Harry’s Place

Sure, there is a lot of discrimination in the arab world towards other arabs as well as others from other races/religions…just look at the treatment of christian copts in by the Egytian Administration…as someone who worked in Cairo for a number of years i witnessed this first hand…

but what makes this post just a cheap dig is that you never criticise the Israeli state…what it is doing in the occupied territories is a disgrace…

Don’t you find it odd that Hezbollah are happy to attack Israel allegedly in defence of the Palestinians, yet - with all their influence in Lebanon - are happy to stand by while Palestinian workers receive slave wages, are denied access to decent medical treatment and barred from land ownership, and by all accounts treated no better than black migrant workers in apartheid South Africa.

Of course, complaining is just a distraction from the evils of Israel, right?

saeed

Cheap dig at Israel when you should be criticising the Chinese - what they are doing in the occupied area of Tibet is an utter atrocity …

I was previously unaware of size of the deportation of Palestinians from Kuwait following the removal of Saddam occupying army, until I read this obituary.

The government also took reprisals against some 450,000 Palestinians resident in Kuwait who had either supported the occupation or stood by while atrocities took place. Most were expelled.

The sooner the Palestinians have their own country, the better.

They already do. Its called Jordan.

Neil:

From the time of the partitioning that led to Israel’s statehood to the 1967 war, the Palestinians could have asserted statehood in the Gaza and the West Bank in addition to the lands intended as a homeland for the non-Jews of Palestine on the east side of the Jordan River, but neither the Palestinians’ leaders nor the leaders of the Arab governments that went to war with Israel would accept that, nor did any of the players ostensibly on the side of the Palestinians undergo any change of heart in the face of Abba Eban’s offer of land for peace immediately following the 1967 war.

And if anything prompted the expulsion of Palestinians from Kuwait following Saddam’s invasion, it was Yasser Arafat’s unflinching support for Saddam, and not anything the Palestinian community in Kuwait did or didn’t do in the face of Saddam’s attack. (Palestinans back in the West Bank and Gaza are another matter. They took their instructions from Arafat.)

And, if memory serves, after Saddam’s deposal in 2003, the Palestinians in Iraq lost the highly privileged position they had held while the non-Baathist Muslims and Christians lived in a rather miserable state. Such privileges included being ensconced in homes that formerly belonged to Iraq’s once very sizable Jewish community, which, although it had been there for a couple of milenian, left after decades of persecution that reached peaks during World War II until virtually none were left after the public hangings Saddam conducted in the 1970s.

So, yeah, the sooner the Palestinians still living in the West Bank and Gaza decide to use the considerable foreign aid they continue to receive for the creation of a functioning society instead of the creation of a Sharia state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, the better for everyone.

Indeed.

‘The truth is that Palestine is Jordan, and Jordan is Palestine’
King Hussein, 1981.

West Palestinians in Jordan continue to be a disenfranchised majority, without equal rights. It is time for the Hashemite imposters be deposed.

Whatever happens in Lebanon is an Israeli conspiracy

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=55755&sectionid=351020203

Sure, there is a lot of discrimination in the arab world towards other arabs as well as others from other races/religions…just look at the treatment of christian copts in by the Egytian Administration…as someone who worked in Cairo for a number of years i witnessed this first hand…

It appears that the ummah doesn’t care a hoot about ordinary Muslims either

I find it unbelievable that with a growing food crisis wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia give nothing in aid.

They’ve just thrown 10s of millions at western universities to establish Islamic studies programmes for the purpose of converting the kuffur, and yet give nothing to own starving fellow Arabs..

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,355736,00.html

I’,ve a question for you, Saeed. How can you and your co-relgionists perform their haj-your most ’scared’ religious duty- free of any pangs of conscience, in a country so selfish and so devoid of humanity and empathy?

Those trillions in obscene oil revenues are creating a creating a dramatic rise in food prices, and as a result whole swaths of the Muslim world are on the verge of famine.

Yet not a penny of those trillions in revenues is being used to purchase much need emergency foodstuffs.

Compared to that Israel’s sins are small potatos indeed.

>The sooner the Palestinians have their own country, the better.

Of course, the Palestinian state in West Bank/Gaza wouldn’t be real accommodating to the brethren in Kuwait. They’d have to wait for a chunk of pre-67 Israel.

Bring on the State of Palestine (alongside Israel)!

While Gaza was getting intense focus from UCU’s pro-boycott campaign last summer, the boycotters completely ignored the Lebanese army’s incursion into the Palestinian Nahr el-Bared refugee camp to rout Fatah al Islam - even though 40 civilians were hurt and two were killed. I was amazed that no pro-boycotter mentioned it. About then I realised that it’s Israel, not the Palestinians, which is at the centre of the boycott campaign.

http://www.un.org/unrwa/emergency/appeals/NorthernLeb.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6673639.stm

Israel always crows about being better than their neighbors, yet you guys are alway (always) claiming that they are “really the same, so why selectively target Israel?” weeeeeeak

The indulgence toward 60 years of nasty discrimination against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has another aspect.

The underlying motivation for keeping Palestinian in Lebanon as virtual prisoners in their camps, denying them access to work, health services, education and welfare services and going on with all this for three generations is the “demographic question” of Lebanon. Thus, Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims and any normalisation of their status might lead to their acquisition of Lebanese citizenship, hence to an upheaval in the sacred balance between the different religious and ethnic groups at the basis of the Lebanese state.

Now, the very same people who regard this Lebanese policy as totally understandable and/or justified (alternatively, as so trivial as not to deserve a mention) are precisely those that regard any Israeli mention of “the demographic question”, any Israeli stance that mass return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants into Israel proper will spell the end of Israel as a mainly Jewish state, as despicable racism.

Of course, there is one basic difference between Lebanese and Israeli policy. While the Lebanese policy offers no alternative – either Palestinians go out of Lebanon or will be forever imprisoned in their camps – the Israeli policy is consistent with return and rehabilitation of refugees in the Palestinian State, once it is established. (Israeli policy is not terribly consistent with the establishment of such a state within viable borders, and this is reprehensible – but this is a different story.)

Speaking of Palestinians, from the Financial Times:

The Palestine Securities Exchange, based in the troubled West Bank city of Nablus, has shrugged off the continuing violence and instability in the Palestinian territories to outperform its regional rivals by a comfortable margin.

Since the start of the year, the Al Quds index of leading shares has risen by almost 40 per cent – better than the 34.5 per cent increase registered by the Qatari exchange, the other top performer in the Arab world.

This is good, isn’t it? I mean, it shows Palestinians can be productive.

Oops. the last sentence wasn’t part of the quote.

Have you not realized by now that unless a Western people like Israel or better yet, the US is involved no one cares how badly Arabs are treated or even killed by their Arab “brothers”? That is what is meant by the peaceniks sheep like bleating,
“Bush Lied
People, (meaning Americans, Brits, & other Westerners) Died”

And yes, it is true that nowehere else in the Middle East do Arabs have the freedom that Israeli Arabs have.

The comparison is slightly unjust, as Palestinians do not come from Lebanon, and they are guests of the Lebanese state. Israel/Palestine, on the other hand is their original ‘place of departure’ and therefore claim national rights. However, I do not dispute that the Lebanese should provide better treatment to the Palestinians.
Regarding the claim that Jordan is the Palestinian home state. I would like to state that it is highly controversial to affirm such, because Jordan’s origin (with the exception of the region around the Jordan river) lies in the native Bedouin tribes of the desert, where Palestinians have never been present. According to the Jordanian government’s census of 2004 (which is likely not accurate), Jordan only has about 40% Palestinians. However, other statistics place this figure at around 50%. Even so, that does not make Jordan a country with a clear Palestinian majority, especially when taking into account that many Palestinians resident in Jordan do not possess citizenship and have higher reproductive rates that native Jordanians.
And last, but not least. While Israeli Arabs may enjoy more freedoms than their other Arab counterparts, they do not enjoy the same benefits as Jewish Israelis in court rulings and land use, and they also do not receive the same benefits from having served in the military as Jewish ethnics do.

and they also do not receive the same benefits from having served in the military as Jewish ethnics do.

What the fuck?? That better not be true.

This is the kind of treatment meted out to refugees by governments the world over. In Syria, Iraqi refugees are treated abysmally. I’ve been dealing with the cases of 40 Ahwazi Arab families who have received UNHCR mandates and offers of settlement in Europe and Australia, but are being denied visas by the very governments that say they will resettle them. After two years waiting in this limbo, they are destitute, literally starving and constantly harrassed by the authorities. Some have been illegally deported to Iran where they have been arrested and tortured in the notorious Evin Prison. So much for Arab solidarity from the Baathist regime.

“Palestinians …are guests of the Lebanese state”

So much for the vaunted Middle Eastern hospitality.

Regards,

Inna

Have you not realized by now that unless a Western people like Israel or better yet, the US is involved no one cares how badly Arabs are treated or even killed by their Arab “brothers”?

Israelis are no Westerners. We come from more than 100 countries, and most of Israelis come from the Middle East. I happen to come also from the East: my ascendance is Polish which is in Eastern Europe, my family just made a detour in Argentina for a while.

and they also do not receive the same benefits from having served in the military as Jewish ethnics do.

What the fuck?? That better not be true.

Of course it is not true. An Arab serving in the IDF gets the same benefits than a Jew who served (lower rates in a mortgage, for example). Not only the policy is egalitarian, it makes sense to award, in some measure, those that put their life on the line to defend our country. Some Arabs are forcefully conscripted like the Jews and for some Arabs, most of them, the army is optional.

An interesting fact that is not mentioned anywhere, is that not only most Arabs are not forced to endanger their lives in the army like the Jews, but that the fact that they don’t enter favors them at the university: they get their first degree three years before the Jews (who enter the Univ. at 23 while most Arabs enter at 19), and have much more time to earn and save money in their jobs. I saw that with my own eyes. Of course that doesn’t stop the Arabs from protesting that U. dormitories privilege those who served in the army. They want all the rights without any obligations. And when they don’t get them, they call that “discrimination”. Myself, as a recent immigrant I didn’t get any dormitory while I was doing my degree. I never complained to Amnesty International, though.

“The comparison is slightly unjust, as Palestinians do not come from Lebanon, and they are guests of the Lebanese state.”

This is false. Many Palestinians who are under apartheid in Lebanon indeed come from Lebanon. It was very common before 1948 for Lebanon Arabs to come to work in the British Mandate because the Jews made the region very productive. Those Arabs from Lebanon who were caught in Eretz Israel during the war and ran away to Lebanon were counted -or applied specifically- for refugee status as “Palestinians”. The reason was simple: at the beginning it provided more benefits than being Lebanese: you got food aid and housing for free. Many Arabs in Lebanon who never even stepped into Eretz Israel applied falsely as refugees. They thought they were being very wise…

Regarding the claim that Jordan is the Palestinian home state. I would like to state that it is highly controversial to affirm such, because Jordan’s origin (with the exception of the region around the Jordan river) lies in the native Bedouin tribes of the desert, where Palestinians have never been present.

The origins of Jordan lies in Britains desire to carve an Arab state from nothing for king faisal from Saudi Arabia. It is completely nonsense to claim there were “Palestinians” as something nationally distinct from beduins. If anything, the word “Palestinian” before 1948 was used to refer to the Jews of Eretz Israel. I have in my possesion an old children’s book published before 1948, called “Habibi and Jou” and there it is clear that the Palestinian protagonists are all Jews. The rest are Arabs from different tribes. Some of these tribes were bedouins. Big difference! Where were the “Jordanians” in 1948? nowhere. The country was even called “Transjordan”, not Jordan. Every country in the M.E. is a modern invention, and people migrated freely from place to place.

Even so, that does not make Jordan a country with a clear Palestinian majority, especially when taking into account that many Palestinians resident in Jordan do not possess citizenship and have higher reproductive rates that native Jordanians.

That is a non-sequitur. I have a question: Are you defending the fact that you don’t give citizenship to Palestinians resident in Jordan because of demographic concerns, just like the Lebanese? And afterwards Arabs get their mouth full of “Arab solidarity”…
The fact is that in Jordan there was a massacre of Palestinians of a magnitude never experienced in Israel (or other countries). Black September. That was Jordan’s way of putting them into their place so they don’t raise their heads. If Jordan hadn’t succeed, nowadays the country would be run by the PLO, and this fact would be helped by the Palestinian majority in Jordan. And you know what that is? that is a Palestinian state. Right there. Palestinian refugees could return to Jordan, the Palestinian state. But that is never to happen because Arabs are only using the Palestinians to destroy Israel, not because they care about them.

jim:
“The comparison is slightly unjust, as Palestinians do not come from Lebanon, and they are guests of the Lebanese state. Israel/Palestine, on the other hand is their original ‘place of departure’ and therefore claim national rights.”

Really? And how many Palestinians in Lebanon actually *come* from Mandate Palestine? As opposed to their ancestors coming from there?

Would we say that a Briton of Punjabi/ Sikh descent is “really” Indian even if they were born and raised in the UK?

There are now Palestinians in the refugee camps where the last people in the family to live in Mandate Palestine are their great- grandparents.

Now, MY great- grandmother was a refugee and lost a lot of property in a foreign country. Do you think that I have a “right” to this?

We should stop this “refugee” rhetoric as soon it will become out- dated. Instead we should see things as they really are.The Palestinians are a poverty- stricken minority in Lebanon who are systematically discriminated against and denied citizenship.

So, Fabian, you with Polish origins are free to immigrate to Israel. Are Palestinians in Lebanon free to immigrate to Israel?

Palestinians enjoy living in Israel, but are just hypocrites. Below is a snippet providing background for this arrangement. It’s been going on for a long time. Back in the medieval period Muslims tended to prefer living with “crusaders”.

…What’s more, the Spanish Muslim Ibn Jubayr (1145-1217), who traversed the Mediterranean on his way to Mecca in the early 1180s, found that even Muslims preferred living in Crusader lands. He lamented that near Tyre he passed a series of farms where “the inhabitants were all Muslims, but they live in comfort with the Franj [Franks, or Crusaders] — may Allah preserve them from temptation! Their dwellings belong to them and all their property is unmolested….Now, doubt invests the heart of a great number of these men when they compare their lot to that of their brothers living in Muslim territory. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustice of their coreligionists, while the Franj act with equity.”…

Yet more Palestinian understanding and tolerance. If your hate-filled ambtions to kill jews are thwarted, then just attack the nearest non-Muslim target.

And get yer yah, yahs out!

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668651761&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

no one cares how badly Arabs are treated or even killed by their Arab “brothers”?

Not even other Arabs.

Palestinians do face systematic apartheid-style discrimination. For example, Palestinians are…

… in Lebanon.

And in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Bahrain and Israel.

Which one of those is the “liberal democracy” again?

“And in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Bahrain and Israel.”

Complete rubbish.

Although Palestinian refugees suffer much discrimination elsewhere, i is only in Lebanon that they are completely denied access to work and to all benefits of welfare state, education and health and are virtual prisoners in their camps. In Jordan they are, actually, eligible for citizenship (also in Syria). In israel the 23% of Israeli population who are Palestinians are citizens and have (at least in principle) equal access to welfare, work, education and health. (The state investment in the Palestinian sector is discriminatory, and this is shameful, but we are talking here about shame smaller by orders of magnitude than that in Lebanon.)

Now, these are the facts. But why should facts matter to idiots?

Fringe, are you free to immigrate to France?
Is Israel obliged somehow to allow anyone who wants to to immigrate?

The comparison is slightly unjust, as Palestinians do not come from Lebanon, and they are guests of the Lebanese state. Israel/Palestine, on the other hand is their original ‘place of departure’ and therefore claim national rights. However, I do not dispute that the Lebanese should provide better treatment to the Palestinians.

Jim 16 May 2008, 1:12 am

Jim,

You mean that in the last 60 years, not one of the inhabitants who are confined to those “Refugee Camps” (Deliberately in quotes), or who is looking for work, was actually born in Lebanon? All of them fled what is today pre 1967 Israel?

They already do. Its called Jordan.

M o r g o t h
15 May 2008, 4:32 pm

Morgoth, while technically what you have written is true, RealPolitik dictates that this is irrelevant. (And Morgoth is factually correct about this. The Jordanians did, in fact, claim the West Bank -of Jordan- as there territory up to and including 1987.)

Simply put, in the area that is called the West Bank, live a population of people who are never going to be accepted as Citizens of the Israel and who are never going to be expelled. On this basis alone Israeli self interest dictates that Israel facilitates the establishment of an Arab State (or Federation - with Jordan) in that region.

Secondly, if Israel ever wants a hope of living in peace with its Arab Neighbours, again Realpolitik dictates that it needs to find an accomidation with the Arab residents of the Judea and Shomron, and have those Arabs deal with the Disaster that is Gaza.

On the other hand, Realpolitik dictates that the Arab world engage in some compromises as well, most notably the enfranchisement and absorption of the decedents of the Arabs that Fled the area known as Israel today where they are currently resident. Without this act, Israel has no hope of achieving Peace with the Arab world and has no further incentive to displace its own citizens, and undergo the civil disruption that that produces.

Finally, I personally doubt that there can be a lasting and stabel peace between Israel and the future Palestine if that Palestine is Judenrhine. If you doubt what I am saying, think about your own responses to Yisrael Betanu (Liberman’s) policies. Why should an Israel without Arabs be acceptable to you, while a Palestine without Jews is?

My point is that at some point, irrespective of the Historical narrative, and facts of the issue Reality dictates that practical outcomes does override the truth and ideology.

Throwing the “Complete rubbish” right back at ya.

Palestinians are regarded as bidun jansiya in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrian and the Gulf states. This means they do not have access to subsidised housing, welfare, equal access to jobs etc in addition to routine and casual discrimination.

They have been pretty much expelled from Kuwait after the first US Gulf War of 1991. Palestinians in Saudi Arabia are relegated to officially sanctioned second-class status incorporated into the legal and social structure of Saudi Arabia. Palestinians were entitled to receive Egyptian travel documents, but these documents “did not grant the bearer the right to enter Egypt unless a visa is obtained from the Egyptian consulates abroad beforehand.” Thus, holders of such documents who were born in Egypt or who have lived there for most of their lives have no automatic right to stay in or reenter the country, but must renew their visas every six months to three years. Human Rights Watch is aware of cases of Palestinians born in Egypt who have been trapped abroad because Egyptian consulates denied their entry visa requests in summary fashion, without providing reasons.

Now, these are the facts. But why should facts matter to idiots?

Why indeed.

Sid: You made a false accusation towards both Jordan and Israel (and the whole point of your post was a dig at Israel, as evidenced in your final throw-off remark) and were found either ignorant or lying (or both, but I am trying to be generous). And your reply is that you didn’t lie in the rest of your post. If you can’t understand why this is invalid, you are an idiot. If you can understand, then you are a hypocrite. Given that (happily) I don’t know you, I’ll leave you the choice.

S.O.Muffin, you attempted to pass off the ridiculous pretence that Palestinians are treated as equall citizens in all the countries that they exist as a diaspora with the exception of Lebanon.

You then overcompensated this ridiculous assertion by unnecessary but hilarious keyboard aggression. When I refuted your silliness, you’ve come out with calling me a hypocrite. It’s apparent that it is you who has been lying, but I’ll be generous and call it an honest but ignorant ejaculation on your part.

My point is very simple, even you might be able to understand it. And it is this: Palestinians are treated abysmally in all the ME countries that they have settled in. Including Israel. But only Israel operates as a ‘Liberal Democracy‘.

OK, Sid. At 2:37 pm you’ve made an assertion: “…And in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Bahrain and Israel.”

Are you claiming that this assertion was truthful?

And then, at 4:23 pm you made another assertion, “you attempted to pass off the ridiculous pretence that Palestinians are treated as equall citizens in all the countries that they exist as a diaspora with the exception of Lebanon.”.

Are you claiming that this assertion is truthful?

yes, very truthful.

Are *you* claiming this is truthful? :

“only in Lebanon that they are completely denied access to work and to all benefits of welfare state, education and health and are virtual prisoners in their camps”

No, it is not. It is truthful _to an extent_ in Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, it is false in Jordan and in Israel.

Are you really trying to say that in either Israel or Jordan local Palestinian residents are

* not allowed to work in many jobs, including schools and hospitals
* discriminated against in the wages and salaries
* denied medical insurance, health care and equal access to pharmaceuticals
* denied admittance to public hospitals
* not allowed to receive a pension, or severance pay
* banned from membership of trade unions and guilds
* denied the right to own land or property

?

This is simply a lie. Not an exaggeration, not an inexactitude, not a flight of language. Just a simple, plain, lie.

“only in Lebanon that they are completely denied access to work and to all benefits of welfare state, education and health and are virtual prisoners in their camps”: Yes, in the totality of this statement, it is true. In Gulf States or in Saudi Palestinians are discriminated badly: they have essentially the same status as foreign workers there, their residence can be terminated forthwith and they are discriminated in the provision of services. But they are neither confined to camps nor denied access to work (they are foreign workers there, for goodness sake!) nor to health or education facilities.

The treatment of Palestinians in virtually all Arab countries is abominable. The treatment of Palestinian citizens in Israel, although much better, falls far short from standards expected in a democratic country. But this sort of false statements and comparisons, this mindless mouth-shooting to score (false) political points, is not serving anything useful. By throwing false and lazy accusations, you are letting countries that should change their behaviour (yes, including Israel) off the hook.

I haven’t made any “false and lazy” accusations. It was you who suggested that it was *only* Lebanon who denied Palestinians of their rights. I’ve stated that Palestinians are treated abominably in all Arab countries. If anyone has been false and lazy, it has been you.

And if anyone is trying to let anyone off the hook, it is you by trying to say that Israel does not have certain standards to live up to if it is to be regarded as a fully formed liberal democracy. And which should, by definition, make the following constitutionally binding, if it is to be regarded as one:

# Citizens are politically equal under the law.
# Minority groups are not oppressed.
# The rule of law protects citizens from human right abuses.

“The treatment of Palestinians in virtually all Arab countries is abominable. The treatment of Palestinian citizens in Israel, although much better, falls far short from standards expected in a democratic country”

What are the standards expected from a democratic country when dealing with a sizable minority that would like the country destroyed?

In your fertile imagination, Sid, you are making up facts on the go and you are accusing me of what I didn’t say. You are arguing in bad faith and any further exchange of posts with you will be a waste of time.

“What are the standards expected from a democratic country when dealing with a sizable minority that would like the country destroyed?”

The standards expected from a democratic country is to treat all its citizens equally, as individuals. If they are culpable of criminal acts, and these acts have been proved in a court of law, you punish them. Regardless of their ethnicity.

And, incidentally, the manner in which you are treating people is shaping their attitudes. Discriminate against them and they wish you ill. Finally, I don’t believe that most Israeli citizens of Palestinian ethnicity wish Israel to be destroyed.

you are making up facts on the go and you are accusing me of what I didn’t say.

No, I’m accusing you of what you *did* say.

Prove it. (A hint: quote exactly what I have said, and quote exactly what you’ve attributed to me.)

I repeat. You are arguing in bad faith. I am not willing to descend to your gutter. From now, talk to the hand.

“And if anyone is trying to let anyone off the hook, it is you by trying to say that Israel does not have certain standards to live up to if it is to be regarded as a fully formed liberal democracy. And which should, by definition, make the following constitutionally binding, if it is to be regarded as one:

# Citizens are politically equal under the law.
# Minority groups are not oppressed.
# The rule of law protects citizens from human right abuses.”

Sid 16 May 2008, 5:32 pm

Sid,

SO Muffin is sufficiently erudite enough not to need me to come to his defense. Nevertheless, you should pay closed attention to what SO actually said rather than what you think he said. It is clear that SO did not day that Palestinians are treated well in the world. Indeed he explicitly stated that they were subjected to ill treatment by all but some of their host countries. What SO did say was that the worst treatment that Palestinians and their decedents get is in Lebanon (I am Paraphrasing here).

Regarding what I have quoted you as saying:

In Israel, Jewish/Muslim and Christian citizens are equal under the law.

# Minority groups are not oppressed. Correct. In Israel, minority groups are not oppressed. As SO asserted, it is true that shamefully in Arab villages, there is a decided lack of government services, which needs to be corrected, but Arab Citizens and non-Jewish citizens are equally able to serve in Parliament, Access the courts, Attend University, benefit from Govt health insurance and other financial benefits.

# The rule of law protects citizens from human right abuses: Correct. In Israel, all its citizens, and even residents of the Administered territories have direct access to the Israel Supreme Court.

So what exactly are you accusing Israel of?

Joe

Sid you might want to read this
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1208870469346

Or perhaps this article

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208246584685&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Or perhaps this article

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DB143FF934A25752C1A96F948260

Joe ~
I know Israel is up there when it comes to demonstrating enlightened values to the rest of the Arab nations. Certainly because it is only country in the region that upholds some of the best practices of democracy. If there was such a thing as an ME league table of Qualitative Palestinian Descrimination, we’d see Lebanon at the top with Kuwait neck and neck in second place.

In all likelihood, bottom place would be a toss between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But then Saudi Arabia is a dysfunctional flea pit of human rights abuses. I guess it’s a question of what is acceptable for a liberal democratic country.

Sid, your parring Israel with Saudi Arabia is totally false. Your posts do not make any sense at all.

Fabian, Israel is percived as being Western, because it is a sucessful, tolerant, prosporus and democratic country in a region where few other countries can be said to have any of the aforemention qualities.

From the Cairo Times, Sept. 17 1998; Vol. 2, Issue 15:

“Aid workers say the conditions here are even worse than in Gaza. UNWRA, the UN agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, says that of all the front-line Arab states, Lebanon has the worst record in dealing with the Palestinians.” Jordan gives its Palestinians citizenship, and Egypt and Syria give them civil rights,” says UN spokesperson Sami Mshasha in East Jerusalem. “Only Lebanon denies Palestinians their civil rights.”

It’s a policy the Lebanese do little to hide — though they say they’re being cruel to be kind. “Palestinian life in the camps is revolting,” admits presidential candidate Nayla Muawad. “But if they don’t go through these terrible moments, they might be tempted to stay in Lebanon, and they’d end up losing their right and the will to return.” [Emphasis mine.]

Her comment betrays one of Lebanon’s greatest fears: that the 300,000 Palestinians in Lebanon are there to stay. Giving civil rights to exiled Palestinians now, insists Beirut, would be a first step to resettlement. Israel, not the Lebanese, they say, should be made to pay the price for the Palestinian exodus.”

SO Muffin has it right — the Lebanese are terrified of the ethnic tensions in their state. They’re so terrified, they haven’t had a census since, I think, 1933, because they don’t want to know what the ratios are these days. Nevertheless, Nayla Muawad’s quote is explicit about whole rationale of the refugee camps (and UNWRA itself) throughout the Middle East. The aim of the Arab states is not to help Palestinian refugees and their descendants but to preserve them as a weapon against Israel. Caring about, and for, Palestinians is the rest of the world’s job.

Thanks, Paul M., for the interesting quote from Cairo Times.

It is rather strange. On this thread we have seen the usual suspects pointing the usual finger of blame at Israel and implying that either the Palestinian refugee problem is solved by all of them relocating into the pre-1967 Israel or not at all. In other words, to them all those Palestinians are not real human beings, with their different wishes and dreams, some who are willing to go on living in camps until a Utopian “Return” and others wishing to go on with their lives. Instead, they are a battering ram to a higher purpose, destroying the “Zionist Entity”. and they must be forced to go on suffering because their suffering is good propaganda. I only wish that the Palestinians understood that many of their “friends” in the West and the Arab world are not their friends because they wish them well, but because they wish Israelis (and/or Jews) ill.

The problems in Israeli official (and unofficial) attitude to its Palestinian minority are very real indeed, even if they are of an altogether smaller order of magnitude. There is definite discrimination in the allocation of resources and a general spirit of meanness and lack of generosity. But the work of those of us who have been active trying to do something about it is made doubly difficult when wild, egregiously wrong and malicious accusations are made. The only effective way to combat injustice in (yes!) liberal democracy is by sticking to the truth, to verifiable facts and figures.

The Palestinians are going to get their Right of Return, by Golly, whether they want it or not. There is no opt-out clause for the Palestinians in Lebanon, because it’s not about what they want. It’s about a view of ‘justice’ that is strangely consonant with the goal, still, of destroying Israel. In this view Palestinians are not people, they are only ‘a people’, who will be directed to their destiny by their own (mainly self-appointed) leaders and those of their supposed brothers. So much for self-determination.