|
|
Post by hanadmh on Feb 9, 2014 13:48:08 GMT
I'm a student on an exchange program in Israel and I happened to attend a tour conducted by a British journalist specializing in Middle Eastern politics in Nazareth, the capital of Palestinians in Israel. Below are what I've learnt from him, if my memory doesn't betray me. He's married to a Palestinian so i guess it's more or less in the favor of Palestinians so read it at your own risk and all opinions are welcome.
So after a long history of conflicts between Israelis and Arabs, how's the standard of living for the Palestinians in Israel? You may be asking why there are Palestinians in Israel? Well those are the ones who had been inside the Israeli territory before the division of the old Palestine nation into the Jewish state and the Arab state.
If you're wondering whether there's any discrimination, the answer is a BIG yes! Palestinians in israel are treated like fourth, fifth-class citizens, even though they all hold an Israeli passport. The Jews, of course, has the best benefits one could ever ask for. Other nationalities (mostly Eurasian) also are discriminated against, however, the government still holds some resistance in imposing explicitly discriminative rules on them. Palestinians, on the other hands, are treated in a ruthless way. They are not allowed to stay in kibbutz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz) and they don't have access to water for farming. According to israel laws, if you have a piece of land and you do nothing with it, the state will confiscate them. Hence, the only choice is to grow less water-absorbing trees like Olives, that's why you kinda see olives everywhere.
Another obvious discrimination is on the education system here. The Arabs receive from four to 11 times less funding for education than the Jews. Their curriculum is controlled by the Jews, who obviously want them to stay in the dark to extinguish their love for study. To make it worse, there's state's surveillance in everything they do and education is not an exception. The kids feel controlled all the time by their teachers and who on earth would enjoy such a surveillance! Thus, the Arabs in Nazareth built their own private schools and becomes one of the cities with the best education quality!
|
|
|
|
Post by lynnpham on Feb 10, 2014 18:17:44 GMT
Wow, thanks hanadmh for pointing that out for us. I think I have read about this journalist somewhere and his name is Jonathan Cook if I'm not wrong. This is one of the video that features his comments on the Israel and Palestinians conflict: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8v7GaSjlOAIt's always great to hear from an insider like you who lives and works within that society. I guess the discrimination that was spared for Palestians within the country itself totally explains the reason why Palestians hate Israelis so much. It's quite fascinating to know that besides the hatred which was held so closely to by the Palestinians living outside Israel, the conflict and suppression do exist within Israel too. And I think most of the aforementioned discriminations are caused by the incompetent government of Israel, whom I believe are mainly Jews of course. I wonder besides religious beliefs, what are the other implicit motivations that underlie such unfair policies? |
|
|
|
Post by Zitong on Mar 15, 2014 15:53:23 GMT
If I'm not wrong, around 20 percent of Israel's current population is actually Arab - and like the other posters have mentioned, they are significantly disadvantaged in several areas. One interesting thing is that Arab Israelis have a much higher birthrate than Jewish Israelis, meaning that unless Jewish immigration into Israel can keep the proportion of Jewish Israelis at its current level, Arabs will increasingly become a larger minority within the population, and may eventually overtake Jews as the majority group of Israelis.
|
|
|
|
Post by leesze on Mar 31, 2014 8:22:46 GMT
Wow, that is really interesting! Thanks so much hanadmh for the story. Since you are in Israel right now, do you have any firsthand observations regarding the treatment of Israelis and Palestinians in the country? I just went to google about the discrimination towards Palestinians in Israel and so many search results came up 0.0 Here is what I found: The status of Palestinians in Israel as a Jewish state is problematic. From 1948 until 1966 the Palestinians in Israel lived under military rule and in fact under military occupation. Palestinians faced restrictions on the freedom of movement, restrictions on the freedom of press and opinion and legal confiscation of land and property. Under military law Palestinians faced the possibility of deportations, illegal detentions without trial, curfews, house arrests etc. The end of military rule in 1966 did not end this legal and institutional discrimination. The inequality under the law is felt in almost all aspects of social, political and economic life, including a discriminatory educational system where curriculum is routinely biased in favour of Jewish customs and norms at the expense of Arab culture8. The notion of collective rights and protection of the Palestinian minority are absent from the Basic Law 9. An example of an explicit discriminatory law is the “Law of Return” which grants every Jew, wherever he or she resides, automatic Israeli citizenship if desired, at the expense of refugees and stateless persons who have lived on the land for generations. The fact that non-Jews (with the exception of the Druze - a religious and social community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan) cannot perform military service bars them from a broad spectrum of services and benefits and effectively diminishes the opportunity for social mobility that any Jewish Israeli would have. This inequality is also evident in the fact that only a fraction of government budgets allocated funds for the maintenance and building of infrastructure in Palestinian towns in Israel. Palestinian citizens face similar building restrictions that are known in the Occupied Territories. This active policy of under-development also becomes clear in the case of the “unrecognised villages”. About 100.000 people live in these villages, mostly in the Negev and in the North, which officially do not exist. This means that even the most basic services are not made available to their inhabitants, such as running water, health services, sanitation, electricity, safe roads, adequate education facilities or postal and other communication services.10 Recently the Knesset adopted the “Nationality and Entry into Israel (Temporary Order)” law that bars Palestinians married to Israelis from living with their spouses in Israel. Since the outbreak of the Intifada the issuing of residence permits for Palestinian spouses has been frozen “in light of the security situation and because of the implication(s) of the immigration and the establishment in Israel of foreigners of Palestinian decent” Source: electronicintifada.net/content/status-palestinian-citizens-israel/341 |
|
|
|
Post by wenqing on Mar 31, 2014 8:33:28 GMT
If I'm not wrong, around 20 percent of Israel's current population is actually Arab - and like the other posters have mentioned, they are significantly disadvantaged in several areas. One interesting thing is that Arab Israelis have a much higher birthrate than Jewish Israelis, meaning that unless Jewish immigration into Israel can keep the proportion of Jewish Israelis at its current level, Arabs will increasingly become a larger minority within the population, and may eventually overtake Jews as the majority group of Israelis. Whoa that means that the discriminatory system that is in place in Israel right now might be dissolved soon (If the Arabs do eventually overtake Jews as the majority religion) I found more information regarding the discrimination that the Palestinians face in Israel. I found out that Israel still applies 20 laws that privilege Jews over Arabs. For example, the 1950 Law of Return grants automatic citizenship rights to Jews from anywhere in the world upon request, while denying that same right to Palestinians - which is "Law of Return" that leesze pointed out as well, in the post above mine. Also, the Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom ensures that Israel is the state of the "Jewish people," not its citizens. This law was passed in 1992 to serve as a "bill of rights," as Israel does not have a written constitution. Israel's flag and other national symbols are Jewish religious symbols, not neutral or national ones that represent all the citizens of the state. Leesze the Israeli website you posted is pretty interesting! |
|
