[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
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, 4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
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