BBC NEWS / MIDDLE EAST

Thursday, 26 April 2007, 08:26 GMT 09:26 UK

Israeli anxiety over "enemy within"

By Claire Bolderson
BBC News, Israel

"There's one thing in common between Arabs and Jews in Israel," says Amnon Rubinstein with a wry smile. "They can't stand each other. It's sad but it's true".

The former Israeli education minister, now at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Herzliya is not the only Israeli anxious about deteriorating relations between Jewish Israel and its Arab minority.

A series of events since last summer's war in Lebanon have reawakened fears in Israel of an enemy within.

At the time, some Israeli Arabs were very critical of Israel's actions.

And this week, one of the most outspoken critics has resigned his seat in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

It has emerged that Azmi Bishara is being investigated by the Israeli police, reportedly for aiding the enemy during war time.

Mr Bishara, who has left the country, says he is being persecuted for his strident criticism of the Jewish state.

His case has exacerbated the growing polarisation of Israel's Jewish and Arab communities.

Minority discrepancy

Arabs make up nearly 20% of the population, but they have long complained of discrimination, and official figures tend to back their case.

Arab villages for the most part receive less in state aid even though they are generally poorer than Jewish ones.

Life expectancy of Arabs is lower, so is educational achievement.

But just as bad, say Israeli Arabs, is the general attitude of the Jewish majority.

"When they look in your eyes you know. They don't have to speak to you, you know if someone likes you or not," says 18-year-old Ahlam over coffee in a Nazareth cafe.

She plans to go to university but complains that she will have to work twice as hard as any Jewish student to get a place, just because she is an Arab.

Future vision

It is grievances like that that have prompted Israeli-Arab leaders to come up with a series of reports on the status of Israeli Arabs - or Palestinian citizens of Israel as many call themselves - and to suggest solutions.

Most provocative for Jewish Israelis was one commissioned by the mayors of Arab towns and written by leading Arab academics.

The report, entitled the Future Vision of the Palestinians in Israel, does not just list the problems of discrimination.

It calls for Israel to stop being a Jewish state.

Out would go the national anthem and the Star of David flag.

Israel would become a state of two equal peoples, Jewish and Arab.

To make that happen, the report says, Arabs should have much more autonomy politically and culturally, with their own school system and separate curriculum for example.

No state solution

All of that is completely out of the question for Israeli Jews across the political spectrum.

"Israel belongs not only to its citizens but also the Jewish people of the world," says one left-wing commentator.

"We want to preserve our uniqueness and if there's a threat to that then we're frightened," he says.

The Future Vision document has given Israeli Jews a reason to be frightened.

At the moment, what little peace process there is with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is based on the notion that one day there will be two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, living side by side.

But what the Israeli Arabs have done is raise the spectre of two states, neither of which will be Jewish.

And that has confirmed the old fear of Israelis that they will never be accepted in the region.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/6592967.stm

'Infiltrators' from Africa are 'greater threat than terrorists' -- Netanyahu

Published time: 20 Mar, 2018 20:39 Edited time: 21 Mar, 2018 07:53

African migrants pose a greater threat to Israel than terrorism, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader made the remarks as he complimented the country's border 'wall' with Egypt.

Speaking at the Negev Conference in the Israeli city of Dimona, Netanyahu said the fence along the Israel-Egypt border is all that stands between Israel's Jewishness and it turning into a country overrun by "infiltrators".

Without the fence, the country would be at its "wits' end" with "attacks by terrorist groups in the Sinai, and the worst thing -- a flood of illegal infiltrators from Africa," Netanyahu said, as cited by the Times of Israel.

"We're talking about a Jewish and democratic state. How could we have guaranteed a Jewish-democratic state with 50,000 then 100,000, then 150,000 infiltrators each year?" Netanyahu remarked.

Israel completed the 242-kilometer fence along its border with Egypt in late 2013, three years after commencing the project. Running from the edge of the Gaza Strip to the resort of Eilat, it is equipped with cameras as well as radar and motion detectors. In 2017, Israel increased the height of the fence from five meters to eight, along a 17 kilometer stretch of the barrier.

Netanyahu's comments echo his original explanation for erecting the border fence, which, he said in 2010, was a "strategic decision to secure Israel's Jewish and democratic character."

Netanyahu's latest comments on the border barrier follow his government's plan to remove 40,000 African migrants from the country, although efforts to deport all unmarried male migrants were temporarily blocked by the High Court last week. Many of the African migrants, largely Sudanese and Eritrean, came to the country between 2006 and 2012.

During his speech, Netanyahu was interrupted by a member of the audience, who shouted, "You're choking Dimona. In Dimona no attention is paid to the people," Ynet reports.

Set up in the 1950s, Jewish immigrants from North Africa were settled at Dimona. It experienced rising unemployment after textile factories moved from the area and the Israel Chemicals plant laid off staff. Unemployment is now at 7.5 percent, compared to the national average of 4 percent.

www.rt.com/news/421861-netanyahu-african-migrants-worse-terrorism/

Palestinian olive trees killed by Political Zionist Jews

Olive trees chopped down by Jewish settlers in Wadi al Hussein / Hebron in 2005. Up to today, settlers continue to trespass into this land, belonging to Palestinian families.

Palestinian Member of Israeli Knesset Receives Death Threats After Surviving Israeli Raid on Gaza Aid Flotilla

9 June 2010 - democracynow.org

Hanin Zoabi was aboard the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla where all nine activists were killed, and she witnessed some of them bleed to death. When she returned to Israel to speak in the Knesset, she was verbally assaulted by parliament members for her participation in the flotilla.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the situation in the Middle East. Nearly two dozen nations have condemned Israel's deadly raid on the Gaza aid flotilla at a regional summit in Istanbul. Israeli commandos killed nine activists, wounded more than a hundred, when they raided the flotilla in international waters last week. The summit in Istanbul was a meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. The Turkish president released a statement, agreed to by twenty-one of the twenty-two participants in the conference, condemning the raid. Israel was the only participant to refuse to sign the document.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the summit and told reporters he would raise the issue at the United Nations of who should investigate the Israeli attack. The Israeli military has announced it will conduct its own internal investigation and has rejected calls for an international tribunal. It will report its findings on July 4th.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is arriving in Washington today to meet with President Obama at the White House.

Yesterday, I spoke with another one of the survivors of Israel's raid on the Gaza aid flotilla. Hanin Zoabi is a Palestinian member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. She's the first woman to be elected to the Knesset as a representative of an Arab party. She was aboard the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla where all nine activists were killed. She witnessed some of them bleed to death. When she returned to Israel to speak in the Knesset, she was verbally assaulted by parliament members for her participation in the flotilla. I reached her yesterday in Jerusalem.

She began by talking about what happened during the Israeli assault.

HANIN ZOABI: At half past four in the morning, when I saw fourteen Israeli ships approaching us, with helicopters, each ship with tens of soldiers, I thought to myself that this is not the kind of forces that's to stop us. We are 600 passengers. Maybe less than a quarter of these forces, maybe less than tenth of these forces, can just prevent us very, very easily. And I was -- I actually -- maybe for the first time, I think, in my life, I was very afraid. And I thought to myself, this will not -- the end of this will be a tragic [inaudible] end. It will not end without dead bodies.

A helicopter attacked us, or a helicopter with soldiers just shoot -- I cannot -- I didn't count. Maybe more than ten, twenty soldiers, or ten, came out from the helicopter. I couldn't count. And they start -- not the soldiers inside the helicopter, the soldiers inside the ship surrounding Marmara started to shoot. I don't know if it is real bullets or it's just noise bullets. I don't realize, but all of us were in panic, all of us were afraid. And most of us enter the room.

After ten minutes, two injured, seriously injured, went inside and sat on the floor, and they died after a while. Then, after twenty minutes, another three came inside. One died after a while. They were hurt in their neck, in their head, and in their stomach, in their stomach [inaudible]. And a fourth and a fifth man didn't die. They just bleeded 'til death. I approached the soldiers with a sign in Hebrew asking them for medicine for -- to give us some medical help for the two injured who are bleeding. I just for twenty minutes tried to approach them and tried to -- and to ask them, and I did twice, also verbally and also by writing this sign. They refused to -- they refused just to give us this support. And the two men died after maybe half an hour.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe what happened when you went into the first Knesset meeting, the first parliament meeting, after the Israeli commando raid on the ship that you were a part of? What happened to you?

HANIN ZOABI: During the first meeting, there was a hard aggression, and they called me "traitor" and "terrorist." "Where are the knives? Where do you hide the knives?" You see, and even sexual -- even sexual remarks, even things related to my age, even things related to the fact that I'm a single, I'm not a married woman. They said to me, "Go to Gaza. You are thirty-eight years old. Go, and we will see if you will manage to be in Gaza and to live in Gaza as a single woman, thirty-eight years old." It was below any level. It was below not just unethical remarks and not just unhuman remarks. It was something that I never imagined to be in the Parliament. It was something unbelievable.

They couldn't argue with me on the political level. They couldn't challenge my political discourse and claims. I was in a political activity. I am against siege. I am against occupation. What happened in the flotilla is not -- this is what I said in the Knesset. What happened in the flotilla is not the big crime of Israel; this is the small crime of Israel. The big crime of Israel is the occupation and the siege. And I am against, and it's my right to be active. This is what -- this is what I am for in the Knesset. People didn't vote for me just to sit down and just to agree with Israeli policies. I have a program. I have a political program. I have a vision of democracy. I am a citizen, and I take my citizenship seriously. I have a vision of equal rights between Arabs and Palestinians and Jews in Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Hanin Zoabi, were you physically shoved in the Knesset in that first meeting?

HANIN ZOABI: Because there were tens of bodyguards around me, no one could touch me. Immediately, the guards inside the Knesset came and surrounded me. A lot of Knesset members approached me, also women, also men. And I think if I was a man, that two Knesset members -- one from the Likud, one from Yisrael Beiteinu -- wouldn't reach me, wouldn't come close to me. But because I am a woman, so also the woman Knesset member participated in this, first of all, [inaudible]. But because the bodyguards of the Knesset surround me and prevent them from approaching me.

AMY GOODMAN: Did a Knesset house committee vote to revoke some of your privileges as a Knesset member?

HANIN ZOABI: Yes, yes. My diplomatic passport will be revoked. The Knesset will not cover my legal fees. If my immunity be revoked for the price of criminal prosecution, so the Knesset will not cover these legal fees. And another thing elected to a special permission that I must have from the state when I travel outside, but what -- it is unpractical -- this is unpractical sanction. But the two practical sanctions is not covering my legal fees if my immunity be revoked for the purpose of criminal prosecution and, as I said, to prevent me from my diplomatic passport.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you join the flotilla?

HANIN ZOABI: Actually, for me, it's very taken for granted. For me, the right question to address to anyone is why you didn't join the flotilla. But I joined the flotilla because I am against putting people in a big prison. I am against putting one-million-and-a-half people in an open-air prison without the right to travel outside, without the right of having food, or without the right of preventing the houses that the Israelis destroyed during the attack on Gaza. One hundred sixty-five schools were destroyed by the Israelis. One hundred and five manufacturers were destroyed, and without any opportunity for the Palestinians, because of the siege, to rebuild these houses and schools and manufacturers. So this is about dignity for human beings. This is about dignity of the men and women and children. This is about normal lives. This is about the freedom of people to live. This is about not oppressing people.

AMY GOODMAN: Hanin Zoabi, more than 500 people have signed a Facebook page calling for your execution. Are you under armed protection now?

HANIN ZOABI: Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I have two bodyguards who follow me.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you afraid?

HANIN ZOABI: I cannot say no, and I cannot say yes, because I don't think about it. I just think about the responsibility I have. When I interview you, for example, I don't think just about my political responsibility. I don't think just about my human values that I should be loyal to. I also think about the nine people who have [been] killed. And I feel the responsibility, their responsibility. I feel that they shouldn't be dead for nothing, that I have their story to tell, and that I have more responsibility than the 600 passengers who were on the ship, because I have the immunity that they wanted to take it from me, because I am a Knesset member, because I am a parliamentarian. And because I have tool and this powerful position, I have more responsibility from all of the 600 passengers who were on the ship. And I am glad -- I just believe in this responsibility, and I want to do it without any hesitation.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you sorry that you went on the Gaza flotilla?

HANIN ZOABI: What do you think? Not at all. Not at all. And if they invite me again, I would do it again. I would participate again.

AMY GOODMAN: Hanin Zoabi is an Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Hanin Zoabi is the first woman to be elected to the Knesset as a representative of an Arab party. She was speaking to us from Jerusalem. She was on the Mavi Marmara, the ship that was among those raided by the Israeli commandos. It was on her ship that the majority of the activists that were and that the commandos killed nine of the activists.

12 January 2012 Last updated at 02:58 GMT

Israel upholds citizenship bar for Palestinian spouses

The law is thought to have prevented thousands of Palestinians from living with their Israeli spouses.

Israel's Supreme Court has upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.

Civil rights groups had petitioned the court to overturn the law, saying it was unconstitutional.

"Human rights do not prescribe national suicide," Judge Asher Grunis wrote in the judgement.

The law was introduced in 2003, with its backers citing security concerns and the need to ensure Israel remains a Jewish-majority state.

Human rights activists and Arab politicians condemned the court's decision.

The court "had failed the test of justice", said Arab-Israeli MP Jamal Zahalka of the Balad party.

"It is a dark day for the protection of human rights and for the Israeli High Court," lawyers from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel told AFP.

"The ruling proves how much the situation regarding the civil rights of the Arab minority in Israel is declining into a highly dangerous and unprecedented situation", Arab-Israeli civil rights group Adalah, one of those that brought the petition, said in a statement.

The Citizenship and Entry Law was passed in 2003, during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising), as waves of suicide bombings targeted Israel.

Many were launched from the West Bank, some with the help of Israeli Arabs.

Initially, the law was emergency legislation which has since been extended periodically.

It was amended in 2005, allowing women over 25 and men over 35 to apply for temporary permits to live in Israel, but still ruling out citizenship for all but a handful of cases.

In 2007, it was expanded to apply to citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

BBC © 2012