Posts Tagged ‘arab’
Is Being Arab Israel’s Criteria for Rape?
July 23rd, 2010 • Awareness, News
Tags: apartheid, arab, court, democracy, jew, justice, prison, racism, rape
Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros comments on the recent ‘rape by deception‘ case:
Consider this scenario – a girl meets a guy while out shopping. They make eye contact, they flirt, he tells her he’s a business mogul about to close on a billion dollar deal.
She’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, he’s been searching for her all his life, etc etc, you know the drill.
photo: EPA
They go to a nearby building and have sex. Both adults, both consenting.
Days pass and the girl realises she wasn’t the woman of his dreams and he is never going to call her – in fact his name is Bob and he works at the newsagents around the corner.
The girl then proceeds to file a criminal complaint against the guy for rape and indecent assault. The judge, while admitting the sex was consensual, accuses the guy of misrepresenting himself and sentences him to 18 months in prison for rape.
Incredible right? But what if what the guy “misrepresented” was not his feelings, his job or his wealth, but rather his ethnic background – would that make it understandable or fair?
According to Israeli law, the answer to that question appears to be ‘yes’.
Read the rest at Sherine blog…
Israeli commentator, Gideon Levy’s Op-Ed in Ha’aretz:
He impersonated a human
Sabbar Kashur wanted to be a person, a person like everybody else. But as luck would have it, he was born Palestinian.
It happens. His chances of being accepted as a human being in Israel are nil. Married and a father of two, he wanted to work in Jerusalem, his city, and maybe also have an affair or a quickie on the side. That happens too.
photo: Emil Salman
He knew that he had no chance with the Jews, so he adopted another name for himself, Dudu. He didn’t have curly hair, but he went by Dudu just the same. That’s how everyone knew him. That’s how you know a few other Arabs too: the car-wash guy you call Rafi, the stairwell cleaner who goes by Yossi, the supermarket deliveryman you know as Moshe.
What’s wrong? Is it only fearsome Shin Bet interrogators like “Capt. George” and “Abu Faraj” who are allowed to adopt names from other peoples? Are only Israelis who emigrate allowed to invent new identities? Only the Yossi from Hadera who became Joe in Miami, the Avraham from Bat Yam who became Abe in Los Angeles?
Read more at Ha’aretz…
Levy said after the verdict:
I would like to raise just one question with the judge.
What if the guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?
Would he have been convicted of rape?
The answer is: of course not.
Levy’s questioned scenario is undoubtedly being played out throughout Israel and Palestine to this day as detailed in this 1998 WRMEA Special Report Secret Israeli Units Lived Among Palestinians for Years:
Israelis are fascinated with the revelation that for the past 40 years Israeli Jewish undercover agents have been passing themselves off as Palestinians and have not only lived with and worked with Palestinians, but have even married and had children with Palestinian women living inside Israel.
As Juan Cole tells us, in Jim-Crow-segregtion-era America they called it “Passing“:
Passing was the practice of light-skinned persons with at least some African-American heritage moving in white society and concealing their African lineage. The peculiar American racial definition made persons African-American if they had virtually any African ancestry at all (the one drop rule). – read more…
This absurd and tragic story is best summed up by Tadros‘ closing words…
If the definition of democracy is equal rights for all people then surely the selective application of the law against Arabs is just plain racism.
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Additional Al Jazeera report: Israel jails Arab for ‘deceit rape’ includes interview with the Director of a support centre for rape victims in Israel:
India’s Israeli-Arab Tightrope Walk
July 23rd, 2010 • News
Tags: arab, india, israel, palestine, politics, relations
India's President and Prime Minister meet Mahmoud Abbas
sify.com editor, Ramananda Sengupta, writes in Al Jazeera’s Focus:
“We do have a defence relationship with India, which is no secret. On the other hand, what is a secret is what is the defence relationship. And with all due respect, the secret part of it will remain secret.” – Mark Sofer, Israel’s ambassador to India, in a recent interview given to OutlookIndia.com.
India and Israel were born within months of each other. While the former became an independent state on August 15, 1947, the latter was born on May 14, 1948, following the decision of the United Nations to partition British Mandate Palestine.
India, which had opposed this partition, remained officially cold to the Jewish state. In May 1949, it voted (in vain) against the admission of Israel into the UN. In early 1950, after recognising the state of Israel, a visibly reluctant New Delhi allowed it to set up an “immigration office” in the port city of Mumbai. This eventually morphed into a “trade office” and then into a consulate.
But New Delhi dithered over according full diplomatic recognition to Israel until early 1992, when the two nations formally opened their respective embassies in Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
Read more at Al Jazeera…
Israel: One law for all?
January 14th, 2010 • Awareness, Film & Documentary, News
Tags: arab, israel, law
from Al Jazeera’s People & Power:
In 1948, Israel’s founding fathers issued a manifesto declaring among other things that the new state would uphold the equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race or creed.
Six decades later that is not a principal that many of Israel’s Arab citizens – who make up about 20 per cent of the population – believe applies to them, especially in matters involving law and order.
In his film, One Law for All?, filmmaker Tony Stark investigates whether Israeli Arabs are regularly the victims of legal double standards.
Plight and Flight of Palestinian Christians
December 23rd, 2009 • Awareness, News
Tags: arab, bethlehem, christian, palestine
Palestinians can be Christians too
by Dr Hanan Chehata
The “Palestinian problem” is usually perceived to be a “Muslim” problem; a conflict between the Jews and the Muslims and, for the most part, it is. However, it is easy to forget that amidst all of the politics and international wrangling there is another small but extremely important group who also have a deep rooted and valid claim to what is undoubtedly the most disputed “Holy Land” in the world. It may only constitute an extremely small minority of the entire population (estimates range from anywhere between 2.3%-1.5%)1 but the Palestinian Arab Christians living in Palestine/Israel also have a legitimate historical and spiritual claim to the land. After all, Palestine was the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the land in which he spent his short 33 year life and even shorter term of ministry and, according to Christianity, the place of his crucifixion and resurrection as well. Ever since the time of Jesus there has been a permanent presence of Christianity in the Holy Land. Not only is it a spiritual hub to which Christians from all over the world flock for pilgrimage and prayer, particularly during Christmas and Easter, but it has also been a home to countless Christians of numerous denominations for almost two thousand years.
However, in the last few decades there has been a perceptible exodus of Christians from the Holy Land. As the number of Jewish settler-colonists from all over the world has increased, the number of Christians living in the region has declined sharply. Whereas a few decades ago the number of Christians in Bethlehem, the city in which Jesus was born, was estimated to be around 70%, now they constitute well below a third of the total population.
There are many complicated reasons for this exodus, including the rise of Zionist extremism and economic hardships caused by discriminatory Israeli policies.
Read more…
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