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becky johnson: "Israel has no laws which discriminate against people for their race, religion, or national country of origin."

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For Jews Only: Racism Inside Israel
An Interview with Phyllis Bennis
December 15, 2000

by Max Elbaum, special to ColorLines magazine.


Phyllis Bennis [anti-Zinionist, Jewish-American], a longtime analyst and activist around Middle East issues, is now head of the Middle East Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is the author of "From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising," a book about the Palestinian intifada of the late 1980s, and "Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's U.N." In this interview, Phyllis analyzes the RACIST character of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and especially its [UNEQUAL] treatment of Palestinians who live within Israel itself.


WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE CURRENT PALESTINIAN UPRISING?

What's going on right now can be summed up in one word: occupation. Contrary to the U.S. media's portrayal, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is at the root of what the media identify at most only as a disproportionate use of violence by the Israelis on the West Bank and Gaza. Not only has Israel taken over historic Palestine, but since
1967 it has illegally and brutally put the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza under military rule.

Certainly the Israeli troops' use of helicopter gunships, of machine guns mounted on tanks, and so on is profoundly disproportionate when used against a Palestinian civilian population armed only with stones and a few old Kalashnikov rifles.

But the real issue is the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, which is not only inherently violent but a violation of international law and contrary to United Nations resolutions. Even if Israel used only proportionate violence, it would still be absolutely illegal, because the occupation of Palestinian land is ILLEGAL.


AND WHY IS THERE AN OCCUPATION?

From its origins in the 19th century, Zionism centered on the idea of creating a specifically Jewish state in which Jews would be protected
and PRIVILEGED OVER NON-JEWS. Zionist occupation of Palestine was at first meager, amounting to about 10 percent of the population by 1900. By 1947, Jews were still only about 30 percent of the
population of Mandate Palestine and owned only six percent of the land. However, by means of the 1947-48 war, Israel took over huge new expanses of land and forcibly expelled about 750,000 Palestinians. This TRAVESTY was the basis for the official founding of the Israeli state in 1948.


IN THIS LATEST INTIFADA, THERE HAVE BEEN NUMEROUS PROTESTS BY ARABS LIVING WITHIN THE PRE-1967 BORDERS OF ISRAEL. WHAT ARE THEIR NUMBERS AND THEIR CONDITIONS LIKE?

Inside what is called the "Green Line"--the unofficial borders of Israel before the 1967 war--there are still about _one million Palestinians_, just under _20 percent_ of the total Israeli population. Most Palestinians are Muslim, some are Christian. A small number of non-Palestinian Arabs also live there.

From 1948 to 1966 [about 20 years - officially], the Palestinians within Israel lived under explicit military rule. They were considered a military threat to the Israeli state, and they were ruled under a completely different set of laws than the Jews.

After 1966, military rule was lifted, but it was replaced by a set of JIM CROW-like LAWS DESIGNED TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ARABS in Israel. According to Adalah, an Arab rights organization [also confirmed by Marsha Friedman, fmr member of the Knesset], in Israel, today there are _AT LEAST_ 20 LAWS THAT SPECIFICALLY PROVIDE UNEQUAL RIGHTS and obligations based on what the Israelis call nationality, which in Israel is defined on the basis of RELIGION. Israelis must carry a card, which identifies them as either a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian. ALL NON-JEWS ARE SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS, LEGALLY AND PRACTICALLY. THE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT HAS LITERALLY DISMISSED ALL CASES WHICH DEALT WITH EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ARAB CITIZENS.


CAN YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC ABOUT HOW THIS DISCRIMINATION WORKS AND WHAT IT MEANS?

All Israeli citizens, including Palestinians, have the right to vote in elections for members of the Knesset (parliament) and for the prime minister. However, under Israeli law, any political candidate who indicates "a denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people" [in other words, the zionist state racial ideology] shall be disqualified--ANYONE WHO ADVOCATES FOR EQUAL RIGHTS for Arabs IS thereby INELIGIBLE[!].

Other rights are legally defined as nationality rights and are reserved FOR JEWS ONLY. If you are a Jew, you have EXCLUSIVE use of land, privileged access to private and public employment, special
educational loans, home mortgages, preferences for admission to universities, and many other things. Many other special privileges are reserved for those who have served in the Israeli military, which is compulsory for all Jews (male and female) but excludes Palestinians.

According to Adalah, by 1993 over 80 percent of the land within Israel that was once owned by Palestinians had been confiscated. Today, _93 PERCENT_ OF ISRAEL'S LAND CAN ONLY BE USED BY THOSE WHO ARE LEGALLY DEFINED AS JEWISH.

Moreover, despite Israel's booming economy [well, not so booming anymore], Palestinian unemployment stands at about 40 percent; in 1996 twice as many Arab citizens (28.3 percent) as Jewish citizens (14.4 percent) lived below the poverty line. Less than five percent of government employees are Arab and only three of 641 managers of government companies are Arab. Eighty percent of all student dropouts are Arab.

There are also VAST DISPARITIES BETWEEN ARAB TOWNS AND JEWISH TOWNS IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING on schools, medical systems, roads, electricity, clean water, and social services.

_UNLIKE ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD_, Israel does not define itself as a state of its residents, or even a state of its citizens, but as
a state of all the Jews in the world. Jews from anywhere in the world can travel to Israel, declare citizenship, and be granted all the
privileges of being Jewish that are denied to Palestinians who have lived in the area for HUNDREDS of years. By contrast, THERE IS NO CHANCE FOR A NON-JEW TO ACQUIRE ISRAELI CITIZENSHIP, LET ALONE BE GRANTED EQUAL RIGHTS.


ARE PALESTINIANS WITHIN ISRAEL PARTICIPATING IN THE CURRENT UPRISING?

The recent resistance has seen a whole new level of involvement in demonstrations by Palestinians inside the Green Line. They are protesting the discrimination they face in Israel as well as Israeli brutality against Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. Such protests are not completely without historical precedent; in 1976
there were a series of demonstrations on what became known as Land Day which protested continuing Israeli seizures of Palestinian land.

But this time there is a vast increase in the participation of Palestinians inside the Green Line. Their demonstrations have been met with the same brutal military tactics used against Palestinians in the West Bank. So far, 13 Israeli Palestinians have been killed. These tactics are in sharp contrast to the methods used by Israeli
authorities in response to demonstrations by Israeli Jews.

In 1982, for example, when there was an upsurge of Jewish protests against the Israeli war in Lebanon, one Israeli Jewish protester was killed and there was such an enormous outcry that people remember his name to this day--Emil Grunzweig. But when a Palestinian is killed by Israeli military occupation forces, that is not considered news [racist news coverage or lack thereof]. We might hear a body count, but we never hear their names, who their parents or children are, what they did for a living.

On the West Bank and Gaza, as well as inside the Green Line, police randomly fired live ammunition into crowds of unarmed Arab demonstrators that were throwing stones. THE RACIST DOUBLE STANDARD IS EVERYWHERE. A mob of Israeli Jews even attacked the house of an Arab member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara. But the police would not
act against the rioters.

Unfortunately, the years of occupation have created, or have allowed to flourish, AN INCREDIBLE RACIST VANTAGE POINT AMONG THE MAJORITY OF ISRAELI JEWS. The majority of Israeli Jews are willing to accept the killing of Palestinians and collective punishment of the Palestinian population as justified _STATE POLICY_.


CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT PALESTINIAN POLITICS WITHIN ISRAEL?

Not surprisingly, Palestinians inside Israel have historically felt themselves excluded and disempowered by the Israeli government. The
Communist Party of Israel was long a predominantly Arab party and received the vast majority of Palestinian votes. The CP remains
strong, but a few Palestinian Knesset members have recently allied themselves to the Labor Party and more and more Palestinians have joined newer nationalist blocs. Azmi Bishara, who leads the Tajamoah (National Democratic) Party, became the first Arab citizen to run for prime minister last year. He and others actually call for the
"de-Zionization" of Israel--for the transformation of Israel from A THEOCRATIC STATE PRIVILEGEING THE JEWISH MAJORITY to a democratic,
secular state of all its citizens.


YOU ARE PAINTING A PICTURE OF AN ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, WITH THE SUPPORT OF A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF ITS JEWISH POPULATION, WHICH AIMS TOWARD
PERMANENT SUBORDINATION OF PALESTINIAN ARABS WITHIN ITS BORDERS, ALONG WITH DOMINATION OVER SOMETHING THAT MIGHT BE CALLED A PALESTINIAN STATE BUT WHAT WOULD REALLY AMOUNT TO A DEPENDENT BANTUSTAN. _THIS IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME VISION THAT MOTIVATED APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA_.

Yes. And there are even more complexities. Within Israel there are really FOUR LEVELS OF CITIZENSHIP; the first three being various levels of Jewish participation in Israeli society, which are thoroughly racialized.

_AT THE TOP_ OF THE PYRAMID ARE _THE ASHKENAZI_, THE WHITE EUROPEAN JEWS.

The huge contingent of recent Russian immigrants--now about 20 percent of Israeli Jews--are being assimilated into this European-Ashkenazi sector, though they are retaining a very distinct cultural identity.

THE NEXT LEVEL DOWN, which is now probably the largest component of the Jewish population, is the Mizrachi or Sephardic Jews, who are from the Arab countries.

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE _JEWISH_ PYRAMID are the Ethiopian Jews, who are black. You can go into the poorest parts of Jewish West Jerusalem and find that they're predominantly Ethiopian.

This social and economic stratification took shape throughout the last 50 years as different groups of Jews from different part of the world came, for very different reasons, to Israel. So while the divisions reflected national origins, they play out in a profoundly RACIALIZED way.

The Yemeni Jews in particular faced extraordinary discrimination. They were more or less transported involuntarily from Yemen to Israel. On arrival they were held in primitive camps, and MANY YEMENI BABIES WERE _STOLEN_ FROM THEIR MOTHERS AND GIVEN FOR ADOPTION TO ASKENAZI FAMILIES[!]. In the early 1990s a high-profile campaign began to try to reunite some of those shattered families.

BENEATH ALL THESE LEVELS OF JEWS COME THE PALESTINIAN CITIZENS [IN REALITY _5TH-CLASS_ CITIZENS].

A LEGALLY DEFINED AND HIGHLY RACIALIZED HIERARCHY ORCHESTRATES ISRAELI SOCIAL LIFE.

The most significant difference is in the world's perception of this reality. For the overwhelming majority of the world's population, South Africa was always considered a pariah state. But Israel is not in that position. Israel is given a pass, if you will, on the question of racism. Because Jews were subject to the Nazi Holocaust there's a way in which Israeli Jews are assumed to be either incapable of such terrible racialized policies, or that it's somehow understandable. [A recently leaked Israeli government study revealed that Israel too could become the next racial pariah state, due to its practices against the Palestinians.]

But the new intifada has refocused attention on THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF ISRAELI RACISM. There are new reports from Amnesty International looking at the Israeli treatment of its Palestinian citizens--minors, children, being arrested, beaten and held for days. ISRAEL TREATS PALESTINIANS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE GREEN LINE AS BEING LESS HUMAN THAN JEWS. THIS IS ROOTED IN THE VERY DEFINITION AND BASIC LAWS OF THE ISRAELI STATE.


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*Max Elbaum is the former editor of CrossRoads magazine.