Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumNot All Israeli Citizens Are Equal
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"IM a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Despite our towns being just 30 miles apart, we met almost 6,000 miles away in Massachusetts, where we attended neighboring colleges.
A series of walls, checkpoints, settlements and soldiers fill the 30-mile gap between our hometowns, making it more likely for us to have met on the other side of the planet than in our own backyard.
Never is this reality more profound than on our trips home from our current residence outside Washington.
Tel Avivs Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together an enjoyable task for most couples we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn."
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azurnoir
(45,850 posts)more from the article
In the 1950s new laws permitted the state to take control over Palestinians land by classifying them absentees. Of course, it was the state that made them absentees by either preventing refugees from returning to Israel or barring internally displaced Palestinians from having access to their land. This last group was ironically termed present absentees able to see their land but not to reach it because of military restrictions that ultimately resulted in their watching the state confiscate it. Until 1966, Palestinian citizens were governed under martial law.
Today, a Jew from any country can move to Israel, while a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. And although Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israels population, the 2012 budget allocates less than 7 percent for Palestinian citizens.
Tragically for Palestinians, Zionism requires the state to empower and maintain a Jewish majority even at the expense of its non-Jewish citizens, and the occupation of the West Bank is only one part of it. What exists today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is therefore essentially one state, under Israeli control, where Palestinians have varying degrees of limited rights: 1.5 million are second-class citizens, and four million more are not citizens at all. If this is not apartheid, then whatever it is, its certainly not democracy.
we've seen the excuses here but the US does it too, however here in the US discrimination while it does exist is also illegal and despite discrimination we also have a Black POTUS who was resoundingly elected to office
eta I also note your sneaky link to that website
kayecy
(1,417 posts)Is this article saying anyone except someone born in an Israeli occupied area can fly to Lod?.....What a great way to encourage Palestinians not to hate Israelis.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,216 posts)I have flown into Lod almost a dozen times and I was not born in the middle east.