[dundarious]

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...

[amscanne]

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.

[dundarious]

I replied in another similar thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644087

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...

[borski]

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).

[dundarious]

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.

[e-neko]

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.

[dundarious]

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.

[e-neko]

References, because of course nobody believes it.

>Currently, in Israel “proper” (within the Green Line), only 7 percent of the land is owned privately by individuals (3 percent Jews and 4 percent Arabs). According to the Israeli NGO Regavim, the rest is owned by the Jewish state (80 percent) and the Jewish National Fund (13 percent)

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/marty_kaplan/12...

[dundarious]

Thanks, but those figures weren't what I was asking about -- I do believe in their accuracy, and used a similar breakdown when writing my comment. I meant regarding the following:

> [Arab Israeli citizens owning private land] 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 not sure, because you clearly make a distinction between towns and small community villages, so I could be wrong, but it sounds like even there you are describing the (probably rampant) petty discrimination by individuals on 4% of the land. My default is also to assume there are comparable levels of petty discrimination on the other 3% of private land, unless you have some reference to support your comments about restrictions only applying in the other direction.

To repeat another point though, I am highlighting the rigidly enforced discrimination on at least 13% of the land, and think this is far more significant than haphazard petty discrimination on either side of the 4% and 3% private land divide, where creating or buttressing homogenous communities is far harder without state support (though one side does have that). Never mind that, like I said I don't have time to research it now, but I think a substantial portion of that 80% of state land has similar restrictions in place against non-Jewish nationals.

As I said:

> 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.

To make clear the reasons for this:

- they cover a far greater proportion of the land

- they are far more rigidly enforced

- their power to engineer demography is far greater, as the instruments at their disposal are far more powerful (punitive travel/work restrictions, evictions, municipal infrastructure support/denial, military support/harassment, etc.)