Discrimination in Israel

[spot]

Back in 1948 when the constitution of Israel was being written there were three countries which legitimized the refusal to implement equal civil rights for second-class citizens. One was South Africa which operated a policy of apartheid, one was the USA which operated a policy of racial segregation and the third was India which operated a rigid social caste system. Other countries, particularly across the Commonwealth, had a preferential immigration policy for English-speaking whites.

Israel therefore had, when it was founded, international precedents for segregating the Arab residents of the ex-Mandate territories west of the Jordan into enclaves equivalent to South Africa's Bantustans.

Since then the racial segregation policy of the USA has been revoked by the application of previously dormant and ineffective constitutional rights, white-preference immigration policies have been abolished across the world, Indian caste discrimination has been criminalized, South Africa has extended suffrage to its aboriginal population and Israel is left isolated in that it continues to grant constitutional and legal rights to Jews which are not shared by non-Jews.

An attempt is being made to perpetuate Israel's discriminatory constitution and laws by splitting the territory, a proposal known as the Two State solution. It would leave the Bantustans with their labor pool but exclude all citizen rights within Israel to their residents. I maintain that this is no more acceptable a policy than it would have been in South Africa, that a single State exists and that reducing the extent of Israel, complete with its discriminatory constitution and laws, to its current de-facto walled borders (or any other proposed borders) is merely to prolong the injustice of that constitution and those laws.

The just answer is to retain the territorial integrity of the region under a single State of Israel while making the constitution and all the laws non-discriminatory.

[Ahso!]

Thanks for the history background on this. I haven't spent much time trying to understand the problem within Israel's borders and am therefore not really able to agree or disagree with you. Would you mind informing us what advantage or benefits proponents of the two-state solution believe their solution achieves.

[spot]

It's hard to tell under all the bluster.

Israel claims that once a Two State boundary has been agreed, erecting an impenetrable barrier between the new countries would prevent Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel's citizens while allowing Palestinian workers to transit daily into and out of Israel through checkpoints to work. I find it hard to believe they seriously consider this to be true.

The Palestinian politicians claim that once a Two State boundary has been agreed, the new State of Palestine will have an independent economy, access to foreign markets, their own foreign policy, an international port and airport under their own jurisdiction and a sovereign right to territorial integrity with no incursions by foreign armed forces. I find it hard to believe they seriously consider this to be true.

Neither argument matters whether they have merit or otherwise. What matters as an overriding concern is that any Two State solution would have a country - Israel - continue permanently to grant constitutional and legal rights to Jews which are not shared by non-Jews. That ethnic discrimination (or whatever other category of discrimination you want to call it by) is unacceptable. If it stands then it forms a precedent for any other country wanting to go down the road to discrimination. It's been superseded in every other country on earth. Israel is the one hold-out apartheid nation controlling the lives of millions of second-class resident Aboriginals to whom equal civil rights are refused. That constitution and those laws have to be revised so as not to discriminate any longer against non-Jews.

[Ahso!]

I see. You're not opposed to the 'two-state solution" per se, it sounds as though whatever happens with that situation, the discrimination the state of Israel practices needs changing. I agree with that.

I also agree that the Palestinian people would most likely be well off enjoying the benefits the two-state solution provides which you've listed.

[spot]

There's no pressure to change their discriminatory constitution and laws if the Two State solution is implemented. That's why it's a dangerous and deceptive temptation which should be shunned.

The Palestinians would be well off enjoying the benefits the two-state solution provides which I've listed, if they got them. Does anyone believe they'd get any of them at all? I certainly don't. They'd get a "State" and find none of those benefits were then allowed them by their neighbor Israel. That's why it's a dangerous and deceptive temptation which should be shunned.