- 15 Jun 2016 22:37
#14690767
These are some of the Israeli laws posted recently about discrimination against Arabs in Israel.
One Israeli prosecutor tried to change these discriminatory laws inscribed in the ILA and JNF statutes but unfortunately his efforts were in vain as nothing came of it since 2005 when he initiated intergovernmental debate on the issue.
The Adalah Inequality Report.
http://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/ ... h_2011.pdf
Not really, while noone disagrees that several Arab states have several discrimination laws and I have spoken numerous times about them, the BDS is about the occupation and the right of refugees to their own properties.
None of these countries you imagine are occupying other countries or peoples and denying them access or compensation to their own properties.
Baruch Kimmerling-Israeli Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Summarising his PhD on Zionist Land Management-Berkeley wrote:Israel is the only “democracy” in the world that nationalized almost all if its land and prohibited even the leasing of most of agricultural lands to non-Jews, a situation made possible by a complex framework of legal arrangements with the Jewish National Fund, including the Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960), the Israel Lands Law and Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), as well as the Covenants between the Government of the State of Israel and the WZO of 1954 and the JNF of 1961.
wiki on ILA wrote:Starting from the beginning of the 2000s there is an ongoing debate including governmental officials whether different issues arising from the national ownership of the land can be solved. On July 12, 2003 and on February 4, 2004 the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee met as the committee for the Constitution by Broad Consensus to discuss this problem.[1]
One basic issue was the difference in the rights of Jewish citizens and non-Jewish citizens. Palestinians could not purchase land in most Jewish areas. Nor could Palestinians expand their villages as population growth demanded, but Jewish villages could readily expand as needed. These issues have not been addressed in the land reform discussions.
One Israeli prosecutor tried to change these discriminatory laws inscribed in the ILA and JNF statutes but unfortunately his efforts were in vain as nothing came of it since 2005 when he initiated intergovernmental debate on the issue.
All land managed by the Israel Lands Administration, including land owned by the Jewish National Fund, will be marketed without discrimination or limits including to non-Jews, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided yesterday.
The revolutionary decision followed a discussion held in Mazuz's office attended by senior members of the state prosecutor's office and the legal advisers to the JNF and the ILA. The ruling was made in preparation for the state's response to High Court petitions filed on the matter.
The state prosecutor's office believes it will not be able to defend before the High Court the policy of allocating Jewish National Fund land to Jews only. Within the next few weeks, the state is supposed to inform the High Court of its position on petitions filed against the Israel Lands Administration, which prevents non-Jews from participating in tenders for JNF land.
Haaretz has learned that senior members of the state prosecutor's office believe that the policy is unreasonably discriminatory against non-Jews, and will be very difficult to defend in court.
In August and October last year, three petitions against the policy were filed with the High Court. The petitioners - the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel - charge that the policy is flawed and runs contrary to the fundamental principles of Israel as a democratic state, and first and foremost, the principle of equality.
Mazuz said at yesterday's meeting that the state could not defend the discrimination against Arabs in the framework of the marketing of JNF land by the ILA. Nevertheless, in order to preserve the original designated purpose of the JNF, which is formally defined as an organization working "on behalf of the Jewish nation," and in the name of the interests of the Diaspora Jews, it was decided that if any ILA tender for land owned by the JNF is won by a non-Jewish citizen, the ILA will transfer alternative land to the JNF.
This arrangement, say Justice Ministry sources, will achieve two objectives. On the one hand, it will preserve the principle of equality and cancel the discrimination against Arabs. On the other hand, the JNF will retain its current quota - some 13 percent of state land - and this land will continue to come under the JNF's principle of using this land "for the purpose of settling Jews."
Yesterday's discussion culminated in a decision to set up a joint state-JNF team to work out the finer details of Mazuz's decision. The team is expected to submit its recommendations within 90 days, and the state prosecution will then submit its response to the High Court petitions.
Justice Ministry sources said that in light of the attorney general's decision, the state prosecutor's office is likely to argue that the petitions are superfluous and should be rejected, subject to the fact that from now on any citizen can participate in an ILA tender for acquiring land or purchasing a housing unit.
The JNF, which is wholly owned by the World Zionist Organization, was established in 1901 and has since been collecting donations from Diaspora Jews for the purpose of purchasing land in Israel. The JNF leases the land to Jews only, in keeping with the fund's regulations.
Since 1961 JNF land has been marketed by the ILA, a state-run entity that manages state land. In contrast to the practice with regard to other state land, non-Jews are currently prohibited from participating in ILA tenders for leasing JNF land.
After the petitions were filed, senior members of the state prosecutor's office informed the heads of the JNF and ILA that it would be very difficult to defend the policy in court.
JNF sources have accused the state prosecutor's office of giving in to post-Zionist trends, and too easily waiving the principle that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people.
The JNF published a survey last week that shows that more than 70 percent of the Jewish public in Israel is opposed to allocating JNF land to non-Jews, while more than 80 percent prefer Israel to be defined as the state of the Jewish people and not the state of all its citizens.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/ag-mazuz-rules-j ... s-1.148348
Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East wrote:
Basic Law: Israel-Lands Law and Israel-Lands Administration Law
In 1960, these two laws were formulated on behalf of Israel government deeming that the land controlled by the JNF would now be administered by a single authority, the Israel Land Administration (ILA).25 However, it was agreed that “the lands controlled by the ILA shall be administered according to the principles of the JNF,” meaning that a Jew has a right to receive land controlled by the ILA, but a non-Jew does not enjoy this right “unless the apartment or plot of land is located in the special 'zone of residence' assigned to non-Jews.”26 The JNF effectively controls the ILA and dominates committees set up to vet applicants to hundreds of rural communities. Given the JNF’s declared goal of “purchasing and developing land as a national resource of the Jewish people, by the Jewish people, and for the Jewish people,” it forbids the ILA from selling or leasing of the land to non-Jews.27 This arrangement has allowed it to discriminate against Arab citizens on behalf of the Israeli government, denying them access in the form of leasing and cultivation to 93% of the land.28
Although the Israeli Supreme Court itself has filed a petition that the policies of the JNF violate Israeli anti- discrimination laws, the Israeli Knesset approved the renewal of the JNF Law in July 2007, in its preliminary reading allowing the JNF to continue the practice of refusing to lease land to Arab citizens. Due to criticism from Arab Members of Knesset a temporary settlement was reached where the JNF was prevented from discriminating on grounds of ethnicity. However, every time land is sold to a non-Jew, the ILA will compensate it with an equivalent amount of land therefore ensuring the total amount owned by Israeli-Jews remains unchanged.29 This is indeed another instance of legal manipulation by the Israeli government.
The Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel face unique challenges. Discrimination and racism pervade every level of Israeli society, from individual perspectives to legal and systemic policy choices which amount to institutionalized racism. However it is the structural discrimination within the Israeli legal system that provides the foundation for institutionalized bias. This precludes the Palestinians in Israel from enjoying their full civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights. In fact, a recent report submitted by The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination found 17 laws of which are discriminatory on their face, in that they either relate only to the rights of Jews in Israel or abridge the rights of Arab citizens of the State and 3 laws which use neutral language and general terminology but have a discriminatory effect on Arab citizens.8
Constitutional Equality
There is no provision in Israeli law for the concept of constitutional equality. It is absent from The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, which since 1992 has served as Israel’s constitutional Bill of Rights.9 While laws exist which protect the equal rights of disadvantaged groups such as women and the disabled, no general statute relates to the right to equality for all citizens. Moreover, there is no statute which specifically protects equal rights for the major Arab minority in Israel.
Education
The Israeli education system is based on the State Education Law of 1953. This Law established a system of schools designed to meet the explicit demands of the Jewish community. The objectives the Israeli education system as explicitly stated in Article 2 of this Law are to exclusively advance Jewish culture and Zionist ideology.15
Discriminatory Curriculum
The Minister of Education and Culture is authorized to set education curricula for each state institution and the Arab schools are not outside of the boundaries of Article 2 of this law. As no autonomous educational system has been established for the Arab community, Palestinian students are subjected to an educational curriculum which has been developed by and for the Jewish population: e.g. Arab students are expected to spend more time studying the Torah than their own religious texts; Zionist literature and poetry are included in the standard curriculum, but not Palestinian classics; matriculation exams include questions on Judaism, but not the Muslim, Christian, or Druze faiths.16 In addition, studies have found that Israeli textbooks contain persistent negative and racist references to Arabs and Palestinians.17
The Ministry of Education does not deny that the reason for such direct discrimination in the curriculum is fear that Arab history, culture, elements and symbols will “rouse national feelings among the Arab citizens.”18 In fact, the renowned works of Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish can be taught in the Israeli-Jewish curriculum, but are vehemently excluded from the Arab education system due to such fears, thus denying the needs of this community as a minority with a heritage and national affiliation.
Discriminatory Funding for Education
The inferior status of Arab schools is also largely due to discriminatory budget allocations, resulting in a lack of funding and resources. While nearly 1/3 of all Jewish students have received support from government- funded enrichment programs for impoverished students, Arab students are not eligible for these programs. In fact, there is no funding for educational enrichment programs for Arab students in Israel.19 Also, government funded pre-schools do not operate in Arab towns or villages, and more than half of the tens of thousands of Arab children with special needs are denied access to appropriate classes or schools. The result of these and other societal discrepancies is that the education opportunities available to Arab students is vastly inferior to that provided to Jewish students and is reflected in the drop-out rates which, among 16-17 year olds is 40% for Arabs and 9% for Jews.20
Further claims in the report are that Israel prevents its Arab citizens from marrying Palestinian partners if they wish to reside in Israel; the state exercises extreme discrimination in the budgets it allots Arab towns; Arab citizens have been evacuated from their Negev homes under the claim that the homes were illegal; standards for accepting Arab students into higher-education institutions are discriminatory; state laws give official status to Jewish cultural institutions, but not to Arab ones; and the government has not issued any amendments to address the protection of Muslim and Christian holy sites.
The ICERD, drafted in 1966, was one of the first human rights treaties to be adopted by the UN. There are 173 signed states, including Israel, which ratified the ICERD in 1979. The convention commits member states to amend or cancel national laws and policies that create or perpetuate any form of racial discrimination.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/adalah-cent ... y-1.213048
The Adalah Inequality Report.
http://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/ ... h_2011.pdf
layman wrote:Boycott them too ... no? .. oh, interesting ...
Not really, while noone disagrees that several Arab states have several discrimination laws and I have spoken numerous times about them, the BDS is about the occupation and the right of refugees to their own properties.
None of these countries you imagine are occupying other countries or peoples and denying them access or compensation to their own properties.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...