Battling against Israeli 'apartheid'

[number6]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4111915.stm

Adel Kaadan is standing by the side of a potholed road surrounded by puddles of sewage. "Can you smell it now?" he asks. "My children have to pass this way every day on their way to their classes

It is not the kind of place he wants to raise his four daughters, aged four to 15, so for almost a decade he has been fighting for the right to move to a Jewish community a few miles away on heavily subsidised, state-owned land.


......

[The Magistrate]

1. This Sort Of Thing, Sir

Is a long-standing disgrace, and it ought to end.

[Igel]

3. Waqf.

When there are no waqf lands that are per force Judenrein, I would wholeheartedly support your position.

It seems that the Jewish state caught a bit of an infection (in many regards) from its neighbors.

[The Magistrate]

4. Do You, Sir, In All Matters

Hew to a policy of waiting for your neighbor to act virtuously before doing so yourself?

"What you don't like yourself, don't do to others: that is the whole of the Law; the rest is commentary."

[Igel]

5. No, alas, I strive to hold myself to higher standards.

Emphasis to be placed upon "strive."

I do not claim that Muslimrein areas are defensible, just that I don't see any clear reason (apart from principle's sake, always a risky affair when dealing with concrete matters) to engage in lengthy criticism.

I must show my ignorance, however, and ask: How is it that the Israeli government acquired these lands?

[The Magistrate]

6. Then Do Not Defend Them, Sir

If you feel they are indefensible.

It is seldom my practice to take a stand on principle, and this is not one of those rare occassions. Here, as is often the case in conflicts, expediency and principle find confluence in a common course, that is in the long view the most ruthless that can be adopted. It is most desireable for the state of Israel to do well by its Arab citizens, and gain and hold their loyalty and affection; their potential as "Fifth Columnists" is far too great to be ignored, and it is always an easier and more palatable business to win loyalty and affection than to instill fear, and it has much less potential for a damaging recoil.

Title to the greatest portion of land in Israel is held by a trust that originated in the earliest days of the Zionist project, when land in Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine was being purchased by funds raised among the world's Jews. It was, of course, intended that such lands purchased be used for settlement and economic support of Jews emmigrating to Palestine.This organization has continued to function through the period of statehood, as have many organizations that originated in the Zionist movement: this one persisted in part because Israel was initially organized on Socialist lines, and it was desired that land be treated as a collective possession of the Jewish people in a Jewish state. Such a thing, of course, becomes in many ways a government bureau, but remains in other ways a Party organization, as it was origionally. Its origional charter, to secure land for the settlement and economic support of Jews, remains in force. Since the establishment of Israel as a state in 1948, a good deal of land over and above that purchased in the Mandate has come under this organization's control, with state lands of the Mandatory authority, and lands whose owners fled in '48 that was condemned as unoccupied by the state, being leading sources of acreage.

[Igel]

12. If I assume that the lands in question

were purchased on behalf of Jewish citizens, or otherwise acquired through normal (which is to say, non-military) means, I would defend their rights to Muslimreinheit based purely on property rights. But unhappily; ethnic discimination is never a higher good. Property covenants in the US have had an unpleasant, racially-charged, history.

If the land was acquired through military means, I have no argument either way. The modern, western idea that military means may never lead to permanent acquisition of territory has always struck me as overly refined and sensitive, resulting in the sanctifications of outrageous borders that themselves resulted from acquisition of territory by military means; but sanctioning such acquisition would encourage the continuation of this activity. If the land was acquired by common thuggery, it should be returned to those from which it was wrested.

And I agree whole-heartedly that it behooves the Israeli government to treat all of its citizens with all due respect.

Another question of fact: I know that the Waqf still controls the land under the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Does the Waqf control other lands within the Green Line?

[iamjoy]

8. Rabbi Hillel?

"What is hateful to you, don't do to your neighbor. That is the whole of the Torah, the rest is commentary - go and learn it"

"Love your neighbor as yourself" Rabbi Akiva

(both from 1st Century BCE - I sometimes like to think at least one of them was friends with Jesus, or perhaps a mentor?)

[Darranar]

10. Yes, Rabbi Hillel said that...

However, Rabbi Akiva lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, not BCE.

[Lithos]

2. Separate but equal

Has long been discredited because in practice it is the former, not the latter.

L-

[pelsar]

7. nobody read the article?

But in 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that the Israeli Land Authority, which leased land to the Jewish Agency to establish Katzir as a Jewish-only community, had acted illegally.

The authority did nothing hoping Mr Kaadan would just go away but after he filed for contempt of court, it finally caved in. This May it granted him his plot of land at 1995 prices - about $15,000 rather than $100,000.


though the bureaucracy is still doing nothing, but the rule of law will eventually win

its happend before on various aspects and everytime as far as I know the arabs win......

[number6]

9. bureaucracy is still doing nothing

takes a looooooooooooooong :boring: time .....

[King Mongo]

11. Israel has improved

Israel is improving west of the green line. Yet, it will still take a long time for the Israeli government to recognize the Palestinian identity and become a real democracy.