Minority groups in Israel actually have less restrictions with regards to marriage than the majority. Minority groups have freedom of religion. I'm a jew by ethnicity but an atheist by religion. I do not have freedom of religion. If I wanted to get married, by law, I am forced to get approval from the Jewish Rabbinate and follow religious protocols that make my skin crawl. And my spouse must be Jewish too.
Not really. You could do what thousands of others do any take a quick trip to Cyprus, get married (regardless of your partner’s religion or sex), and have the marriage civilly recognized in Israel.
Laws that make it illegal to sleep under bridges apply to everybody, not just the homeless. Does that mean a law against sleeping under bridges is not targeting the homeless?
It targets people who sleep under bridges. If, for example, there is a major safety hazard associated with sleeping under bridges, it would make sense to prohibit it, and it would be bizarre to criticize the law just because it affects mostly homeless people. If, on the other hand, the law prohibits only homeless people from sleeping under bridges, it becomes clear that the intent is discriminatory, and this becomes a valid criticism.
“There’s no need to shirk from the essence of this law. It is one of the tools to ensure a Jewish majority in Israel, which is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Our goal is for there to be a Jewish majority,” Lapid tweeted shortly before the law lapsed in early July. [0]
Yes — discussing the actual motivations for the law, as provided to us by Israeli politicians and previous Supreme Court decisions, is a good and valid starting point for discussion. Claiming that the law is bad simply because it disproportionally affects some subset of the Israeli population, is not. The argument I was addressing in this particular subthread is the latter, not the former.
Unfortunately politicians don't always tell you their true motivations.
These days I live in the Southeastern US. Since 2020 was a census year, states have been redrawing their electoral maps. Several states have made changes that reduce the voting power of non-white voters. If politicians say this had nothing to do with race does that make it true? Even if it is true that they didn't consider race at all in the decision making process, does that make it acceptable when the end result impacts people in a noticeable way based on their race?
Israel has many laws dictating where you can live and between which areas you can travel, and they depend on its complicated notion of citizenship and nationality. You have far fewer restrictions as a "Jewish nationality, Israeli citizen" than as "any other kind of nationality, Israeli citizen". This is the meaningful difference people are referring to when they say that "Israel is an ethnostate" or talk about "apartheid", because in many instances, in practice you can only do certain basic things like live with your partner if you are a "Jewish nationality, Israeli citizen".
Just to give a short (but relatively surface-level) proof that this distinction is real and meaningful in Israeli politics, you can read the most recent former PM's statements in the following link (and I would encourage reading a broad political spectrum of commentary on the various citizenship and nationality laws, in particular those passed in the last few decades, e.g., Nation-State Law): https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Benjamin-Netanyahu/Netanya...
Can you be specific? I’m reasonably sure this isn’t true. The only difference in how non-Jewish Israeli citizens are treated that I’m aware of is that non-Jewish citizens are exempt from conscription. I’m always open to learning more, however.
Otherwise, you seem to be talking about special legal carve-outs related to contested territories for restrictions on movement. The claim that non-Jewish Israel citizens are not allowed to live their partner is utter nonsense, unless by “live with” you mean “confer residency rights” but that seems like a dishonest framing.
Edit (responding to your edit): While that’s a shitty message and you can take issue with that (and related cultural issues in Israel), Netanyahu also notes that “Arab citizens have equal rights”. You’re actually asserting that this isn’t the case and need to explain how.
As for my framing and the question of "live" vs. "confer residency rights", I tried to be clear and say that my argument was about what restrictions are in place "in practice" and in the aggregate. If it is difficult for normal family formation and existence, and if that difficulty is for "demographic reasons", then that is discrimination on the Arab Israelis as well as their non-citizen spouses: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/shaked-family-unificatio...
Can you provide an example of what restrictions non-Jewish Israeli citizens have? Because I’m pretty sure all Israeli citizens have the same rights (Al Aqsa mosque and other religious sites notwithstanding).
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 are Jewish you can freely travel and marry outside the state and travel back to Israel and have the marriage legally recognized in full).
You might argue that technically this is targeting non-citzens and is therefore not affecting Israeli citizens of any nationality. But to me this is clearly targeted at limiting the normal actions of one group of citizens, while there are other laws to expand and accelerate analogous actions by another group of citizens. There are tens of thousands of Arab Israelis who have been married to non-Israeli Palestinians since 2003 when this law first went into place (the new law is just a law that regularizes a "temporary" "security" law that was renewed yearly until it surprisingly did not get support for yearly renewal in 2021). Those tens of thousands of families are in a very precarious situation, with a spouse with very limited rights to movement, and no rights at all if their Israeli citizen spouse were to die, etc. -- they would be deported (and I believe many have been).
Edit: Israel's interior minister has referred to the law's purpose in a way that shows the purpose is also to discriminate against the Arab Israelis and their ability to get married and have a normal family life: "we don’t need to mince words, the law also has demographic reasons": https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/shaked-family-unificatio...
As for more specific and direct examples, it is legal for the Jewish National Fund to refuse to sell or lease land to non-Jewish national Israelis (i.e., mostly Arab Israelis). The JNF is not public, but it owns a substantial percentage of Israeli land, about 13%, and I don't have information to hand, but I believe there are other bodies with similar practices that administer the majority of Israeli land in this way -- that's a hazy memory though, and I don't have time to research it again, so I wouldn't rely on it.
The Admissions Committees Law also allows for town committees to deny the right of Israelis to buy/lease land/property if they are deemed "unsuitable to the social life of the community [...] or the social and cultural fabric of the town", and allows for the cultural fabric of the town to be based on "special characteristics", such as defining themselves as having a "Zionist vision". This further means non-Zionist citizens are barred -- of course, many Jews in the world are non-Zionist or even anti-Zionist, but I don't think it's jumping to conclusions to infer based on the cultural backdrop that this is primarily a means to exclude non-Jewish nationals.
I think those two are specific examples of "legal" discrimination directly on the basis of non-Jewish nationality.
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 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.
I have seen this talking point repeated exactly in this manner all over Reddit. Was this dispatched from one of those Israel apps that navigate supporters to social media sites to push pro-Israel talking points?
Israel is surrounded by Arab Muslims who outnumber Jews 100:1 and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion. I ask honestly, is it really so wrong for a nation to implement laws to preserve its culture, particularly when it's people constitute a tiny fraction of the global population?
Or is support of cultural preservation only virtuous when the alternative is labeled "gentrification"?
> and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion
As a biracial Jew from Pakistan I can assure you this is false. The modern enmity between Jews and Muslims began around the time of Israel's creation [1].
As far as 'preserving culture', this sounds a little to close to the Fourteen Words for my comfort. You can celebrate and keep alive one's own culture without the exclusion and denial of rights to others. I think the idea of ethnostates run counter to the core values of most modern, liberal democracies.
Nonsense. There are no end of examples of Muslim anti-semitism before the foundation of Israel. Just one example, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a strong supporter of Hitler who frequently repeated the blood libel in his writing.
Cherry-picking individual quotes or statements does not reflect the attitudes of global Muslims as a whole. I'll instead link to the following wiki article, which is long, but here's a particularly relevant excerpt.
> Antisemitism has increased in the Muslim world during modern times. While Bernard Lewis and Uri Avnery date the increase in antisemitism to the establishment of Israel, M. Klein suggests that antisemitism could have been present in the mid-19th century.
> Scholars point to European influences, including those of the Nazis (see below), and the establishment of Israel as the root causes of antisemitism
That’s not what cherry-picking means. The previous comment made a claim. I gave a what I considered a valid counter example undermining that claim. That’s an entirely reasonable response.
Somewhat ironically, that Wikipedia article is cherry picking. It gives lots of examples that support its thesis and fails to mention or downplays counter examples, of which there are very many.
Of which you - contrary to the other commenter in the thread - failed to provide sources of.
You cherry pick one example and talk about there being many, many more. Yet it is the other side shows sources that you with few words "argue" are not valid - also without providing arguments, sources, anything.
>I think the idea of ethnostates run counter to the core values of most modern, liberal democracies.
But not to the core values of middle eastern Arab countries, which is the point to limiting the possibility of a sizeable proportion of immigrants imposing their incompatible culture onto host nations.
>As far as 'preserving culture', this sounds a little to close to the Fourteen Words for my comfort.
There is no reason to presume that the values of your "modern, liberal democracies" will be maintained if there is no effort to preserve them. The rest of the world is far less concerned with your ideas regarding women's or LGBT rights. Allusions to the fourteen words are effectively a false equivalence, there is a massive range between maintaining a liberal way of life and going on a multinational genocidal war campaign.
>As a biracial Jew from Pakistan I can assure you this is false. The modern enmity between Jews and Muslims began around the time of Israel's creation [1].
The enmity is baked into the Koran and therefore approximately as old as Islam.
> But not to the core values of middle eastern Arab countries
Source, dearly lacking. Though I'm uncertain how you would support this claim. I tried digging up some examples, but the best I found was a list of countries [0] supporting 'right to return' laws with accelerated naturalization if you are of the 'favored' ethnicity. I don't see any arab or middle eastern countries on this list. I sincerely would appreciate any supporting articles you have towards this claim.
I agree liberal values must be defended. I just don't believe illiberal methods such as those described in the OP are effective methods of doing so. I think the world is growing more concerned with things like LGBT and women's rights in large part because of the freedom of exchange of information, ideas, and experiences. These are accelerated by both the internet and multicultural cities and nations which aren't possible with ethnicity-based immigration laws.
You're right I should not have alluded to the Fourteen Words, I could have picked a better example. The similarities in attitude frighten me, however. Elevating the safety and prosperity of ethnic group A to the detriment of group B is not promoting or maintaining a liberal way of life, despite what we might want to call it.
> The enmity is baked into the Koran and therefore approximately as old as Islam.
I won't rehash my previous response to this idea, but leave a hopefully unbiased wiki link [1] on the subject with just one small anecdote. The holiday of purim is an entire commemoration of the 'elimination' of a certain peoples. Does this mean a certain enmity is baked into the Torah towards Amalekites? Do you think this history actually gives you a negative bias towards the present day descendants of Hamman?
I believe the concern here is whether a group of people who live in a state and are governed by its laws have equal rights and democratic representation, or whether they're treated as a lower class of citizen. I don't think citing cultural preservation, as important as it is, addresses those concerns.
> and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion.
What does the Talmud say about the Goyim?
>is it really so wrong for a nation to implement laws to preserve its culture, particularly when it's people constitute a tiny fraction of the global population
It's ok, natural and healthy for Israel, but not for the rest of the world, where that is nationalism and equates to ideologies of the 1930s.
> It's ok, natural and healthy for Israel, but not for the rest of the world, where that is nationalism and equates to ideologies of the 1930s.
You say that, but that's ridiculous. I can't become a citizen of any other country without that country's explicit permission, and many countries won't allow just anyone to immigrate.
Right, because the purpose of Israel is to be a Jewish state with a majority Jewish population to protect its Jewish residents from genocides, pogroms, blood libels, and other things that have been done to them for 2 millennia.
Wait, explain to me what we Jews should have done after the holocaust, and after many countries kicked out all their Jews. Doesn't starting a Jewish country make sense? There are dozens of other countries around different groups (whether religious or ethnic), how is it wrong for Jews to want the same thing?