Now Sharon Plans to Move Arab Towns Out of Israel

[Herschel]

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering redrawing Israel’s border to place parts of Israel’s Arab population under Palestinian control in a final peace deal, a senior official said today.

The official stressed that any such move would have to be accepted by Israeli Arabs and come only as part of a final treaty with the Palestinians.

However, the idea threatened to arouse the deepest fears of Israel’s Arab minority and drew immediate criticism from an Israeli Arab leader.

Roughly 20% of Israel’s 6.6 million citizens are Arabs. Unlike their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in 1967, Israelis Arabs have the right to vote, receive Israeli social services and can work inside Israel.

Relations with the Jewish majority, however, are often tense. Israeli Arabs have higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than Jews, and complain of frequent discrimination. In October 2000, Israeli police killed 13 Israeli Arabs during riots that followed the outbreak of Israel-Palestinian violence.

cut

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2485661

No doubt the same that wail about stolen Palestinian land will object to land being given by Israel. She must maintain her Jewish character.

[Les Claypool]

1. This is dispicable.

:-(

[Herschel]

3. It would appear

I was correct.

[Les Claypool]

4. It would appear that you are not.

Israel does not have to "maintain her Jewish Character."

[Lurking Dem]

6. Why not?

Every other place we have tried to live in the world as a minority population at every other time in history the majority has either tried to kill us or expel us. Why can't we have Israel as a haven?

[plurality]

12. Really, so when was the last pogrom in New York?

n/t

[GabysPoppy]

13. Does the name Yankel Rosenbaum ring a bell?

One doesn't need a "pogrom" as seen in Fiddler on the Roof to encounter hatred towards Jews.

[Forkboy]

16. New York is still safer

Hell,I'll welcome them here in Mass too.

[plurality]

22. no it doesn't.

And it's an unfortunate side effect to humanity, that there are always people looking for some reason to hate and do harm to fellow humans. These excuses range from one being Jewish, to black, gay, to Muslim, to whatever. However, this being the case, I don't think the answer to the problem is for each of these groups that are targets for scum go out and establish their own enclave away from everyone else. The answer to these problems is that we continue to integrate humanity and break down our differences and share our common humanity.

Tribalism is a relic of the past, it's time we moved forward.

[Blitz]

14. August 19, 1991 to August 21, 1991

Here you go:

http://www.jbuff.com/c012402.htm

and this, for a broader picture:

http://www.jlaw.com/Commentary/3dayriot.html

[plurality]

19. interesting, i had never heard of this before, is there any more info?

[GabysPoppy]

20. Start here

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Yankel+Rosenbaum&btnG=Google+Search

when you finish with these articles let me know and I will send some more your way

[plurality]

25. a sad story

Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that justice was lacking in this as in many other cases in this country. I saw that the killers were eventually convicted in federal court, but then it was appealled and a new trial was ordered, has anything new happened?

While this tragic story is new to me, I still believe that the US, and many other nations in the world for that manner, are capable of providing a safe place for Jews to live in the manner they desire without necessitating a Jewish state. As you have shown, unfortunately there will always be individual instances where a tragedy will occur. However this incidents happen to any number of minority groups and are the result of weak and dangerous people. Unfortunately, to date, I've yet to find a place on this Earth that I could consider to be a safe haven from such folks. If you locate one, please let me know, I'd like to live there too :)

Granted this is little comfort for any who have experienced the horrors of such an assault and it is difficult to trust the world again, but trusting the world, and for that humanity is what we must do, other wise what's the point?

I hope I've been able to convey my feelings in manner to where you can see where I'm coming from on this. I know I can be somewhat caustic when it comes to these issues as my emotions can often get the best of me. I hope they haven't left too bad an impression. Most importantly I hope that by discussing this that at some people can be reached and that an understanding can be reached that could eventually have some effect. And for the life of me I can't see how separating and walling ourselves off will ever lead to a solution of our problems.

Well, enough rambling.

[GabysPoppy]

26. Keep on reading

you have just read the tip of the story. Another gentleman (Italian) wearing a dark coat was also attacked behind the shouts of "Get the Jew". His attackers thought he was Jewish.

Keep on reading - this is more than about Nelson Lemrick.

[plurality]

28. I have, but I've yet see something about an Italian fellow.

Here's one that caught my eye though.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0203/kamber.php

skip a few paragraphs

To those who remember, the amnesia is shocking. It is hard to describe the climate of racial animosity in New York in 1991; people spoke of little else. The previous several years had yielded a crop of death for Black New Yorkers. Eleanor Bumpurs was killed by the NYPD; Yusef Hawkins and Michael Stewart by white mobs. The city was still reeling from the Tawana Brawley media circus, in which Al Sharpton represented a Black teenager from Wappingers Falls who claimed she was kidnapped and raped by a group of white men.

And then there were the tensions particular to Black/Jewish relations in Crown Heights, a neighborhood of 134,000 that a 1984 Carnegie Corporation of New York report described as "awash in a sea of ethnocentrism, prejudice, and violent conflict." There were the Jewish Defense League patrols accused of randomly harassing Black residents, the struggles over housing, the fight for control of federal poverty grants, and an epidemic of street crime.

The powder keg exploded outside of 1681 President Street, a sooty redbrick building set back from the street. It was here, on the evening of August 19, 1991, that a station wagon ran a red light, caroming off another car and onto the sidewalk where seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants, was fixing the chain on his bicycle. Cato was dragged under the car; his cousin Angela pinned against a window grate. The station wagon was part of Lubavitcher leader Rebbe Menachem Schneerson's motorcade. As a large crowd gathered, the uninjured driver, Yosef Lifsh, was whisked away by the Hatzolah, a Jewish ambulance service, while Gavin Cato lay trapped under the car. Later, it would be revealed that a police officer, worried for the driver's safety, had ordered Lisef's removal. None of this mattered on the warm August evening. Word quickly spread through the crowd that the Jew was being treated while the Black boy was left to die.

While it is tragic that Rosenbaum was murdered, I don't see it as a result of typical anti-Semitic sentiment. Yes his killing was racially motivated, but it seems like it was more a result of a community reaching a breaking point and deciding to lash out violently at anyone. I would compare it more to the Reginald Denney beating where the black community had been fed up with the indignities and lashed out at anyone they could equate with the group they thought was attacking them. Neither Regenald Denney or Yankel Rosenbaum had done anything to deserve what happened to them, but rioting is generally not the most rational of human activities. I think it would be a mistake to extrapolate from either of these events that white people or Jews are inheirantly unsafe in the United States.

[Forkboy]

15. If you really cared about your safety or your families safety

you'd have to mad to want to live in Israel.Some haven!

[Blitz]

17. There is no haven for Jews

They must create one. That is what is being done in Israel.

[Forkboy]

18. There's no haven for anyone

but there are places that are safer than others.

[Les Claypool]

29. Many other people have been persecuted.

Maybe not to the degree that Jews have, however, we are "supposed" to be living in times where there are to be no more problems like that. Of course, it's ironic now that the Palestinians must suffer just so Israel can be a "Jewish" state.

That's totally unprogressive.

[Jim Sagle]

8. She may not HAVE to, but she WILL. Sorry 'bout that.

[Gimel]

5. Are you going to call it

T R A N S F E R ?

[Jim Sagle]

7. What is despicable about giving away land?

[beanball]

21. The Land

how can you give something you don't own.?

[Jim Sagle]

45. Yes they do.

[Les Claypool]

34. Land that isn't theirs?

Plenty.

[Gimel]

2. Sounds like

a reasonable trade-off. Innovative solutions like this might save the peace.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. I don't object to redrawing borders

However, it should be done by mutual agreement as the result of negotiations.

I agree that it is quite likely that bona fide negotiations would have made this or a similar provision.

Nevertheless, by acting unilaterally, Sharon is failing to get once and for all that signature on a document by an authoritative Palestinian leader that says "We recognize the state of Israel and we recognize her borders with Palestine as represented on the attached map." This will improve Israel's security situation for a few years, but it will not bring genuine peace.

[GabysPoppy]

10. Mr. Rabbit

"The official stressed that any such move would have to be accepted by Israeli Arabs and come only as part of a final treaty with the Palestinians."

Does not this sentence satisfy you with regard to negotiations?

I also wonder who fits your description of an "authoritative Palestinian leader" when the stated policy of Hamas is to drive Israel into the sea? You and I well know this is not a board game where theory rules. We have to look at reality and if Israel's security position enhances that might be the only hope for the development of your "authoritative" leader. With less violence comes less retaliation and a better atmosphere for better things to develop.

[Les Claypool]

35. Hamas proposed a ten year truce.

Hamas is not "driving Israel into the sea." Israel is a powerful nation. It just isn't going to happen. However, the objective of the Likud and their more rightwing coalition partners in government make no bones about driving the Palestinians to the east side of the Jordan.

Talk about a double standard.

[Darranar]

37. After which they would continue their slaughter of innocent Israelis...

not a very nice form of peace...

[Les Claypool]

39. How do you get that?

If they propose a truce then there is no violence. Seems rather simple.

As long as Israel doesn't continue its policy of provocation, of course.

:eyes:

[Darranar]

40. After the truce.

[Les Claypool]

41. Are you predicting the future?

[Darranar]

42. No, I'm giving you their stated plans...

after the truce is over, they intend to continue waging their holy war on the Jews.

Read their charter.

[Les Claypool]

43. In ten years alot can be accomplished.

Negotiations could genuinely take place during a cease fire.

So again, can you predict the future?

[Darranar]

44. One way or another...

Hamas, in its present form, must be destroyed if there is to be any hope for peace, ten year truce or no.

That is my only point.

[Gimel]

11. The unilateral actions

do not include redrawing the boundaries and exchanging population areas. That is something Sharon proposes to bring up in negotiations:

"It’s not a plan for now," the official stressed. "It will only be on the agenda when there is an agreement between the two sides. If we come to an agreement with the Palestinians, then it will be raised."

The main objections to the idea are coming from Israel's Arab population who would rather not be traded in such a manner.

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab MP, said he opposes the idea. "We are talking about a dangerous, anti-democratic suggestion, which will bring about a schism between the state and its Arab citizens," Tibi said.

He said residents of Israel’s Arab towns "are not pawns that Sharon can play with."

They certainly try to have the best of both worlds.

[Taeger]

24. No leadership...

Sharon is failing to get once and for all that signature on a document by an authoritative Palestinian leader

There is no authoritative Palestinian leader. There is only Arafat. Arafat makes damn sure it stays that way.

There is NO way for Palestine to pursue peace. The warriors will kill anyone who tries. So what is the sense in negotiating???

Israel is best served by unilaterally establishing a Palestinian state and then withdrawing behind their wall. No concession was enough for the Palestinians during negotiations. They will NEVER agree to respecting Israel's right to exist. Why bother?

[Les Claypool]

36. Hmmmm...

They will NEVER agree to respecting Israel's right to exist. Why bother?


The reverse seems more true than your statement. I mean really. Some still can't even call them "occupied territories." Let's not talk about respecting existence. The GOI has continuously failed in that regard.

[Taeger]

23. Sorry but ...

This move is absoluetly cunning. He is driving a wedge between Isreali Arabs and Palestinian Arabs. He is showing first hand that Israeli Arabs UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES want to be ruled by the PLO and Arafat.

I do believe that Sharon is trying to prove a point.

[David__77]

27. And Israeli Jews expect loyalty from Israeli Arabs?

How can one expect a minority that is treated like a plague to pledge fealty to the State of Israel? It makes no sense, other than the fact that this is racial politics aimed against a country's own citizens.

[drewb]

30. I hope this sets a sort of precedent...

I've often wanted to do something like this around my neighborhood...

Nahhhh.... just kidding...


:loveya:

[Jackie97]

31. That's disgusting.

Not only is Sharon wanting to ethinically cleanse the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but he wants to ethnically cleanse the Arab Israelis who we know for the most part DOES NO TERRORISM.

He's just evil. Even Zionists should agree that he needs to be stopped at this point.

[Forkboy]

32. Forget the Zionists

I'd settle for some here to agree that Sharon needs to be stopped.

[Les Claypool]

38. Yes, indeed, Sharon does need to be stopped.

There will be no peace with him as PM.

[Gimel]

46. A trade of territory

negotiated, is not ethnic cleansing. It is rather a stretch of the imagination to believe so.

[Aidoneus]

33. any elaboration on this from Maariv's original?

haven't found a mention in the English-language papers yet.

I imagine they'll want to dump off places where the Islamic Movement is strong, like Umm al-Fahm or Kafr Qasim (which are conventiently near the border).. I don't imagine the larger such areas like al-Nasira ("Nazareth") are considered.
Not sure where Sharon is going with this (unless he's making some point, or running on Fatah's ticket in the next election), as I don't imagine him to be so suddenly radical as to put an inch of '48-occupied Palestine onto the table.

[Gimel]

47. Other reports

The rules here on DU prevent starting threads on the same story from other news sources. It was top news on all the dailies in Israel yesterday. There are no details, as nothing has been proposed yet. Only the idea was put forward in an interview with Ha'aretz.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/390028.html

[Aidoneus]

48. no, the original was in Hebrew in Maariv

this Haaretz piece is about Sharon's Gaza plan, tho' it has one interesting line in addition:--
..."Not only settlements in Gaza, but also three problematic settlements in Samaria"...

[Gimel]

49. Sharon considers placing some Arab-Israelis under PA control

This is posted on JPost.com I'll give you some exerpts.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering a proposal to redraw Israel's border to exclude tens of thousands of its Arab citizens, turning them over to a Palestinian state in a peace accord, a top official said Tuesday.

Such a territory-and-population exchange has become part of mainstream debate in Israel since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000.

The violence has increased friction between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and has raised questions among Jews about the loyalty of the Arab minority, as Israeli Arab lawmakers consistently take the side of the Palestinians in public debates, and a small minority of Israeli-Arabs have been involved in terrorist activity.

The Maariv daily on Tuesday quoted Sharon as saying he is considering the idea of a swap. "It is a complicated problem. I don't have an answer on the matter yet, but I am certainly checking it," he said.

<snip>

A senior Israeli official said areas that might be swapped in a future deal would include those with high concentrations of Israeli Arabs near the boundary with the West Bank. The final border could put many of them in a Palestinian state, while other revisions would include Jewish West Bank settlements in Israel.
<continued>

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1075782425742

[Aidoneus]

50. "tens of thousands" is the only real addition that brings..

thanks, though..
that's more than just a couple villages on the border, it seems.