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'Israel Apartheid Week' events commence
Yitzhak Benhorin
Published: 04.03.10, 01:14
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31. End racism in "Palestine" - EXACTLY!!!!
Linda ,   USA   (03.04.10)
Let Jews live there just like Arabs live everywhere in Israel. It is PALESTINIAN racism that causes apartheid.
32. to adele in toronto
tiki ,   belgium   (03.04.10)
'Look at the 'Palestinian villages......there are no Palestinian villages, only Arab. Look at Israeli 'settlements blooming......... everything the Israeli's are taking in their hands is 'blooming. As for your 'comparison. I don't know where you have been looking, but in Israel, the 'Arab villages are exploding with the most beautiful villa's, restaurants are full, Arab/Israeli students are studying on Israeli Universities, grocery stores in TA and J'lem and other places are firm in Arab/Israeli hands....Arab/Israeli docters/ nurses/teachers/actors/journalists, Hi tech etc.. are participating in Israeli society. So 'check your information/propaganda again. Is all 100% OK?...of course not, where is?
33. Our Arab neighbors (#21)
galilean ,   Israel   (03.04.10)
Since it is now illegal for Israelis to enter the PLO controlled areas, I cannot speak personally about the conditions. Although as a citizen of Israel I am aware of the conditions there. Since these Palestinian towns are in PLO jurisdiction, the Israeli goverment is not responsible for the sorry state of their lives. When Israel was in charge of these areas, running water in pipes was brought to villages that never had this, electricity was brought in to villages that never had this, sewage systems,etc. And all of that for villages and towns who never paid one single cent of municipal taxes. The Jordanians who were occupying those lands before the Israelis never bothered with much of the infrastructure. In recent peacemaking concessions, Israel handed the authority over to the Palestinians (something also Arab Jordan never thought of doing), so is Israel still responsible for the state of affairs there? Now here in Israel, there is also big discrepency as to the standard in Arab settlements and Jewish settlements. Most Arab villages look terrible compared to Jewish ones. For those who think this is a racial issue...please think again. In these Arab settlements very few people pay municipal taxes. In Israel this is central to receiving proper services and budgets from the central government. Despite this, Israel still will send central government budget funds to the local councils of these villages. Many years ago, the central government demanded of all local councils to start collecting municipal taxes in order to receive their share of the pie. In our area of the Galilee there were still many moshavnikim (ppl who live on a moshav, type of argricultural village but not a kibbutz) not paying their taxes, and so government funds were almost stopped until the local council leaders realized that the government is serious. Local councils hired lawyers and anyone who did not start paying their municipal taxes were sued by the council. Lo and behold, within the year we started seeing more and better services from our local council. Which include roads, sidewalks, sewage systems, street lights, amongst many other services. Now I am not saying that Israel is perfect or that the Arabs do not suffer from injustice or from discrimination. We have all the shared woes of all countries around the world. But until the issue of the MERE EXISTENCE of the state of Israel is put to rest, and our Arab neighbors in the PLO and our closer neighbors here in Israel accept this fact, we are going to be constantly chasing our tails. And this is such shame, because people, especially the poorer people suffer the most. Instead of spending our time, energy and TAXES on the betterment of all people here in Israel, we're constantly dealing with this .......(censored word). Hate based lies, anything to keep the world busy and not face the real issues that can be 'fixed'.
34. #21...add #32 to my last post...exactly true!
galilean ,   Israel   (03.04.10)
In fact, here on our moshav we had a wonderful ARAB GP as our doctor for many years. The new pediatrician at our local health clinic is a wonderfully smart young ARAB doctor. The GC (general contractor) we are hiring is a Druze. Arabs are Druze are in integral part of life here in the Galilee!!!! Is that Apartheid?
35. CHOMSKY = YNET
DAVID ,   JUDEA   (03.04.10)
Chomsky's agenda is Ynet's agenda, that is why he gets the time of day to express is his drivel. The Anarchists who control Ynet,have been pushing this secular state agenda for the longest time now. They constantly publish hateful articles towards the religious Jews and settlers, who remind them of their Jewish roots, which they hate. Meanwhile anyone with a different agenda gets silenced with the help of the state court system, that has been trying to dejuadize the country for a long time now. The Chomskys among us will not sucseed in their evil plans and designs and will fade away in time.
36. to #29 boss snap out of it
ghostq   (03.04.10)
sheesh the religioun again, you can't see the big picture cause you r obssesed about religious, if you think the way you think that you r in big trouble, you accuse but the gov but the gov is the people. that means you like in every demochracy, if you think you can blame someone in the leadership than fix it, your gov is yours, the leaders r not holly and can be replaced, this protest of yours isn't against the state of Israel as establishment, but against someone specific in the leadership don't confuse the two. undermining your own establishment will cause devastating effect far from what you want and you do want mainstreame aproval than go do that. it's all in the atitude and perspective.
37. (one's own people) arent we all people?
erc ,   montreal canada   (03.04.10)
thats the business of religion, make you think you are different and your people are better. We are all equal, if we keep dividing we will not be around much longer.
38. even Jews can't get along among themselves in Israel 2
observer   (03.04.10)
Mizrahim (Arab Jews) had lived in North Africa and the Middle East for millennia, and the vast majority were opposed to creating a Jewish state in Palestine. The Iraqi Jewish leadership, for example, cooperated with the Iraqi government to stop Zionist activity in Iraq; the chief rabbi published an open letter denouncing Zionism. In 1920, Palestinian Jews signed anti-Zionist petitions denouncing Ashkenazi rule. The Mizrahim who arrived in Israel ended up in agricultural work, 10-12 hours a day in conditions of disease and squalor. Their high death rate was explained by one Zionist official as a “common and natural thing”. Today Mizrahim constitute around 50% of the Israeli population. Palestinian Arabs make up another 20%, so the total non-European population is about 70%. Mizrahim were spatially marginalized by the Israeli settlement project, whether in the isolated periphery or in poor and stigmatized neighbourhoods of Israel’s major cities. This has limited their potential economic, social, and cultural participation. The creation of the Israeli new identity involved the de-Arabization of the Mizrahim, the near total erasure of their cultures, the nationalization of their politics.
39. Dear Mr Chomsky
Dr Micha Sloman ,   Sydney & Jerusalem   (03.04.10)
You are a respected academic. Why do you say such lies about Israel? You know full well that Arab Israelis have full and equal rights with all other Israelis. You know that Israel is the very opposite of a racist state. Israel's record on human rights and civil liberties is superior to almost all countries in the world including America. As a Jew and an educated man you know full well that Israel is surrounded by peoples who openly declare that their goal is to destroy the State of Israel. All of Israel’s actions against the Arabs are defensive – the wall, the war in Lebanon against the Hezbollah, the Gaza war against Hamas, the check points, etc. I don’t know why I am saying this to you; you absolutely know the truth. I can only assume that your perverse reasoning somehow provides you with a thrilling orgasmic experience.
40. Dumbest Protestors Yet
Josh   (03.04.10)
They want alll Jews out of their land and will kill for that. They get the Israeli government to oust people out of their homes in Palestinian areas BECAUSE THE ARE APARTHIED. A new Jewish free state? Sad thing is the world ignores this and recognizes them as something that should happen. When will mankind stpo swinging like a pendulum from one evil to the next. How about a mixed state with rights for Jews in Palestinian area? NO WAY, right? Ignorance is rampant. That is the equivalent of standing there dripping blood holding a murder weapon and saying how evil others are that murder and that we should take up your cause of doing more murders. Agreed, Israel needs to move away from being racist and rest souly on discriminating based on righteous Torah standards. This is the only way to avoid racism or reverse discrimination. To base judging people based on each and his behavior. We do have work to do but these protestors are idiots. By the way South Africa is more racist than ever but this time it is against the whites. Mankind and their BS at its lowest.
41. Key question: Why does Chomsky let himself be used?
Brian Cohen ,   PeoplesFront ofJudea   (03.04.10)
Is Islam a racist religion? Is the threat of Islamofascism the biggest threat to world peace? If one repeats a lie often enough, does it make it the truth? Well, obviously the anti-Israel lobby seems to think so. Remember, these people are definitely not pro-Palestinian, as they don't give a damn about Palestinian human rights atrocities against their own people. Chomsky, of course, is nothing more than a pseudo-intellectual dupe for this same Palestinian propaganda. Neither Hamas nor Fatah supports the two-state solution, yet Chomsky blathers on as if they do. The real problem is academic morons like Chomsky who are too lazy to use Google's Arabic-English translation tool so they can read official Fatah policy. Given Chomsky's innate laziness and failure to pay attention to proper academic investigation before opening his mouth to make claims, well, you get the picture that Chomsky is nothing more than a tool used by the anti-Israel spin meisters.
42. to #38 you mean sphared, they also live in
ghostq   (03.04.10)
Europ like in France, your theory worth nothing, and there r intermarriage, I talked to someone whos half Yemenite half polisch. interesting combination, he showd me his kids pictures, really nice.
43. to #38 nearly forgot the first major zionist
ghostq   (03.04.10)
group who came to Israel was from Yemen, not Euroup. go back and check it. and european jews also been in jerusalem in 17th century.
44. Israel, I am happy to report to you, # 29, is a country in
Yael ,   Ottawa, Canada   (03.04.10)
which all are equal before the law. Every citizen of Israel is dealt by Israel's laws as all other citizens, and makes no difference whether you are a Jew or an Arab, a man or a woman, a black man or a white man, a religious person and one without any faith system, a short or a tall person, etc. etc. etc. To call this a form of Apartheid can only be derived from non-rational hate of Israel, and the only such hate can only be derived from the fact that Israel is Jewish, that is the nation-state of a people, of the Jewish people.
45. Again, Adele (Toronto), you are ignorant
Robert Haymond ,   Ashdod, Israel   (03.04.10)
of the real conditions of Arabs in Samaria and Judea. As you've obviously never been to the mideast and certainly never to Israel nor the Westbank (Judea and Samaria), I would invite you to google mideast specialist Tom Gross, a very literate journalist, and read what he says of economic and social life amongst the Arab population. You would be very surprised to learn how thriving and active the economy really is. I don't actually expect you to check such "disagreeable" facts as your part on this website, ever since you signed in as "Addle", is to make your anti-Israeli biases known. But I thought some of the more silent Readers would find this reference of interest.
46. even Jews can't get along among themselves in Israel (1)
observer   (03.04.10)
Karaite Judaism relies on the Tanakh to indicate that Jewishness is passed through the paternal line, not the maternal line, as is maintained by Orthodox Judaism. They reigned in Palestine since the ninth century til the Crusader era. 20,000–25,000 of them are living in Israel; the official Israeli census does not list Karaites as a category. Kicked in the slums, according to halakic criteria, they are deprived from intermarriage with other Jews. Moshe Marzouk, one of the Egyptian Jews executed in 1954 for planting bombs at Cairo in the service of Israeli Military Intelligence (the Lavon Affair) was a Karaite, his Karaite identity was downplayed in official publications. Most of the members of Karaite Board of Hakhams are of Egyptian Jewish descent. is Messianic Judaism Jewish?; that's another story!
47. Recommendation
Jason, Ph.D. ,   Charlotte, USA   (03.04.10)
Radical Anti-Zionism is the modern manifestation of Anti-Semitism. I recommend that Jewish students at these schools wear yellow armbands that say "Jude" during "Apartheid Week".
48. #5
Madeleine   (03.04.10)
Agree absolutely. Their success is convincing the world that we are indeed an apartheid state. Our hasbara is insufficient to combat this because they lie through their teeth and we stick to telling it as it is.
49. Oh Lord, not Chomsky!
Cameron ,   USA   (03.04.10)
A 1000 curses upon you, YNET, for mentioning him. Still have bad memories from having to wade through one of his books for a class at the university. You want supremely self-righteous? Read Chomsky. UGH!!!
50. Chomsky should not be defined as 'Jewish
Center-right ,   Germany   (03.04.10)
I have better definition....
51. how to boycott Israel...pay attention!
nili shai ,   Israel   (03.04.10)
okay, for those of you who really want to...here is the step by step instructions... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c
52. Micha Sloman #39
Sean ,   Montreal   (03.04.10)
The state of Israel declares itself to be Jewish. You may have observed neighbouring countries which also claim their states to be religious. In comparitive terms you might say that Israel is a beacon of light in regards to human rights and civil liberties; but to suggest such a thing in comparison to Western democracies is ludicrous. The desire to remove the religious basis of states is a laudable aim of any democratic movement. Only in Israel is this referred to as leftist and anti-semitic. You deny what is before your very eyes. It took decades before the movement to boycott apartheid South Africa took root and I suspect you have the same amount of time to live in your denial. Apartheid is a system of separating people due to race, religion etc. Look what happens to Settler children when they throw stones at women and children. What happens to Palestinian children when they throw stones? The building that is going on in east Jerusalem? These are mixed housing units? As a man of letters, why don't you provide the readers with the statistics of firearms owned by Jews and non Jews? Israel maintains defacto military sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank yet denies its citizens representation in the Knesset. A state, any state, which declares itself religious is apartheid in nature. Your "us vs them" arguments serve to prove the point.
53. #42,43 has intermarriage worked to decrease the apartheid?
observer   (03.04.10)
Yemenite Jews endured living among Muslims for more than 1300 years. So, they could endure living among Ashkenazim for few dozens of years.
54. #38
(03.04.10)
if the iraqi jews cooperated so much with the iraqi government and didn;t support zionism, then WHY WERE THEY KICKED OUT OF IRAQ???????
55. "Jude", indeed, this what Jews on these campuses should wear
Eitan ,   Qatzrin, Israel   (03.04.10)
as suggested so wisely by Jason # 47. Anti-Zionism is a substitute for anti-Semitism of yesteryear. Thank you, Jason, for the idea! I hope Hillel student organization will pick up on it and the sooner the better.
56. #54 Zionists didn't leave Iraqu till the1950s
observer   (03.04.10)
57. #52 Sean
Hal ,   Usa   (03.04.10)
Sean, I've read too many of your posts not to respond to your over simplistic analysis of Israel. Your comparisons are not only myopic, but steeped in college campus rhetoric (typical leftist crapola). The fact that Israel is a Jewish state has more to do with the fact that Jews for centuries had to rely on the good graces of the people that ruled them wherever that was. Their Jewishness was always at issue whether in Europe, the Magreb, or the greater Arab areas. You make fallacious comparisons to "Western" (European) democracies that have existed about as long as Israel? Can you say "post ww2"? Your latent bigotry exlpains your plane of reference and comparitive skill set. Israel unlike western europe has been under constant attack for 60 years and still has more democracy in it's ring finger than all the Arab states put together! Post again when you have real facts as opposed to 60's protest maifesto bullet points. Or just sit on the bench and try to learn something.
58. Hal #57
Sean ,   Montreal   (03.05.10)
If your most recent post is any indication, I will have to look elsewhere if I am going to "learn something"! You are not the first zenophobe, when being confronted, to to lash out with empty accusations of bigotry. Teach me Hal. What do they call that in psychology when the sufferer tries to transfer their affliction onto another person? You say I make fallacious comments regarding Western democracies and then you speculate the age of the democracies. Reaching just a tad there Hal. If you were at all capable of having read my post- what I wrote as opposed to what you chose to hear- then you would have realized that I had said in comparison to her neighbours Israel could be considered a beacon of light. I went on to state that it was ludricous to compare Israel's human rights record to most Western democracies. You have goyem issues Hal. Write again when your short term memory is more up to the task...and accurate. Your "leftist crapola" comment, not unlike the mention of anarchists being behind the Israeli apartheid movement made by members of the Israeli government, reminds me of the Spanish Civil War. Yeah back then one side was forever calling the other side leftists and bolsheviks and anarchists. Teach me Hal. What was that side called?
59. Apartheid Week this is so silly
Nimrod ,   Baghdad, Iraq   (03.05.10)
Ok now we have so many subjects weaved in here and it seems that someone is losing the whole point, obviously this isnt worth deterring because it would only shed more light on the instigators of this apartheid week, I would start by telling them that they should define apartheid and watch movies which tackle this very topic. If Israel is hiding behind its identity that is because it served to protect them, if Apartheid was implemented then we wouldn't have non Jews holding Israeli passports, working in government offices or living in Jewish cities. Iran is an apartheid state where NON Shiites are not allowed to work in the government sectors etc and are treated as inferior or lower class citizens. Shiites and Kurds marketed Iraq as an apartheid state prior to 2003 and whined about it, the likes of Ahmad Chalabi , an Iranian trumpet now, he whined for decades that Iraq was oppressing Shiites and Kurds, while this was false because they worked in gov. institutions, went to the same schools, owned land everywhere and in any part of Iraq despite the fact that their hearts belonged to Iran, (the first group) and an independent state for kurds,( the latter group) so I dont think this will get far and I would ignore this campaign its just noise and nothing will ever come out of it.
60. LIKUD just another pawn of Hearst Papers
Jim R ,   Grand Rapids, MI USA   (05.17.10)
Israel with its native Palestinians isn't unlike the Manifest Destiny wars of the US's. The Robber Barons' of the Gilded age needed the Spanish American War so badly, they made sure TR became president to remember the Maine etc Of course what resembles Israel more is the US persecution of the Native Phillipine people, way out of the limelight. The Imperialists got their coaling stations across the Pacific, like the Zionist' get their war toys, and nukes from the Plutocrats.
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