'Civil rights group: Israel has reached new heights of racism
By Yuval Yoaz and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Association for Civil Rights
Racism against Israel's Arab citizens has dramatically increased in the past year, including a 26 percent rise in anti-Arab incidents, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel's annual report. Author Sami Michael, the association's president, said upon the release of the report that racism was so rife it was damaging civil liberty in Israel
"Israeli society is reaching new heights of racism that damages freedom of expression and privacy," Michael said. The publication coincides with Human Rights Week, which begins Sunday. "We are a society under supervision under a democratic regime whose institutions are being undermined and which confers a different status to residents in the center of the country and in the periphery," Michael said. The number of Jews expressing feelings of hatred toward Arabs has doubled, the report stated. According to the June 2007 Democracy Index of the Israel Democracy Institute, for example, only half the public believes that Jews and Arabs must have full equal rights. Among Jewish respondents, 55 percent support the idea that the state should encourage Arab emigration from Israel and 78 percent oppose the inclusion of Arab political parties in the government. According to a Haifa University study, 74 percent of Jewish youths in Israel think that Arabs are "unclean."'
Lees verder: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932384.html
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