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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

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Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apartheid doesn't mean "Identical to South Africa". Apartheid is a crime against human rights defined as such: Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights. Apartheid is a crime against humanity punishable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. ACADEMIC TOPICS. legal history.

How would you explain affirmative action on the basis of race today, in this context?

There are a couple of arguments that might be presented to explain how affirmative action is different to apartheid.

1) affirmative action does not remove any rights of those groups not targeted by affirmative action. It is possible to argue that by supporting one group, you are implicitly disadvantaging the out-group, but usually this distinction is important. E.g. having a "ladies night" at a bar is generally more acceptable than a "men pay double price" night.

2) affirmative action policies tend to target education and employment. The right to vote is typically is given higher priority when it comes to balancing different rights.

3) Affirmative action can be seen as targeting equal outcomes, not equal treatment[1]. My country offers free breast cancer screening to all women above a certain age. Men can certainly catch breast cancer, but it's far more dangerous to women, so a gender-blind outcome of "we want less people to die of breast cancer" has a gender-aware policy implementation. Most people wouldn't say that this policy is "medical apartheid" on the basis of gender. Similarly, you could say that affirmative action is about getting disparate groups to have equal outcomes in terms of whatever metric you care you measure (educational attainment, income, etc)

[1] not everyone agrees with this. Some people argue that preferential treatment should be given to groups that were historically persecuted (e.g. land confiscation), as remediation.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason Russia is getting flak for invading and occupying territory (including, even, from Israel!) when Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank for decades with no consequences. Western countries apply their moral principles differently to their allies.

If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine. Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need. As a strictly emotional thought, this makes me feel Israel is a country to cozy up to the strongest nation at the time. If the US falls from grace Israel will have no problem ‘switching’ sides to Rus…

> If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine.

Citation needed. A strongly held opinion isn't a fact.

> Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need.

They have or are going to have a field hospital, and have given aid to Ukraine and surrounding countries.

Israel is a US ally. Israel would be strategically harmed by pissing off Russia (they depend on Russian good will to stop Iranian spread of weapons to Syria and Lebanon). And for what - symbolic gain alone?

It's pretty obvious what the Israeli government and population generally seem to think about Russia's actions (as it is obvious what the Chinese government and Chinese population generally seem to think, another country that's trying to stay more "on the fence" but clearly supportive as opposed to Israel that is clearly not supportive).

Israel can also help mediate the end of this conflict as they have pretty good relations with both Ukraine and Russia, and odds of that are higher if they don't give or sell weapons directly to Ukraine.

> As a strictly emotional thought, this makes me feel Israel is a country to cozy up to the strongest nation at the time. If the US falls from grace Israel will have no problem ‘switching’ sides to Russia.

What you are describing in geopolitics. Israel is not special in this regard.

One major factor of alliances is realpolitik and benefits to ones' country. The US has close relations to Israel for many reasons, and the relationship didn't benefit the US in some or many ways, do you really think the US would be a close ally of Israel?

For any smaller country (in terms of population, economics, etc) like Israel, being aware of the massive countries (like the US, China, EU, to a lesser extent Japan and India) are sensible considerations. The US would do the same thing in Israel or any similar sized country's position, would it not?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine. Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need. As a strictly emotional thought, this makes me feel Israel is a country to cozy up to the strongest nation at the time. If the US falls from grace Israel will have no problem ‘switching’ sides to Rus…

> If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine. Citation needed. A strongly held opinion isn't a fact. > Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need. They have or are going to have a field hospital, and have given aid to Ukraine and surrounding countries. Israel is a US ally. Israel would…

Can't edit but I would change:

1. "And for what - symbolic gain alone?"

You advocate giving (or selling) weapons. That isn't symbolic alone, so I'd remove this if I could. It's really more common to see the view that Israel isn't taking a clear enough stance again Russia with symbolic things. It seems pretty clear (see the UN vote).

Nonetheless, Israel giving or selling weapons would complicate an already tricky relationship with Russia. Russia may act as if it is an act of war (arguably it would be reasonable for Russia to do so).

2. India is another country to consider. While not as close an ally to the US compared to Israel, they are either an ally or friendly (depending on the arena / what you mean by ally). India abstained from voting in the UN vote criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In US media and social media, they got relatively little criticism and attention for this compared to comments I've seen directed at Israel. Even though Israel did in fact vote to criticize Russia. Some people in this thread were at best unaware or at worst lied about this basic, verifiable fact. Apparently Israel even lobbied some other countries to vote the same way they did.

India's reasons for abstaining are also realpolitik and largely driven from considerations around military cooperation with Russia. I don't know too much about Indian / Russian military cooperation, but from what I've read it is much closer and deeper than Israel and Russia. Israel and Russia I'd describe as having few overlaps and at a distance. I'd characterize it as Russia begrudgingly accepting Israel's occasional attacks on Syrian targets and / or Iranian targets in Syria that are trying to supply better weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas, or other people closer to Israel. Given that Syria is a close ally of Russia, it's mildly awkward for Russia, but Syria depends on Russia more than the other way around, Russia is more powerful, Israel is useful for Russia for economic reasons, and Russia can understand Israel's military considerations.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#724
post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it really so different if we replace race with religion? Israel doesn't recognize people who join the religion- it's effectively based on birth just as much as race. We have a government over a people that determines the rights of each person based on who their parents were. That's the core concept that I, for one, am opposed to.

>But is it really so different if we replace race with religion? They aren't completely replacing race with religion, many Palestinians are black and my understanding is Israel is quite racist towards its black Jewish population as well. European Settler colonialism has historically been quite racist.

How many and what % of Palestinians are black? How many and what % of Israelis are black?

By black do you mean having darker skin tones?

If so, many Jewish Israelis are black - as are many Palestinians - and not just those that came to Israel from Ethiopia. Also, many Israelis are white (as in light skinned) as are many Palestinians.

The average Israeli is Mizrahi (of North African / Middle Eastern origin).

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#725
post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right, I admit I had a long-standing misunderstanding about this - I had always assumed the word was referring to semitic people in general, but have decided to look this up (unfortunately after posting the above) and realized that's not the case...

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#726

>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". What the fuck?

>>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". >What the fuck? Why all the outrage? Should France not maintain it's French character?

No, and France does not have any laws whatsoever protecting its French character in this sense. The Jewish character of Israel does not refer to cultural character, but to ethno-relgious character. Israel very explicitly accepts democracy only insofar as it doesn't lead to Israel being led by people who are not ethnically and/or religiously Jewish.

The only other countries on Earth today that have anything similar to this type of language and laws are Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Russia (which both offer passports to foreign nationals of hungarian/russian ethnicity, for example).

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of your arguments are dancing around a very important fact: Israel was not founded on barren land, it was founded on a land where hundreds of thousands of Arabs had lived for many generations. It was founded by driving these Arabs out - initially with peaceful means, but very quickly through force of arms. Not content with pushing most Arabs out of most of what used to be called Palestine, Israel then occupied th…

> If the Jews of the world had sought a sanctuary, a much more appropriate deal would have been to carve out a piece of defeated Germany to create a Jewish state Of course this was never offered, and it would have been too late anyway - since 6 million Jews have already been slaughtered and since Jews where already very close to their own statehood in Palestine. Also - sounds pretty morbid to me to found the Jewish s…

> Also - sounds pretty morbid to me to found the Jewish state near Berlin in 1947, I'm not sure all the Jewish refugees would have been super thrilled to go back to the old neighbors know what I mean?

And yet other victims of the holocaust did just that. The move to create a Jewish state in Palestine was primarily led by Jewish fundamentalists who wanted to return to their God-given promised land, it was not a necessity by any measure (as proved by other victims of the German Holocaust).

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#730
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.

If you're referring to the Russia Ukraine conflict with note about sanctions I don't think we've seen indication that sanctions are an "effective means" of pushback considering the fact that the Russia continues to wage war against Ukraine.
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