Israeli Apartheid Week Project Shows True State of Israel’s Arabs
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A project by an Israeli alternative media group has revealed the true face of alleged “apartheid” in Israel.
It is commonplace to accuse Israel of segregationist policies against the Arabs living in the Jewish state, and various anti-Israel organizations invoke South Africa’s apartheid regime to compare Israel’s treatment of its Arab residents.
The Mida information and news site asked its readers to document incidents of discrimination, segregation, humiliation and exclusion of Arabs from Israeli public life.
The findings were staggering and proved that the claims heard internationally against Israel are no more than a farce.
“Many universities world-wide are marking the Israel Apartheid week,” explained Akiva Bigman, an editor of Mida. “We decided on a creative initiative. Instead of attacking these anti-Israel stances with rhetoric laden with facts and information, we announced a photography competition, which depicts the true state of Arabs living in Israel.”
According to Bigman, the photos demonstrate that Israel’s Arabs are integrated in all facets of life in Israel, on university campuses, through hospitals, shopping malls and welfare institution.
“The competition was a satirical; the photo descriptions are written in a cynical way, such as ‘Exclusion from campus’ when in fact the photo depicts a large group of Arab students on campus, or ‘Oppression though advanced academic degrees,” Bigman said.
Anyone living in Israel knows that Arabs are employed by and receive service at all government offices, study at all universities, including 800 Arab students at Ariel University in Samaria, are found in the legal system as judges, serve as IDF officers and soldiers as Members of the Knesset.
The latest claims of segregation were leveled against Israel in relation to buses coming out of Arab areas in Judea and Samaria which were designated for Arabs only. These buses enable Arab laborers coming into Israel to ride the bus at low costs, not having to rely on hitch-hiking or private and expensive services.
Local Arabs who used the buses have praised the new service. Chaim Levinson, a Haaretz reporter, writes that thanks to this reform, thousands of workers who were previously exploited by private services have finally received professional and orderly services provided by the State of Israel.
Levinson interviewed Halil, a construction worker from Hevron, who was once forced to sleep away from home to get on time to his job. The new bus service enables him to sleep at home and saves him a large sum of money every month.
Anet Haskia, a Muslim Arab woman, recently told Tazpit’s Anav Silvermen in an interview, “I am proud to live in Israel. I am even prouder that both my sons have served as soldiers for this country.
“There are many people who are too scared to speak up, who love Israel like I do and have done well here. They want a future where their children will not fall to hatred and incitement, but overcome that,” she concluded.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Aryeh Savir is director of the International division of Tazpit News Agency.
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I WILL BE KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT CONGREGATION SONS OF ISRAEL IN MANALAPAN, MONDAY NIGHT APRIL 8 AT 7:30 and will not participate in the interfaith program. ALL ARE INVITED. I AM SPEAKING FREE OF CHARGE. The Imam said he would join with me declaring that here in America there is no room for Muslims callings Jews apes and for the destruction of the Jewish people as Morsi of Egypt did. This promise to me was never fulfilled. MY AGREEING FOR THE IMAM TO LEAVE BEFORE HATIKVAH WAS BASED ON HIS FULFILLING THIS PROMISE.
I have resigned from the Metuchen-Edison Area Interfaith Clergy Association due to this. For you who are new, to the association, I served as President and Vice President in the past and chaired many programs. It hurts me greatly that I had to make this decision. I wish you all the best of success. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG
This Israeli Apartheid issue is mere mindless mantra to begin with. The level of segregation in Israel is on the level of having separate rooms for each elementary grade, or different rooms for trigonometry, algebra, and geometry. We have real apartheid in my neighborhood, at least by the definition of Israel bashers. Yes, the drug dealers and other thugs are not allowed on our block. They stand huddled together on a block south of us, and we don't invite them to our Shabbat table. On the other hand those who are not dead set against us are always welcome. If anyone is excluded, it is because they exclude themselves. Is that our problem?
This Israeli Apartheid issue is mere mindless mantra to begin with. The level of segregation in Israel is on the level of having separate rooms for each elementary grade, or different rooms for trigonometry, algebra, and geometry. We have real apartheid in my neighborhood, at least by the definition of Israel bashers. Yes, the drug dealers and other thugs are not allowed on our block. They stand huddled together on a block south of us, and we don't invite them to our Shabbat table. On the other hand those who are not dead set against us are always welcome. If anyone is excluded, it is because they exclude themselves. Is that our problem?
Using words like Apartheid & genocide against Israel is a ploy used in the anti-Israeli lobby as a cheap way to gain headlines, but those who use them so freely know very little about what living under Apartheid was like and real acts of genocide are a far cry from the reality of what life is like in Israel and its conflict in Gaza where civilians have been killed in collateral damage in Israel’s self-defense. I would say to all those to get the true facts and stop using anti-Zionism as a cover for what is really anti-Semitism!
Does anyone comment about the Pakistani girl that was almost killed because the Talaban discrimnates against Moslem women being educated or about one Islamic sect fighting and killing others for superiority and puts those not in power into ghetto like communities? Yet, the only way this can be overlooked if is Israel builds a fort of protection around itself yet in France and elsewhere, Moslems live in their own ghetto neighborhoods.
What a crock!
Lets see who's about apartheid and racism.
There are 8500 Jews living in the 22 Arab countries, while their are 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel.
Jews are barred from living in every Arab country, except a few thousand Jews who live in Morocco and Tunisia.
Jews wants to leave Tunisia with an Islamist government in power.
I should remind people, two of the Top Tunisian clerics 2 months ago called Jews Apes and for their mass killing.
Go to any search engine and search for,
Tunisian Cleric Al-Suhayli Calls the Jews Apes, Prays for Allah to Annihilate Them.
Its not just in Tunisia this sort of hate rhetoric is being used everyday .. here's the new President of Egypt using the same apes and pigs rhetoric and telling the TV audience that they must continue to teach their children to hate the Jews – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q3NCiaozL0k&list=UUpBvIBfZ-foo5ZbLH5O0N4g#!
and here is the current Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem using that same rhetoric in a public rally – http://vimeo.com/35139757