No Arabic at McDonald's Israel

[PsychoDad]

Another reason to avoid Micky Dee's

No Arabic at McDonald's Israel
Discrimination against Israel's Palestinian citizens has been expanding to include a total ban of the use of Arabic language by workers, reports Jonathan Cook

A photograph of Abeer Zinaty shows the 20- year-old student from the mixed Arab and Jewish city of Ramle in central Israel wearing a T- shirt branded with the logo "Excellent Worker 2003 -- McDonald's Israel". Less than a year later she is unemployed, fired by the world's most famous fast food company. Her crime, according to the branch manager, is that she was caught speaking Arabic to another Arab employee.
...
Nominally, Arabic is an official language of the State of Israel, but it has been long-standing practice in many Israeli firms to ban its use among staff. It is the first time, however, that a company of McDonald's stature has implicitly acknowledged that speaking in Arabic provides grounds for dismissal. The decision to fire Zinaty for speaking Arabic was confirmed by McDonald's Ramle branch manager to Al- Ittihad, a local Arab daily newspaper, last month.
...

Most Arabs who do work are in low-paid casual jobs. "The Israeli economy is now nose- diving and the first casualties of that are always Arab citizens," said Badarne. "If a restaurant has to sack workers it will choose Arabs. Or if unemployed Jews are willing to accept low-paid jobs, then managers will sack long-standing Arab workers."

More here:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/680/re104.htm

[WheresWaldo]

1. this is ridiculous

blatant discriminatory practice. I've been boycotting McD's for years, now I have another reason to.

[burythehatchet]

2. The beacon of democracy in the Middle East

[rockymountaindem]

3. Ok, you go speak Hebrew in SA and see how far you get.

It's not the Israeli government's fault if McD's management want's to make an ass of itself. Arabic has always been an offical languge of Israel, and all street signs and government offices display both languages. It is more lingually integrated that Canada, that's for sure, except for New Brunswick, where some speak an interesting combination of French and English.

[PsychoDad]

4. Then there should be...

Laws in Israel that protect against this kind of discrrimination, right?

Are there?

[PsychoDad]

5. I guess not, eh? (n/t)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Wow, the silence in this thread is truly deafening.

I've been bugging a certain poster named after an astronomer for quite some time about this thread and I get nada. Zero. Zilch.

Maybe he just ran to the nearest McD to buy a couple dozen Happy Meals in support.

What about this? I AM A TERRORIST -- I EAT AT WENDY'S!

[Resistance]

6. but but but

I thought there was no racism in Israel and anyone who dared say so was making inflammatory statements and is anti-semitic ....

so much for that line of 'reasoning'

[mobuto]

7. Nothing worse than what happens in the US every day of the week

There have been literally dozens of cases like this before the EEOC where employees were fired for speaking Spanish to one another on the job.

[Resistance]

8. So what

It doesn't make it right

[PsychoDad]

10. Yes, but our government

Has laws in place to protect minorities from such discrimination, and workers can appeal to the EEOC.

I take it from a lack of response to my honest question, that Israel has no such safeguards.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. Just making a quick visit to this forum.

I notice the vast majority of threads here have many comments by someone named after an astronomer. I don't see any in THIS thread, though. Odd.

[Jim Sagle]

12. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

:boring: