Netanyahu pushes to define Israel as 'state for Jewish people only'

[littlebabyjesus]

That article makes an interesting point about Israeli Arab attitudes:

Israeli Arabs are far more likely than Israeli Jews to say the settlements pose an obstacle to peace but they’re also substantially more likely than West Bank and Gazan Palestinians to say that Palestinian violence represents a threat to peace. In other words, as people who strongly identify with the suffering of their Palestinian cousins across the green line, but also understand—and even empathize with—the anxieties of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs can help narrow the gap between a Jewish state and a Palestinian national movement that are drifting further apart, and appear headed for war.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't know actually whether Arab parties have I'll have to check that when I get home

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The article says that Rabin formed allegiances with them without officially joining forces:

It’s no coincidence that between 1992 and 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, the one Israeli prime minister who forged an alliance with the Arab parties (even though they never officially joined his government), doubled spending on education for Israeli Arabs, ended the discrepancy between the amount the government paid Jewish and Arab families per child, introduced affirmative action to boost the number of Arab citizens in Israel’s civil service and built dozens of health clinics in Arab Israeli communities. And by Rabin’s final year in office, according to the University of Haifa’s Sammy Smooha, the percentage of Israeli Arabs who rejected Israel’s “right to exist” had hit an all-time low.

Israel has gone backwards a very long way since Rabin. wtf has happened to the Labor Party there?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well at the very least this is one step closer to Netanyahu being shot by his own side.

As for the chances of this getting through......he's got some serious opposition.

Fat Benny is a cunt in a basket, but he's also a known quantity. If he gets assassinated, which scumfuck gets to take over as head of the coalition of shitheads?

 

[Knotted]

I don't know what this means legally (I don't understand how it is different in practice to what already exists), but I would think that the diplomatic effect is to make peace talks all but impossible. Not that the talks were serious in the first place, but this seems to signal that the Netanyahu government doesn't even want to pretend anymore.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Delegitimization campaigns, antisemites etc

Some of the anti fascists here would be proud

Say it with pride, comrade!

 

[frogwoman]

Say it with pride, comrade!

Everyone's against antisemites right? It's normal you'd do this to stop them, make it exactly clear who the israeli state is for. Beating up palestinians, just normal antifascist stuff.

 

[frogwoman]

Bring the tanks in on,kids with stones, build massive walls on people's land, fighting the fight against fascism, to stop Israel being delegitimized. Everyone supports that!

 

[elbows]

I don't know what this means legally (I don't understand how it is different in practice to what already exists), but I would think that the diplomatic effect is to make peace talks all but impossible. Not that the talks were serious in the first place, but this seems to signal that the Netanyahu government doesn't even want to pretend anymore.

Based on their own criteria, they have a number of excuses for not pretending to care about the peace talks anymore. Palestinians seeking various things at the UN and Hamas & Fatah forming a unity government being the two most obvious.

As for the reason for this proposal, I suspect one of the quotes in the opening post is on the right track:

"Unfortunately, the diplomatic destruction Netanyahu is causing will lead Israel to lose its Jewish majority and become a binational state. This unfortunate fact is something no law can hide."

The 'demographic time bomb' may have been overstated at times in the past, but it does seem that the current policies and attitudes towards either a one or two state solution may eventually cause significant issues on that front. As such I take the current proposal to be a sign of weakness.

 

[redsquirrel]

Watched this recently, shocking stuff. But let's not forget, no different to the far right in Britain and other European countries.

Madly I don't think that's true, these days the BNP wouldn't argue for a Britain for whites only (individual members might but not the party), the current climate in Britain would not allow any party with such a policy to exist as anything outside a few isolated scumbags. They might argue for a Britain for British people only, excluding immigrants, but these days even the BNP have been forced to accept that other racial/ethnic groups living in Britain today are British.

 

[frogwoman]

Madly I don't think that's true, these days the BNP wouldn't argue for a Britain for whites only (individual members might but not the party), the current climate in Britain would not allow any party with such a policy to exist as anything outside a few isolated scumbags. They might argue for a Britain for British people only, excluding immigrants, but these days even the BNP have been forced to accept that other racial/ethnic groups living in Britain today are British.

Putin has talked about the interests of and used for word for'ethnic Russians' as opposed to Russian citizens, on more than one occasion, I was reading about it last night but I can't remember where now.

 

[framed]

Yeah I know. That doesn't change my point

Well, it does slightly... Without service in the IDF would it have been possible for him or any other Arab to rise to the status of Israeli diplomat?

 

[hipipol]

Watched this recently, shocking stuff. But let's not forget, no different to the far right in Britain and other European countries. What I found most shocking here tho' was senior politicians, including the deputy priminister, endorsing and espousing these views. Then I thought, how the fuck can the US, with a Black president, continue to support this dreadful situation.

It is VERY different
EDL marches down the middle of a road in Brighton, 3 times as many peeps turn up to oppose them
Israel is a racist, militarized state where political credibility is often tied to hostility to non-Jews

 

[hipipol]

There have been Arab ministers in the israeli government, iirc the current israeli ambassador is druze here in the UK. We really need to make sure that we get the facts correct otherwise how the fuck can you oppose the regime effectively?

Tokenism

 

[uk benzo]

Tokenism

Completely agree. The zionist state had no problem murdering 13 Palestinian protesters (Israeli citizens) in 2000. The perps still have not been held accountable. If it had been the other way around, the zionist state would have not spared any expense in capturing/killing the Palestinians involved.

http://electronicintifada.net/content/ten-years-later-no-justice-october-2000-killings/9065

 

[ViolentPanda]

Everyone's against antisemites right? It's normal you'd do this to stop them, make it exactly clear who the israeli state is for. Beating up palestinians, just normal antifascist stuff.

Our "friend" Rachamim saw himself as an anti-fascist. That he also professed an affinity for the political ideology of fascism wasn't at all contradictoury, no sir, nuh-uh!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bring the tanks in on,kids with stones, build massive walls on people's land, fighting the fight against fascism, to stop Israel being delegitimized. Everyone supports that!

And if they don't, then they're viciously anti-Semitic fascists!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Our "friend" Rachamim saw himself as an anti-fascist. That he also professed an affinity for the political ideology of fascism wasn't at all contradictoury, no sir, nuh-uh!

He was openly racist. In some ways that's more honest than the Netanyahu approach, where he denies being racist in the same sentence as he makes a racist statement.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Based on their own criteria, they have a number of excuses for not pretending to care about the peace talks anymore. Palestinians seeking various things at the UN and Hamas & Fatah forming a unity government being the two most obvious.

As for the reason for this proposal, I suspect one of the quotes in the opening post is on the right track:



The 'demographic time bomb' may have been overstated at times in the past, but it does seem that the current policies and attitudes towards either a one or two state solution may eventually cause significant issues on that front. As such I take the current proposal to be a sign of weakness.

The "demographic time bomb" is also why the state of Israel, through its' embassies etc, has consistently made a much bigger deal about incidents of anti-Semitism in countries with significant Jewish communities - to scare members of those communities into aliyah, reinforcing the population.
Fortunately, many diaspora Jews are wise to this tactic now, and it has had diminishing returns.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He was openly racist. In some ways that's more honest than the Netanyahu approach, where he denies being racist in the same sentence as he makes a racist statement.

To be frank, I expect anything that falls from Fat Benny's lips to be a lie.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Putin has talked about the interests of and used for word for'ethnic Russians' as opposed to Russian citizens, on more than one occasion, I was reading about it last night but I can't remember where now.

Not that it signifies anything, oh no!
I mean, it's a rarely used formula, isn't it? The last person to go on about "ethnic" whatevers was that little Austrian chap!

 

[frogwoman]

Not that it signifies anything, oh no!
I mean, it's a rarely used formula, isn't it? The last person to go on about "ethnic" whatevers was that little Austrian chap!

Shut up you fascist

 

[frogwoman]

Tokenism

Well yes exactly

 

[camouflage]

Watched this recently, shocking stuff. But let's not forget, no different to the far right in Britain and other European countries. What I found most shocking here tho' was senior politicians, including the deputy priminister, endorsing and espousing these views. Then I thought, how the fuck can the US, with a Black president, continue to support this dreadful situation.

Black doesn't necessarily mean progressive left-wing humanist ya know, it really is just a skin colour. Next time there may be a female US president, and people might expect (as per the females on boards of banks/pink chainsaw theory) that things will be different. Itll be the same machine cutting its way through the same soft fleshy underbelly of the expectation of good intentions.

 

[shygirl]

Black doesn't necessarily mean progressive left-wing humanist ya know, it really is just a skin colour. Next time there may be a female US president, and people might expect (as per the females on boards of banks/pink chainsaw theory) that things will be different. Itll be the same machine cutting its way through the same soft fleshy underbelly of the expectation of good intentions.

I know that.

 

[tim]

High office is excluded for them, though, isn't it? It is not a realistic thing for an Arab Israeli child to say 'I want to grow up to become Prime Minister'.

Play their political cards right, however, and they might make it as acting President.
It also depends on how you define Arab - a large proportion of Israel Jews come from or have parents from the "Arab world" . It's possible to be a Jew and an Arab. Mind you t'sd much easier for Western Jews o reach high political office.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Play their political cards right, however, and they might make it as acting President.

Another Druze. And a senior officer in the army. And a member of a Zionist political party.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It also depends on how you define Arab .

As for this, the whole point is that the state defines it for you by deciding whether or not you are liable for military service on pain of a long prison sentence.

 

[tim]

High office is excluded for them, though, isn't it? It is not a realistic thing for an Arab Israeli child to say 'I want to grow up to become Prime Minister'.

It's also fairly typical of most states in the region to a great degree a reflection of colonial divide and rule policy during the mandate era. Maronite hegemony in Lebanon; Alawite Domination in Syria; traditionally, at least, Sunni rule n Iraq; and the absurd princlings of Jordan and ,the Gulf.

 

[tim]

Another Druze. And a senior officer in the army. And a member of a Zionist political party.

Yes, he clearly has played his cards right