Journalist Jonathan Cook tackles democracy in Israel: Notes from Israel - Day 7 - 2016 5 16 Monday

Jonathan Cook speaks

British journalist, http://www.jonathan-cook.net/

After dinner this evening it had been arranged for our group to hear journalist Jonathan Cook, a citizen of the United Kingdom by birth. He is married to a Palestinian, with whom he has two daughters, and has been working for 15 years out of Nazareth.

Jonathan talked somewhat about the differences between Palestinians here and in the West Bank. It seems that Palestinians here have a separate category of citizenship. When it comes to the desires of some Palestinians to return, according to Israeli law, only Jews can do so. This is further broken down into "secular Jews" who can return if they have one Jewish grandparent. So-called "religious-Orthodox" Jews can return if they have a Jewish mother. Such distinctions led to some 350,000 of 1 million Russians who claim to be Jews not being allowed into the country. Christian Jews are not allowed in either. Ethiopians and Eritreans claiming to be Jews are required to provide proof of conversion. Their children are supposed to go to an Orthodox school which only helps them learn the Torah, but gives them no extra skills to help them become more productive members of Israeli society. Yemeni Jews have had their children abducted and adopted out, not unlike the so-called ‘60s scoop’ of first Nations children in Canada. At one point, when there was a ringworm infestation in the Arab community, Arab children were treated with radiation each was fatal to some of them.

Apparently 50% of returned Jews are from Arabic countries where they had previously been well-integrated, but are now brainwashed to hate everything Arabic. Only 2% of the population now is versant in Arabic. Arabic was an official language, but this is now being challenged in further efforts to segregate the Arabs from having a voice in Israel. Going to separate schools and living in separate areas, many Jews and Arabs never meet until possibly in their work years, attending college or university when the both end up in the Army.

Again, according to the Citizenship Law of 1952, those not Israeli by birth or Jewish according to the terms of the Israeli state, can only become Israeli through marriage. He reported that only 20% of the citizenry outside of the West Bank are Palestinian and that Israel wants to keep that number as low as possible. There were some estimated 948,000 Palestinians living here in 1948, but 750,000 were turned to an internal refugees or fled the country.

He also spoke of how the purported Peace Accords that came out of Oslo some 25 years ago had actually only resulted in increased restrictions on Palestinians. Marriages of West Bank Palestinians with Israeli Palestinians are not recognized. When the Supreme Court of Israel ruled against that in 1999, the law was amended in 2003 to maintain the status quo. When the Israeli government tried to enshrine subtle recognition of national Jews by placing stars on their passport, something that smacked of how the Nazis had required Jews to have stars of David on them for identity, there was such an outcry that now all Israeli citizens have stars on the passports.

In spite of the fact that some 130 nationalities are represented among the Israeli citizenry, Israel still only recognizes the Jewish nationality. There are certain rights granted to all of these citizens which are often highlighted to make the nation appear Democratic. Indeed, all Israeli citizens do get to vote. However, the only group that he gets national or state rights are those who are deemed Jews. Non-Jews have none of these rights. Access to clean water at home is the right of all citizens but access to water for agriculture is only a national right. One of the results of this is that Palestinian farmers often can't successfully grow their crops, such as olives, so the give up their land. Israel is only too happy to take over according to their laws, as already discussed. Former Prime Minister Moshe Dayan already referred to this "creeping annexation" which is really just another part of ethnic cleansing. Another distinction the government makes is that non-Jews who serve in the military can't be buried with the Jews in military cemeteries.

There is also such a thing as an Admission Committee. This is to see that only Jews by nationality are admitted with full rights. In 2011 the government passed the Admission Committee Law restricting access to "socially suitable persons," which was obviously meant to refer to only non-Arabs. When the Palestinian party in the Knesset advocated for equal rights in 2006, the government passed a law against the "campaign for stable citizenship." Then may be as many as 20 Palestinians in the parliament, but they are never allowed to be included in a coalition government. There has been a more recent attempt to pass a law to expel non-Jewish parties. Indeed, a Palestinian organization at one point examined Israeli law and found that 57% of it was discriminatory.