Comment by nyellin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nyellin | Hacker News Reader

Please do not make broad statements about Israel based on one article.

Israel allows civil unions, allows homosexuals to serve in the military without restrictions, supports Muslim private schools, pays for Islamic religious activities, and generally respects human rights. [1]

We also have our warts, like everyone country does. Israeli politicians have attempted to pass our own Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act. We have our equivalents of the TSA, FBI, and CIA - and for us they are an existential necessity.

Keep in mind that many - probably most - Israelis will be equally disturbed by this. Israel's Supreme Court has an excellent track record of ruling against military and government action. Their decisions are binding - there is no one above the law in Israel. Prime ministers, presidents, and intelligence organizations alike have been prosecuted.

We're also only 60 years old, and have fought 7 major wars in that time, twice in such dire situations that it was widely believed we would fight to the last dead man and lose. Compare with other countries, or just MKULTRA, before you judge us so quickly.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel

Edit: This is almost a societal-version of the fundamental attribution error. When your country does something wrong, you blame it on the politician or individual. When you hear about the same thing happening in another country, you wonder why that country is so backwards and evil.

nyellin wrote:

> We also have our warts...

But you didn't mention the elephant in the room in your comment, which is pretty strange:

Israel also has run a 40+ year occupation that denies non-Jewish residents of rights and freedoms while subsidizing Jewish settlements in and around the disenfranchised non-Jewish population. Many many people, including former Israeli PMs and many respected academics, consider Israel's occupation and its settlement practices to be a form of apartheid or leading to it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analog...

Because anyone who thinks the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a simple resolution is likely unaware of all the facts.

Furthermore, this is a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians without Israeli citizenship, not Jews and non-Jews. Obviously the two are related, but the ultimate question is whether Palestinians without Israeli citizenship, living in the West Bank, should be granted citizenship or not. Israeli Arabs living in Jerusalem, Haifa, etc. were granted full rights in '48, or when Israel annexed the area. Israel hasn't annexed the West Bank, so non-Israelis in the West Bank are stuck as citizens of no country.

Calling Israel an apartheid severely downplays the horror of what happened in South Africa. It seems odd to point out that I learn at university alongside Israeli Arabs and ride on buses next to them, because of course I do. Why wouldn't I?

I didn't say there is a simple solution but rather that Israeli permanent occupation has become akin to Apartheid South Africa for the non-citizen Arabs and the citizen Jews living in the West Bank. The fact that you didn't mention this as a wart is pretty big blind spot given that the number of disenfranchised non-Jews living in the West Bank is in the millions and this has been going on for over 40 years.

It would be equally wrong to allow everyone to settle the West Bank but Jews.

The situation is difficult and the property laws effect everyone who tries to build without permission, which is almost everyone: The Jewish settlement of Ulpana is going to be demolished next month because it was built on illegally acquired land.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gdxs_Qb4k...

The issue is that there is a dual system of rights in place depending on whether you are Jewish or whether you are a Palestinian Arab and that is deeply wrong. I am not in favor of barring Jews from living in the West Bank (which seems to be the topic of your reply) but rather against different rights for different ethnic groups (which is what people mean when they bring up the spectre of Apartheid.)

Let's stop pretending that the terms "Israeli" and "Jew" are interchangable, because they're not. While it may have at the beginning, I don't think Jewishness or lack thereof has anything to do with the West Bank. At this point it's a dispute over citizenship, property, and human rights.

I say this as an American with no connection to either side.

They're not interchangable, but marcf's comment that you're replying to is correct. The settlements that Israel has (illegally) established within the West Bank are specifically Jewish settlements - Jews are allowed to settle there regardless of whether they previously had Israeli citizenship, whilst other Israeli citizens are not. Likewise for the Jewish-only roads, the different sets of laws and restrictions covering Jews and Arabs, the Israeli government's refusal to grant building permits to Arabs in Jerusalem and the West Bank whilst allowing Jews to build homes on land they don't even own...

There even used to be vast swathes of land within Israel proper that could only be leased to Jews, because the founders of the country had given it to a trust tasked with ensuring it remained in Jewish hands, though I think the supreme court finally put a stop to that a few years ago.

> Please do not make broad statements about Israel based on one article.

Have any been made? The discussion here, at least, seems very civil and focused on the issue at hand. Israel is indeed a very laudable nation and people in many ways.

But this behavior is awful, and has to be condemned.

Then let me clarify: I condemn this as well. It has to stop.

There have been comments below calling for America to stop supporting Israeli. I want to point out how exceptionally uncommon this type of behavior is.

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to call for the US to stop supporting Israel to the huge extent it has been. I don't see why those opinions need to be tamped down.

But stamping down such opinions is actually pretty common. These email searches are about preventing people with those opinions from entering Israel. It isn't about terrorist threats but it is about keeping out pro-Palestinian activists who do not agree with the policies of the Israeli government.

What nyellin means by "Israel allows civil unions" is that, starting in 2011, they actually allow a man and a woman who aren't religious and who can prove this to the satisfaction of the religious authorities to get married. Prior to that it was actually impossible for many heterosexual Israeli citizens to get married within Israel because they were only considered Jewish by Israeli law and not by the Jewish religious authorities. As far as I can tell civil unions still don't extend to same-sex couples.

So Israel allows mixed-sex marriages? Urghh that's just gross!

No, I deliberately used the term "civil union", not "marriage" for that reason. The distinction is hairy, so I'm just going to quote Wikipedia:

Israeli law recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere... It does not, however, allow same-sex couples to marry on Israeli soil. Civil marriage doesn't exist in Israel for heterosexual couples, either, (except where both spouses are non-Jewish) and therefore only a marriage sanctioned by religious authorities can take place within Israel.

The State of Israel allows foreign partners of its homosexual citizenry to receive residency permits. The Civil Service Commission extends spousal benefits and pensions to the partners of homosexual employees. The Israeli State Attorney's Office has extended the spousal exemption from property-transfer taxes to same-sex couples. Israel's attorney general has granted legal recognition to same-sex couples in financial and other business matters. Attorney General Meni Mazuz said the couples will be treated the same as common-law spouses, recognizing them as legal units for tax, real estate, and financial purposes. Mazuz made his decision by refusing to appeal a district court ruling in an inheritance case that recognized the legality of a same-sex union, his office said in a statement. Mazuz did differentiate, however, between recognizing same-sex unions for financial and practical purposes, as he did, and changing the law to officially sanction the unions, which would be a matter for parliament, according to the statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel#Recogniti...

Your posts which highlight LGBT rights while completely ignoring the elephant in the room (the 40+ year occupation affecting millions) fits well with what is described in this New York Times editorial as Pinkwashing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-is...

I replied to you above. Lets keep the discussion in one place.

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