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Scurrilous

(38,687 posts)
Thu May 24, 2012, 01:33 AM May 2012

Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal

<snip>

"I’M 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 Aviv’s 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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Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal (Original Post) Scurrilous May 2012 OP
Thank you azurnoir May 2012 #1
Is this article saying any anyone except someone born in an Israeli-occupied area? kayecy May 2012 #2
It is referring to residency. Ruby the Liberal May 2012 #3
are you an Arab? but I'll bet you flown to Lod with absolutely no problem azurnoir May 2012 #4

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
1. Thank you
Thu May 24, 2012, 01:40 AM
May 2012

more from the article

Two generations after the Nakba, the effect of discriminatory Israeli policies still reverberates. Israel still seeks to safeguard its image by claiming to be a bastion of democracy that treats its Palestinian citizens well, all the while continuing illiberal policies that target this very population. There is a long history of such discrimination.

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 Israel’s 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, it’s 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)
2. Is this article saying any anyone except someone born in an Israeli-occupied area?
Thu May 24, 2012, 03:58 AM
May 2012

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)
3. It is referring to residency.
Sun May 27, 2012, 01:08 AM
May 2012

I have flown into Lod almost a dozen times and I was not born in the middle east.

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