<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Democratic for Jews, Jewish for everyone&nbsp;else]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p class="byline"><abbr class="published" title="Tuesday, January 18th, 2011, 9:37 am">Tuesday, January 18 2011<span class="author vcard">|<span class="url fn n">Joseph Dana</span></span></abbr></p>
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<div id="attachment_8879" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width:500px;"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-8879" src="https://i2.wp.com/972mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/5357685175_b8f7b26320.jpg" alt="Can this flag stand for all its citizens or only the Jewish ones? Photo: Yossi Gurvitz" width="500" height="360" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Can this flag stand for all its citizens or only the Jewish ones? Photo: Yossi Gurvitz</p>
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<p>Despite the  hysteria of the past week, Israeli democracy is in  perfect health. Well, for the Jewish citizens of the country anyway.   Avigdor Lieberman’s push to investigate leftist NGO’s is a political  trick which lacks significant power to change the situation on the  ground. Lieberman’s trick was designed to cast the Israeli  left as  reactionary and quick to cry wolf. It largely achieved its goals. The  incredible mobilization to ’save Israeli democracy’ reinforces the  notion that democracy for Jews is in perfect health. The left was  attacked, people took to the streets and the system worked. If  Lieberman’s desire to investigate leftist NGO’s reaches the next level  in the parliament, concerned Jewish citizens will surly take the proper  recourse under Israeli law.</p>
<p>Democracy for non-Jews in Israel is another story all together.  Palestinian, Bedouin and Druze citizens face institutionalized  discrimination in all sectors of life from education to building  permits. This everyday denial of rights does not spark nearly the same  reaction in the general public. In fact , it is seldom discussed on the  nightly news and hardly ever do twenty thousand people to march through  Tel Aviv in support of minority rights. It is only <a href="http://972mag.com/why-the-protest-was-not-as-uplifting-as-it-seems/">when Jews are threatened</a> does the population respond with calls that Israeli democracy is under attack.</p>
<p>Hours after the democracy march in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, Israel began destroying the Bedouin village of <a href="http://972mag.com/police-fire-sponge-bullets-at-israeli-citizens-in-al-araqib/">al-Arakib for the 9th time</a>.  The village is home to Israeli citizens many of whom have served in the  army. The citizens are Bedouins and their village, which has been in  the same place for the last eighty years, <a href="http://972mag.com/the-struggle-for-democracy-in-words-and-action/">was targeted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF)</a> for destruction in order to make way for a forest. Through the  selective enforcement of law and the denial of justice to the villagers,  Israel has given itself the necessary permits to destroy the village  time after time. In other words, had the residents of al-Arakib been  Jewish citizens of Israel, the village would not have been destroyed.</p>
<p>It is reckless to judge the health of Israeli democracy by analyzing  the democratic rights of the Jewish  population. A democracy should be  judged by how it treats its minority. Far from the parliamentary  investigation committee which causes twenty thousand to march, the  events that took place in al-Arakib represent a real threat to Israeli  democracy.  With the collapse of Labor party and the current aggressive  right wing government, the Israeli left should transform its feelings of  perceived persecution and begin to fight against the real persecution  of Israel’s minorities. Can we imagine, twenty thousand people marching  in Tel Aviv tonight in favor of the democratic rights of the people in  al-Arakib? Sadly, the answer is no and their is the problem of Israeli  understandings of democracy in the Jewish state.</p>
<p>MK Ahmed Tibi once told me that Israel is ‘democratic to Jews and  Jewish to everyone else.” In order to save Israeli democracy this  statement must become irrelevant. The Israeli left <a class="external" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4015139,00.html" target="_blank">has an opportunity</a> to one up Lieberman’s political tricks and focus on the democratic  rights of the non-Jewish minority in Israel. If this happens an honest  discussion of the health of Israeli democracy will begin. Perhaps then  the foundations of Israel’s democracy will begin a process of repair and  Israel will then really become the Middle East’s only democracy.</p>
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<p><a href="http://972mag.com/democratic-for-jews-jewish-for-everyone-else/">Democratic for Jews, Jewish for everyone else</a>.</p>
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