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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

591–600 of 735 posts

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#591
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.037% terrorism sounds high to me

That a 0.37% (or more) slice of some population that feels it's been oppressed and impoverished might engage in /(freedom fighter|terrorist)/ activities doesn't seem surprising to me.

That would mean 100,000 terrorists in the scale of the USA

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing Israel is an oppressive country is not antisemitism.

I think (hope) that the comment above was remarking that Israel itself is deeply antisemitic (Arabs are a semitic people).

Oxford dictionary specifies, for those trying to redefine the term:

anti-Semitic /ˌantɪsɪˈmɪtɪk/ (adj): Hostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#593
post #521

Is there a chance that the Israeli Supreme Court act as a check and balance in this matter? Edit: Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world.

>>> Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world. When you say democracy, what exactly do you mean? Most democratic countries have representative democracy, where they choose representatives who pass the laws. This was passed in the Israeli parliament. This is democracy at work isn't it? There is no direct democracy in the world. I am not supporting the law ju…

By democracy I mean the system in place in the US or Western Europe and a number of other countries. In other words, a system with checks and balances. A system with tools in place to avoid injust outcomes due to the tyrany of the majority (or a minority).

For example, if a majority of a country wants segregated schools, that does not make it right. A true democracy is not one where people just shrug and say “well, if this is the will of the people, that settles it”. A true democracy is one where “Brown vs Board of Education” can happen.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#594
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your source: "Israeli politicians say the law is both an essential security measure to prevent Palestinian terror attacks and a means of preserving a Jewish majority in Israel." Maybe it's more of an immigration policy than a security policy?

It's a policy of apartheid, which is motivated by both immigration and security. Fortunately, as we have learned over the past few weeks, sanctions are an effective means of pushback against archaic 20-th century statesmanship.

As someone born and raised in South Africa that lived there until the end of 2019 I really wish people would stop comparing Israel to the old government in ZA.

The Israeli government definitely does a ton of problematic stuff that is objectively awful but it's just not quite the same as what the old government in my country used to do.

I am sure I will get downvoted for this, but the situation with Israel/Palestine is not quite the same as what existed in South Africa for a significant chunk of the 20th century. That doesn't mean it's a nice situation but really, I just would prefer it if people would stop trying to weld one shitty piece of history to another one to try and create this weird equivalency between the two.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#595
post #594
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a policy of apartheid, which is motivated by both immigration and security. Fortunately, as we have learned over the past few weeks, sanctions are an effective means of pushback against archaic 20-th century statesmanship.

As someone born and raised in South Africa that lived there until the end of 2019 I really wish people would stop comparing Israel to the old government in ZA. The Israeli government definitely does a ton of problematic stuff that is objectively awful but it's just not quite the same as what the old government in my country used to do. I am sure I will get downvoted for this, but the situation with Israel/Palestine i…

Is there a better analogy to compare the situation to? Language is about communicating ideas efficiently. Apartheid is a good word for what is happening, and our response should be the same as it was in South Africa.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Yes I would be okay in the hypothetical situation you've constructed, with loaded language and fear tactics. I would also be fine with publicly shaming view points like yours and getting you fired from your job for being completely xenophobic. I can't imagine how you view your middle eastern coworkers who you've decided hate women and shit?

So you'd get me fired for my views, which by the way I extend to all nations regardless of race, but be totally welcoming to child abusers in your midst, because it's their culture? There's something very wrong with this fashionable double standard. And there's nothing hypothetical about my scenario, this has been playing out for decades in Europe and East Asia while legitimate concern from those who speak out is shallowly dismissed as xenophobia.

>fired from your job for being completely xenophobic.

Disapproving of very real cultural differences is not "xenophobia". Forcing women to cover themselves, limiting their independence, practicing arranged marriages and condoning physical abuse, my opposition to these practices stems from my western liberal ideals, not any sort of "phobia".

>I can't imagine how you view your middle eastern coworkers who you've decided hate women and shit?

That's because you are apparently unable to discern individuals from groups. A sane person can acknowledge that cultures have sets of typical practices/beliefs, but individuals may or may not share them.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#597
post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, geopolitics all but guarantee this will never happen so long as Israel is a strong western ally

It will not happen as long as there exists a strong pro-Israel lobby in the US. Israel passed on confidential US military technology to China and abstained in the Security Council resolution against Russia. That's not the behaviour of a strong ally .

Israel did not abstain, they voted for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assem...

Im also interested in what you construe as evidence that Israel passed US confidential anything to China.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a lot of background in this, so tell me if I'm off-base. Israel is occupying land that it took from Palestine, is it not? I don't feel that terrorism is the correct term for attacks on an occupying force.

Umm, that's basically the definition of terrorism. 9/11 didn't happen out of the blue, it was a response to american foreign policy in the middle east. The troubles didn't happen because the IRA thought British rule was legitimate Etc. The vast majority of terrorism is because one group is controlling a region that the other group thinks they should not.

I see what you mean. I never thought about it that way. It kind of just depends what side you're on whether it immediately leaps out as terrorism.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#599
post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA is in practice an example, no? An Arab Israeli cannot marry and live with an Arab from occupied territory just "next door" (their affinity group), but a Jewish Israeli can marry from their affinity group and live anywhere (laws on marriage within Israel are restrictive and often prevent even Jews from marrying other Jews if they are not deemed officially Jewish, I think through matrilinear heredity, but if you ar…

Ah, those are nice examples, but... some 50% of private land in Israel is owned by Arab Israeli citizens, not by JNF, and they apply similar restriction on any Jewish family trying to settle in a predominantly Arab town or village. A similar restriction doesn't apply to predominantly Jewish towns, only to small community villages.

I'm curious if you have any references, because as you can imagine, it's hard to search for such things.

I tried to make my statements and figures based on objectively verifiable information (the stated policy of JNF and its land holdings, naming the Admissions Committees Law). I think if you were to account for the broader discrimination in property sale/leasing, the amount of land where non-Jewish nationals are denied would be much higher than 13%, never mind counting the colonies in the occupied territories.

I'm also skeptical because official discrimination (until the new laws passed in the past 20 years or so) was de facto widespread, but previously was de jure illegal (case in point: https://archive.ph/20120911010849/http://www.nytimes.com/200...).

I would agree with you if you were saying that petty discrimination (done by individual land-owners) is widespread against all "nationalities", but the issue is that entire neighborhoods, communities, and territories have official sanction and support to be discriminatory against non-Jewish nationalities. And if you believe as I do that Israel must retreat to its border as defined by international law, and that it has in fact done the opposite and engaged in literal colonization for 60 years or so, then it would be plain to see why much of this conversation is besides the point. Of course there will be petty discrimination, perhaps even rooted in each side's belief that each property transaction is really a territorial battle. The actions of consequence are those of the state and those backed by the state apparatus.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#600
post #190

Here's an interesting exercise: 1. Substitute "Israel's Knesset" for ANY other legislative body anywhere. 2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong. 3. See if you like how it feels: "[Legislative body] passes law barring spouses who are [like you] from becoming citizens."

Sure I'll try

China bans non-Chinese people from becoming citizens

Doesn't feel all that bad to me, considering this is the way it already works and I had no interest in becoming a citizen there.

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