Galilee communities: We're not racist, we just don't want Arabs

[Shaktimaan]

Residents of the Misgav bloc of communities in the Galilee consider themselves to be liberal, peace-loving people who support coexistence with their Arab neighbors and even root for Bnei Sakhnin, the soccer club based in a nearby Arab town considered a prominent symbol of that community. Which is why they were shocked this week when proposals raised at local council meetings to accept only applicants who shared their Zionist principles drew negative headlines and criticism for alleged racism.

"The label upsets me," South Africa-born lawyer Michael Zetler, who founded the Misgav community of Manof in 1980 with other immigrants from what was then an apartheid state, said Thursday. "It hurt me. I am not a racist."

Although few people will say so, the panic that spurred the submission of the controversial proposals are related to the High Court of Justice's ruling two years ago that upheld the right of Ahmed and Fahina Zubeidat, an Israeli Arab couple, to buy a house in the exclusively Jewish community of Rakefet notwithstanding the local admissions committee's objection.
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Since then, some residents of Jewish communal settlements in the Galilee fear that the region's substantial Arab population might seek to buy property in their communities, where the standard of living is far higher, causing Jews to move out. In some areas of the Galilee this has already taken place: Portions of the once-exclusively Jewish town of Upper Nazareth are now populated by newcomers from the nearby Arab city of Nazareth.

"I agree that there is a problem, but whether this is the right way to deal with it, I am not sure," Zetler said yesterday. "Experience will tell. But there is a problem in the Galilee and people are challenging the political right of communities."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090527.html

[lapfog_1]

1. Lots of people in the more segregated parts of the US

felt exactly the same way...

[LeftishBrit]

2. Same excuse the world over...

"We're not racist; we just don't want Arabs/Jews/Blacks/Asians/ you name it.."

No one likes to *admit* they're racist!

[shaayecanaan]

3. A fairly logical outcome of not allowing any new Arab towns...

the first new Arab village in sixty years was approved last year - too late. All throughout the northern district, teeming Arab villages are overflowing into previously Jewish enclaves.

The Jews thought the Arabs would never have the purchasing power to afford a house in the better suburbs. They wouldnt either, but for the fact that they are willing to live 12 people to a house.

The north is starting to exhibit white flight away from the north and south, and into the Tel Aviv area and also the settlements. Jerusalem is no good as there are more Arabs there than anywhere. Lieberman's idea of giving the Arabs the northern district in exchange for the settlements looks more plausible by the day.