[Marxism] Arabs in Israel demand their human rights

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following is from the newspaper that expresses the views of the US
Socialist Workers Party, the remains of an historically important component
of the US revolutionary working-class movement. It seems to me an gathering
of useful facts.

I disagree with the headline because it reflects or could reflect the
current fantasy among some Israeli and Arab intellectuals -- quite
legitimately affected by the failures and collapse of the Palestine
Liberation Organization -- that a democratic secular one-person-one-vote
ISRAEL may represent a viable alternative, as a solution to the struggle for
Palestine, to the perspective of a democratic inclusive united Palestine
that the PLO represented.

>From that standpoint, I think Hamas and the fighting elements of Fatah that
still exist represent a better alternative leadership and are closer to the
Palestinian masses, who are still fighting for the land, including the right
of return for those expelled by the crime of 1948, not just for "equality"
before Israeli law.

However, the struggles and potential fights described here are all
legitimate from the point of view.
Fred Feldman



http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7307/730750.html

The fight for democracy and secularism in Israel 
(feature article)
 
BY SETH GALINSKY  
In the aftermath of Israel?s assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,
Israeli Arabs are continuing their struggle against discrimination and for
equal rights inside Israel. 
Israel has no constitution, but its ?basic laws? say it is a ?Jewish and
democratic? state with equality for all its citizens. The fight of some 1.4
million Palestinian citizens of Israel against discrimination is at the
heart of the battle for political democracy and secularization in the
region. The discriminatory practices they face cannot be ended without a
fundamental change in the structure of the Israeli state. 

During the founding of the state of Israel, most of the 859,000 Arabs
residing there were driven into exile to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and
neighboring Arab countries. But some 133,000 remained within Israel?s
borders even after its formation in 1948. 

Today their descendants face discrimination in jobs, housing, and education;
restrictions on language and democratic rights; and unequal access to
government services. 

Another 3.9 million Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens live in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. 

Israeli Arabs make up 20 percent of Israel?s 7.1 million people, but own
only 3 percent of its land. Some 25 percent of all school-age children in
Israel are Arab. Even with a sharply declining birthrate, it won?t be long
before one-third of Israel?s citizens are Arab. 

While most Israeli Arabs live in all-Arab towns and villages, there are
?mixed towns??including Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle, and Lod?that are as much
as 30 percent Palestinian. Carmiel, Nahariya, and Upper Nazareth, once
considered ?exclusively Jewish,? now have a growing Arab population.  
 
Resisting second-class status 
The refusal of Israeli Arabs to accept second-class citizenship is reflected
in the existence of at least a dozen centers, political parties, and
organizations that challenge anti-Arab discrimination. Some of these groups
include Jewish-Israelis. 

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, currently has 48 active
cases before Israeli courts and municipal planning committees, including 32
before the Supreme Court. 

The cases brought by Adalah?which include fighting for the right of Arab
citizens to live in Jewish neighborhoods, preventing the ongoing
confiscation of land owned by Arabs, advocating improved conditions for
Palestinian political prisoners, and challenging unequal government
assistance?shed light on the reality faced by Palestinians inside Israel
today. 

Palestinian residents of Akbara, the only Palestinian Arab neighborhood in
Safad in northern Israel, won a recent victory in their years-long fight for
government services. Their original villages were destroyed during the 1948
war and they were relocated to Akbara by Israeli military order. 

According to Adalah, ?After a long battle, Israel was eventually compelled
to grant recognition to the village and then joined it to Safad in 1982.?
But the village still lacked many services. It is the only neighborhood in
Safad that is not connected to the sewage system and waste water routinely
floods the streets. 

In January, after Akbara residents filed suit, the Safad government finally
took bids and agreed to connect the sewage system by July.  
 
?Social unsuitability? 
Israeli Arabs face a myriad of obstacles when they try to live in Jewish
neighborhoods. With the help of Adalah, Fatina and Ahmed Zubeidat, a
Palestinian couple, are challenging an ?admissions committee,? which told
them that their request to live in Rakefet in Western Galilee was rejected
because of their ?social unsuitability.? Because the admissions committees
often exclude not just Arab families but gays, single parents, unmarried
people, and Oriental Jews, the Zubeidats have won broader support. Among the
groups backing the Adalah petition are the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, made
up of Jews from Arab countries, and the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and
Tolerance. 

On January 6 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to respond to
Adalah?s petition.  
 
Ban on Arabic book imports 
Palestinians have also stood up to attempts to restrict their democratic and
cultural rights. 

At the end of January, Adalah submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme
Court demanding that Kull Shay, the largest supplier of Arabic-language
books in Israel, be permitted to import books published in Syria and
Lebanon. Kull Shay has been importing books, with the consent of the
government censor, for 30 years. 

In August 2008 the government, citing a British mandate law from 1939, told
Kull Shay that it could no longer import books published in an ?enemy state?
even if imported via another country. According to Adalah, 80 percent of
Arabic-language books sold in Israel are published in Syria and Lebanon,
including translations of Harry Potter, Pinocchio, Shakespeare, and Gabriel
García Marquez, and Israeli writers Amos Oz, Yoram Kaniuk, and Eshkol Nevo. 

The Adalah petition included letters protesting the ban from the general
director of the Israel National Library, the director of Haifa University
Library, and the presidents of Oranim Academic and Beit-Berl colleges. 

Taking advantage of their legal rights as citizens in Israel, Israeli Arabs
have mostly backed three Arab-based parties that have members of parliament
in the Israeli Knesset: 

Balad (National Democratic Assembly), which was formed in 1996, calls for
?genuine and full democracy? in Israel and the elimination of all forms of
discrimination. 

The United Arab List, a coalition of Islamic and nationalist groups, calls
for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as
its capital. 

Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), which was founded by the
Communist Party, projects itself as a Jewish-Arab party, but draws support
mostly from Arabs. 

Three of the main capitalist parties in Israel, Likud, Kadima, and the Labor
Party, also have Arab candidates in the February 10 election. The rightist
Yisrael Beteinu has no Arab candidates. 

Among the demands raised by various Israeli Arab organizations is repealing
the ?Law of Return,? which grants citizenship to Jews around the world who
move to Israel; changing the basic laws to say that Israel is a homeland for
Jews and Arabs, and putting Arabic on an equal footing with Hebrew. 

Tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs protested during the Israeli assault on
Gaza. More than 700 were arrested in the course of the demonstrations.
Others were brought to police stations and warned to ?stay within the law,?
according to BBC News. 

Ameer Makhoul, executive director of Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-Based
Associations) who organized some of the protests, was one of those taken in
for questioning and accused of supporting Hamas. 

?They cannot tell me how to behave,? Makhoul told BBC. ?I am not an
immigrant. I didn?t come to Israel?Israel came to me.? 




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