2016

West Bank woman married an Israeli Arab and moved here decades ago; she is now ill but ineligible for medical treatment

A Palestinian woman whose late husband was an Israeli citizen and whose son serves in the Israel Defense Forces has been denied Israeli citizenship for the past 21 years.

According to a report by Channel 2 TV on Wednesday, the woman — who was not identified — was originally from the West Bank city of Jenin and moved to Israel after marrying an Arab Israeli man from Haifa over two decades ago. Her husband has since died and she is ill, but remains unable to get medical insurance or work in Israel because she is not a citizen.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-mom-of-israeli-soldier-in-21-year-fight-for-citizenship/

[shira]

4. Adalah supports the entire BDS platform in full, with right-of-return certainly included.

As Norm Finkelstein stated...

“I mean we have to be honest, and I loathe the disingenuousness. They don’t want Israel. They think they are being very clever; they call it their three tier. We want the end of the occupation, the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever because they know the result of implementing all three is what, what is the result? You know and I know what the result is. There’s no Israel!

As Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of BDS, has stated...

“(Palestinians have a right to) resistance by any means, including armed resistance. (Jews) aren’t indigenous just because you say you are….(Jews) are not a people…the UN’s principle of the right to self-determination applies only to colonized people who want to acquire their rights. ”

“Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.We are witnessing the rapid demise of Zionism, and nothing can be done to save it, for Zionism is intent on killing itself. I, for one, support euthanasia.“

“I am completely and categorically against binationalism because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land.”

“You cannot reconcile the right of return for refugees with a two state solution….a return for refugees would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. A two-state solution was never moral and it’s no longer working.”

“(Jews) did not suffer in Arab countries. There were no pogroms. There was no persecution.”

“I clearly do not buy into the two-state solution.”

[shira]

2. (Abstract & Summary of Study) "Adalah vs. the State of Israel"

...The findings of this report, presented in detail in the summary chapter, clearly
demonstrate that for a variety of reasons, the claims promoted by Adalah are, in essence,
fundamentally groundless:

Written by Lilach Danzig. Edited by Adi Arbel.

1. The overwhelming majority of the laws featured in the list (53 out of 57) do not
even relate to the citizens' ethnic origins and those that do, are designed to
prevent and avoid discrimination. For example, the Law and Administration
Ordinance (1948) that defines the country's official rest days, and the Law for
Using the Hebrew Date, both explicitly exclude institutions and authorities that
serve non-Jewish populations for whom the law provides for definitions and
procedures appropriate for their specific needs.

2. In 21 cases, Adalah's claims of discrimination stem from the organization's
extremist stance that rejects the nature of Israel as a nation state in general and as
the nation state of of the Jewish people in particular. For example, the Yad BenZvi
Law is defined as a discriminatory law because of the institution's objective of
promoting Zionist ideals.

3. 18 of the laws reflect customs in other Western democracies whose democratic
character no one would disparage. For example, according to Adalah, the flag
constitutes a discriminatory law. Needless to say, this unfounded reasoning would
mean that any country, the flag of which bears a cross or crescent discriminates
against its non-Christian or non-Muslim minorities. A more in-depth comparison
between the laws frequently found that Israeli legislation is actually characterized
by a higher degree of tolerance for its national minorities.

4. In at least 13 cases, a large disparity exists between the explicit content of the laws
and the biased (and sometimes warped) interpretation accorded to them by
Adalah. In some instances the claimed discrimination is difficult to identify. For
example, the Golan Heights Law is considered discriminatory due to its objective
of "according a legal basis for the implementation of Israeli law on the territory of
the Golan Heights conquered by Israel". It would seem that only Adalah is
capable of explaining a law intended to grant equal rights to all residents of the
Golan Heights as being discriminatory.

5. 8 laws are intended to protect the security of all Israeli citizens regardless of
religion, race or gender. Included in these laws are a number of legislative
amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law and the Prisons Ordinance aimed at
assisting the security forces in preventing terror attacks. These laws adversely
affect only those clearly suspected of engaging in terror activity without
distinguishing between Jews and Arabs. In effect, this very claim is woefully
discriminatory because it presumes that Arab citizens of Israel are generally hostile
and prone to terror activities.

6. 7 of the laws do not even relate to Israel's Arab citizens but rather to those noncitizen
individuals towards whom the State is not obligated to act with equality.
The absurdity in Adalah's approach can be demonstrated by the example of the
Trading with the Enemy Act (a law evolving from British Mandatory law) being
included in the list of discriminatory laws because "the countries declared as such
(Iran, Syria and Lebanon) are Arab and/or Muslim states". Presumably the law
could be remedied by adding other, non-Muslim and non-Arab enemy states.

7. In the case of some of the laws mentioned in the list, the supposed discrimination
in question actually affected the Jewish majority and not the Arab minority. For
example, Clause 7a of the Basic Law: the Knesset, the objective of which is to
prevent the candidacy of political parties acting against the existence of the State
of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, has been implemented only against
Jewish parties on grounds of anti-democratic objectives. Similarly, amendments
to the Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law are indicted by Adalah for
discriminating in favor of Jewish citizens, but these citizens are the ones
specifically obligated to serve three years of military service for sub-minimum
compensation and living conditions, thus postponing their university education
and professional advancement. It is the Arab citizen who enjoys the option of
exemption from military service altogether or alternatively, of volunteering for
national civil service which does not place them in harms way but which
nevertheless affords them the same benefits awarded to discharged soldiers.

8. In a number of cases, Adalah misuses objective crime statistics to claim
discrimination. According to this logic, if members of the Arab sector of the
population are the main criminal violators of a certain law, then that particular
law perforce is deemed racist. This could apply to laws against theft of property,
against sex crimes or against driving through red lights. The constructive and
proper solution, to disproportionate violations is not annulment of necessary laws,
of course, but rather, educating and encouraging observance of the law among all
sectors of the population-without distinction or favoritism.

...cont'd.

http://izs.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Adalah.vs_.Israel-2.pdf

[shira]

3. Conclusion within the summary...

...We conclude therefore that by an objective standard of analysis Adalah's claims are
essentially unfounded and that Israel acts as a democratic nation state respecting the
rights of its minorities. Adalah's claims that the State of Israel is a country that
systematically discriminates against minority citizens is baseless and made in bad faith. A
fair analysis leads to the conclusion that in many respects, Israel is more protective of
minority rights than a large number of western countries.

Moreover, an in-depth examination of Adalah's "discriminatory" laws in the context of
internationally accepted practices leads to the important conclusion that not every
preference constitutes discrimination. Indeed, most of the laws cited in Adalah's database
do not discriminate against Israeli Arabs at all but rather, assist in promoting Israel as a
more Jewish and democratic country actively striving for the welfare of all its citizens.

Adalah's list is not a mere academic exercise: It is a deliberate attempt to defame Israel
and to portray it as an apartheid state discriminating against its Arab citizens. Adalah's
claims are trumpeted by members of the BDS movement seeking to promote boycotts,
divestment and the imposition of sanctions on the State of Israel (and not just the
settlements in Judea and Samaria) with the clear objective of undermining and even
negating its existence as the nation state of the Jewish people.

A significant thrust of the BDS movement's strategy is the attempt to transform Israel into
an international pariah state by depicting it as an apartheid state deliberately and
institutionally discriminating against its Arab citizens. But while proclaiming itself an Israeli
organization seeking to make the Israeli state better by promoting the rights of (some of)
Israel's citizens, its real purpose seems to be aimed at undermining the legitimization and
continued flourishing of the State of Israel itself. We submit that this conclusion is
logically compelling from a reasoned analysis the manipulated and systematically flawed
compilation of Adalah's lies of "discriminatory laws".

[Little Tich]

5. I don't think these arguments would convince a supporter of BLM.

They all smack of the idea of "white privilege", which automatically assumes the superiority of one ethnicity over the other. Again, this is not how any other democratic state treats ethnic groups. Every non-Israeli democracy is a state of all its citizens, with no legal preference for a certain ethnicity either as a group or as individuals, and no legal preference for any cultural expression or a certain religion.

In the US, Germany, Sweden or any other real democracy all citizens are part of the country's nationality: American, German, Swedish etc. Think about it - there are people in the Jewish state who aren't Jews and who will never receive a Jewish nationality. It's tantamount to have US citizens who could never legally become Americans due to their ethnicity...

I personally think that this flat out denial that there's anything even remotely wrong with Israel's democracy is an untenable position. It would be much better if supporters of Israel could at least admit there are some things that need fixing. Denying that the problem even exists only reinforces the feeling that something must be done.

[shira]

6. You stand by each & every 1 of those 50 ridiculous, idiotic allegations of discriminatory laws...

Last edited Sun Aug 14, 2016, 09:44 AM - Edit history (4)

That you cannot even admit any are stupid fabrications goes to show how far you'd go with your anti-Israel advocacy.

An Industry of Lies.

To admit one is to see the entire house of cards fall....

[shira]

7. Guardian op-ed smears Israel with discredited NGO claim of “50 racist laws”

...His claim that Israeli Arabs (“Palestinian citizens of Israel”) are afforded less rights than Jews links to a widely cited report by the far-left NGO Adalah which alleges the existence of at least “50 racist laws” in Israel.

However, CAMERA and other watchdog groups have refuted Adalah’s claims of racism – a term used so carelessly by the NGO that even an Israeli public health law requiring that parents vaccinate their children is bizarrely included on their list of “racist laws”.

more...
https://ukmediawatch.org/2016/09/08/guardian-op-ed-smears-israel-with-discredited-ngo-claim-of-50-racist-laws/