Netanyahu calls on Israel’s Arabs to ‘thrive in droves’

[shira]

His government cannot be criticized enough, but this is hopeful.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-calls-on-israels-arabs-to-thrive-in-droves/

Netanyahu’s latest video, released on YouTube and Facebook in both English and Hebrew versions, began with a reference to his perceived anti-Arab statements on election day. “I apologized for how my comment was misunderstood,” said Netanyahu.

“Today,” he added, “I want to go further.”

“Today I am asking Arab citizens in Israel to take part in our society — in droves. Work in droves, study in droves, thrive in droves.”

Israel’s Arab citizens were part of its success, he said.

[jtunes]

1. and move aside for settlements, in droves nt

[Little Tich]

2. Israeli Arabs can only thrive in droves if they either emigrate or are given equal rights.

Netanyahu is an Arab-hating racist who is making Israel a worse place for Israeli Arabs.

Liar.

[shira]

5. They already have equal rights in Israel. Enough of the lies. n/t

[Little Tich]

6. Arab Israeli citizens have what would defined in other countries as a partial citizenship,

with no access to equal rights. For example 93% of Israeli lands are off-limits to Arab Israelis, and earmarked for Jews only:

Israel's Two-Tiered Citizenship Law Bars Non-Jews From 93 Percent of Its Lands
Source: Washington Report on Middle-east affairs, Jan 1990
http://www.wrmea.org/1990-january/israel-s-two-tiered-citizenship-law-bars-non-jews-from-93-percent-of-its-lands.html

Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, IV. Discrimination in Land Allocation and Access
Source: Human Rights Watch, 2008
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iopt0308/4.htm#_Toc193705071

Types of land in Israel
Source: Buy Property in israel
http://www.buypropertyinisrael.com/article/types-of-land-in-israel

State land
Source: Bimkom
http://bimkom.org/eng/state-land/

Israel Lands - Privatization or National Ownership?
Source: Jewish Virtual library
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/land.html

Israeli land and property laws
Source: Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_land_and_property_laws

Then of course there's the Adalah list of 50 discriminatory laws:
http://www.adalah.org/en/law/index

[shira]

7. Complete horseshit. 93% of Israeli lands are not earmarked for Jews only.

On 26 January 2005, Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that lease restrictions violated Israeli anti-discrimination laws, and that the ILA could not discriminate against Arab citizens of Israel in the marketing and allocation of the lands it managed; this applied both to government lands and to lands belonging to the JNF. However, the Attorney General also decided that, whenever a non-Jewish citizen wins an ILA tender for a plot of JNF-owned land, the ILA would compensate the JNF with an equal amount of land. This would allow the JNF to maintain its current hold over 2,500,000 dunams (2,500 km2) of land, or 13% of the total land in Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund

Both Jews and Arabs lease state land.

I don't expect to ever see this lie again.

[Little Tich]

8. There's no equal access for Israeli Arabs to land in Israel, even though I was wrong about Israeli

Arabs having no access whatsoever to 93% of the land:

Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, IV. Discrimination in Land Allocation and Access
Source: Human Rights Watch, 2008

Unlike most industrialized countries, which have widespread private land ownership and a free real estate market, in Israel the state controls 93 percent of the land. This land is owned either directly by the state or by quasi-governmental bodies that the state has authorized to develop the land, such as the Development Authority (DA) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF). A governmental body, the Israel Land Administration (ILA), administers all of this land. This gives the government an exceptionally decisive role in land allocation, land-use planning, and development.

According to Israel’s Basic Law, state land cannot be sold. The ILA usually leases land to individuals or institutions for periods of 49 or 98 years.

The JNF has a specific mandate to develop land for and lease land only to Jews. Thus the 13 percent of land in Israel owned by the JNF is by definition off-limits to Palestinian Arab citizens, and when the ILA tenders leases for land owned by the JNF, it does so only to Jews—either Israeli citizens or Jews from the Diaspora. This arrangement makes the state directly complicit in overt discrimination against Arab citizens in land allocation and use, and Israeli NGOs are currently challenging this practice in Israel’s Supreme Court. The ILA’s Governing Council is comprised of 22 members—12 representing government ministries and representing the JNF, giving the JNF a hugely influential role in Israeli land policies generally and the overall allocation of state lands.

Notwithstanding the prohibition on sale of state land, the law allows the state to transfer directly owned state land to the JNF. The JNF acquired approximately 78 percent of its land holdings from the state between 1949 and 1953, much of it the land of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war that the state confiscated as “absentee property.”

While by law Arab citizens can lease land owned directly by the state and not transferred to the JNF, in practice numerous obstacles limit Arab citizens’ access to land, as described below. According to Adalah, a human rights organization representing the Arab minority in Israel, Arab citizens are blocked from leasing about 80 percent of the land controlled by the state.

Bedouins’ lack of access to land occurs in a wider context affecting Israel’s Palestinian Arab population generally. Not only has the state confiscated pre-1948 Palestinian Arab lands, it has not allowed Arab citizens to establish new towns; nor has it approved adequate expansion of existing ones. Since 1948 the state has authorized the creation of about 1,000 Jewish communities, but not a single Arab community except for the seven government-planned townships and the nine new or newly recognized villages, which concentrate the Bedouin in limited areas in the Negev, and some similar towns in the Galilee. The state rarely grants expansion requests to Arab local authorities. While Arab citizens of Israel comprise roughly 20 percent of the country’s population, just 2.5 percent of the land of the state is under the jurisdiction of Arab local governments. In the northern Negev region, Bedouin municipalities have jurisdiction over 1.9 percent of the land, while Bedouin citizens comprise 25.2 percent of the population in that area.

Read more: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iopt0308/4.htm#_Toc193705071

How is this not discriminatory?

[shira]

9. HRW bases that info. from Adalah's bullshit.

We went over some of the more ridiculous batshit claims Adalah makes with their 50 discriminatory laws.

Got anything from a credible source that doesn't just make stupid shit up?

[Little Tich]

10. All those Adalah batshit allegations are true.

I suppose we can have another look at those 50 discriminatory laws sometime.

Nevertheless, do you think that Netanyahu's apology is a positive development? I think that Netanyahu is insincere and that it's no more than a hasbara stunt.

[shira]

11. They're bullshit as you already know. We've done this before & you punted.

Last edited Wed Jul 27, 2016, 11:53 AM - Edit history (2)

Here are two:

Population Registry Law (1965)

Requires all residents of Israel to register their nationality with the Population Registry and obtain an identity card carrying this information.

Hmm....so all citizens (Jews, Druze, Arabs) are required to do this, and this is discriminatory......how?

Flag and Emblem Law
Theme:National Identity Symbols
Status:Active
Year:1949
Description:
Adopts the flag of the First Zionist Congress and the Zionist Movement, a combination of a prayer shawl and the Shield of David, as the official flag of Israel. The emblem of the State of Israel is a candelabrum, one of the symbols of the Temple era in Jewish history. The law was amended in 1997 to include Article 2A(a), which requires all public buildings to raise the flag of Israel.

There's nothing discriminatory about this. UK, Scandinavian, Greek, and Australian flags all have Christian crosses.

What I think of Netanyahu's video is in the OP.

[Little Tich]

12. I thought I had managed to explain to you on what grounds those two laws were considered racist.

By enforcing a rule that stipulates that symbols and expressions other than Jewish may not be used in any government correspondence, it discriminates against any non-Jews who would wish to express their participation in Israeli affairs by using non-Jewish symbols and expressions.

The other law about having to carry identification at all times is only used against Arab citizens. So it's not discriminatory unless you're an Israeli Arab citizen, if you know what I mean...

Anyway, the rest of it is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134127199

If you think that there are no discriminatory laws in Israel, what about the "Ban on Family Unification" - Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) from 2003? It creates extreme hardship for many couples (non-Jewish, of course) living in Israel and also denies citizenship to some people born in Israel with one Israeli (non-Jewish) parent. Please do your magic on that one if you can...

Israeli-Palestinian Couples on Citizenship Law: Supreme Court Guided by Israeli Racism
Source: Haaretz, Jan 12, 2012

Supreme Court ruling to uphold law banning family reunification, ending hope for a normal life for thousands of families in Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-palestinian-couples-on-citizenship-law-supreme-court-guided-by-israeli-racism-1.406886


Israeli Family Unification Law Leaves 247 Palestinian Kids Without Legal Status
Source: Haaretz, Jun 18, 2016
Under the legislation, everyone 14 and older is considered an adult and cannot receive legal status in Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.725493

[shira]

13. Laughable disingenuous hamasbara bullshit, for reasons already given.

The Family Reunification Law is probably the best example you have out of those 50, but the law exists because Israel is under no obligation to admit non-citizens who are part of a hostile entity. It's like demanding Israel accept Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and then calling Israel racist for not doing so. Pretending Hamasniks and Islamic Jihadists are innocent teddy bears...

Similar to the way you misrepresent UNGAR 194 on the alleged right of return which is based on accepting only refugees who would come to Israel in PEACE. Of course, BDS isn't about peace but rather hatred and that's why everything is spun in such a way as to present everything Israel does as racist and spiteful.

You should be embarrassed to trot out that list of 50, but you're not and I know why you're not. You'll keep doing it over and over because that's the BDS playbook. Sliming and demonizing Israel at every possible opportunity no matter how idiotic or stupid, hoping to influence and poison anyone possibly reading this thread. I know the game well....

============

ETA:
Even the family reunification law isn't one aimed at Arab citizens of Israel. Theoretically, a Jewish Israeli could marry a Hamas commander, apply for family unification and not get it. That's not racist in the least against Arab citizens of Israel. The Hamas commander is a non-citizen and Adalah's list is supposed to describe laws racist to Arab citizens of Israel.

See, it's really easy countering BDS propaganda just as it's easy to counter all batshit crazy rightwing propaganda.

[Ken Burch]

16. Stop implying that "Palestinian" and "Hamas commander" are synonymous terms.

It's demagogic, inflammatory and a lie.

The ban on family reunification has has nothing to do with Hamas. The vast majority of Palestinians are NOT armed combatants., and as far as I know, virtually no situations have emerged in which attempts to reunify separated Palestinian were plots to smuggle terrorists into Israel.

Do you also believe every Catholic in Northern Ireland is a member of a republican splinter group?

[shira]

19. Stop pretending Israel faces zero security/terror threats & that everything....

...they do is for racist reasons against perfectly innocent, pacifist lambs and teddy bears.

All polling from the past few years show that between 60-90% of Palestinians support terror attacks on Jews.

Poll: 2/3 of Palestinians back stabbing attacks, armed uprising
http://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-23-of-palestinians-back-stabbing-attacks-armed-uprising/

Poll: 89% of Palestinians Support Rocket Firing at Israel
http://jpupdates.com/2014/08/27/poll-89-palestinians-support-rocket-firing-israel/

[Ken Burch]

21. I don't pretend that Israel faces NO security threats...nor that all Palestinians are saints.

There are bad actors on the Palestinian side(as there are on the Israeli side).

I simply reject the idea that all Palestinians should be treated as terrorists or should have to suffer collectively for the actions of thre violent.

And I think at least some of the security threats are Netanyahu's own doing.

Palestinians are brutally repressed by the Occupation...anyone in that situation is likely to support resistance against their oppressors, and as the repression and injustice(all settlement expansion is an inherent injustice)continue, resistance methods are likely to become, in any situation among any oppressed people, more desperate and violent. What else would you expect?

The hostility Palestinians feel towards Israelis is the hostility of the oppressed towards oppressors. It has little if anything to do with the religion/ethnicity/culture of the oppressors. If it were other Arabs(Palestinian resistance against the Jordanian government bears this out, as does at least some of the Arab Spring-a lot of people supporting that DID want secular democracy and progressive change)or European Christians and the Ottomans during the imperial era, or Americans during the U.S. occupation regime in Iraq, there was, and there would be, just as much violent resistance as there is now in the West Bank and Gaza(there are also plenty of people resisting in those places by nonviolent means, but I never see you acknowledge any of that).

Yes, there are some Palestinian bigots(as there are lots of Israeli bigots-you'd have to put every party in the current governing coalition in the bigot category if you're going to be honest about it)but it is inaccurate and frankly pointless to claim that none of this is about anything but Arabs hating Jews(Israel is not synonymous with Judaism or with the world's Jewish communities). And
justified anger at the actions of a state is not hatred of people.

The Palestinians have bad leaders and have used bad tactics. There is no way that continuing the Occupation and further expanding the settlements can ever cause either the leaders or the tactics to change...other than to change them for the worse(as was the case when Hamas rose, with partial Israeli support initially, to challenge the position of the PLO). Why stay with what everything that has happened since 1973 proves can never, ever work?

And why look for alternative leaders to negotiate agreements with, since that still leaves those not in the negotiations out there with all the weaponry they possess? No Palestinian leader can be expected to launch a civil war against Hamas or Fatah, and none would ever sign off on letting the IDF roam the territory of a new Palestinian state trying to liquidate those groups. Therefore, trying to replace Fatah and Hamas as the Palestinian leadership is a waste of time.

You're defending(and demanding unquestioning international support for) a status quo in this situation that cannot ever lead to the end of the conflict or to peace and justice for anyone.

Why do that?

[shira]

22. We were discussing an allegedly racist law before you changed course.

The point is that the law isn't racist to Arabs within Israel.

I'm for peace and 2-states and I believe the Palestinians must be pressured (not coddled) to accept and recognize Israel as the Jewish state, meaning no "right of return". I don't really care about borders. Anything that gives the Palestinians 100% of the land area of the W.Bank and Gaza is fine with me. Anyone interested in genuine peace should want that before Israel retreats to '67 lines that would invite Hamas, ISIS, and Iran to literally be across the street from Israelis in Jerusalem.

[Ken Burch]

17. That ruling was made. Has it led to any change in practice?

Has it actually been made any easier for Israeli Arabs to lease state land?

[shira]

20. Yes and Yes. n/t

[Little Tich]

23. Nope.

Israeli Arabs Face Red Tape When Leasing JNF Land
source: Haaretz, Dec 23, 2013

Arab citizens who buy apartments on JNF-owned land have a hard time registering their properties, residents say.

Despite state assurances to the contrary, Arab citizens of Israel who buy apartments on land owned by the Jewish National Fund are still having a hard time registering their homes in the Land Registry (Tabu), Arab residents of Carmiel claim.

Nizar Bakri and his brother Qassem both bought apartments in a Carmiel building three years ago and began the process of having the property registered in their names. To their chagrin, while their Jewish neighbors had no problem completing the process in a timely fashion, their apartments have yet to be registered.

The Israel Lands Authority makes no bones about the reason. In a letter Bakri received from the ILA, the agency writes: “At issue is a minority lessee and the land on which the apartments are built belongs to the Jewish National Fund, and there is a need to implement a swap between the authorities. There has been a request to execute what was requested but it will take considerable time.”

The source of the problem is that the fact that the JNF insists that its lands be sold only to Jews, since historically its lands were purchased with money from Jewish donors for the purpose of settling Jews in the Land of Israel.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.564877

---

High Court Upholds Residential Screening Law, Enabling Jewish Villages to Keep Arabs Out
Source: Haaretz, Sep 18, 2014

Rights groups say legislation, which allows small communities to screen potential members, promotes racism and discrimination.

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday narrowly upheld a law allowing small communities to screen potential new members via admissions committees.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the petition filed against the law by several Fhuman rights organizations was premature, because “it isn’t yet clear how the law will be applied in practice.”

“The High Court has approved one of the most racist laws of the past several years,” charged Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which was one of the petitioners. “It was legislated by a majority of the Knesset with the declared intent, primarily, of keeping Arab citizens out of these communities.”

The law, which was passed in March 2011, allows small communities to set up admissions committees to screen potential new members based on criteria laid down in the community’s bylaws. Such committees have been standard practice in small communities for decades, but until this law was passed, they had no legal basis.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.616391

[Little Tich]

4. Israeli-Arabs reject Netanyahu’s extended hand and apology as insincere

Source: Jerusalem Post

Netanyahu releases English and Hebrew YouTube videos with Arabic subtitles imploring Israeli-Arabs to take part in society "in droves."

Arab MKs rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outreach on Monday in the release of YouTube videos urging the country’s 1.65 million Arab citizens to engage further in society.

Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh – in a biting response on Tuesday – said, “Mr. Prime Minister, you are right about one thing. We really want to be part of society. But maybe I’ll surprise you now saying, we do not want to be second-class citizens in a racist and occupying state.”

He also mentioned that “more than 100,000 Arab citizens who live in unrecognized villages in the Negev. They cannot listen to your words, not in Hebrew nor in English... simply [because] their homes do not have electricity.”

Odeh also charged that the prime minister “regularly incites” against the Arab public.

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israeli-Arabs-reject-Netanyahus-extended-hand-and-apology-as-insincere-462417

[shira]

14. Consider the source - the racist Joint List party, far more rightwing than Netanyahu

Last edited Thu Jul 28, 2016, 05:56 AM - Edit history (1)

Against gay and women's rights, support for Hezbollah and Hamas, etc...

[Ken Burch]

15. "I apologized for how my comments were misunderstood"?

They guy spread what he knew were lies about massive numbers of Arabs being bused in to vote for his opponents(thereby implying that an opposition victory, had it occurred, would have been illegitimate).

How could that possibly have been "misunderstood"?

This was the "non-apology apology" taken to a demagogic extreme.

Was it also a "misunderstanding" that Likud anti-peace rallies in the Nineties that were held only weeks before Yitzhak Rabin's assassination featured thousands of people holding posters in which Rabin was depicted wearing a Nazi uniform(something that should have led to Netanyahu being charged with incitement to murder)?

[Israeli]

18. That was back then Ken ...

Quote : " Was it also a "misunderstanding" that Likud anti-peace rallies in the Nineties that were held only weeks before Yitzhak Rabin's assassination featured thousands of people holding posters in which Rabin was depicted wearing a Nazi uniform(something that should have led to Netanyahu being charged with incitement to murder)? "

Today its the turn of the IDF no less ....

IDF's biggest threat today is internal, warns chief of staff

Summary: In a rare appearance before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot criticized politicians for acting against the Israeli military, using it for their own political agendas and eroding the public's trust.

Author Mazal Mualem
July 29, 2016

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/chief-of-staff-gadi-eizenkot-knesset-rightwing-politicians.html#ixzz4G3RSpVJ1