U.S.: Discrimination, corruption in Israel

[Scurrilous]

State Department issues annual human rights report, finds Israel guilty of severe violations including harassing Arabs, discriminating against women and Arabs, abusing women and foreign workers; but overall Israel ‘respects its citizens’ rights’

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3225620,00.html

<snip>

"Trafficking in and abuse of women and foreign workers, discrimination against persons with disabilities, and government corruption,” read just a few of the criticisms of Israel made in the United States State Department’s annual human rights violations report.

The reports, published every year since 1977, track democracy and human rights in 196 countries.

The authors report “serious abuses by some members of the security forces against Palestinian detainees; poor conditions in some detention and interrogation facilities; institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens; and societal violence and discrimination against women” in Israel. The report also notes that while Israeli detainees aged 17 and under are separated from adults, this separation does not exist among Palestinian prisoners.

In addition, the authors criticize Israeli matrimonial law, saying, “Jews can marry only in Orthodox Jewish services. Jews and members of other religious communities who wish to have civil marriages; Jews who wish to marry according to Reform or Conservative Judaism; those not recognized by Orthodox authorities as being Jewish; and those marrying someone from another faith, must marry abroad to gain government recognition. While government-recognized civil marriages are available in Cyprus, this requirement presents a hardship.”

However, despite the long list of criticisms, Israel comes out “okay” relatively, and isn’t included in the list of countries perpetrating severe human rights violations. The Israeli government, the U.S. concludes, “respects its citizens’ human rights.”

[cantstandbush]

1. This is the kind of rank hypocrisy and double standards that fuel the

flames for wars that will ultimately mean your children and my children (no not my children) will be used as cannon fodder.

[Englander]

2. The report;

Israel and the occupied territories

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 8, 2006

(The Report on the occupied territories is appended at the end of this Report.)
With a population of approximately 6.9 million (including about 5 million Jews within Israel),Israel is a multiparty parliamentary democracy. "Basic laws" enumerate fundamental rights. The 120-member, unicameral Knesset, has the power to dissolve the government and mandate elections. Both the 16th (most recent) Knesset and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were elected democratically in 2003. In November Sharon requested that the president dissolve the Knesset, announced that he was leaving the Likud Party, and established a new party, Kadima ("move forward"). The president set elections for March 28, 2006. On December 29, pursuant to presidential decree, the Knesset was dissolved.

The judiciary is independent and sometimes ruled against the executive, including in some security cases. Notwithstanding some cases of abuse by individuals, the civilian authorities maintained effective control of the security forces. (An annex to this report covers human rights in the occupied territories. This report deals only with human rights in Israel.)

In August and September, Israel withdrew all civilians and military personnel from all 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and from 4 settlements in the northern West Bank of the over 200 settlements there. Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens of the country and do not enjoy the rights of citizens, even if living in areas under full Israeli authority or arrested in Israel. The approximately 20 thousand non-Israeli residents of the Golan Heights were subject to Israeli authority and Israeli law.

The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were problems in some areas, including the following:

* serious abuses by some members of the security forces against Palestinian detainees
* Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers
* resulted in the death of 29 civilians and an IDF soldier within Israel
* poor conditions in some detention and interrogation facilities
* improper application of security internment procedures (see annex)
* institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens
* discrimination in personal and civil status matters against non-Orthodox Jews
* societal violence and discrimination against women
* trafficking in and abuse of women and foreign workers
* de facto discrimination against persons with disabilities
* government corruption

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61690.htm#ot