De Israelische Terreur 348

An Israeli soldier confronts Palestinian protestors in the West Bank city of Nablus during a demonstration on Land Day, which commemorates the killing of six Palestinian citizens of Israel in 1976 by Israeli forces during Palestinian protests over state theft of their land. (Rami Swidan/MaanImages)

'Anti-Arab racism and incitement in Israel Ali Abunimah,

The Electronic Intifada,

A prominent strategy of Israeli hasbara, or official propaganda, is to deflect criticism of its actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by stressing that within the country's 1948 boundaries, it is a model democracy comparable to the societies in Western Europe and North America with which it identifies and on whose diplomatic support it relies to maintain a favorable status quo. In fact, Israeli society is in the grip of a wave of unchecked racism and incitement that seriously threatens Israel's Palestinian community and the long-term prospects for regional peace. This briefing examines societal and institutional racism and incitement by public figures against Israel's Arab population and considers some policy implications.Background and contextWhen Israel was established in 1948, most of the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants were driven out or fled from the area that became Israel. Approximately 150,000 Palestinians remained behind. Until 1966, these Palestinians lived under martial law. Today, having increased in number to approximately 1.3 million or about one fifth of Israel's population (not including the Palestinian population of occupied East Jerusalem), they are citizens of the state of Israel and can vote in elections for the Knesset. Despite this, most view themselves as second-class citizens. As indigenous non-Jews in a self-described Jewish state, they face a host of systematic social, legal, economic and educational barriers to equality. Israel lacks a constitution and has no other basic law guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or national origin.One measure of the cumulative impact of these discriminatory policies is socioeconomic: while just 16 percent of Jewish citizens in Israel fall below the official poverty line, the figure for non-Jews is 50 percent, according to the Israeli Democracy Institute's index.In October 2000, Israeli police used live ammunition against unarmed civilians demonstrating their solidarity with Palestinians in the occupied territories. Thirteen Palestinians, of whom twelve were Israeli citizens, were shot dead. An official commission, headed by Judge Theodor Or, was appointed to look into the events which came to mark a dramatic deterioration in Arab-Jewish relations inside the country. In 2003, the Or Commission confirmed that the police used "excessive" and unjustifiable force, reported that the police viewed the country's Arab citizens as "enemies" and documented a pattern of "prejudice and neglect" towards them by Israel's establishment.While the Or Commission recommended a number of measures to redress the sharp disparities between Jews and Arabs in the country, families of the victims regarded the report as a whitewash. The Commission failed to examine the forensic evidence in each of the killings, and none of the killers, nor any responsible official, were ever brought to justice. By 2007, according to Elie Rekhess of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, there remained "yawning" gaps between Jews and Arabs in Israel and "the bottom line" is "that the conclusions and recommendations of the 2003 Or Commission remain conspicuously unimplemented."'

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