Obama Needs to Hear from You on Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

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  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »


    What follows are the laws in Israel that are discriminatory and which promote apartheid policies. Clearly, based on UN definitions of apartheid, and the universal human rights of ALL people enshrined in the UNCHR, the methods and means which Israel employs to assert its control and dominate the indigenous people of Palestine cannot be classified as anything but apartheid.


    Law of Return (1950)
    This law grants every Jew (defined as those who convert or have their mother as a Jew) the right to immigrate to Israel automatically. On the other hand, Palestinians who fled in fear during 1948 and 1967 have not been granted the right to return as mandated by the UN. This is systematic discrimination based on race.
    Identity Card (Possession and Presentation) Law (1982)
    Residents must carry identity cards at all times and present them to "senior police officers, to the heads of local authorities, or to police officers or soldiers on duty when requested to do so." Furthermore, their nationalities must be printed on these, including whether being Jewish, Palestinian, Druze etc. This provides the means to systematically discriminate based on race.
    Cultural Exclusion:
    Any form of Palestinian expression of national self-determination is fiercely suppressed. The Palestinian flag has been declared illegal under Israeli law, and flying the flag is punishable by a prison sentence
    Land:
    While Israel excludes Palestinians and non-Jews from state land and land belonging to the Jewish National Fund, it does not exclude Jews from the very limited and minimal land remaining under Palestinian (“Arab”) ownership. This has been compared to Apartheid South Africa where only 13% of the land could be owned by the native African population, but the difference lies in the fact that South African law guaranteed that 13% as African land, while Israeli law makes no such provisions for what it terms “Arab land”
    Absentee Property Law (1950)
    Classifies the personal property of Palestinians who fled during 1947/48 as "absentee property" and becomes state property, even if they are within the state or making attempts to return to it (conveniently stopped by Israel).
    National Planning and Building Law (1965)
    Creates a system of discriminatory zoning that freezes existing Arab villages while providing for the expansion of Jewish settlements. The law also re-classifies a large number of Arab villages as "non-residential" creating the "unrecognized villages." These villages do not receive basic municipal services such as water and electricity; all buildings are threatened with demolition orders.
    Agriculture
    Palestinians cultivate 15% of arable land, but only receive 3% of water available for irrigation.
    Income, Employment, and Allocation of Government Spending:
    The Central Bureau of Israeli Statistics indicates that 85% of Palestinians in Israel are in the bottom five deciles of income distribution while 50% of Jews in Israel are in the upper five deciles. Palestinian familes earn, on average, less than 65% of the average income of Jewish
    families. IDF service a requirement for employment in many jobs; the vast majority of Palestinians do not serve in the IDF, and thus are excluded from these jobs
    The Law of Political Parties (1992)
    Bars the Registrar of Political Parties from registering a political party if it denies "the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic State." In 2002 both Section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: the Knesset and the Law of Political Parties were amended further to bar those whose goals or actions, directly or indirectly, "support armed struggle of an enemy state or of a terror organization, against the State of Israel." These amendments were added expressly to curtail the political participation of Palestinian Arabs within Israel - such as Azmi Bishara - who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians resisting military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite the right to vote, right to run for office, and the right to hold limited positions on the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, Palestinian political and social activism has been completely supressed by the Israeli government. The right to organize, protest, and mobilize has been blocked by Israel on numerous occasions; several political parties have also been outlawed, their leaders arrested, and their newspapers banned due to their advocacy for Palestinian human rights within Israel.
    Education
    There is not a single Arabic-language university in Israel, despite Palestinians making up some 20-30% of the population. Systematic discrimination exists in the Israeli education system with separate schools for Palestinian and Jewish schoolchildren. Selective allocation of funds means Arab schools are usually overcrowded, underequipped, underperforming, and having less reources relative to Jewish schools. Jewish curriculum is all-round with history, politics, sciences being taught while the curriculum in Arab schools is very heavily censored, with history, politics, and any national material being edited out.

    LOL. You messed up by referring to the Un definiton of apartheid first of all.

    The ICSPCA has defined the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining ? by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

    As I have admitted in previous posts, discrimination does exist and inhuman acts have been committed- but by this definition and by a historical point by point comparison with the South African regime- apartheid it is not.

    The key to this, is the fact that "Palestinian" is not a race and neither is "Israeli". These are self-proclaimed designations for ethnically diverse populations who to greater or lesser extents agree upon common culture, social structure and ideology in a national format. This a glaring and insurmountable contradiction to the apartheid analogy.

    The Law of Return-



    There are no "mandates" by the UN in relation to this issue first off. Secondly, this is not the only portal to getting into Israel. You can go through naturalization, marry a Jew or participate in various temporary and permanent residency options. Thirdly, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article I(4) allows for preferential treatment for some groups in order to remedy past discrimination. Last but not least, you assert that the Law of Return is racist but once again "Jew" is not a race. Therefore your claim that the Law of Return is a case of racial discrimination is inaccurate, inflammatory rhetoric used to manipulate world opinion.


    Identity Card (Possession and Presentation) Law

    You cannot unequivocally draw the conclusion of discrimination from the fact that identity cards in Israel havenational designations. You said that that one's nationality must be printed on them and in the next sentence claimed this is racial discrimination. Nationality is not race. Is there an American race? A Canadian race? No. You and your faulty propaganda. As we go right down the line, everybody on the bpoard will see how you anti-Israel propagandists use hot button words to incite emotional reactions but their connection to reality is dubious at best. There is no way that you can fairly or honestly interchange the terms "race" and "nationality" just to suit the qualifications of your argument.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    continued

    Cultural Exclusion:

    By the very definition of the term Palestinian alone, the Palestinians have culturally excluded themselves. There is no international law of any kind that mandates cultural inclusion. And once again, we are specifically talking about apartheid, which is centered on race. Culture is not race. And to keep it real, Palestinians and Israelis eat mostly the same ? , dress in the same types of clothes and speak one anothers languages for starters. This is basically because at such a proximity state sponsored CULTURAL EXCLUSION is virtually impossible. Beside, the 1993 Oslo Peace accords removed the ban and I have seen the Israeli and Palestinian flag fly side by side publicly for official functions of the State of Israel. More blatant lies that you disguise under inflammatory term to circumvent criticism.


    Land:

    Palestinians and non-Jews are NOT excluded from state land. This is an outright lie as I live on state land and I am considered a non-Jew by rabbinical standards. And once again this is not based on race, but instead politics and shaky religious definitions. I have issues with this, but it is not relative to apartheid at all ACCORDING to the definition you referenced but craftily did not post in entirety.

    Absentee Property Law (1950)



    Nothing here relative to apartheid. this is not even worthy of a full response.

    Matter of fact, none of these other bullet points you listed are based on terms of race so I will totally disregard them. BUT I do want to touch on

    Education


    Palestinians in Palestinian territory are responsible for their own schools. How do you not recopgnize the right for Israel to exist yet claim that is responsible for educating your children? Furthermore, the problem with education deeply affects MOST ISRAELIS in the Negev region as their schools are second rate in comparison with those up North. Firsthand eyewitness experience, buddy. Is it a problem. Yes. One EXCLUSIVE to Palestinians. No. Related to apartheid. HELL NO.


    But lets see what an Arab-Israeli educator has to say about your apartheid line of malarkey:

    ISRAELI ARAB LEGAL SCHOLAR: ISRAEL IS NOT AN APARTHEID STATE

    By Rhonda Spivak,

    Dr. Mohammed Wattad (Photo by Rhonda Spivak), an Arab Israeli Muslim who is a senior lecturer at Zefat College’s School of Law and editor of the International Journal on Medicine and Law told an audience here that Israel is not an apartheid state.

    The very articulate Dr. Wattad spoke at the University of Manitoba during Israel Apartheid Week [IAW], but virtually none of the IAW organizers and supporters came to hear his lecture.

    Dr. Wattad said that

    “As an Israeli citizen, I belong to a political entity… I have no other home than the State of Israel. I am a proud Israeli citizen but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it… At the same time I am a proud Arab national. I like Arab culture, people, etc… Whenever something wrong happens to the Arab world, I feel it. These are not contradictory things.”

    He added,

    “Don’t tell me Israel can’t define itself as Jewish and democratic… This doesn’t mean that Israel is innocent in all of this [conflict], but there are others here that also aren’t innocent.”

    Dr. Wattad, who was sponsored by the Jewish Students Association/Hillel pointed out that

    “Israeli Arabs, for example in the Galilee, decided upon the State of Israel’s birth to stay and take citizenship, to be an Israeli citizen or not… That was their choice…”

    In 2007, Dr. Wattad, was the recipient in Italy of the an award for the ‘‘Best Oralist for Legal Arguments” given by the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science. At the University of Manitoba he spoke about the difference between discrimination and apartheid.

    “Is there discrimination in Israel? Yes-there is discrimination against women, elderly, Arabs, Russian Jews, Christians,… But the same goes for Canada. Is it good-No? But it means we have to deal with the problem from within…. The existence of discrimination in a state does not mean it is an apartheid state…There is a big difference between apartheid and discrimination,” he said.

    “In an apartheid regime, there is no possibility of judicial review, because the judges are appointed by the regime and all serve one ideology. This is not the case in Israel… There is a very strong, independent Supreme Court in Israel. In an apartheid regime [unlike in Israel] there is no place to go to argue against the government,” Dr. Wattad added.

    He further noted for example that in the case of Israel’s security “fence”, there were

    “more than 163 judgments of the Supreme Court where they decided that the fence had to be re-routed/rebuilt.”

    He also said that Egypt also has a fence between it and Gaza.

    Regarding Israel’s national anthem ‘Hatikvah’, Dr. Wattad, is of the view that the Hebrew words “nefesh yehudi” (the Jewish soul/spirit) ought to be changed to be inclusive of Arabs, Christians and non-Jewish citizens. He proposes that the words in “Hatikvah” be changed to refer to “an Israeli spirit” rather than a “Jewish spirit.”

    According to Dr. Wattad, the

    “big problem is the right of return. Is it a right of return to West Bank and Gaza or a right of return to Jaffa and Haifa? One possible solution is for Palestinians to receive an apology in addition to compensation. After World War II, the Jewish people got an apology from the Germans as well as money (reparations). It was very important that they got an apology which was an acknowledgement of collective responsibility.”

    In Wattad’s view, after Hosni Mubarak’s reign is over, Egypt could end up falling into the hands of the Moslim Brotherhood.

    “I am not so sure that as an Israeli it is good to have democracy in other Arab countries, such as Egypt, given what the majority believes,” he said.

    Regarding Hamas, Dr. Wattad said that a “big opportunity was lost,” saying that Hamas started launching missiles, when instead they ought to have used their “golden opportunity to build a state.”

    As for Hezbollah’s Hassan Nassrallah, Dr, Wattad noted that he caused the death of a large number “of Israeli Arabs” who were hit by missiles in the Second Lebanon war.

    Dr. Wattad, who is a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, said that according to the Knesset website,

    “Israeli government protocols show that East Jerusalem was not intended to become part of Israel.”

    When asked about the campaign to boycott Israeli academics, Wattad responded that it was as “idiotic”, saying that academic institutions should be “a marketplace of ideas,” and that academic boycotts means that even “left-wing Israelis aren’t able to speak or write.”

    When asked whether he thought an economic boycott of Israel would be effective, Wattad answered that they would be “useless” because “Who of the Arab states will boycott Israel economically?… They will help Israel out,” he said.

    He noted that notwithstanding the official position of Arab states, they “are doing business with Israel,” such as in Dubai.

    “The biggest gas pipeline in Israel is jointly owned by Israel and Iran and has been that way since it was established.”

    He further noted, that in the case of war with Iran, “Saudi Arabia will allow Israel to use its airspace.”

    Dr. Wattad believes that a “real chance for peace was lost” when former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered. He also is of the view that Rabin’s murderer Yigal Amir ought not to have been given the right to pro-create while he was in jail.

    Dr. Wattad asked if there was an Arab person present in the audience, but there wasn’t.
    He noted that usually when he speaks there are a lot of Arab students in the audience who are

    “against the idea that an Arab Muslim guy is speaking for Israel.”

    However, he clarified that he says what he says because “I believe it to be so,” and he is aware that what he says can be “provocative.”

    Dr. Wattad is one of the founders of Zefat’s Legal College in Northern Israel. He told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that the new public college is “a baby.”

    He said that

    “It’s something to be part of building it. When you work at a place like this, you can lead.”

    According to Dr. Wattad, this past year only 70 out of 200 students who applied were accepted, but 20 were dismissed by the college during the year for not coming to enough classes. “We are strict,” he said.
    About the author,
    Rhonda Spivak is attorney, writer, and member of Canadian & Israel Bar Associations, now edits Winnipeg Jewish Review.

    (^ironic)
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »
    I told you I am done with you. You don't know ? , and havent' refuted one ? thing in this whole thread. Give up now, everyone see's who the zionist dupe is, JUDAS

    And like I said. I am done with you. So go ahead and waste your time with attempts to refute what I posted. But you have done nothing of the sort.

    LOL. You see my refutations plain as day. And dont worry...I will continue. Look at you...you die like all the rest. Once people like you see I have bested you, you have nothing left but irrational denial and name-calling. This is hilarious to me. Squirm little pig, squirm.
  • memphis
    memphis Members Posts: 201
    edited September 2010
    Go ahead and continue, you're wasting your time, I don't care anymore, I'm not continuing this debate. It's my last year of Univesity and school started yersterday, and I have better things to do than try and convince a zionist of his country's crimes. It's an exercise in futility. You are an irrational dupe.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »

    Irregardless of whether Ramat Shlomo is heavily populized Jewish neighbourhood it is still illegally annexed to Israel. Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a military occupation, and illegal under international law. As defined under international law, it’s a military occupation. This is the position of the entire international community and the United Nations Security Council. It has been reaffirmed in court cases before the World Court, the ICJ, and Israel’s own Supreme Court/High Court of Justice, and even Ariel Sharon used the word “Occupation”, if perhaps just once.

    Can you say STRAWMAN? The point you claim to refute here was about "Judaizing" Jerusalem yet now you ar trying to put me on the defensive about "military occupation". Funny how you failed to mentioned it was an illegal Jordanian occupied territory and annexed IN A TIME OF WAR. It has been claimed by Israel for 42 years so this illegal occupation myth does not stand the test of historical accuracy. No aggressor/victim paradigm once again but rather a petty squabble in the aftermath of war. BESIDES, the proposed building site has NOTHING THERE. I know this for a fact. It is miles away from any Palestinian home.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »
    Go ahead and continue, you're wasting your time, I don't care anymore, I'm not continuing this debate. It's my last year of Univesity and school started yersterday, and I have better things to do than try and convince a zionist of his country's crimes. It's an exercise in futility. You are an irrational dupe.

    Well then stop responding. This is not just for you anymore. Go do what you gotta do and quit lying. If you were through with it then you wouldnt be in this thread to keep responding. Hope you get good grades, kiddo!!

    BYE BYE!!!!!
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »


    I’ll state it again, since you have clearly shown your ignorance and intellectual ineptness. according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Joe Biden engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus's Mullen briefing: "This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace." Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: "The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel's actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism." The message couldn't be plainer: Israel's intransigence could cost American lives. "

    This is simple. Israel didnt send America to Afghanistan or Iraq nor are they making them stay there. Biden has a right to his OPINION, but those wars in and of themselves are illegal and have nothing to do with Israel. We know what that ? is all about and who started so nuff said on this....
  • memphis
    memphis Members Posts: 201
    edited September 2010
    judahxulu wrote: »
    Well then stop responding. This is not just for you anymore. Go do what you gotta do and quit lying. If you were through with it then you wouldnt be in this thread to keep responding. Hope you get good grades, kiddo!!

    BYE BYE!!!!!

    Straight A's my friend. Anyways, it has been a pleasure. Have a nice evening
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »


    Nothing to really refute hear. It would be no surprise to find anti-Semites critical of Israel, but to criticize specific Israeli policies that violate international law is the opposite of bigotry. Instead it is a just act — one might even say a very Jewish one — that works to strengthen human rights, rights that protect Jews as much as anybody else.
    If one is criticizing house demolitions, checkpoints, extrajudicial executions and like, and one is called anti-Semitic, then the accuser is bizarre indeed. In order for those criticisms to be anti-Semitic the accuser has to accept those violations of international law as inherent characteristics of Jewry. So who is being anti-Semitic here?

    Your first sentence sums it up. Everything else is hypothetical conjecture and a strawman tactic used to take away from your lack of a solid rebuttal to the point at hand. Israel does not have clean hands in this, but that does not justify false accusations and exaggerations in relation to international law such as the whole apartheid issue or the false representation of UN recommendations as laws and mandates.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    memphis wrote: »
    Straight A's my friend. Anyways, it has been a pleasure. Have a nice evening

    Cool...DUECES!
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    9 and 10 will take waaay more time than i have right now. But I will treat them later in extreme detail as they are very pivotal points.
  • kingblaze84
    kingblaze84 Members Posts: 14,288 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    judahxulu wrote: »
    9 and 10 will take waaay more time than i have right now. But I will treat them later in extreme detail as they are very pivotal points.

    So basically you're gona suck up to Israel some more and deny that they are committing tons of evil acts every single day, like bulldozing homes, stealing land, killing innocent civilians by a 500-1 ratio in its battles, stealing water, and stealing farmland.

    ? would love you. You might actually be related to him...
  • shootemwon
    shootemwon Members Posts: 4,635 ✭✭
    edited September 2010
    So basically you're gona suck up to Israel some more and deny that they are committing tons of evil acts every single day, like bulldozing homes, stealing land, killing innocent civilians by a 500-1 ratio in its battles, stealing water, and stealing farmland.

    ? would love you. You might actually be related to him...

    The two certainly think alike.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    shootemwon wrote: »
    The two certainly think alike.

    you ? cant read.
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    So basically you're gona suck up to Israel some more and deny that they are committing tons of evil acts every single day, like bulldozing homes, stealing land, killing innocent civilians by a 500-1 ratio in its battles, stealing water, and stealing farmland.

    ? would love you. You might actually be related to him...

    reading comprehension. buy you some.
  • shootemwon
    shootemwon Members Posts: 4,635 ✭✭
    edited September 2010
    judahxulu wrote: »
    you ? cant read.


    You mad Adolph?
  • judahxulu
    judahxulu Members Posts: 3,988 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    shootemwon wrote: »
    You mad Adolph?

    who's adolph?
  • kingblaze84
    kingblaze84 Members Posts: 14,288 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    judahxulu wrote: »
    who's adolph?

    Educational books. Buy you some.
  • kingblaze84
    kingblaze84 Members Posts: 14,288 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    shootemwon wrote: »
    The two certainly think alike.

    He sure loves himself some evil.

    Only a wannabe ? like Judah can justify stealing water and stealing farmland from people.