[E-rundbrief] Info 1764 - Apartheid Is Official in Israel
Matthias Reichl
info at begegnungszentrum.at
Sa Jul 21 11:23:35 CEST 2018
E-Rundbrief-Info 1764: Jafar M Ramini (Palästina/ UK): Apartheid Is
Official in Israel; The Electronic Intifada: Israel passes law
entrenching apartheid; Lissy Kaufmann (Der Standard): Israelisches
Parlament beschließt umstrittenes Gesetz (Extracts).
Bad Ischl, 21.7.2018
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/20/apartheid-is-official-in-israel/
Apartheid Is Official in Israel
in World — by Jafar M Ramini —
Countercurrents
July 20, 2018
My fellow Palestinians, if there has ever been a time when we should
Unite4Palestine this is it.
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in
London, presently in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Jenin in
1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the
terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of
Palestine is a life-long commitment.
Last Tuesday the Israeli government, emboldened by total support from
the Trump Administration and the total cowardice of the international
community passed one of the most discriminatory, racist bills in the
history of the State of Israel, the Jewish Nation State Bill. The vote
was 62:55 with two abstentions.
The bill categorically states that the State of Israel is for Jews
only who have exclusive rights to self determination. The rights of 2
million Palestinian Israelis, citizens of Israel since 1948 are now
officially annulled.
Hebrew will be the only official language. Arabic is denigrated from
an official language to a language of interest.
Jerusalem (both East and West) will become the united, eternal capital
of the State of Israel.
Settlement building, maintenance and enlargement is, says the bill, a
legitimate right for Jews in their ancestral home and will be
encouraged and protected.
The accepted definition of Apartheid by the United Nations and the
International criminal court is as follows:
‘Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of
legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of
political and civil rights. Apartheid is a crime against humanity
punishable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
It was also labelled a crime against humanity by the UN General
Assembly in 1966, resolution 2202 A (XXI).’
Those of us who keep an eye on what transpires in Occupied Palestine
know very well that the definition of Israel as ‘the only democracy in
the Middle East’ is based on propaganda and falsehood. The two million
Palestinians who live in the land that was occupied in 1948 constitute
20% of the population of the occupying country and are treated
unfairly and discriminated against by many a law that has been passed
by the Israeli Knesset over the last 70 years.
In June this year, hundreds of Jewish residents of the northern
Israeli city of Afula took to the streets to protest the sale of a
home to an Arab family. A few days earlier members of a Bedouin family
were barred entry to a public swimming pool in southern Israel because
they had arrived during the afternoon hours unofficially designated
for Jews.
That was how they learned that Bedouin are meant to swim separately
from Jews.
Does this sound like Apartheid to you. It certainly does to me.
Members of the Arab list in the Knesset protested in no uncertain
terms, calling the bill racist and Apartheid-like and were forcefully
evicted from the chamber. Meanwhile, the triumphant Netanyahu
described the passing of the bill as a ‘defining moment in the annuls
of Zionism’.
We have always known that the Zionist doctrine was based on supremacy,
ethnic cleansing, racism and Apartheid and Mr Netanyahu, in these few
words, just confirmed it.
Dr Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian veteran member of the Knesset labelled
the bill, “a hate crime”. He went on to say, “This bill is totally
discriminating against the Arab minority with racist articles,
especially those of Jewish settlements and those articles down-grading
the status of the Arabic language.”
The EU reaction was more of a whimper, “ The new law,” it was
announced, “will complicate any peace efforts”.
What peace efforts?
This, my friends and compatriots, is the watered down version of the
original bill submitted by Naftali Bennet, the Minister of Education
and the Head of the far-right Israel Home Party. The real version was
much harsher, much more openly racist and much more discriminatory
against non-Jews who reside in Israel. But what do we expect from an
American emigre who openly calls for the murder of Palestinian
children? This was his latest outburst last Sunday during a security
cabinet meeting and an exchange with the Israeli Armed Forces Chief of
Staff.
“Why not shoot anyone who launches aerial weapons at our communities,
and at the cells?” called Mr Bennett, referring to the children of
Gaza flying kites over Southern Israel.
“There is no legal impediment. Why shoot next to them and not directly
at them? These are terrorists for all intents and purposes.”
When the Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot responded, saying:
“I don’t think shooting teens and children…is right.”
He also asked Bennet: “Are you proposing to drop a bomb from a plane
on incendiary balloon and kite cells?”
Bennett stressed that the Israeli army should do this, pushing the
army chief to say: “I disagree with you. It’s against my operational
and moral positions.”
After all the above and the mute reaction of the international
community, not to mention the deafening silence from Washington do you
see any chance for peace, justice and co-existence ever happening in
Palestine?
I wonder what happened to the fibre of the United States of America
since Thomas Jefferson? Remember, it was he who said, “When tyranny
becomes law resistance becomes a duty.”
My fellow Palestinians, if there has ever been a time when we should
Unite4Palestine this is it.
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in
London, presently in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Jenin in
1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the
terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of
Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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Israel passes law entrenching apartheid - The Electronic Intifada
(7/19/18)
Israel’s parliament voted early Thursday to further entrench Jewish
supremacy and racial discrimination against Palestinians in its
constitutional law. Legal advocates say the law violates international
prohibitions on apartheid and campaigners are urging more efforts to
isolate Israel through BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions. The
so-called Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People law passed
by 62-55 in the Knesset amid tumultuous scenes. Lawmakers from the
Joint List, parties representing Israel’s approximately 1.5 million
Palestinian citizens, were thrown out of the chamber after they tore
up copies of the law. Joint List chairperson Ayman Odeh said that
passage of the law means Israel has “declared it does not want us
here” and “that we will always be second-class citizens.” Palestinian
citizens of Israel are the survivors and their descendants of the
Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias before
and after Israel was created in 1948...
Complete text:
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-passes-law-entrenching-apartheid
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https://derstandard.at/2000083791588/Israelisches-Parlament-beschliesst-umstrittenes-Gesetz
Israelisches Parlament beschließt umstrittenes Gesetz
Lissy Kaufmann aus Tel Aviv
der Standard, 19. Juli 2018, 17:02
206 Postings
Die arabischen Abgeordneten in der Knesset beklagen "Rassismus" und
"Apartheid", Präsident Rivlin warnt vor einem Schaden für Israel...
--
Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
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