Analysis
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 5 of 12
By Kim Petersen & B. J. Sabri
Online Journal Contributing Writers


Jan 11, 2008, 00:32

SECTION 1: [Continuation]

E: Reports by Israeli media

Martin Frost�s blog reprinted a comment to an article written by an Israeli journalist, Aviram Zino who, under the title �Racism on the rise in the Jewish state,� reported on the status of racism in Israel. (The original source was the Israeli Insider, an online Israeli daily news magazine.)

Israel's Declaration of Independence promises, "Complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex."

According to a recent poll, however, the majority of Israelis see racism in the Jewish State as worse than a decade ago.

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) recently conducted a poll in honor of Anti-Racism Day, in which 502 adult Jewish Israelis gave their opinions on racism and their Arab neighbors, Ynetnews reported Wednesday.

According to the poll, in fact, thirty-nine percent would prefer not having Arab neighbors, though a majority wouldn't object to hiring Arabs. Twenty-eight percent flat out objected to hiring Arab employees and 38 percent wouldn't work for an Arab employer.

In terms of the government, the vast majority of respondents (83%) would not accept an Arab president, only 13 percent considering the possibility. Twenty-one percent accepted having an Arab minister in the Knesset, like first-ever Arab minister Raleb Majadele, whereas 31 percent objected.

When asked the question, "Is the State of Israel more racist now that it was one decade ago?" a significant 37 percent of Israelis asked said yes.

Anat Hoffman, IRAC Executive Director expressed her disappointment of growing racism Tuesday, saying, "displays of racism, and especially those done in the name of Judaism, disgrace the Jewish people." [italics in original]


Despite the ever-raging Israel-Palestinian conflict, the majority of poll respondents didn't identify Arab Israelis as the most discriminated minority in Israel, placing them second after Ethiopian immigrants. Russian immigrants came in third.

A vast majority of the respondents (72%) identified the education system as a cause of the growing racism, claiming schools insufficiently acted to ameliorate the situation and stop prejudice. . . . [1]

But racism, as an unopposed and dominant social ideology of Israel, is easy to gauge if one considers the present sentiments of the descendents of invading Jewish colonizers of Palestine. For instance, commenting on the annual report on racism in Israel, issued by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Zino, on the pages of ynetnews, gives a sober assessment of racism in Israel and point the fingers to official apparatuses of the state of Israel and institutions.

The report becomes even grimmer, citing the ACRI's racism poll, taken in March of 2007, in which 50% of Israelis taking part said they would not live in the same building as Arabs, will not befriend, or let their children befriend Arabs and would not let Arabs into their homes.

Fifty percent of those polled also said they believed Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to emigrate.

Racism in Israel is on the rise, said the report: in 2006 there was a 26% increase in racist incidents towards Arabs and the general sense of hatred towards them has doubled.

The media, said the ACRI, played a major part in fanning the flame, intensifying the Arab image as negative and terrorizing.

The Knesset was not absent from the report as well, as it allows bills which delegitimize Israel's Arabs citizens before the plenum, preconditions social rights in IDF or national service and make its Arab MKs swear allegiance to a Jewish State. [italics added]

The report devotes a special section to the recently approves JNF bill, which allows Jewish National Fund land � which make up 13% of all State owned land � to be allocated to Jews only.

According to the report, Israeli Arabs are subject to constant racial proofing, which defines them as a security threat; resulting in demeaning and degrading treatment at airports and public venues.

Furthermore, in the Second Lebanon War, some 40% of the citizens killed were Israeli-Arabs, mostly due to a severe lack of shelters, but still � the rehabilitation and fortification of Arab towns remains, according to the report, ridiculously low. [2]

Remark: Despite Zino�s earnestness in exposing Zionist racism, we firmly believe that such an earnestness coming out of a Zionist is futile and even deceptive because Israeli Zionist racism goes beyond nominal values; hence, it has permeated and fused with the essence of the Zionist structures that constitute Israel. Further, it is contradiction in context that Zionists criticize the system they belong to, while continuing to be a part of it. This opens the door for a rhetorical question: with his exposure of Zionist racism, does Zino think there is a space for �reformed Zionism,� and if so, how?

Beyond that, it is no exaggeration to postulate that excising the Zionist ideological malignancy out of Israeli society requires generational commitment and enormous battles against ignorance and psychological dependency on racism, abandonment of mythological motives supporting racism, and most importantly the decoupling of Israel from the western imperialist project. Could that happen?

We do not know. But with quasi conviction, and considering the fraudulent ideological foundations of Israel, this is not going to happen; the lure of profits, hegemonic dominance, lust for territorial expansion, and entrenched superiority complex coupled with violent racism make such a proposition senseless.

We can enforce this by stating that 1) considering the alliance between Zionism and US imperialism, and 2) considering role of the United States in reviving militant colonialism and the subscription of colonial powers (Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, etc.) to the American-Israeli world agenda, predicting any change in the dangerous Israeli mentality is futile. Consequently, and from an evolutionary historical point of view, only future, revolutionary forces of history could resolve, to a certain extent, that existential struggle between imperialist slavery and freedom. None can escape this logic.

Next: Part 6 of 12

NOTES

[1] �Racism on the rise in the Jewish state,� Israeli Insider. Available at martinfrost.ws

[2] Aviram Zino, �Racism in Israel on the rise,� ynetnews, 8 December 2007.