Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses | Hacker News Reader

Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

628 pointscroes668 comments

This article doesn’t really provide much in the way of explanation for why this law is being enacted. Here [0] is a better article that quotes supporters and objectors to the law.

It includes the (IMHO not very convincing) figures that "Between 1993 and 2003, around 130,000 Palestinians were given Israeli citizenship or residency through family unification, including children, according to court filings. The Shin Bet security service told the Knesset on Monday that between 2001 and 2021, about 48 were involved in terror activities.”

48 of 130,000 amounts to 0.037% being involved in terrorist activities which seems very low to be used as justification for a law around security.

[0]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-coalition-battle-knesset...

How is it that you and user adielsa paste this same reply here multiple times?

Other user is an almost empty account that doesn't seem like an alt-account, they probably copy and pasted it.

I suspect they copied and pasted my original comment for some reason.

From your source: "Israeli politicians say the law is both an essential security measure to prevent Palestinian terror attacks and a means of preserving a Jewish majority in Israel."

Maybe it's more of an immigration policy than a security policy?

It's a policy of apartheid, which is motivated by both immigration and security.

Fortunately, as we have learned over the past few weeks, sanctions are an effective means of pushback against archaic 20-th century statesmanship.

Unfortunately, geopolitics all but guarantee this will never happen so long as Israel is a strong western ally

Does it have to be? Does it operate a gas pipeline that heats Germany, or something? Is it an irreplaceable source of titanium? A major wheat exporter? Is the West planning to use it as a launchpad for a war of aggression in the region?

> Is the West planning to use it as a launchpad for a war of aggression in the region?

Pretty sure this was the reason. It’s a tactical piece that they want to keep control over. Everyone else in the region hates them (and rightfully so).

Considering Israel does not, and never has allowed American forces to be stationed inside Israel, this seems pretty unlikely.

You do know you don't have to have your own troops in a specific area for it to be a tactical asset, right?

They will do what we want when it matters. Even better that their people die in our service than ours.

I'm not sure quite what you mean by "rightfully hates them" but it sounds pretty scary to me.

they mean the west has systematically overthrown governments, strip-mined the natural resources, drawn arbitrary country borders, funded extremist groups, bombed civilian populations, gone to war because the extremists they originally backed got too strong, etc etc in the Middle East for generations

then if all else fails, they do sanctions, which of course NEVER affect the ruling class, they merely provide the rulers a tool to point more hatred at the west - you think it's the ruling class that can't get diabetes medication due to sanctions? No of course not, it's the average person.

In the comment to which I replied, "them" refers to Jewish Israelis ("Everyone else in the region hates them"). Jewish Israelis are Middle Eastern, not part of the West.

My "them" was actually a reference to the west. Jewish Israelis is a fair argument too. Both are true.

It will not happen as long as there exists a strong pro-Israel lobby in the US.

Israel passed on confidential US military technology to China and abstained in the Security Council resolution against Russia. That's not the behaviour of a strong ally.

Israel did not abstain, they voted for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assem...

Im also interested in what you construe as evidence that Israel passed US confidential anything to China.

's/so long as Israel is a strong western ally/so long as being "insufficiently pro-Israel" makes it difficult to gain or retain elective office in most Western democracies/g'

> as we have learned over the past few weeks, sanctions are an effective means of pushback

Not really. The war in Ukraine is intensifying. Russia sees the sanctions regime as an act of war. I'm not sure what the off ramp would be, and I generally support the sanctions. But I don't think your conclusions are sound. Pushback? Yes. Effective? Not so far.

As someone born and raised in South Africa that lived there until the end of 2019 I really wish people would stop comparing Israel to the old government in ZA.

The Israeli government definitely does a ton of problematic stuff that is objectively awful but it's just not quite the same as what the old government in my country used to do.

I am sure I will get downvoted for this, but the situation with Israel/Palestine is not quite the same as what existed in South Africa for a significant chunk of the 20th century. That doesn't mean it's a nice situation but really, I just would prefer it if people would stop trying to weld one shitty piece of history to another one to try and create this weird equivalency between the two.

Is there a better analogy to compare the situation to? Language is about communicating ideas efficiently. Apartheid is a good word for what is happening, and our response should be the same as it was in South Africa.

My understanding is that, once you're a citizen of Israel, you have the same rights as other Israeli citizens, regardless of race or religion. Under apartheid, rights were infringed based on race.

I see the distinction here.

In South Africa you could be a citizen regardless of your race, but how you were treated depended on your race; citizens were not equal.

In Israel, they are trying to prevent people of a certain race from becoming citizens, but once you are a citizen, there are fewer 'official' racist policies even if a lot of the people you have to deal with are outwardly racist anyway. On paper, citizens are (largely) equal.

In other words, it doesn't meet the definition of apartheid.

You can make an analogy to apartheid. It's up to others to determine if the analogy fits the point you are making though.

There is an entire Wikipedia article going over this exact issue. It looks like people have been arguing about this analogy for awhile now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_ana...

> Under apartheid, rights were infringed based on race.

This is a good point. Israel totally doesn't deny entry, immigration, work visa status, citizenship, and even recognition as Jewish to black Jews:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Jews_in_Israel#Absor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Hebrew_Israelites_in_I...

Immigration is not generally regarded as a right, nor is recognition of membership by a particular religious structure.

And racism by itself doesn't appear to constitute apartheid.

You don’t have the same right to marry who you want thou (where the other person agrees to be explicit)

But is it really so different if we replace race with religion? Israel doesn't recognize people who join the religion- it's effectively based on birth just as much as race.

We have a government over a people that determines the rights of each person based on who their parents were. That's the core concept that I, for one, am opposed to.

>But is it really so different if we replace race with religion?

They aren't completely replacing race with religion, many Palestinians are black and my understanding is Israel is quite racist towards its black Jewish population as well. European Settler colonialism has historically been quite racist.

How many and what % of Palestinians are black? How many and what % of Israelis are black?

By black do you mean having darker skin tones?

If so, many Jewish Israelis are black - as are many Palestinians - and not just those that came to Israel from Ethiopia. Also, many Israelis are white (as in light skinned) as are many Palestinians.

The average Israeli is Mizrahi (of North African / Middle Eastern origin).

I'm not sure why you think any of this is relevant to the point being made, but since you seem to be actually ignorant of the matter: blackness is a racial identifier, not a matter of skin tone. Skin tone is certainly part of racialization, but regardless of how dark or light someone's skin is, they may or may not be racialized as black, and therefore may or may not be subject to anti-black racism.

Apartheid doesn't mean "Identical to South Africa". Apartheid is a crime against human rights defined as such:

Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights. Apartheid is a crime against humanity punishable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. ACADEMIC TOPICS. legal history.

How would you explain affirmative action on the basis of race today, in this context?

There are a couple of arguments that might be presented to explain how affirmative action is different to apartheid.

1) affirmative action does not remove any rights of those groups not targeted by affirmative action. It is possible to argue that by supporting one group, you are implicitly disadvantaging the out-group, but usually this distinction is important. E.g. having a "ladies night" at a bar is generally more acceptable than a "men pay double price" night.

2) affirmative action policies tend to target education and employment. The right to vote is typically is given higher priority when it comes to balancing different rights.

3) Affirmative action can be seen as targeting equal outcomes, not equal treatment[1]. My country offers free breast cancer screening to all women above a certain age. Men can certainly catch breast cancer, but it's far more dangerous to women, so a gender-blind outcome of "we want less people to die of breast cancer" has a gender-aware policy implementation. Most people wouldn't say that this policy is "medical apartheid" on the basis of gender. Similarly, you could say that affirmative action is about getting disparate groups to have equal outcomes in terms of whatever metric you care you measure (educational attainment, income, etc)

[1] not everyone agrees with this. Some people argue that preferential treatment should be given to groups that were historically persecuted (e.g. land confiscation), as remediation.

I feel this is a reaction to various PA policies. In PA, there is a law that selling land to Israelis is punished by death. In Gaza, Hamas declaration of principles states that the goal of Hamas is to destroy the state of Israel.

If you're referring to the Russia Ukraine conflict with note about sanctions I don't think we've seen indication that sanctions are an "effective means" of pushback considering the fact that the Russia continues to wage war against Ukraine.

Emigrating into your own country. That's a new one. Opinions here are laughable.

That's a disingenuous way of putting it.

The Palestinians who stayed in Israel during the Israeli war of independence became citizens. The ones who left, did not. They were also not part of Israel for almost 30 years, they were refugees of other countries, who then attacked Israel.

They have never been Israeli citizens, and were not even in Israel for many years before they became Israeli refugees.

(Whether they should have been granted citizenship when the lands were annexed as part of the war, or not, is a different question)

Honestly I'm really confused every time I try to understand Israel. Ordinary terms like citizenship, borders, immigration, and statehood are all in dispute. Then that makes it hard to define "democracy".

I tried reading about the history of Palestinian nationality on wikipedia, and I have as many questions as answers. Are they Jordanian, Egyptian, Palestinian, or Israeli? Are some Palestinians stateless?

What does "territory" really mean?

I'm no expert, but I can give you my perspective (Background: I'm Israeli, and consider myself fairly liberal politically).

> Honestly I'm really confused every time I try to understand Israel. Ordinary terms like citizenship, borders, immigration, and statehood are all in dispute

I'm not sure what you mean by in dispute here. Most of these are fairly well-defined when it comes to Israel. They're not even unique definitions - Sweden is the state of the Swedish ethnic group, Germany of Germans, Japan of the Japanese, etc. Israel in its conception is the land of the Jews.

There are complicating factors, which is that history you alluded to. While it certainly seems from the wiki article that the "historical Palestinian national identity" is something that is still argued about, I think the relevant part isn't so controversial.

Around the mid-19th century, the land that is now Israel (and was back then referred to as Palestine) had mostly Arab inhabitants, with a small Jewish population. Jews around the mid-19th century started a plan to go back to the lands they were removed from two thousand years prior - and many Jews started (legally) immigrating to Palestine and buying Palestinian lands. This caused there to be a fairly large Jewish population by the time 1948 came around.

Between 1900-1948, that land changed hands several times, eventually ending up under the rule of the UN, which made a plan to divide the land into a Jewish country and a Palestinian country. The Palestinians refused, and fled the land, as several Arab countries decided to attack Israel. Here there is some disagreement - were the Palestinians encouraged to flee by their leaders? Were they pushed out of Israel? Those are more disputed facts (I think for sure, some of both things happened.)

Israel won that war, effectively cementing most of modern day Israel, minus some (fairly large) territories. The Palestinians that stayed in Israel and didn't flee, became Israeli citizens. The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that did flee became refugees in other countries.

Then the Six Day war happened. (Israelis generally consider the war to be started by others, though this is certainly disputed.) During this war, Israel took a bunch of extra territories, and with it, the Palestinian refugees. However, Israel didn't officially annex the regions or give the refugees citizenship, rather, kept them (and still to some extent keeps them) as refugees.

I think that's the majority of the story, from a (definitionally) Israeli perspectiev.

.037% terrorism sounds high to me

That a 0.37% (or more) slice of some population that feels it's been oppressed and impoverished might engage in /(freedom fighter|terrorist)/ activities doesn't seem surprising to me.

That would mean 100,000 terrorists in the scale of the USA

Not sure what you mean by this. There's not a current, similar situation in the US where the average US citizen feels like they were recently displaced/oppressed/etc by occupiers. That's been the situation in the past with Native Americans, slave populations, the American revolution, etc. I suspect the numbers met that threshold then.

I don’t think this is a good faith answer. .037% of the USA pop is roughly 100,000 people.

It's not a good faith premise since the whole of the USA population isn't in a similar situation currently. If it were, then I would expect at least 100k, yes.

"being involved in terrorist activities" is pretty poorly defined. In the US at least that could amount to charitable giving that accidentally finds its way to the orphans of suicide bombers.

1. Are Israeli figures to be trusted? There are countless - literally countless - of examples of abuses and arbitrary detention from the state. Including detention for “terrorism”.

2. What qualifies as “terrorism” in their book? Does throwing a rock at the IDF qualify as terrorism?

3. Why is Israel providing citizenship in the first place? What brought them to such an authoritative position? Who are the people they are giving citizenship to, where are they coming from, what were they subjugated to, why are they seeking citizenship in this place? The answers to these questions lie somewhere between Israeli far-right governance, oppression, human rights abuse and land imprisonment of a population who were kicked out of their homes and left stateless, passportless, and immobile, unable to cross their borders and travel, left to take long treks through abusive barriers and routes just to make it 5 miles from one place to another. Whose water is shut off, food supplies are limited, and have no economic prosperity. So why are these people the way they are, and seeking citizenship in such a place?

> 48 of 130,000 amounts to 0.037% being involved in terrorist activities which seems very low to be used as justification for a law around security.

... and yet, we have laws that cut basic human rights because of the similar percentage of people dying from it.

We see more and more similar laws being passed in recent years, laws that are blatantly discriminatory. This may raise the indignation of many people, but in my opinion, Israel is shooting itself in the foot by passing these laws, because it reinforces the argument that it is an apartheid regime. Israel is slowly losing its support in the free democratic world where people believe in the inalienable universal rights of individuals and are less and less willing to turn a blind eye to such institutionalized racism.

Is Israel losing its support? Hasn't quantifiable monetary support towards Israel been growing for decades?

Just look at the list of US allies and the kind of laws they pass, think of Arabia Saudi, a good US ally that had been tormenting Yemen for years now. Is the US population clamoring to stop collaboration with this country? Of course not, most people wouldn't know the first thing about this.

I think sometimes we overestimate how much governments are willing to do just because people are not fine with it, assuming they actually have any understanding of what's going on.

And if you meant moral support by the citizens of other countries I'm not sure how much Israel cares about that.

> if you meant moral support by the citizens of other countries I'm not sure how much Israel cares about that.

They care a lot. That's why they try so hard to counter pro-Palestinian sentiment with full-time paid propagandists, threat campaigns, media campaigns, smear campaigns, political bribes, getting people fired, attacking students and groups that support Palestine, throwing shit-fits at growing BDS campaigns, etc, etc, etc...

Yes, the US population is similarly quiet on the SA front - that's neither accidental or natural. Even then, it's crumbling.

> Hasn't quantifiable monetary support towards Israel been growing for decades?

Globally speaking, the US govt haven't really been on the side of the 'good guys' for decades. Realizing that, it doesn't make all that much sense to use their funding of evil regimes as any sort of justification, or reflection of the will of the general populace.

Has Isreal ever had enough popular support to justify the massive amount of aid it is sent? It has governmental support, I don't think it needs the popular support

Yes from the 70's through the 90's it had huge popular support.

'Israel is slowly losing its support' is a bit of a retelling... even in light of recent public and viral pro-Palestine support, Israel continues to maintain favorability among elected officials and people in America- in fact, favorability toward Israel has only increased since 2019[0]. And policies favoring Israel is not isolated to a federal level; many U.S. states force educators to sign agreements to not criticize Israel.[1] Indeed, I see Americans turn a blind eye to the horrors faced by Palestinians regardless of how many public figures correctly refer to Israel's actions as running the world's largest open-air prison.

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/340331/americans-favor-israel-w...

[1] https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...

"25% of American Jews consider Israel to be an apartheid state" [0]

"Young evangelicals are increasingly turning away from Israel" [1]

[0] https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/a-quarter-of-u-s-jews-agree-...

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/a...

Both things may be true. Jews and Evangelicals have a different view of Israel than ordinary Americans, most of whom pay it little mind.

Jews and Evangelicals generally support Israel, albeit for different reasons. Some are, as you note, increasingly unsure of that support, especially as it extends the rule of a government that is widely seen (not just by Israel's enemies) as cruel. But older Evangelicals have a nearly fanatical support of Israel -- including those same policies.

And in general, Americans see Israel as an ally in a turbulent Middle East. Their support for it will depend largely on their perception of Middle Eastern politics and our need for their support.

Jews are a small minority in the US. Evangelicals are a large minority. So you can get countervailing trends that end up making both what you said and what the GP said true.

I think this law will only hurt the Israeli image abroad a little bit. The 3 recent human rights reports (calling Israel out for practicing apartheid) are much more damaging.

This is really about the (internationally recognized) right of return of the Palestinians. To paraphrase Bill Clinton's advisor James Carville in 1992: "It's demographics, stupid".

The 2003 law explicitly did not apply to residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank wanting to marry and live with their spouse inside Israel, making it, and the ongoing policy underpinning it, blatantly discriminatory.

The thing to realize about this new law is that while it makes no mention of religion, it doesn't need to in order to add to the fragmentation of the indigenous people of the area. Non-Jews in the West Bank cannot now gain citizenship in Israel, if that was an avenue they had before, nor can they return to their villages (granted, almost all these villages within Israel have been destroyed so there's nothing to return to) or gain compensation for their loss.

(For a film adaptation of the 1949 novel by S. Yizhar called Khirbet Khizeh, search for the youtube version produced by Israeli Television in 1970 (and immediately banned in 1978 when it was released.))

I'm not sure why this outrages people in the US. Since 2002, Israel has adopted a policy of prohibiting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from gaining status in Israel or East Jerusalem through marriage, thus preventing family unification.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law enshrined the policy in law between 2003 and its expiry in July 2021. The law barred thousands of Palestinians in Israel and East Jerusalem from living there with their Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s then interior minister stated the law was needed because “it was felt that [family unification] would be exploited to achieve a creeping right of return...”

This recent law just formalized and made permanent what was always there: the demographics is what's important here. When you look at Zionism as a colonial settler project, it's just part of "purity" laws and an essential part of apartheid.

> laws that are blatantly discriminatory.

It's Israel, who's surprised.

> Israel is slowly losing its support in the free democratic world where people believe in the inalienable universal rights of individuals and are less and less willing to turn a blind eye to such institutionalized racism.

If using tanks against children throwing rocks or white phosphorus bombs over civilians didn't do it I doubt anything will. I'd recommend you to get in touch with a Palestinian and ask them about their life. Israel has been committing war crimes every now and then for decades, they're smarter than the Russians though, they do it bit by bit.

Talking about discrimination, don't read about their border control interrogations, if you have an arab sounding name, talked to a person with an arab sounding name or visited cities with a large arab population during your stay be ready to spend 4 hours in a small room with a few unpleasant people asking you about every single minutes of your trip.

I think it is not so much as Israel has discrimination, but about the region. By comparison to PA or other Arab countries there is very little discrimination in Israel. If the whole region is set on a path for pluralism that would also solve the problem in Israel.

> I think it is not so much as Israel has discrimination

It's one of the most discriminatory non third world country, if not the most. You literally have citizen of the same country treated differently depending on their last name and/or their religion, and worst than that, they don't even have the same rights.

It's not some "soft" racism like in the US where, in theory, everyone is equal in term of rights and in front of the justice, in Israel you have laws that only applies to non jewish people, they're not even trying to pretend, it's institutionalized and a source of pride

Israel/Palestine is similar to what's going on in Ukraine right now in many aspects but everyone seems to ignore that. It's just further away, happening slower and is committed by an historic ally.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/isra...

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-n...

https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-palestinian-citizens-of-...

Israel always had laws favoring jews over non-jews. It would seem shocking but its been like that since day 1.

Even now with white blue-eyed christian Ukrainians flooding Israel, they are being left in the airport for days, and interrogated to see who had a Jewish great grandfather and who did not. If you did - thats a free ticket in. If not? Wait a few more days, we might take you in if you put up collateral cash (around $3,000 per refugee). No money? you're put on a plane back to Poland. Only because your great grandfather was not Jewish

Its easy to twist this state of mind as racist towards 1 population. But there are rules that are just as hard on any non-jew. If you've ever met a Jewish Israeli who married a non-jew, they will tell you how complicated even visiting their parents on vacation with kids has become

There are other western countries with very strict immigration policies. I think this applies to Switzerland and to Japan, for example.

No it doesn't apply to Switzerland where 32% of the population are foreigner…

Temporary workers.

No 90% of foreign population are holding either a B or C permit that allow them to stay as long as they want.

Use commas, grammar matters.

Isn't Israel a 'Middle Eastern' countr, and Japan 'Eastern'

Applies to most Western democracies, how's Denmark treating Syrian refugees?

Here's an interesting exercise:

1. Substitute "Israel's Knesset" for ANY other legislative body anywhere.

2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

3. See if you like how it feels: "[Legislative body] passes law barring spouses who are [like you] from becoming citizens."

This law doesn't restrict marriages, it restricts citizenship through marriages for Palestinians. I'm not defending that but I am clarifying it.

Thanks! You're right. I changed my comment. FYI, I was trying to hew as closely as possible to the OP's headline, which isn't inaccurate.

Interfaith marriage is illegal (people with money have interfaith marriages overseas), and if you have a child with a married partner of another faith the child will not have the father on the birth certificate.

“Ukraine passes law barring spouses who are from Russia from becoming citizens”

Seems fine to me.

A third of Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language. That really sounds fine to you?

The hypothetical doesn’t ban marrying Russian speakers or citizens. It doesn’t ban naturalisation based on marriage for a Russian speaker. It bans naturalisation based on marriage for Russian citizens. While at war that seems fine.

Thank you, this is my point. The Israeli right wing views the Palestinian state as an extension of Jordan and other Arab states surrounding Israel, and while they are not currently shooting at each other, they are most definitely not at peace with them.

After Black September (Palestinian-Jordan war in 1970) and the bombings in Amman, the Palestinian state is definitely not an extension of Jordan. Even if there is a number of Palestinians living in Jordan, they are not Jordanians. That makes that view quite wrong.

I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that this law needs to be viewed in the lens of national conflict rather than racism. The Israeli right wing does in fact consider the Palestinians in the West Bank Jordanian or generally “Arab” even though Jordan and the Palestinians themselves may not.

Also, in reference to Black September, the whole point of the Black September war was that the Palestinians considered themselves the rightful rulers of Jordan/Palestine rather than the British-installed Hashemite monarchy, and Israel has no contention to this, besides that the monarchy is not inclined to war with Israel. Still, “Palestinians living in Jordan” to them _are_ Jordanians, and Jordan is in fact the Palestinian state, which was the whole point of the British partition. The British making awful partition plans is not unique to the Levant, by the way.

Also, it’s important to note that I’m comparing the situation in Ukraine to that region in the late 60s, the height of Pan Arabism and the United Arab Republic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic

The Israeli right still largely views the context in this lens, as does the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs both a significant amount of terror groups in and around Israel, and Israeli Arab political parties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

> they are most definitely not at peace with them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Jordan_peace_tr...

"The signing ceremony took place at the southern border crossing of Arabah on 26 October 1994. Jordan was the second Arab country, after Egypt, to sign a peace accord with Israel"

My family is from Ukraine and I speak Russian as a first language, and do not know Ukrainian, and yes it seems fine to me. I’m not a huge fan of Ukrainian nationalists but I’m cognizant that Russia is trying to wipe Ukraine out and they are trying to assert their statehood.

>Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

I'm not so narcissistic as to believe that I have some inalienable right to citizenship in a foreign country. Particularly if my culture is incompatible with the host nation. I would much prefer that people reserve the right to choose their foreign neighbors. Consider it an extension of the paradox of tolerance.

What makes everyone so upset is that often the people who (very successfully) lobby for open borders also strongly support Israel when they do things like this. We don't like the hypocrisy.

This is the law in China (my spouse is Chinese and we looked into this)

I am fine with that. Actually most of my life I have lived by these restrictions. I am not saying this is ok, but we should stop pretending this is not everywhere. For example US immigration system. Based on your nationality there are restrictions. As non-US immigrant my wife could not work in the US based on our nationality.

Once you are a citizen of the US though, regardless of where your spouse is from, there is equal opportunity to become a citizen.

That is different than Israel since Jewish spouses can become citizens while non-Jewish spouses can’t, even if the person they are married to is an Israel citizen.

If you apply to Egypt or Jordan and “Jewish”, it also serves as an interesting exercise and helps highlight the reason Israelis (many of which were expelled from those places) may feel the need to preserve a Jewish state. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but context is important. It’s crazy how easily people talk about Israel as an apartheid state, as if all their neighbors are less heinous because it’s not safe for any Jews to live there.

Egypt likely doesn’t have such immigration restrictions because there are basically zero Jews there. Of course there were for centuries, but they were constantly persecuted, and even jailed and tortured in an effective final mass deportation. I’m sure that far more heinous laws and restrictions on Jews than being able to grant residency to your spouse remain on the books.

Sure I'll try

China bans non-Chinese people from becoming citizens

Doesn't feel all that bad to me, considering this is the way it already works and I had no interest in becoming a citizen there.

Israel is unique in it's history. There are only few people who have been through what Jews have, maybe none. There are very few countries who are as threatened as Israel is right now (maybe South Korea? it doesn't seem to be as bad there). It was Arafat who said the womb of the Palestinian woman is a weapon to destroy Israel btw.

> 2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

Well they're not just any other "nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective". They started their movement and created their identity for a specific reason. I kinda feel like we should look into the reason for their identity and factor that into how we look at this law.

First of all, this isn't a ban on Israeli-Palestinian marriage, this is a restriction on the ability to gain citizenship through those marriages. I don't agree with that, but I do think it's important to clarify.

Regarding comments I'm seeing here saying Israel is an apartheid state or that Israel is racist or that Israel the concept of a Jewish state is disgusting:

Israel is the size of New Jersey. It is the only state on earth there is a Jewish majority. There are many places on earth where there is a Christian majority, and there are many places on earth where there is a Muslim majority.

The Jewish people represent a tiny percent of the world's population in part because they have been expelled from their homes throughout history, and the majority of them were killed in the 1940s.

Why does it matter to have a Jewish state? Because it is a measure of defense against what has happened countless times throughout history.

The problem with a Jewish state in Israel:

Obviously, Israel, and especially Jerusalem, is a holy state for multiple groups. Those groups have a justifiable interest in living in Israel and enjoying the same rights as Israeli citizens. The issue is that if citizenship is freely given, Jews become the minority in Israel and it is no longer a Jewish state.

If you say "Good," to that, that is your opinion, and I will add that there are Jewish Israelis who agree with you. There is debate in Israel and abroad whether Israel should be a Jewish state of a state of the Jews. In the latter, there is more room for Palestinians--as it stands, this is not the policy of the current coalition.

Israel was not built by its founders to be a melting pot, it was built as a home for displaced Jewish people. It was not built to be a place of equality, and unfortunately, by its nature it cannot be one and continue to serve its purpose. If you think that purpose is racist, you are entitled to that opinion, but there are many who believe what Jews have faced throughout history justify a Jewish homeland, and it is very difficult to have a Jewish homeland, at least in Israel, without maintaining a Jewish majority.

"Israel was not built by its founders to be a melting pot, it was built as a home for displaced Jewish people. It was not built to be a place of equality, and unfortunately, by its nature it cannot be one and continue to serve its purpose. If you think that purpose is racist, you are entitled to that opinion, but there are many who believe what Jews have faced throughout history justify a Jewish homeland, and it is very difficult to have a Jewish homeland, at least in Israel, without maintaining a Jewish majority. "

So it was built to be an 'institutionally racially segregated' state?

I don't think it was built with the intention of subjugation, but I think it has been a consequence of its implementation and politics. I do think there is a version of a Jewish state that doesn't behave like this, but its current political consensus is not that state.

"I don't think it was built with the intention of subjugation,"

But was it built with the intention of segregation?

Yes. The premise of a state which is 'for' a specific group inherently employs segregation. I say subjugation because I think there is a version of that system that maintains a Jewish ruling majority without subjugating the minority.

Again, you can agree or disagree with a state that is built on segregation, but I ask that you include in your judgement the history and context of Israel's existence.

out of genuine curiosity, how would that system work? how can you prevent subjugating the Arab minority?

It's definitely a very difficult issue, and the answer is definitely better left to someone with more political experience than myself (having zero), and with more knowledge of the Israeli political structure, but to start with-

1. Israel should move its capital to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem should become a U.N. Mandate. No single group should have exclusive claim over what many groups consider their holiest place. 2. There remains a permanent group like the U.N. security council in the Knesset that represents the Jewish people and their interests in the state of Israel, so regardless of the makeup of the coalition government, the interest of a Jewish state/state of the Jews remain effective - this is the least undemocratic way there could be representation while maintaining representation 3. All occupied territories are either returned or annexed--if annexed, full citizenship and rights are given to those who live there

Those are just my thoughts. I'm sure greater minds would come up with greater opinions. I just firmly believe there is a way to co-exist.

If the conflict ended and the area accepted Israel in its current form, it wouldn't be that much different than being a minority in any other Western country.

More importantly it was built in Palestine. So they kicked out Palestinians from their own land, restricted them to small piece of land and now they are kicking them even from the stolen part of land after marrying the Israelis.

> So it was built to be an 'institutionally racially segregated' state?

Yes those damn racist Jews. If the West had a big problem with the concept it could have idk...not kill all the Jews? But that was too difficult a task the last few centuries. So here we are.

> Israel was not built by its founders to be a melting pot, it was built as a home for displaced Jewish people. It was not built to be a place of equality, and unfortunately, by its nature it cannot be one and continue to serve its purpose. If you think that purpose is racist, you are entitled to that opinion...

Not really, because according the IHRA espousing such a view is antisemitic[0].

[0] https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-defin...

I don't agree that there is anything fundamentally antisemitic about criticizing Israel or its policies. While I think some antisemitic people hold that viewpoint, there is plenty of valid criticism for the actions of the Israeli government and its military. Sometimes, saying criticism of Israel is antisemitic is just a way of shutting down someone who is giving criticism, though, conversely I will also say that it's unfair to claim any dissent to dissent is an accusation of antisemitism. I'm not accusing you of that, I did want to bring it into the discourse though, given your point.

I will include the quote you're citing here for the purpose of a TL;DR: Under a list of "Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life," included is "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

That's their definition, they do say at the top of the article it's a "Non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism," so anyone can draw their own. I personally don't think it's necessarily antisemitic to argue Israeli's policies are discriminatory/or racist, depending on how you are defining racism.

Thanks for your reasonable reply.

I get that Israel's military actions and discriminatory policies are motivated from a sense of insecurity. And I certainly agree that the stomach-churning horror of the holocaust is crucial historical context.

> they do say at the top of the article it's a "Non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism,"

Nevertheless, it has been broadly recognised by many organisations and political groups. The IHRA website lists[1] adoption by various governments including, for example, by executive order of the US President[2].

Despite the historical context, as a secularist and anti-racist I think that explicitly trying to maintain a "Jewish state" in opposition to local demographic trends probably is a racist endeavor. At the very least I think there's a reasonable argument to be made, and to people brand who think so as antisemites is pretty chilling.

But it doesn't sound like you disagree.

[1] https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-defin... [2] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/12/16/2019-27...

Obvious diversion from the core issue. Israel must either grant the occupied lands true sovereignty and have their ethnostate or end the occupation and grant them equal civilian rights. Either way they must end their occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank.

You start off saying that it's 'disgusting' to call Israel a racist state and then conclude by saying that it was always intended to be a 'Jewish state' and not a 'melting pot'. That's highly contradictory and defending a very racist policy, which is indeed, disgusting.

My comment was phrased poorly. I didn't mean to say it was disgusting to call Israel a racist state, I commented on people who are calling Israel's actions disgusting--I apologize if that wasn't a clear distinction in my comment--quotation marks would have made it clearer. I don't think it's disgusting to have an opinion on Israel's actions and policies.

I would argue that the core issue around this article is not the occupations of Gaza and the West Bank. For one, while Israel has tremendous control over the Gaza region, it is self governed and not occupied by Israel--that's semantics, but I do want to make the distinction between the level of autonomy Gaza has versus the level the West Bank has.

I agree with the two options you put forwards, and I personally prefer the latter. I think the only path to peace in Israel is to end the occupation, make peace with Gaza, move the capital to Tel Aviv, and establish Jerusalem as a U.N. Mandate. I don't think Israel has a valid claim to exclusive control over what many groups consider the holiest place on earth, but I also don't think other groups who consider it a holy place should have exclusive control over it either. Putting the U.N. in control of it is an imperfect solution, but better than what we have now for peace in the region. That's my two cents that no one asked for.

> Israel must either grant the occupied lands true sovereignty and have their ethnostate or end the occupation and grant them equal civilian rights

The last move in that direction - the retreat of Israel from Gaza, brought Hamas to power . Whether there's ever peace doesn't solely depend on Israel. Israel is actually not a very important piece of the puzzle imo, most Israelis know very well peace is in their best interest. There's just not many buyers on the other side.

You can try diverting from the core issue at hand, using semantic sleights of hand, but it’s becoming apparent that Israel is indeed an apartheid state.

By the laws it enacts and the oppression they enable, it is the definition of a racist state.

The world is beginning to see it too, though very slowly.

The existential crisis of Judaism is indeed a core issue, although I am of the opinion that it does not justify the tactics and laws present. That does make it an Apartheid state.

However, OP used no semantic sleights and the suggestion he did is concerning to discourse. He was describing its origins, and you its current conditions. If you reject the idea the Jewish people would like / need a homeland then just say that.

OP begins by saying:

“ Regarding comments I'm seeing here saying Israel is an apartheid state or that Israel is racist or that Israel the concept of a Jewish state is disgusting”

Then later on says:

“Israel was not built by its founders to be a melting pot, it was built as a home for displaced Jewish people. It was not built to be a place of equality, and unfortunately, by its nature it cannot be one and continue to serve its purpose”

How does that make sense? How is this logically coherent?

Well its no different to showing you a pack of cards (i.e Israel is not a place of equality by their own omission).

And then making the entire pack of cards disappear (calling Israel is racist).

Granted OP does it in a different order.

Dude should be on Penn and Teller hes a goddamn magician.

The phrasing of the disgusting line is unclear, I apologize. I'm not calling people claiming that disgusting, I'm commenting on people who are calling the concept of a Jewish state disgusting, as in, I'm commenting on people who are saying "the concept of a Jewish state is disgusting."

I would still love to meet Penn and Teller though.

I think in a conversation that's this divisive it's critical to be semantically very clear. I don't know that I'm using any sleights of hand, but if you want to agree to very specific definitions on the terms being discussed I always think that's useful.

Regarding the apartheid analogy:

I don't want to get into a semantic sleight of hand here, but the term apartheid comes from Dutch Afrikaans to describe their rule over South Africa. I genuinely don't believe the analogy of Dutch settlers colonizing Africa is comparable to displaced Jews establishing Israel. But again, you could consider my use of colonizing versus establishing a semantic sleight of hand. Depending on your definition of colonization, you could say Israel is a colonial state. I'm not saying that's what you're saying, but I don't agree with that definition.

If we're defining racism as unequal treatment of different groups based on race, then yes, Israel is a racist state because clearly, as is evident from this article, they are treating groups differently based on race (that is, if we're defining Judaism as a racial/ethnic designation rather than a religious one). I will not defend Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people, but I think it is worth defending the concept of Israel as a state that does not fundamentally need to be racist.

> I genuinely don't believe the analogy of Dutch settlers colonizing Africa is comparable to displaced Jews establishing Israel. But again, you could consider my use of colonizing versus establishing a semantic sleight of hand. Depending on your definition of colonization, you could say Israel is a colonial state.

What else is it but a sleight of hand? Like in your first comment, all of your words are chosen to sound like Israel was formed on un-ocuppied land, as if the Zionist movement found a piece of desert and established a Jewish state there, and now their envious neighbors are seeking to colonize and attack them. In fact, they came and settled an area of immense religious significance to half the world's population that had been inhabited by hundreds of thousands or millions of Arabs for hundreds of years.

And they came with the explicit intention of not only living there, but being the majority population there: an act that explicitly required an ethnic cleansing (or genocide) of Palestine by its very definition.

Stop, just stop this nonsense! you know you are using strawman arguments to justify oppresion based on ethnicity, religion or whatever else in the 21st century for crying out loud. How is this supposed to be a well behaved representation of "democracy"? it clearly is not!

Yes I do find the concept of a Jewish state disgusting. It leads to a theocracy.

"The issue is that if citizenship is freely given, Jews become the minority in Israel and it is no longer a Jewish state"

This can be easily resolved if Israel would define what it's borders are. But Israel does not in fact want to be a normal country it is run by religious extremists.

That's where the argument over whether Israel should be a Jewish state or a state of the Jews comes from. Should Israel be a Jewish theocracy, or should it be a secular homeland for the Jewish people as an ethnic group? If you find theocracies disgusting, there are plenty of theocratic states you should also be pointing your disgust at.

The right wing element in Israel has definitely held power for a long time and their policies have led to the subjugation of minority groups (I am not defending this), though those are not the religious extremists, they are just nationalists.

> It leads to a theocracy

And yet it hasn't. It's a democracy. Has been since the founding.

> run by religious extremists

It's run by whomever people of Israel elect. The purpose of this country is to protect the Jews from various pogroms and genocides that keep occurring to them with a disturbing regularity.

All of your arguments are dancing around a very important fact: Israel was not founded on barren land, it was founded on a land where hundreds of thousands of Arabs had lived for many generations. It was founded by driving these Arabs out - initially with peaceful means, but very quickly through force of arms.

Not content with pushing most Arabs out of most of what used to be called Palestine, Israel then occupied the remaining lands where they fled and is trying to colonize more and more of that land, keeping it under their own control but refusing to even annex it.

If the Jews of the world had sought a sanctuary, a much more appropriate deal would have been to carve out a piece of defeated Germany to create a Jewish state, probably around a formerly Jewish-majority city. Instead of that, the search for a Jewish homeland was led by Jewish religious fundamentalists, that wanted to live in the land they believe God assigned to them. The vast majority of Jewish people were (and still are) much closer culturally to Europe than to the Arab world anyway, having been driven out of historic Israel some thousand years before that.

I will not mention the similar plight of the Roma people, who no one saw fit to give a country to after the Holocaust either.

>the search for a Jewish homeland was led by Jewish religious fundamentalists

Not initially. This myth of the Jewish homeland only took hold after the turn of the century.

The early Zionist movement was primarily ideological and not religious. In fact, the religious Jews dismissed Zionism as a form of secularization and modernization, while secular Jews feared that the new ideas would raise questions about the Jews’ loyalty to their own nation-states and would thus increase antisemitism[1].

When the Reformists first encountered Zionism, they rejected the idea of redefining Judaism as nationalism and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. However, their anti-Zionist stance shifted after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

After1904, the fixation on Palestine as the only territory in which Zionism could be implemented was reinforced by the growing power of Christian Zionism in Britain and in Europe. Evangelical archeologists who excavated “the Holy Land” welcomed the settlement of Jews as confirming their religious belief that the “Jewish return” would herald the unfolding of the divine promise for the end of time.

They felt, and still feel, that the return of the Jews was the precursor of the return of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. The Zionist project of colonizing Palestine was well served by this esoteric religious belief.

However, behind these religious visions lay classical anti-Semitic sentiments. For pushing Jewish communities in the direction of Palestine was not only a religious imperative; it also helped in the creation of a Europe without Jews.

It represented a double gain: getting rid of the Jews in Europe, and at the same time fulfilling the divine scheme in which the Second Coming was to be precipitated by the return of the Jews to Palestine (and their subsequent conversion to Christianity or their roasting in Hell should they refuse) [2].

[1] Ami Isserof, “Opposition of Reform Judaism to Zionism: A History,” August 12, 2005, at zionism-israel. com.

[2] Stephen Sizer, “The Road to Balfour: The History of Christian Zionism,” at balfourproject.org.

> If the Jews of the world had sought a sanctuary, a much more appropriate deal would have been to carve out a piece of defeated Germany to create a Jewish state

Of course this was never offered, and it would have been too late anyway - since 6 million Jews have already been slaughtered and since Jews where already very close to their own statehood in Palestine. Also - sounds pretty morbid to me to found the Jewish state near Berlin in 1947, I'm not sure all the Jewish refugees would have been super thrilled to go back to the old neighbors know what I mean?

> I will not mention the similar plight of the Roma people, who no one saw fit to give a country to after the Holocaust either

What are you arguing here. If Roma people want a country beacause they are persecuted they should get one. That's the right of self determination. I am assuming Roma people never pushed for this for whatever reason. Also, you start by saying you will not mention but then you do mention.

> Also - sounds pretty morbid to me to found the Jewish state near Berlin in 1947, I'm not sure all the Jewish refugees would have been super thrilled to go back to the old neighbors know what I mean?

And yet other victims of the holocaust did just that. The move to create a Jewish state in Palestine was primarily led by Jewish fundamentalists who wanted to return to their God-given promised land, it was not a necessity by any measure (as proved by other victims of the German Holocaust).

> The move to create a Jewish state in Palestine was primarily led by Jewish fundamentalists who wanted to return to their God-given promised land

Most founders of Zionism were secular/atheists. Theodor Hertzel, Jabotinsky, Weizmann. Most of them were definitely not fundamentalists of Judaism that's igonrance.

> it was not a necessity by any measure (as proved by other victims of the German Holocaust)

Nothing is a necessity. Jews could have indeed done nothing and not even try to escape the holocaust (most of them did just that in fact). I'm still not sure what point you're making. No nation is a necessity, life itself isn't a necessity.

Was this even an argument? it felt more like "We should have a Jewish state because we can and there nothing anyone can do about it, if you are not Jewish go fuck yourself. "

History has nothing to do what is happening today. You are just trying to drive the narrative anyway you can.

> History has nothing to do what is happening today

Sure OK, I can really see you gave this a lot of thought.

Agreed, the ideology that people claiming Israel is an aprtheid state is largely a North American and Western Europe trope which I remember definitely did not oppose Nazism, in fact, there were many Americans in the 30s who supported Nazi ideology and this is reflected in the way Native Americans, African Americans and Asian Americans were treated.

These people believe that Americans fought Nazism in a heroic battle from the get go and that was just not true. It was only when US interests were at stake that they joined the war, the same way Ukranians today are finding out the hard way.

From this flawed understanding of history and a recent rise in romanticizing of equity (truth is humans are simply not equal, we are all born differently with innate and different nurturing) from a young, highly educated demographic with unsatisfying careers, naturally latch on to these distorted views.

I am not Jewish but the logic here is sound. Jews need their own country so they can take control of their destiny. A small dense country that starts giving citizenship to a culture that is open to radicalization, extremism and preaches hatred and violence to their children is a huge national security risk.

I just don't get why people are so emotional here. This is a simple exercise of logic, Israel isn't going away, so its on the Palestinians to make peace and co-exist and better themselves. Because launching rockets into civilian areas by using your own people as shields to play the world PR game like what Ukraine is doing might get people in the West who lean towards a certain political spectrum to come out of the wood works but all it does is make peaceful co-existence impossible.

There was also a moment in history when Israel showed leniency and sympathetic to poverty amongst Palestinians but this was answered with terror attacks on it's citizens that still happen today. This is not fighting for independence or political identity, this is destroying innocent people to justify their own hatred. If the Palestinians truly wanted peace and political independence then they must NOT allow violent groups like Hamas and PLO to lead them. They must not teach their children to commit terrorist acts instead teach them the tools they need to better themselves economically. In fact doing it this way would win them way more legitimacy but they keep going the wrong way. What else can be done when they themselves are incapable of decoupling from hatred?

Also in history classes, it makes it seem like Jews weren't living in Israel at all and they suddenly came and took the land. Jews & Palestinians have lived largely at peace during the British mandated Palestine. Due to the Holocaust, it just made sense to let them decide their own nationhood because I don't think the Mandatory Palestine was even recognized as a state. It was just another case of good ole boys from Brit'eun drawing random lines and just leaving.

The simple fact of the matter is Jews cannot live in peace in many parts of Arab/Muslim countries but Arab & Muslims & Palestinians can in Israel, make living and better themselves.

I really don't understand the anger and vitrol from HN users on this issue, for a crowd that touts rationalism and logic, it really is sad to see these hateful comments allowing to exist.

Israel is not an apartheid state. South Africa was.

I fully expect to be downvoted and flagged for sharing this thought.

> I am not Jewish but the logic here is sound. Jews need their own country so they can take control of their destiny.

Why exactly? I'm genuinely curious.

>Israel is not an apartheid state. South Africa was.

We now have 3 major human rights organizations saying Israel is practicing apartheid against the Palestinians.

We also have former South Africans openly saying Israel's apartheid is actually worse than that practiced in South Aftrica. I would venture that these people would know:

"Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."

"Observers in South Africa are preparing to mark "Israeli Apartheid Week" on Monday. Tutu, meanwhile, has declared his support for the use of boycotts and economic sanctions as a means to compel Israel to alter its policies."

https://www.jpost.com/diplomacy-and-politics/desmond-tutu-is...

As for Nelson Mandela, he clearly supported the Palestinian cause:

"We identify with the PLO because just like ourselves they are fighting for the right of self-determination," he said.

"Arafat is a comrade in arms, and we treat him as such." 'Our freedom is incomplete'

In a 1997 speech on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Mandela reaffirmed his support for Palestinian rights.

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."

(Very interesting 1 hour 13 minute video interview Town Hall with ABC's Ted Koppel from 1990) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcQIEIRLU1Y

I believe that people get angry about it because the human rights abuses have gone on for so long without any noticeable change in Israeli policy. Some of this is related to the myth of equating Zionism with Judaism and as the location of Mandatory Palestine as the mythical homeland for the "ancient" Children of Israel.

After1904, the fixation on Palestine as the only territory in which Zionism could be implemented was reinforced by the growing power of Christian Zionism in Britain and in Europe. They believe, and still believe, that "Jewish return” would herald the "end of time" and the return of the Messiah.

[1] Stephen Sizer, “The Road to Balfour: The History of Christian Zionism,” at balfourproject.org.

This is the prevailing narrative in the West (especially in the US). The counter narrative, and this has been promoted by the New Historians (Israeli's in the 1990s) and Arab historians (since the 1950s), has been that the formation of the state of Israel was primarily a settler colonial enterprise: immigration started ramping up from 1910-40 and completed with the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians (from early 1948 to 1949) and the looting and destruction of their villages (both to prevent return and to erase any memory of the indigenous people (Arab Jews, Arab Christians and Arab Muslims) that inhabited Mandatory Palestine.

Not sure if that helps but it should give you a summary of the prevailing narratives.

The crux of my understanding is this. The Holocaust created the need for a Jewish as a final solution. It wouldn't have been possible without European's support and it's also obvious to me the geopolitical interest is what drove them—to establish a Western friendly state in the Middle East.

Mandatory Palestine simply was not a country or recognized as such. PLO, Hamas, these guys aren't fighting for independence in my view, they are out to destroy, out of hatred and self-pity.

I'm not going to side with a culture that teaches their kids to kill their enemies at an institution where academic learning should take place. I always side with a culture that teaches tolerance, peace and education.

If the Palestinians truly wanted political independence, then they chose the worst way to do it, through violence. The IRA gave this up when they realized they could achieve independence politically and economically. My hope is that the Palestine side realizes this and overthrows Hamas and PLO with a rational minded leader.

It's also not out of the ordinary to assume under the security threats that Israel faces not only from Palestine but also its neighbors, that their security apparatus is aimed at prioritizing the safety of its citizens and sovereignty which means a pro-longed war.

It is similar in some ways to South Korea's situation but worse in many ways—you have a densely populated small mass land connected on all sides to hostile conventional forces as well as asymmetric threats from within. then I ask is the Korean peninsula an apartheid state? It's very clear to me as an outsider to see which one is the aggressor and poorer.

South Africa is under a completely different premise—it's goal was colonialism and its aftermath was an ugly systematic racism. Israel was created for very different reasons, it was the systematic persecution based on theology and class envy based on stereotypes that formed out of long existing persecutions.

So no, to me, the Palestine-Israel situation is completely different from South Africa's policy which was aimed at keeping the Dutch descendants colonial wealth.

Is America an apartheid state? No but there are certain elements that remind us of it in parts of it. Having said that is there also part of Israel that is uncomfortable to North Americans and Western Europeans because we believe we live in an open society yet its ridiculous to me how we ignore our own problems and our own hypocrisy towards "outsiders".

My message to people who support Palestine is this—you have change nothing you make it worse because you embolden these violent terrorist groups that run it which in turn creates overwhelming response from the people that get attacked.

I will never understand people who get upset when a terrorist group launches rocket attacks on civilians and it is met with equal or greater force.

Many conflate the pro-longed war as apartheid state, well in that logic, Korean peninsula is an apartheid state for making North Koreans poor. They did it to themselves after decades of asymmetric warfare and conventional attacks on the South.

Terrorism and violence as a way to push political independence is counter-productive, it only removes credibility for your cause. If you support Palestine that means you also being okay with terror attacks or "freedom fighters".

Let me remind you a group calling themselves The Base also sought to launch terrorist attacks to liberate their skin tone, ironically calling themselves after terrorists that attacked their country. Are neo-nazi white supremacist groups in America living in an apartheid state? In their head they are, at least according to the FBI

> Israel was not built by its founders to be a melting pot, it was built as a home for displaced Jewish people.

By forcibly displacing 100,000s of other people.

It's certainly interesting how an oppressed people became the oppressor.

It happened time and time again in history. See Christianity in the Roman Empire, for example, or at least half a dozen revolutions. Or the Balkans.

Oppressed people are not better because they are oppressed. They are still human and perfectly able to persecute others depending on the context.

Indeed. It's just sad that's the way it is. As much as we humans like history, we never seem to learn its lessons.

To the contrary, humans have never been nicer to each other or lived more pleasant lives at any point before the present.

And that's precisely because we stopped pulling this sort of crap in more and more places. 300 years ago, the number of religions and ethnicities currently existing in US or Western Europe would have meant a constant state of civil war.

>300 years ago, the number of religions and ethnicities currently existing in US or Western Europe would have meant a constant state of civil war.

300 years ago the Ottoman Empire was in full swing and quite religiously and ethnically diverse (probably more so than modern Europe or America). Not to say everyone had equal rights or was nice to each other, but historically a cornerstone for the success of many (not all) empires has been a significant degree of diversity and tolerance of both religions and ethnicity. It also wasn't new, Rome was also quite diverse and tolerant. (not always, not to everyone, but still quite so)

That's not true. Look at India - it has many times more ethnicities, and many Indian kingdoms used to have good relations even between Hindus and Muslims before modern times. Also, empires like the Ottoman empire had Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Jews and many other nationalities; and Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians and other religions living in relative harmony - certainly not in a constant state of civil war.

Ancient empires were even more diverse, with civil wars often arising more along economic lines than ethnic or religious ones.

And before monotheism took over... well polytheistic societies don't really have "a religion" that is separate from other polytheistic religions. There are lots of gods and people focus on different ones. The next town over seems to have similar gods, but some of the stories are a little different and one or two has a different name... or is that a different god altogether. That town really far away talks funny, every god has a different name and some of them have wildly different stories, but a lot of it is still recognizable...

In other words, religious tolerance with polytheistic societies looks a lot different than the "my god/prophet vs. yours" which is much more prominent with monotheistic religions.

That comment ignores a lot of nuance. It's not like all white people are Americans even if lots of white people live in the US.

Today most Israeli Jews are of Middle Eastern origin from countries like Syria, Morocco and Iraq.

They are not European Holocaust survivors or their direct descendants.

Isn't this the dream of every revolution? Sure, to gain power, but also you give it back to who they hate. Also, all the people using the phrase "reverse racism" are wondering the same.

It looks to me like the powerful oppress the powerless, but power fluctuates among groups/nations.

I mean, this specifically has nothing to do with the Israeli situation. Israel isn't trying to "give it back" to anyone, and even if it was, the Arabs/Palestinians or whomever, are not the group that Israelis hate. (If there is such a group that would've made sense after hte war, it would've been the Germans)

Relevant movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Finale

Relevant part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture

An oppressed people - the Jews, have become oppressors? This comment doesn't even attempt to draw the distinction between the government of Israel and the Jewish people. How would it feel if we said “The formerly oppressed Hispanic people have become the oppressors”, because one country in Central or South America has an oppressive government at some point?

There isn’t even recognition that the Israeli legislature might not be representative of most Jewish Israelis and instead be a consequence of political incumbents that are hard to unseat from power, like political dynasties in many countries.

Nor does it accept that even if this is the majority will of Jewish Israelis, there are plenty of Jews in Israel who disagree with the law (which is obviously true), and shouldn’t be lumped in as “oppressors”. The same way Trump and his followers actions shouldn’t impugn the moral character of all Americans.

No, this is a wholesale indiscriminate attack on Jewish people, global or Israeli. Purposefully vague and universal in it’s attack of an entire ethnic minority group There is no chance this comment isn’t xenophobic to it’s core.

What are you on about? Do you just randomly smash the keyboard?

he's mad (rightly so) because jews are being conflated with israel. but he should be mad against israel and influent jews around the world for pushing this skewed view of jewishness

Replace the word "Israeli" with "Russian" and its the reality of western consensus.

To change the regime, do it by suffering the people?

Israel's government and it's supporters in the US and elsewhere ceaselessly push this equivalence between Judaism and Israel, with the clear intent to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.

It funny that he head of the Palestinian party in the Israel coalition disagrees with you...

In my opinion what is interesting is that the oppressed people have preserved democracy in the face of constant war and even provided full right to the partly that 5 times attacked them, current coalition consists of Arab parties.

From the article: « Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". »

Which is eerily similar to the arguments in favor of the 1935 "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour" (Nurenberg laws) in Germany, which forbade marriage between Germans and Jews.

The demographic difference between the two is staggering. If all Palestinians received right of return to Israel, Jews would immediately become a political minority.

The Germans had no equivalent statistical reasoning other than racism.

Think about the context before you compare people to Nazis

sounds like an argument for the two-state solution, then?

Israel can't have its cake and eat it too.

> If all Palestinians received right of return to Israel, Jews would immediately become a political minority.

Ok? If Russia wins their disgusting war in Ukraine, and then tries to prevent Ukrainian refugees from returning to the homes that they left, would you say that Russia is in the right, since otherwise Russians would become a minority in Ukraine?

The right is called "right of return" because these people lived there before Israel waged war on them and threw them out. Most (but certainly not all) of those waging the war were recent immigrants to Palestine, and they performed an ethnic cleansing to create their own space - extremely similar to the "living space" concept of Germany, though more necessary.

The parallels are in fact striking, not absurd.

Are you suggesting all Palestinians would somehow marry an Israeli citizen?

A lot of it is the same European culture. If the Nazis hadn't cared about Jews and only went after Roma, communists, and homosexuals, they would have been as likely to enthusiastically participate as any other German.

What? How about youself. Would you your self enthusiastic participate in genocide?

Most comments here are attacking the decision, or just quoting the decision, and following it up by a "wtf". Just being shocked is not an argument.

Jews are or have been persecuted in all middle eastern countries. What would happen if they were a minority in a democratic state in the Middle East? Why would it be different than in the other democracies in the Middle East?

Laws like these lower the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel. Do you think the probability of them becoming a minority is zero? And the probability of them being persecuted provided they become a minority is zero? Unless you think both probabilities are very low you must understand their concerns.

You may agree with their concerns or not, I don't, but this is what must be addressed when criticizing these laws. Saying this is apartheid means nothing because the situation is not analogous.

> Just being shocked is not an argument.

Most people don't feel the need to argue against openly legislated apartheid; we can just be shocked. If I see a car crash, I don't argue with it either.

Everybody understands that laws like this are essential for building up an ethnostate, but most people don't think that's a defense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm shocked as well, I just think that's not enough, you have to at least be able to justify why the two probabilities that I mentioned before are small, which in my opinion, is a hard thing to do.

I think most of us are so used to the principles of pluralism and minority rights, accepting it as an axiom, that it doesn't occur to argue that an ethnostate is desirable, necessary, and worth the cost to the displaced ethnicities.

Doesn't occur is maybe the wrong word, it occurs as an alien and dangerous idea, like gazing into the maw of a tiger. Does it not feel dangerous to you, to even start weighing the needs of one ethnicity against the needs of another?

> Does it not feel dangerous to you, to even start weighing the needs of one ethnicity against the needs of another?

It does, I think Israel and its neighbours are in a very dangerous position.

>I think most of us are so used to the principles of pluralism and minority rights, accepting it as an axiom, that it doesn't occur to argue that an ethnostate is desirable, necessary, and worth the cost to the displaced ethnicities.

The shock is not so much from a "shaken faith" in pluralism as it is from the hypocrisy and historical irony on display.

Advocates for Israel like to use other middle eastern states to excuse all sorts of behavior.

The problem is that they try to have their cake and eat it to with these comparisons.

“Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East!” -but the systematically control the non Jewish population.

Israel wants to display itself as the image of a society that has the same values as western states, while practicing the same things that are supposedly abhorrent by it’s neighbors.

So which is it? Is Israel a democratic state, or a Jewish nation state? Because it can’t be both.

Sure, but these are the arguments used to justify a Western nation not being able to exist in the Middle East because of having too inclusive values.

What I'm looking for is an argument of why the two probabilities that I mentioned are small enough so that persecution is not a concern. If persecution is a concern, why should Israel care about being inconsistent? Being inconsistent in how Israel displays itself would then be at the back of the line of their concerns.

Israel seems to care quite a bit about its image in the west, which is why every time news such as this comes out you see the same arguments trotted out over and over about how this is what’s necessary.

Is western oriented propaganda and it’s important that it is seen for what it is.

Now, as to your point about persecution. I do care about the safety and well-being of all involved in this. But your argument boils down to one of two things: either there is something inherent in middle eastern culture writ large that makes people utterly incapable of living peacefully together, or the Israelis have mistreated the Palestinians so much that they have opened themselves up to terrifying revenge.

Now for the latter case, that is simply no excuse for continuing said behavior. And as to the former, it simply is not true. The Middle East has been a melting pot for centuries and it hasn’t been remarkably more violent than other regions of the world is one takes a longer historical view (not to mention the significant conflict over oil resources with the west)

> there is something inherent in middle eastern culture writ large that makes people utterly incapable of living peacefully together

By any means this is the case, but in the current state of affairs, given the amount of hatred in the region, if Israel was a region of Palestine with no sovereignty, I don't think it would fare well for the Jews. How do I know this? This is publicly routinely announced by the Palestinian government, who, granted, are not the Palestinians, but you just need a minority for a persecution to happen. Of course peace and living along together is eventually possible.

There is no unified Palestinian government. I’m going to assume you are referring to hamas, who hasn’t faced election since the mid 2000s in Gaza (though to be fair they would probably win again today).

I’m not asserting there is any clean path forward, but at the same time the hypothetical you are offering wouldn’t happen overnight either.

The question is whether we are able to justify actions as they are now. Will Israel work towards reconciliation and restitution or will it continue with its current policy of colonialism and expulsion?

> There is no unified Palestinian government. I’m going to assume you are referring to hamas, who hasn’t faced election since the mid 2000s in Gaza (though to be fair they would probably win again today).

I'm referring to whoever de facto is the ultimate authority in the region, there may be several individuals/groups that have the authority.

> I’m not asserting there is any clean path forward, but at the same time the hypothetical you are offering wouldn’t happen overnight either.

Agreed.

> The question is whether we are able to justify actions as they are now

Agreed.

>The Middle East has been a melting pot for centuries

No it hasn't. It's been an explicitly Islamist supremacist (sometimes under Arab dynasties, sometimes Persian or Turkish ones, but certainly never Jewish ones) imperial dominion for centuries, and was until 1924. Do you not know what dhimmi status was?

I’m not sure why you’re using Dhimmi as if it’s a trump card in this argument. It explicitly granted legal protections for non Muslims.

Compared to its contemporaries under Christian rule in Europe, the Muslim world was quite progressive in that respect. You can observe the difference as it played out in Christian Spain after the reconquista.

Ok, so would you get in the time machine to go back and become a dhimmi? Why should we have liked on purely comparative grounds?

Because that’s the context of the conversation?

The reality of the situation is that 90% of Palestinians do not encounter any Jews or Israelis at all in their daily life. Gazans live under Hamas. And Arabs in West Bank mostly live under Palestinian authority in areas negotiated in Oslo in the 90s.

Really the only place they touch is Jerusalem.

> What would happen if they were a minority in a democratic state in the Middle East? Why would it be different than in the other democracies in the Middle East?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Parliament_religious_m...

Thank you for the link, why did the Jewish population go from at least 25,000 in 2000 to less than 9,000 today in Iran? Is it a common occurrence for a religious group to dwindle by half in two decades in a country?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews

> Jews are or have been persecuted in all middle eastern countries.

Jews have been prosecuted on many parts of the world and on different timelines of history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews

They have also found refugee in Muslim community from Christian prosecution multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...

> Laws like these lower the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel.

It doesn't. The children still remain Isreali citizens. Which means this is an inconvenience to the spouse and a quite racist law.

> And the probability of them being persecuted provided they become a minority is zero?

History shows that their prosecution, demographics, and geography are not that related. Jews got prosecuted because they held significant wealth in a certain societies. It's a power/wealth grab in certain cases; and finding an easy scapegoat in other cases.

> Jews have been prosecuted on many parts of the world and on different timelines of history > They have also found refugee in Muslim community from Christian prosecution multiple times

Nevertheless persecution seems more likely now in the Middle East than in in non middle eastern countries. In any case, the fact that they have been persecuted by everyone wouldn't be an argument against them being less worried, on the contrary, they should be terrified then.

> It doesn't. The children still remain Isreali citizens. Which means this is an inconvenience to the spouse and a quite racist law.

Note I find this abhorrent, but inconveniencing mothers or possible future mothers does lower the probability of Jews becoming a minority. And yes, inconveniencing here is an euphemism.

> History shows that their prosecution, demographics, and geography are not that related. Jews got prosecuted because they held significant wealth in a certain societies. It's a power/wealth grab in certain cases; and finding an easy scapegoat in other cases.

You're making the case that Jews shouldn't allow impoverished migrants into their land, again, I don't see why this should diminish their concerns.

>They have also found refugee in Muslim community from Christian prosecution multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...

Got some really lovely apologia for Islamic imperialism in that page:

>Jews under Islamic rule were given the status of dhimmi, along with certain other pre-Islamic religious groups.[1] Though second-class citizens,

Leaving what you consider Islamic imperialism aside, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how dhimmi status compared to how jews were treated in other parts of the world at that time.

Since dhimmi status extended into the 1800s, and even the 1900s in some areas, it compares pretty damn disfavorably to full emancipation and citizenship. Going back into earlier periods of history, I don't really care to tell you whether a Muslim boot or a Christian boot tastes better, since, being Jewish, I'd rather not have either one stamping on my face.

The situation is very much analogous to South African Apartheid. In both cases, an insecure population at the helm of an ethnostate sought to further deprive their state's already-disenfranchised co-residents of legal rights, in an effort to achieve security for themselves. White South Africans made the exact same arguments as Israelis, and in fact collaborated extensively with Israeli security services because they understood that the exact same groups opposed to South African Apartheid were the most potent opponents of Israeli apartheid. The Israelis remained staunch allies of the South Africans long after the rest of the world had decided to isolate them, because the Israelis understood implicitly that they were engaged in the same policies.

As to your question, I don't think a wise Israeli government would make every Palestinian a citizen tomorrow, but I think it is deeply unwise and immoral to further entrench the current policy of legal apartheid. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end in either ethnofascism and ethnic cleansing or some form of reconciliation, and this is a step towards ethnofascism.

There are also differences between Israel and a South African Apartheid. Israel is in a constant state of war and danger of losing its sovereignty. No such justification existed in South African Apartheid.

> but I think it is deeply unwise and immoral to further entrench the current policy of legal apartheid. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end in either ethnofascism and ethnic cleansing or some form of reconciliation, and this is a step towards ethnofascism.

I agree it's unwise. My point is that these policies should be gaged in terms of probabilities. I take you believe the probability of this ending in an ethnic cleansing instead of reconciliation has increased, I do as well. I also think the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel and being persecuted has decreased. Whether this was good/bad/worth it it's a different issue.

> Israel is in a constant state of war and danger of losing its sovereignty. No such justification existed in South African Apartheid.

That's not historically correct. Violence was absolutely a stated reason / pretense of South African apartheid, especially violence between different Black tribes. I'm not sure if that should be considered "war" or not, but it's as much war as what presently goes on between Israelis and Palestinians.

Serious question coming from a place of relative ignorance- are Jewish people today more persecuted in western democracies like the US than in Israel? There are certainly attacks, but I don't know how that compares to the sustained state of quasi-war that Israel exists in.

> Laws like these lower the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel. Do you think the probability of them becoming a minority is zero? And the probability of them being persecuted provided they become a minority is zero? Unless you think both probabilities are very low you must understand their concerns.

I think I understand their concerns but worry that this creates a new persecuted minority by race, ensuring Jewish security by persecuting native Arabic peoples. This is maybe an overly American lense, but "never again" to me means that we should have stringent minority protections above just "never again" for the Jewish people .

> Serious question coming from a place of relative ignorance- are Jewish people today more persecuted in western democracies like the US than in Israel? There are certainly attacks, but I don't know how that compares to the sustained state of quasi-war that Israel exists in.

Just by the numbers, Jews are better off in Israel, because baseline violent crime rates are actually lower in Israel. This is made starker by the next largest Jewish population being in the United States, which has an unusually high rate of baseline violent crime. It's actually a question of "do you want fewer but more horrifying terrorist attacks, or more and more normalized mass shootings?"

Fewer than 1 in 400 homicide victims in the US is killed in a mass shooting. Conflating the danger from baseline violent crime rate with that from mass shootings is silly.

And of course, the violence in the USA is extremely unevenly distributed, so the baseline number tells you very little about the actual danger to Jewish Americans.

I don't know the answer to the GP's question one way or another, but this line of reasoning doesn't answer it.

>Some Knesset members said it was intended to prevent a gradual right of return for Palestinian refugees who were driven from their homes or fled during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation

absolutely disgusting

Yep, talking about these times when arabs were with nazis, disgusting but interesting times to read about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany...

Who said that? Why are these "some Knesset members" not named? Is this an actual explanation provided by proponents of the law, or hyperbole said by the opponents (e.g. Arab parties)? Or bullshit invented by the jounalist?

Don't be disgusted by unsubstantiated claims.

I don't know the first thing about constitutional law in Israel but western basic sensibilities would be that this violates the principle of equality under the law.

This law has existed in different variations since 2002. This law is often challenged at Israel's Supreme Court, but the racist parties usually can get a majority vote in the Parliament to "tweak it" every time to get a few more months/years out of it before getting challenged again. Similarly to how several US states change abortion/voting/gun laws all the time, trying to see if they can beat SCOTUS.

This law, by the way, is unconstitutional* for more reasons than just the race-based discrimination. It defines different criteria for "permitted spouse" by gender, and has exceptions for specific religions (e.g. Druze).

*Israel doesn't really have a constitution, but there are certain "core laws" that the Supreme Court decided in the '90s that it can use as a basis to strike down other laws passed by the Parliament.

>This law has existed in different variations since 2002. This law is often challenged at Israel's Supreme Court, but the racist parties usually can get a majority vote in the Parliament to "tweak it" every time to get a few more months/years out of it before getting challenged again.

This is the same exact tactic used by the Anti-BDS proponents in the US. On the face of it the anti-BDS laws enacted in 35 states are blatantly unconstitutional.

There are two issues that have allowed them to stick around. First is the fact that it is much easier to pass a new law (however unconstitutional) than to repeal it and secondly as you alluded to, the tricks that are employed after the law is struck down is to tweak and alter the law to keep it on the books for a bit longer until the second version gets challenged.

For example in Abby Martin v. the State of Georgia the original law stated that for any contract up to 1,000$ there is an exemption to the law. While she won the ruling, the end result became that the law was amended to raise the certification exemption from $1,000 to $100,000. I am not sure if they are appealing the original ruling.

The book of Ruth in the Hebrew bible tells the story of ~5th century BCE Israeli refugees to neighbouring Moab. The story is repeated in the old testament in the Christian Bible. In Moab, the son marries Ruth, a local Moabite woman. Even though the son dies, when conditions in Israel improve, Ruth agrees to return to Israel with her mother-in-law. Another Moabite woman who marries another of the sons refuses the opportunity to leave Moab for Israel.

As the Book of Ruth makes clear, Ruth herself was a formidable woman. From her descended famous Israeli offspring such as King David, King Solomon and, if you are Christian, Jesus Christ himself.

The Christian Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible, modulo some small differences in accepted canon which vary depending on one's specific denomination.

So, 21% of Israel's population has restrictions on who they could marry all so that they can maintain a majority of the favored demographic.

This is apartheid.

The restriction applies to everybody, not just Israeli Arabs. However it is true that Israeli Arabs are the ones most affected by it.

Laws that make it illegal to sleep under bridges apply to everybody, not just the homeless. Does that mean a law against sleeping under bridges is not targeting the homeless?

The law also affects Israeli Jews, Christians, atheists, etc that want to marry Palestinians.

and palestinian is considered an ethnicity in israel. as opposed to "people coming from the country Palestine". so it's an openly racist law

It targets people who sleep under bridges. If, for example, there is a major safety hazard associated with sleeping under bridges, it would make sense to prohibit it, and it would be bizarre to criticize the law just because it affects mostly homeless people. If, on the other hand, the law prohibits only homeless people from sleeping under bridges, it becomes clear that the intent is discriminatory, and this becomes a valid criticism.

“There’s no need to shirk from the essence of this law. It is one of the tools to ensure a Jewish majority in Israel, which is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Our goal is for there to be a Jewish majority,” Lapid tweeted shortly before the law lapsed in early July. [0]

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/months-after-citizenship-law-f...

Yes — discussing the actual motivations for the law, as provided to us by Israeli politicians and previous Supreme Court decisions, is a good and valid starting point for discussion. Claiming that the law is bad simply because it disproportionally affects some subset of the Israeli population, is not. The argument I was addressing in this particular subthread is the latter, not the former.

Unfortunately politicians don't always tell you their true motivations.

These days I live in the Southeastern US. Since 2020 was a census year, states have been redrawing their electoral maps. Several states have made changes that reduce the voting power of non-white voters. If politicians say this had nothing to do with race does that make it true? Even if it is true that they didn't consider race at all in the decision making process, does that make it acceptable when the end result impacts people in a noticeable way based on their race?

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."

they can marry whoever they want, they just won't be naturalized ie if a Palestinian marries an Israeli, the Palestinian won't get Israeli citizenship

I have seen this talking point repeated exactly in this manner all over Reddit. Was this dispatched from one of those Israel apps that navigate supporters to social media sites to push pro-Israel talking points?

what about their children?

Israel has many laws dictating where you can live and between which areas you can travel, and they depend on its complicated notion of citizenship and nationality. You have far fewer restrictions as a "Jewish nationality, Israeli citizen" than as "any other kind of nationality, Israeli citizen". This is the meaningful difference people are referring to when they say that "Israel is an ethnostate" or talk about "apartheid", because in many instances, in practice you can only do certain basic things like live with your partner if you are a "Jewish nationality, Israeli citizen".

Just to give a short (but relatively surface-level) proof that this distinction is real and meaningful in Israeli politics, you can read the most recent former PM's statements in the following link (and I would encourage reading a broad political spectrum of commentary on the various citizenship and nationality laws, in particular those passed in the last few decades, e.g., Nation-State Law): https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Benjamin-Netanyahu/Netanya...

Can you provide an example of what restrictions non-Jewish Israeli citizens have? Because I’m pretty sure all Israeli citizens have the same rights (Al Aqsa mosque and other religious sites notwithstanding).

TFA is in practice an example, no? An Arab Israeli cannot marry and live with an Arab from occupied territory just "next door" (their affinity group), but a Jewish Israeli can marry from their affinity group and live anywhere (laws on marriage within Israel are restrictive and often prevent even Jews from marrying other Jews if they are not deemed officially Jewish, I think through matrilinear heredity, but if you are Jewish you can freely travel and marry outside the state and travel back to Israel and have the marriage legally recognized in full).

You might argue that technically this is targeting non-citzens and is therefore not affecting Israeli citizens of any nationality. But to me this is clearly targeted at limiting the normal actions of one group of citizens, while there are other laws to expand and accelerate analogous actions by another group of citizens. There are tens of thousands of Arab Israelis who have been married to non-Israeli Palestinians since 2003 when this law first went into place (the new law is just a law that regularizes a "temporary" "security" law that was renewed yearly until it surprisingly did not get support for yearly renewal in 2021). Those tens of thousands of families are in a very precarious situation, with a spouse with very limited rights to movement, and no rights at all if their Israeli citizen spouse were to die, etc. -- they would be deported (and I believe many have been).

Edit: Israel's interior minister has referred to the law's purpose in a way that shows the purpose is also to discriminate against the Arab Israelis and their ability to get married and have a normal family life: "we don’t need to mince words, the law also has demographic reasons": https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/shaked-family-unificatio...

As for more specific and direct examples, it is legal for the Jewish National Fund to refuse to sell or lease land to non-Jewish national Israelis (i.e., mostly Arab Israelis). The JNF is not public, but it owns a substantial percentage of Israeli land, about 13%, and I don't have information to hand, but I believe there are other bodies with similar practices that administer the majority of Israeli land in this way -- that's a hazy memory though, and I don't have time to research it again, so I wouldn't rely on it.

The Admissions Committees Law also allows for town committees to deny the right of Israelis to buy/lease land/property if they are deemed "unsuitable to the social life of the community [...] or the social and cultural fabric of the town", and allows for the cultural fabric of the town to be based on "special characteristics", such as defining themselves as having a "Zionist vision". This further means non-Zionist citizens are barred -- of course, many Jews in the world are non-Zionist or even anti-Zionist, but I don't think it's jumping to conclusions to infer based on the cultural backdrop that this is primarily a means to exclude non-Jewish nationals.

I think those two are specific examples of "legal" discrimination directly on the basis of non-Jewish nationality.

Ah, those are nice examples, but... some 50% of private land in Israel is owned by Arab Israeli citizens, not by JNF, and they apply similar restriction on any Jewish family trying to settle in a predominantly Arab town or village. A similar restriction doesn't apply to predominantly Jewish towns, only to small community villages.

I'm curious if you have any references, because as you can imagine, it's hard to search for such things.

I tried to make my statements and figures based on objectively verifiable information (the stated policy of JNF and its land holdings, naming the Admissions Committees Law). I think if you were to account for the broader discrimination in property sale/leasing, the amount of land where non-Jewish nationals are denied would be much higher than 13%, never mind counting the colonies in the occupied territories.

I'm also skeptical because official discrimination (until the new laws passed in the past 20 years or so) was de facto widespread, but previously was de jure illegal (case in point: https://archive.ph/20120911010849/http://www.nytimes.com/200...).

I would agree with you if you were saying that petty discrimination (done by individual land-owners) is widespread against all "nationalities", but the issue is that entire neighborhoods, communities, and territories have official sanction and support to be discriminatory against non-Jewish nationalities. And if you believe as I do that Israel must retreat to its border as defined by international law, and that it has in fact done the opposite and engaged in literal colonization for 60 years or so, then it would be plain to see why much of this conversation is besides the point. Of course there will be petty discrimination, perhaps even rooted in each side's belief that each property transaction is really a territorial battle. The actions of consequence are those of the state and those backed by the state apparatus.

References, because of course nobody believes it.

>Currently, in Israel “proper” (within the Green Line), only 7 percent of the land is owned privately by individuals (3 percent Jews and 4 percent Arabs). According to the Israeli NGO Regavim, the rest is owned by the Jewish state (80 percent) and the Jewish National Fund (13 percent)

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/marty_kaplan/12...

Thanks, but those figures weren't what I was asking about -- I do believe in their accuracy, and used a similar breakdown when writing my comment. I meant regarding the following:

> [Arab Israeli citizens owning private land] apply similar restriction on any Jewish family trying to settle in a predominantly Arab town or village. A similar restriction doesn't apply to predominantly Jewish towns, only to small community villages.

I'm not sure, because you clearly make a distinction between towns and small community villages, so I could be wrong, but it sounds like even there you are describing the (probably rampant) petty discrimination by individuals on 4% of the land. My default is also to assume there are comparable levels of petty discrimination on the other 3% of private land, unless you have some reference to support your comments about restrictions only applying in the other direction.

To repeat another point though, I am highlighting the rigidly enforced discrimination on at least 13% of the land, and think this is far more significant than haphazard petty discrimination on either side of the 4% and 3% private land divide, where creating or buttressing homogenous communities is far harder without state support (though one side does have that). Never mind that, like I said I don't have time to research it now, but I think a substantial portion of that 80% of state land has similar restrictions in place against non-Jewish nationals.

As I said:

> Of course there will be petty discrimination, perhaps even rooted in each side's belief that each property transaction is really a territorial battle. The actions of consequence are those of the state and those backed by the state apparatus.

To make clear the reasons for this:

- they cover a far greater proportion of the land

- they are far more rigidly enforced

- their power to engineer demography is far greater, as the instruments at their disposal are far more powerful (punitive travel/work restrictions, evictions, municipal infrastructure support/denial, military support/harassment, etc.)

The reason I make a distinction between towns and small villages is because Israeli laws only allow committee-based exclusion in small villages. Grow to the size of a town and anyone can move in (buying via third party if one is afraid of discrimination, if necessary). It would only face "petty discrimination" if it moves into a radical religious neighbourhood, but then the same would happen to a non-religious Jewish family.

However, if a Jewish family tries to move into a predominantly Arab town, it will be pushed out even if legally there is no exclusion. Yes, by illegal means if necessary. The petty discrimination levels are different in those two cases.

Regardless of the above, the majority of Israeli population (92%) lives in large cities, where every citizen can buy an apartment, and in most cases the construction companies are not allowed to discriminate at all.

Well I think there are ample cases that are in conflict with the idea that "anyone can move" into any Jewish neighborhood in larger towns and cities, and then you have groups like Elad in Jerusalem on top of that. https://archive.ph/20180614062757/https://www.haaretz.com/is...

This case in Afula actually contradicts your point, as Israeli authorities upheld the sale.

http://web.archive.org/web/20210214010143/https://www.haaret...

I was just thinking that I should expand the point to illustrate what I mean when I saw your reply -- I wasn't clear. The article I posted is about the actions of the mayor, but I was using it as an example of petty discrimination, without explaining why.

The point I was indirectly making, was that there was vocal support from other Jewish Israelis in the area. It's highly probable that among those protesters, there are many such people where if they were selling their property, they would not obligingly sell to the best offer if it came from an Arab Israeli. My personal opinion is that there would be many who would not make the sale (there are also many many Jewish Israelis who would, of course). This one concrete case becomes in all likelihood many examples of the exact thing we're talking about.

I do agree that there are some judicial checks in place against some such cases.

Can you be specific? I’m reasonably sure this isn’t true. The only difference in how non-Jewish Israeli citizens are treated that I’m aware of is that non-Jewish citizens are exempt from conscription. I’m always open to learning more, however.

Otherwise, you seem to be talking about special legal carve-outs related to contested territories for restrictions on movement. The claim that non-Jewish Israel citizens are not allowed to live their partner is utter nonsense, unless by “live with” you mean “confer residency rights” but that seems like a dishonest framing.

Edit (responding to your edit): While that’s a shitty message and you can take issue with that (and related cultural issues in Israel), Netanyahu also notes that “Arab citizens have equal rights”. You’re actually asserting that this isn’t the case and need to explain how.

I replied in another similar thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644087

As for my framing and the question of "live" vs. "confer residency rights", I tried to be clear and say that my argument was about what restrictions are in place "in practice" and in the aggregate. If it is difficult for normal family formation and existence, and if that difficulty is for "demographic reasons", then that is discrimination on the Arab Israelis as well as their non-citizen spouses: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/shaked-family-unificatio...

> they can marry whoever they want

This phrase is rarely appropriate when discussing marriage in Israel, never mind marriage with Palestinians.

> This is apartheid.

It’s been this way for a while. This is just one more thing on top of another.

Israel is surrounded by Arab Muslims who outnumber Jews 100:1 and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion. I ask honestly, is it really so wrong for a nation to implement laws to preserve its culture, particularly when it's people constitute a tiny fraction of the global population?

Or is support of cultural preservation only virtuous when the alternative is labeled "gentrification"?

>Or is support of cultural preservation only virtuous when the alternative is labeled "gentrification"?

Well yeah. "Cultural preservation" is only good when the NGO class supports it. When they don't like it, it's racism.

> and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion

As a biracial Jew from Pakistan I can assure you this is false. The modern enmity between Jews and Muslims began around the time of Israel's creation [1].

As far as 'preserving culture', this sounds a little to close to the Fourteen Words for my comfort. You can celebrate and keep alive one's own culture without the exclusion and denial of rights to others. I think the idea of ethnostates run counter to the core values of most modern, liberal democracies.

[1] https://dailytimes.com.pk/97778/the-jews-of-pakistan/

>I think the idea of ethnostates run counter to the core values of most modern, liberal democracies.

But not to the core values of middle eastern Arab countries, which is the point to limiting the possibility of a sizeable proportion of immigrants imposing their incompatible culture onto host nations.

>As far as 'preserving culture', this sounds a little to close to the Fourteen Words for my comfort.

There is no reason to presume that the values of your "modern, liberal democracies" will be maintained if there is no effort to preserve them. The rest of the world is far less concerned with your ideas regarding women's or LGBT rights. Allusions to the fourteen words are effectively a false equivalence, there is a massive range between maintaining a liberal way of life and going on a multinational genocidal war campaign.

>As a biracial Jew from Pakistan I can assure you this is false. The modern enmity between Jews and Muslims began around the time of Israel's creation [1].

The enmity is baked into the Koran and therefore approximately as old as Islam.

> But not to the core values of middle eastern Arab countries

Source, dearly lacking. Though I'm uncertain how you would support this claim. I tried digging up some examples, but the best I found was a list of countries [0] supporting 'right to return' laws with accelerated naturalization if you are of the 'favored' ethnicity. I don't see any arab or middle eastern countries on this list. I sincerely would appreciate any supporting articles you have towards this claim.

I agree liberal values must be defended. I just don't believe illiberal methods such as those described in the OP are effective methods of doing so. I think the world is growing more concerned with things like LGBT and women's rights in large part because of the freedom of exchange of information, ideas, and experiences. These are accelerated by both the internet and multicultural cities and nations which aren't possible with ethnicity-based immigration laws.

You're right I should not have alluded to the Fourteen Words, I could have picked a better example. The similarities in attitude frighten me, however. Elevating the safety and prosperity of ethnic group A to the detriment of group B is not promoting or maintaining a liberal way of life, despite what we might want to call it.

> The enmity is baked into the Koran and therefore approximately as old as Islam.

I won't rehash my previous response to this idea, but leave a hopefully unbiased wiki link [1] on the subject with just one small anecdote. The holiday of purim is an entire commemoration of the 'elimination' of a certain peoples. Does this mean a certain enmity is baked into the Torah towards Amalekites? Do you think this history actually gives you a negative bias towards the present day descendants of Hamman?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return#Countries_with...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Islam#The_Qura...

Nonsense. There are no end of examples of Muslim anti-semitism before the foundation of Israel. Just one example, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a strong supporter of Hitler who frequently repeated the blood libel in his writing.

Cherry-picking individual quotes or statements does not reflect the attitudes of global Muslims as a whole. I'll instead link to the following wiki article, which is long, but here's a particularly relevant excerpt.

> Antisemitism has increased in the Muslim world during modern times. While Bernard Lewis and Uri Avnery date the increase in antisemitism to the establishment of Israel, M. Klein suggests that antisemitism could have been present in the mid-19th century.

> Scholars point to European influences, including those of the Nazis (see below), and the establishment of Israel as the root causes of antisemitism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Islam#The_Qura...

That’s not what cherry-picking means. The previous comment made a claim. I gave a what I considered a valid counter example undermining that claim. That’s an entirely reasonable response.

Somewhat ironically, that Wikipedia article is cherry picking. It gives lots of examples that support its thesis and fails to mention or downplays counter examples, of which there are very many.

Of which you - contrary to the other commenter in the thread - failed to provide sources of.

You cherry pick one example and talk about there being many, many more. Yet it is the other side shows sources that you with few words "argue" are not valid - also without providing arguments, sources, anything.

You are not discussing in good faith.

Absolute nonsense

My state-mandated history textbooks disagree.

I believe the concern here is whether a group of people who live in a state and are governed by its laws have equal rights and democratic representation, or whether they're treated as a lower class of citizen. I don't think citing cultural preservation, as important as it is, addresses those concerns.

> and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion.

What does the Talmud say about the Goyim?

>is it really so wrong for a nation to implement laws to preserve its culture, particularly when it's people constitute a tiny fraction of the global population

It's ok, natural and healthy for Israel, but not for the rest of the world, where that is nationalism and equates to ideologies of the 1930s.

> It's ok, natural and healthy for Israel, but not for the rest of the world, where that is nationalism and equates to ideologies of the 1930s.

You say that, but that's ridiculous. I can't become a citizen of any other country without that country's explicit permission, and many countries won't allow just anyone to immigrate.

> favored demographic

Right, because the purpose of Israel is to be a Jewish state with a majority Jewish population to protect its Jewish residents from genocides, pogroms, blood libels, and other things that have been done to them for 2 millennia.

The same thing they did to the Palestianians. Weird how white supremacy is suddenly cool with a lot of people when you replace white with "Jew"

Wait, explain to me what we Jews should have done after the holocaust, and after many countries kicked out all their Jews. Doesn't starting a Jewish country make sense? There are dozens of other countries around different groups (whether religious or ethnic), how is it wrong for Jews to want the same thing?

Don't people actually marry because they love each other, and not as a way to gain a favourable citizenship?

How the naturalization law prevents a marriage?

It’s immaterial to the purposes of this law. They don’t care why it’s done.

Minority groups in Israel actually have less restrictions with regards to marriage than the majority. Minority groups have freedom of religion. I'm a jew by ethnicity but an atheist by religion. I do not have freedom of religion. If I wanted to get married, by law, I am forced to get approval from the Jewish Rabbinate and follow religious protocols that make my skin crawl. And my spouse must be Jewish too.

Not really. You could do what thousands of others do any take a quick trip to Cyprus, get married (regardless of your partner’s religion or sex), and have the marriage civilly recognized in Israel.

Gee, thanks.

Read the article again. You didn't understand it or check other comments to here, instead of throwing baseless accusations.

The title of this post is mis-leading, or at least incomplete. Read the article. It's about denying automatic citizenship upon marriage. It's not about barring or banning marriage.

The title of the post is the title of the reuters article

which is also, itself, inaccurate

If you were aware of the intricacies of the jewish israeli law, you would understand that this ban is equivalent to defacto barring a ethnic minority from ever having the same civil liberties as a normal jewish born israeli. Theres no "misleading" around it.

Off-topic: Calling the Second Intifada an "uprising" is hell of a unique way of whitewashing suicide bombings. Nothing rebellious about that, just sheer terrorism.

What are you talking about? The fact that an uprising involves terroristic tactics does not make it less of an uprising. Trying to prevent people from calling the Intifada an uprising (which is the literal translation of the word) is playing word-games for rhetorical points, not discussing reality.

I’m talking about drawing a false romantic narrative of an uprising of the people, when the reality is it’s just terror.

Lets call it a Terroristic Uprising, more suiting.

I will repeat what I said, which is that this is rhetorical point-scoring, not discussion of reality. It's not helpful. Everyone with two neurons to rub together understands that both the Palestinians and the Israelis have engaged in terror against one another over the course of a century of inter-ethnic conflict.

None of the comments here are helpful. You could call it however you like, rhetorical point-scoring or not, to the vast majority of people who read the word “uprising” it comes off as this romantic movement of liberation. As an Israeli this bothers me. Needles to say it bothers me even more when Israelis do this towards the other side. For me, this is very much a reality and not just a “words game”.

BTW, this is not to say I agree with this law.

What citizenship status do Palestianians have by default, if not Israeli? Given that Israel doesn't recognise Palestine as a state, doesn't that obligate them to confer Israeli citizenship to the residents, as they would otherwise be stateless?

There is no obligation for any state to issue citizenship to anyone, unfortunately.

There are UN conventions[1][2] on statelessness that do require the bound parties to provide citizenship under very narrow conditions, essentially to avoid a stateless person. IANAL so I don't know if they apply in this type of example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Reduction_of...

Not only have most states not signed this, there is no meaningful penalty for ignoring it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...

I believe that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are essentially stateless. It is similar to the South African Bantustans where you put an undesirable population so that they have a little bit of self-government so that you can justify excluding them from the electorate of the main nation, but not enough to actually be their own country, so you can essentially still manage that land.

Palestinians have a Palestinian Authority passport that is used for international travel. Per the Oslo accords in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_passport...

Though many hold Jordanian passports.

Terrible title.

>Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed a law denying naturalization to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens, forcing thousands of Palestinian families to either emigrate or live apart.

The actual law is bad enough as is.

Current Knesset coalition is supported by Arab parties... looks like Israeli Palestinian support this measure to a certain extend.

I think anytime there is post on this lots of down voting and canned responses are posted. That's from both sides. I'm not sure what the solution is but I can't imagine any real conversation happening without one side or the other "keyboard warriors" derailing the conversation.

A common tactic to suppress unfavourable situations is to create hostility so that moderation is forced to take place.

In real life this includes sending people to start fights or riot during protests to allow police to enter and disband it, and online this involves starting several arguments so that the moderators find it pointless to let the discussion go on.

That's why this happens. It's intentional and not accidental :-)

Bloody hell. Whoever engages in such behaviour is an enemy of open society. I wonder if there is a way to identify such accounts online and remove them from platforms.

> passed just before the Knesset disbanded for a holiday recess by a 45-15 majority vote

Wow

“JAFFA, March 10 (Reuters) - Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed a law denying naturalization to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens, forcing thousands of Palestinian families to either emigrate or live apart.”

Abhorrent but not about preventing marriages, at least not directly

Not useful analysis.

It is useful. Regardless of the virtue - or strong lack thereof - of the new law, the current headline here is misleading about what was actually passed.

I disagree that the current headline is misleading. If the substance of the article does not justify the headline in your view that's fine, but understand that most families consider being forced to remain separated to be a prohibition on being a family.

Does naturalization in this particular context confer citizenship with voting rights? I’m curious if blocking shifts in the electorate is a motive for this move.

Yes, that is precisely the reason. This is what the mention of "the Jewish character" of Israel boils down to.

They will also claim it is about preventing terrorism, but that is an extremely transparent fig leaf.

Interestingly, the blurb talks about forcing families to split up. Does this law override permanent residency visas there?

"Can Non-Jewish People Settle In Israel?

Under the Law of Return, it is possible for non-Israeli family members of Israeli citizens to gain long-term residence status in Israel, including spouses/partners, children, and grandchildren, if they themselves are not Jewish.

Where a non-Israeli national is married to an Israeli citizen, they can initially acquire a temporary residence in Israel after six months. With this temporary status, they can then access the social welfare system in Israel, including healthcare. Citizenship is then possible after four years, however, the process for securing this is quite rigorous, as the Israeli immigration authorities want to be assured that the relationship is genuine.

Where a non-Israeli national is in a relationship with an Israeli citizen but they are not married (i.e. a civil partnership), it takes three years to gain temporary resident status in Israel. Permanent residence in Israel is possible after six years (as opposed to four for those who are married). However, those in a civil partnership cannot acquire citizenship, just permanent residency, regardless of how long the non-Israeli national lives in the country." https://immigrationlawyers-london.com/global-mobility/perman...

Israel government has Arab parties in its coalition, meaning that this law is supported by Israeli Palestinians. I think this is a strong indication that the issue is not as straightforward as some people trying to paint it, indeed Israeli Palestinians themself support this measure.

If you’re trying to pacify a group wouldn’t you encourage integration, instead of banning it?

like what China is doing with the Uyghurs? Re-education and labor camps, forced migration, forced sterilization.

(not saying that's what you're advocating, just that that is one approach in use today, and given Israel's transgressions against the Palestinians I wouldn't be surprised if they were capable of that).

They do not want integration, because Israel is, according to law makers, only meant for one ethnicity that they aren't a part of. So integration is opposed.

Israelis are just being realists. If most of Israel was non-Jewish they'd be wiped off the map.

The amount of hate against Jews in this post is proof enough.

Can you point to any hatred against jews here?

This is how the Middle East works by the way. Interreligious marriages are a very big deal and banned in every single Middle Eastern country.

The good countries will refuse to issue a marriage license to you, the bad countries will send the police to watch as a mob lynches you.

If you see Israel as some kind of psuedo-western state, then yea, you should be shocked. But as a Middle Eastern country, this is just another Thursday. Personally, I don't see Israel any different than I see Turkey, Egypt, or Jordan.(Allies that get lots of money from the US with questionable behavior)

edit: I think is wrong by the way, so not justifying. This is just how things work in the Middle East - where nations do terrible things in the name of preserving their "religious" identity.

edit x2: Sources: 1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/06/20/what-egypt-... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/persecution-dr... 3. Any of the State Dept religious freedoms reports here: https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-r...

This isn't really about interreligious marriages; it mostly affects Muslim Arab Israeli Citizens marrying Muslim Palestinians.

This is not about inter-religious marriages - this is about Arab or Christian Israeli citizens marrying other Arab or Christian Palestinians (or Lebanese and and a few other countries). This is as if the USA denied the right to extend your citizenship to a Mexican spouse - in some ways worse than the inter-religious thing.

> Arab or Christian

You mean Muslim or Christian (either of which can be Arab).

This is so annoying. It’s not rocket science to understand that Arabic is a language and you are only an Arab if your cultural language is Arabic.

Not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs.

It’s like saying that all who speak English are Christians. And all who are Christians speak English.

There are also many Arabic speaking Christians who don’t consider themselves to be Arabs culturally, and who definitely reject the label “Arab”.

What do they call themselves?

The ones that I have known best called themselves "Armenians".

In Egypt they're called Copts.

Lebanese?

They can choose to label themselves however they see fit, however under the guise of israeli law they are no different and are treated the same way as "Arab muslims" which speaks to the enormity of the racist jewish laws.

Most of the people I’m referring to aren’t in Israel, so Israeli law isn’t really relevant.

(Too deep so I can't reply to sibling...)

And there are Arabic speaking Muslims who don't consider themselves Arabs (e.g. in north Africa), as well as Arabic speaking christians who are Arabs (e.g. in Iraq).

Click on the permalink and then you can reply to infinity ;-)

Just imagine your from Africa and everyone in the Media talks about "Africa" as if Morocco and for example Tanzania can be compared ;)

Happens with everyplace. Like when college kids go on their first overseas trip to Spain and come back talking about how "people in Europe" eat dinner late or are less prudish or whatever. As if Barcelona is just like Tallinn and Zagreb.

You're not wrong. At the same time, there was/is a long period in history (centuries?) where "Christian" used as a general moniker that was more nationalist than religious. "The Christian world" etc.

Similarly, not all Christians in Israel or Ghaza are Arabs (though the vast majority are). I didn't want to list all somewhat significant ethnic minorities, so I thought Arab (Muslim, Christian, Druze, etc) + (non-Arabic) Christians (including Armeneans, Arameans, Copts, Assyrians and many other small groups, together making up something like 10k people)

> this is about Arab or Christian Israeli citizens

This is incorrect. There is no distinction in the law between Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis. The law applies equally to Israeli Jews who wish to marry a resident of the WB/Gaza, or one of the other countries mentioned in the law.

It would be interesting to see the ration between the Arab Israelis wishing to marry an Arab from WB/Gaza and Jewish Israelis wishing to marry a Jewish from WB/Gaza. Laws make sense in a context of a society.

There is a fundamental difference between a law that prohibits a specific ethnicity from doing X, and a law that prohibits everyone from doing X, but a specific ethnicity/minority is more affected by it than others. The former is pretty much never legitimate, while the latter is often unavoidable, and I imagine exists to some extent in any country with minorities.

This law very explicitly discriminates against non-Jewish Palestinians (and Lebanese and a few others). It also disproportionately affects Israeli Arabs and others who are much more likely than Israeli Jews to have spouses who would be discriminated against by this law.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

Are you trying to say that there's something inherent to the Jewish population that they're less likely to marry a non-Jewish person than a Muslim is to marry a non-Muslim?

An arab israeli is very likely to marry an arab from Palestine. I'm guessing a number close to zero Israeli Jews are looking to marry an arab from Palestine (religion, hate, etc).

No. They're saying that a Jewish Israeli citizen is less likely to marry a Palestinian than a Muslim Israeli citizen. And given public statements from the lawmakers advocating for this law, they agree.

I am not sure, where you draw that conclusion from, but yes that would be correct.

Because the jewish religious law (which many jews have to follow to peer pressure, even if they are not religious by themself) explicitely forbids marrying non jews and no one can convert to the jewish religion.

Muslims on the other hand can marry non muslims, but are supposed to convert them. So this is indeed way more comon.

> no one can convert to the jewish religion

Citation needed / this is not correct. It isn't easy, but it is perfectly kosher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Judaism

Ok, it seems I have been wrong about this as a general statement and liberal (or even most?) jew movements indeed consider it possible.

Last time I checked - it seems I read a viewpoint from a rather orthodox rabbi (but his article was the first one, that showed up in google at that time, now I cannot find it anymore), which clearly stated, this is not possible at all, with no exception.

The only way, would be to recognized as a "lost jew", meaning being of jewish origin, who lost connection to the tribe (even some generations ago). And the recognition would need years of devotion.

Maybe that is the case with some small, insular sects of Orthodox Jews? Some of the groups among those often referred to as the "Ultra Orthodox" - I don't know.

It is not aligned with the vast majority of Jewish views about conversion to Judaism.

In general, conversion is possible. As far as I can tell there are even clearly-enough defined requirements.

Jews are not supposed to treat converts any differently than non-converts. People being people, this doesn't always happen, but that is the reasonable principle.

Given that Jews for centuries have not proselytized to non-Jews, many believe you cannot convert to Judaism. You can.

I really cannot find that article anymore, but yes, it seems it must have come from an ultra ultra orthodox section and who knows why it ranked number 1 on google at that time (some years ago), fooling me. Because apparently yes, you absolutely can convert to judaism. It just isn't easy, like it is with other religions.

> The law applies equally to Israeli Jews who wish to marry a resident of the WB/Gaza

There is no problem for Israeli Jew to marry a resident of WB/Gaza who is also Israeli Jew. This happens all the time (except Gaza, no Israeli Jews live there).

Concept of Israeli Jew marrying a non-Jew (no matter the residency) doesn't exist in Israeli law.

The state may (but not obliged to) recognize the marriage registered abroad.

For non-Muslim non-Israeli spouses of Israeli Jews there is a 5+ year naturalization procedure where outcome is not guaranteed and every half a year one has to recount all the spots and birthmarks of significant other in front of state official to prove the marriage is not a fake.

This specific law is for Muslim non-Israeli spouses. Instead of 5+ year procedure it's just a firm "No".

The article doesn’t mention religion anywhere.

There are plenty of Christian and Muslim citizens of Israel, and plenty of Christian and Muslim Palestinians, so the marriages don’t have to be inter-religious.

Inter-religious marriages are already impossible in Israel, and have been AFAIK forever (but you can fly to e.g. Cyprus to have one performed and it will be recognized in Israel).

> "The State of Israel is Jewish and so it will remain," said Simcha Rothman of the far-right Religious Zionism party, a member of the opposition who brought the law forward with Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked. "Today, God willing, Israel's defensive shield will be significantly strengthened," he told the Knesset hours before the vote.

I'm baffled how the people who survived the Holocaust, among numerous other persecutions, are now so intolerant of another persecuted people.

There is something about being surrounded by people who actually want you dead that makes you somewhat rigid about instituting measures intended to keep you alive. I'm not arguing rights and wrongs, here. Merely human psychology.

Almost all humans (and many other species) get tribal once allocation of limited resources comes into play.

Israeli right-wingers don’t see Palestinians as a persecuted minority in a vacuum. They see them as members of the Arab ethnicity of the surrounding states which are much larger in size and population. In the late 1960s Syria and Egypt actually formed into one state and tried to annihilate and absorb Israel in a pincer movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic

One thing that stood out to me when reading about the Rwandan genocide was that Madeleine Albright—who lost three grandparents to the Holocaust and was touted as being humanitarian in part as a result—was center of the US' diligent refusal to acknowledge the genocide they were watching unfold, and recasting of the Genocide Convention as merely allowing intervention in genocide. (It obligates intervention.)

Less than a year after the Holocaust Museum in DC opened its doors, proudly declaring "Never Again".

Funny enough, the Holocaust is the exact reason that these sorts of things are justified. It isn't out of malice, but out of a perceived need to protect themselves from the possibly of it EVER happening again. The collective trauma of being exiled from numerous European countries, the progroms in Russia and having ~6 million of your people systematically murdered in Germany overrides any guilt for infringing on intermarriage rights of people who aren't exactly your closest allies and continue to . I don't support the law, but it is important to understand the broader context in which it is passed and the purpose of the state of Israel to those that live there.

Not really commenting about the law. But as an arab from a country that Israel has tried to unsuccessfully invade about 3 times now.

We had nothing to do with the holocaust. Germans and their friends were complicit.

Im genuinely interested in how come normal people of the world don’t really flinch at what Israel was allowed to do and what it keeps doing.

I don’t blame Israelis who were born there since we have little control over where we’re born and how we’re raised.

Apologies for the rant, but why does it make sense in the broader context to allow israeli actions that directly cause palestinian suffering if all of the jews’ suffering was caused by the germans?

Before the holocaust Jews were slowly but surely integrating into European society. The Nazis basically altered the timeline.

What you say is true but it is also true that the religious minorities in Israel don't amount for much when it comes to the law. Israel's 'religious right' (the ultra-orthodox parties) have a lot of influence over marriage law in particular.

ultra-orthodox are not right wing, in general they are apolitical and will join any type of coalition as long as they get the budget for their community.

Religious parties (that is, parties who seek to further the goals of a religion) are by definition right-wing.

I would assume most of these aren’t interreligious, but beetween Israeli Arab Muslims, and Palestinian Muslims.

As far as being banned in every Middle Eastern country… not true. I know a few Bahraini females married to Brits. Interracial and interreligous. In Lebanon, and Jordan, this happens between Christians and Muslims as well. Which countries would lynch you?

This isn't even remotely true. Anyone can marry inter-religiously in Turkey. Jewish, Christian or Muslim doesn't matter. Please get your facts right.

Yes. Turkey that genocided its Christian population a couple of generations ago.

Yes, that Turkey is more fair than Israel.

The world was very different a couple of generations ago, let alone the hundred years you're talking about. You'll be shocked to hear what happened 20 years later.

There is no law banning inter-religious marriage in Lebanon either.

What different churches and such allow in terms of inter-marriage is left up to them, just like in, say, the US. But no laws prevent religious intermarriage.

What an insidious way to justify the action!

FWIW, this law is not banning marriage, rather it's preventing Palestinians from becoming automatically naturalized citizens through marrying an Israeli citizen.

See how much people this article misguided? Incredible!

That's the point. There is no path to becoming "naturalized", a legal resident or much more-so a citizen in your own country - whether you see that as Palestine or Israel. This is just one more mechanism to humiliate a population of millions.

Of course nobody cares that an Israeli Jew marrying a Lebanese, or a Jordanian, or an Egyptian, let alone a Saudi citizen, can't get Lebanese or Jordanian or Egyptian or Saudi citizenship.

But Israel must give citizenship to everyone... right?

Main problem here that if Israeli citizen will decide to marry a Lebanese, or a Jordanian, or an Egyptian or even Saudi citizen, they won't be able to live in Israel.

Outrage of non-Israelis about is law is merely academical. Outrage of (some of) Israelis is practical: the state is putting a choice in front of a citizen -- be able to marry a person you want or be able to live in Israel.

Why is it not a problem that they won't be able to live in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia? This outrage looks like a double standard to me.

Because I'm not a citizen of Lebanon, Jordan or Egypt. As an Israeli citizen I share the responsibility and am obliged to react to any colonial era exercise the government is trying to pull off.

That doesn't excuse applying double standards.

This is happening between Palestinians. You can call them Arab Israelis if you want but they still identify as Palestinians. Splitting them up for the sake of division with these policies is political and systematic.

And yes a double standard applies compared to other countries because Israel identifies as a western liberal democracy whereas the others don’t or no one implies that they seriously are.

not true , trying to justifying the Israel action by saying false information

> This is how the Middle East works by the way. Interreligious marriages are a very big deal and banned in every single Middle Eastern country.

Just to put some extra emphasis on quite how wrong this is: they are likely banned in almost no Middle Eastern country. Source: Married a woman from and in a Middle Eastern country under heavy sanctions just a few years ago.

Ironically, the law in question is not about the legality of the marriage, but about the rights of getting citizenship afterwards, and indeed, I would not be able to become a citizen of this country by way of my marriage, so in that sense, it is similar.

It is absolutely right. Want to look up what the legal stance in Egypt of an Egyptian Christian Male married a Muslim Woman? (even if she isn't Egyptian)

Not true for Turkey.

This is certainly not the case with Iran either.

Honestly it seems like you're just making shit up.

Unless Iran is not in the Middle East, you're 100% wrong about Iran. Lots of people I know married (officially in Iran) to their Iranian spouse from other religions.

Right, but a large number of Palestinians are Christian. The law doesn’t seem to apply to a Jewish Israeli who marries an American Christian, only a Jewish Israeli who marries a Palestinian.

This is simply not true. While Inter-religious marriages are often frowned upon, no law prevent any person from a middle east country to marry another person on the basis of different religious background. Please give your sources.

Parent is spreading misinformation.

I’m not sure but this NOT how Middle East work. At least not in Lebanon and Egypt.

Anyway this is just wrong - even is some other countries do that.

Egypt has a lynching every 3 month or so because of an inter-religious relationship[0]. Lebanon had a religious civil war a generation ago, and would probably end up in another one soon if things continue as they are.

0. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/06/20/what-egypt-...

Is this true? I've seen Christian (Arminian) and Muslim couples in Iran.

Please explain how the #23 ranked country in the democracy index(higher than countries such as Italy, Spain and the US) and the #24 highest GDP per capita(higher than UK, France and South Korea) is not more of a western country then authoritarian regimes like Jordan, Turkey or Egypt? Israel has one of the largest pride parades in the world (300k+ people) and equal rights for LGBTQ people. Please look up what happens to the LGBTQ community in the countries you mentioned. Israel is a western country with western values and allies, we just have a very hard and not so easy to solve as people on HN think issue with the Palestinians which I hope would be solved some day in our lifetime

What does the ultra-Orthodox Jews think about those parades?

Just by the demographics alone, those guys will be in charge very soon. (or Israel will cease to be democratic).

So yes, Israel is not there yet, but well on its way. (and I have no problems with that, as long as they don't try to impose their religious values on me).

As an atheist-jew living in Israel, I will be the first to denounce ultra-orthodox Jews living in Israel and their chosen lifestyle, and I truly hope they won't ever become a majority here. But like you said, until then- It's a western country with western values through and through

No it isn't. In my country religion has no impact whatsoever in who you can marry or your citizenship.

Israel is not "just like us". It is a country founded on a religion. It treats that religion as superior and grants it more status. To be harsh Israel is more like KSA and Iran.

Actually, it's not quite that. Israel doesn't issue marriage licenses in the first place--they leave marriage up to the various religions. A Jew can't marry a Muslim in Israel because neither of their faiths will permit it.

I am totally ready to read rational discussions that in no way is colored by hatered of either side or belonging to a particular religion or political beliefs or consperacy theories you have read about either side. I am also totally expecting everyone here on HN to be expert historians and masters of international relations.

This post was #1 on hacker news yesterday for a bit, flagged, and now it's been unflagged many hours later. I wonder what's going on there. I didn't have to go "read" about a 'consperacy' online for that, I just saw weird stuff happening right here on this site.

Is there a chance that the Israeli Supreme Court act as a check and balance in this matter?

Edit: Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world.

>>> Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world.

When you say democracy, what exactly do you mean?

Most democratic countries have representative democracy, where they choose representatives who pass the laws. This was passed in the Israeli parliament. This is democracy at work isn't it?

There is no direct democracy in the world.

I am not supporting the law just discussing what you mean by democracy.

By democracy I mean the system in place in the US or Western Europe and a number of other countries. In other words, a system with checks and balances. A system with tools in place to avoid injust outcomes due to the tyrany of the majority (or a minority).

For example, if a majority of a country wants segregated schools, that does not make it right. A true democracy is not one where people just shrug and say “well, if this is the will of the people, that settles it”. A true democracy is one where “Brown vs Board of Education” can happen.

Israel is an apartheid state, a claim now explicitly made by Amnesty International [1]. Pick any number of highlights:

- Denying citizenship to Palestinians (and other Muslims);

- The Palestinian residence card system. Families that cannot be reunited because of it;

- Population quotas in Jerusalem. Palestinians who have it and leave to, say, go to college will be deemed to have abandoned their residency to maintain this quota;

- Palestinians have separate roads to keep them away from Israelis;

- Palestinian settlements are then further separated by Jewish settlements. These were once deemed illegal but any pretense of removing them has long since disappeared. So it may now take hours to go a mile because of all the new security checkpoints;

- Denying Palestinians building permits and then demolishing anything they build because it's not permitted; and

- Rampant use of collective punishment by the IDF. From the video as one example, kids throwing rocks lead to IDF setting up checkpoints with the explicit purpose of inconveniencing and delaying everyone as a (collective) punishment.

Gaza is an open air prison [2].

Any criticism of these rampant human rights violation gets labelled as being anti-Semitic. It's anti-Israeli. There's a difference.

In the present Ukraine war many have criticized the (illegal) annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Where is the outrage over, say, Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights? Worse, Russia's annexation has been repeatedly confirmed by Western NGOs as being widely popular with the actual Crimeans [3].

You can legitimately criticize Russia for the Crimean annexation. That's a completely reasonable position. But if you're going to do that, how is the Golan Heights different?

The same goes for any self-determination arguments, as an aside. If Ukraine has the right to self-determination with respect to, say, NATO membership, why don't Crimeans have the right to to join Russia?

[1]: https://vimeo.com/674482282?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&...

[2]: https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-o...

[3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...

False.

Israeli government has Arab list in it, with Arab ministers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_List

Not the parliament - the government itself. This is by definition not an apartheid state.

This law denying citizenship is to block a loophole used by known terrorists to come into Israel and explode Jews on busses. Here are some examples for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_HaSharon_Mall_suicide_bom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sbarro_restaurant_suicide_bomb...

Why should Israelis allow a terrorist loophole in? Would you allow a way for terrorists to kill you and your family in your home country? I didn't think so.

None of your links details anything about how the perpetrators in those attacks were able to enter Israel due to being naturalized through marriage.

In addition, the article notes that several supported of the law (at least one who's in Knesset) claim that the invention is for Israel to maintain its "Jewish character".

> Where is the outrage over, say, Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights? ... how is the Golan Heights different?

There is broad based support for the idea that the Golan is part of Syria as repeatedly asserted by the UN. The problem is that there have been frequent attacks against Israel from the Golan. As long as Israel can believably make the argument that they need to hold that territory to prevent attacks then they will be able to occupy it and make use of the considerable resources there, especially the water. This is very unlike the situation in the Ukraine where the only attacks have been faked by Russia.

Israel has lost my support. It has become an apartheid regime. Its treatment of Palestinians is morally and legally reprehensible.

Just to be clear: the law bans citizenship for Palestinians on the basis of marriage to an Israeli citizen, but does not ban marriages or naturalization in other ways that aren’t marriage, right? Or am I missing something here?

Basically marriage doesn't grant one Israeli citizenship. That is all. You can still marry whomever you want.

All weddings are Jewish in Israel so that would already prevent a Palestinian from marrying an Israeli. They can however marry in another country and Israel would recognise the marriage.

Uh, no. Non-Jewish citizens are not required to have a Jewish wedding. Jewish citizens are.

The parallels to the Jim Crow South and its borderline hysterical obsession with managing the ethno-racial balance are very strong.

Israel would cease to exist if there was no Jewish majority anymore. Just one more Arab country instead. Would you be ok with that?

Yes! They can rightfully "go back" to where they came from, hows that sound?

They are where they came from. What do you mean?

If the "national vision" can only be realized by oppression maybe there is something wrong with it.

There are plenty of countries where "national vision" is realized without an oppression to minorities. You think Israel shouldn't exist?

What's the connection to technology? Why is this on HN?

What do you expect from an apartheid regime, created on the ashes of another country, Palestine?

When was Palestine a country?

...there was some sketch about a neonazi who gets a 23andme genetic tests and finds out he's of Jewish descent, and after the initial shock he's like: But wait, this means I already have that ethno-state I've always dreamed of!

Look I always encourage people to read the Israeli constitution.

Jewish state. Fact.

Not multicultural, not secular. Jewish. That was the founders design.

Where does that leave non observant Jews?

Presumably not a problem as Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion.

So if a non observant Jew wants to operate a shop on the Shabbat...then?

Then their shop isn't certified as kosher and can't make food for religious customers, but otherwise, it works fine. I've gone to convenience stores, cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, etc dozens of times on Shabbat, in Israel.

Were you able to take the trains? Buses?

Yes, of course. I lived in Haifa, which kept its bus rapid-transit system and several bus lines running all through Shabbat. This was especially helpful for the nighttime bus lines, so I could go to the beach on Friday afternoon, eat dinner and see a movie at Lev haMifratz with friends in the evening, and then get home at maybe 1-2am, all with public transit.

It depends on the city/area. In some places it's allowed, in others it is not.

What’s your point?

“The Zionist Jews who founded Israel had three basic objectives in mind when they thought about the kind of state they wanted to build, Israeli political scientist Areyh Naor liked to tell me: They wanted to create a Jewish state, a democratic state, and a state that would be located in the historical homeland of the Jewish people—the land of Israel—which technically included all of Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and even some areas beyond, in what is today Jordan.”

“Ben-Gurion essentially said in effect to his nation: ‘In this world we can only have two out of three of our objectives. We are being offered a chance for a Jewish state and a democratic state, but in only part of the land of Israel. We could hold out for all the land of Israel, but if we did that we might lose everything. If we have to compromise on our objectives, let it be on obtaining all the land of Israel. We will settle now for half a loaf, and dream about the rest later.’”

“Then came June 1967. Israel, in the course of the Six-Day War, occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, extending, in the process, Jewish control over virtually all the historical land of Israel originally sought by Zionism. From that moment on, Israelis again faced the monumental question: What kind of nation do we want to be? Once again, it could only have two out of three of its objectives. One choice was to keep all the land of Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to remain a Jewish state, but this could be done only by curtailing Israeli democracy. The only way Israel could permanently control the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be by physically suppressing them and ensuring that they were never given political rights.”

From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas L. Friedman

"Founders" have no magic monopoly on being right or wrong.

And the population may or may not now disagree with what the "Founders" intended.

Times change. People evolve. Hopefully for the better. Too often for the worse.

Nothing unusual about that. Many states have official religions (like the UK). And pretty much all of Israel's neighbors in the Middle East have official religions.

I'm guessing you're fine with the several de facto Arab Islamic states out there.

No, they are awful. Does this exempt Israeli’s own actions?

Whether or not Israel's actions need excused ("exempt") is a matter of opinion. And an unbiased opinion can't be developed when we're only willing to criticize, or even look at, one facet of the issue.

Or to put it another way, similar and "worse" things are happening elsewhere, but it's not PC to bring them up.

This doesn't make it immune from criticism. What if the United States added "Caucasian state" to the constitution and started discriminating against other ethnicities. Would that be okay for you?

A better example would be adding a non-Jew requirement to the US constitution. I find it interesting that a people who faced such deadly consequences from discrimination based on Jewishness choose to discriminate based on Jewishness as their response.

To be fair, this is exactly why they are doing it. This is coming out of the belief that the Jewish people need a Jewish refuge state based on the constant past consequences of not having one.

If they didn’t control for their population, they’d need to decide between not being a Jewish state and not being democratic.

> This is coming out of the belief that the Jewish people need a Jewish refuge state based on the constant past consequences of not having one.

It's funny how the experience of being subjected to a racist, human -rights-disregarding ethnonationalist regime that engaged aggression based on a desire for historic ethnic territory and a desire for buffer space has provoked the creation of a racist, human-rights-disregarding, ethnonationalist regime that engages in aggression based on a desire for historic ethnic territory and buffer space.

Well, not “funny” as much as “tragically ironic”.

I don’t think that comparing Israel to Nazi germany is funny nor is it remotely accurate.

Not ironic is the least.

When Jews were being murdered by the millions, nothing was done. Countries turned ships full of Jewish refugees around some of who went back to Europe and perished.

It’s pretty clear that nobody will look after Jews but other Jews and Jews will have no refuge except in a Jewish state.

I recall that Palestinian leaders made a state visit to Singapore and the then Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew, famously pragmatic, said “You’ll never defeat Israel militarily. Why? They have nowhere else to go.”

Pretty tough to read the Israeli constitution when no such document exists.

https://knesset.gov.il/constitution/ConstIntro_eng.htm

Perhaps you mean the Declaration of Independence?

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(...

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/isaac-herzogs-remarks-...

The President considers race mixing a "tragedy".

It's a law to try and maintain racial purity.

Who were the founders, again? Why do Palestinians have to care what those founders think of anything?

Does this law also need a yearly reauthorization? The makeup of the Knesset doesn't seem to have radically changed since the law failed in July, anyone know how this try suddenly got an overwhelming majority?

Tweeted by an Israeli minister after the law passed: https://i.imgur.com/gQOJFu0.png

Why was this post flagged?

I live in Israel, but I now want to move to HN land. I do have an opinion, but it is not really important here. I just want to say how touched I am to read this thread. Where else can you find such a polite, fact based, open minded discussion of a flammable topic.

"Russia passes law denying naturalization to Ukranian spouses"

This article doesn’t really provide much in the way of explanation for why this law is being enacted. Here [0] is a better article that quotes supporters and objectors to the law. It includes the (IMHO not very convincing) figures that "Between 1993 and 2003, around 130,000 Palestinians were given Israeli citizenship or residency through family unification, including children, according to court filings. The Shin Bet security service told the Knesset on Monday that between 2001 and 2021, about 48 were involved in terror activities.”

48 of 130,000 amounts to 0.037% being involved in terrorist activities which seems very low to be used as justification for a law around security.

The only thing worse than government is government used to enforce the whims of their imaginary gods.

No surprise coming from Israel.

Can’t read the article. Is this a cultural/religious thing or a race thing?

You can get by the Reuters paywall in an incognito window.

Soon: `Israel passes law denying naturalisation to Russian spouses`

Can we sanction Israel next, please?

Not likely to happen, I think. It would be construed as "antisemitic". But even apart from sanctions, Israel receives foreign aid and grants from the US.

Not to mention the disproportionate number of Jews in the federal government that are extremely loyal to Israel.

Unfortunately true. It’s been darkly amusing to see the total absence of outcry when boycotts, divestments, and sanctions were decided against Russia, but somehow exactly the same thing is a crime against humanity when it’s against a segregated theocracy.

If Israel has not been sanctioned for nuclear weapons I don't see it happening, ever, for routine Palestinians discrimination.

USA just passed omnibus 2022 $1.5T spending bill which has $250 Million for Israel iron dome upgrades.. there is a POWERFUL Israeli lobby in the USA that won't let such sanctions get off the floor.

They got $1 billion for the iron dome [1]

Regarding the Israel lobby, it is strong, but it's losing its grip:

25% of American Jews consider Israel to be an apartheid state [2]

Young evangelicals are increasingly turning away from Israel [3]

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-u-s-senate-approves...

[2] https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/a-quarter-of-u-s-jews-agree-...

[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/a...

Ultimately this is probably the key to change. As of yet Israel has had carte blanche to do what it wanted because the U.S. wants to have a proxy and looks the other way. Aid should be conditional on a sustainable solution, otherwise the U.S. is virtually complicit. This game of "we didn't make them do it" and showering them with cash and arms isn't fooling most people. I don't see how the country can go on pretending it doesn't have the capacity to strongly influence an outcome, it's just that the aggregate political will is not there yet.

What are you proposing? Just let their enemies bomb all of them out of existence?

Strings attached would be a good start.

Times are definitely changing. The situation in Ukraine, especially coming right on the heels of two years of lockdown that has disrupted the "status quo" worldwide, I hope is going to be the catalyst for the western world to find new unity with respect to our shared values and reevaluate many things. We've seen several watershed moments over the past few years completely eviscerate well-established and seemingly unassailable power structures more or less overnight.

their lobby is fairly organized and predatory and tries to make an example of anyone who disagree with them even Jewish people.

Ben and Jerry's ice cream (founded by Jewish Americans) decided not to sell ice cream in some disputed territories between Israel and Palestine and the lobby swiftly pushed Illinois and NY pension funds to sell all their holdings in their stock. Basically screwing with other people money for their power play.

Why has this article been flagged?

I don't condone this law, but I think people here are missing an opportunity for understanding. I see so much black-vs-white moral righteousness on HN lately when really, the world is a sea of grey. And understanding a thing does not mean agreeing with a thing. But a little empathy might soften the inflammatory rhetoric.

Israel is proud of their Jewish heritage, and are generally surrounded by millions of people from other ethnic and religious backgrounds who hate them. I mean, it is very common to hear people in countries near Israel openly calling for death to the Jews or destruction of the Jewish state (essentially advocating genocide). Hell, I remember tweets from the Ayatollah promoting violence against Israel, and Twitter just let it fly.

In light of all the historical context and current geographical situation, I can understand the motivation to have a law like this. Whether it's morally just, effective, or just openly racist is certainly up for debate, but to me it is not so clear-cut as others would say.

Why is that an issue? Palestine is not Ukraine, after all.

Yeah but they're white people so it's alright.

No shame, they don't even hide their racism.

Where's the outcry.

The outcry is right here, obviously,

You will see no outcry in the media because that would be antisemitism.

I hate 21st century

Yea, the rest of the centuries in human history were much better weren't they.

I don't know if you've noticed but it's usually very difficult to criticize Israel outside of the darker corners of the internet.

I would not call HN a darker corner of the internet...

This thread is why I said "usually."

This thread surprised me; I thought politics was off-topic on HN, at least for root articles - it seems to be OK in comments, as long as people don't get too angry.

And even so, it's relatively minor and much less mainstream as social forums go.

It's flagged and gone, so I think the point stands.

Criticizing Israel is mainstream. Only the newsmedia machine likes to shy from it.

Compared to what though? Reading some of the responses here, virtually no one has mentioned the fact that Israel's middle eastern neighbors, and more broadly, most of the Muslim world, are also oppressive ethnostates that treat Jews significantly worse. They don't need laws on the books to mistreat Jews, and we all know why.

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jews_in_Syria#21st_...

>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".

What the fuck?

This article fails to explain the reasons for which proponents believe that marriage with Palestinians would threaten security or Jewish character of the country, failing the supposed neutrality of the article or compromising the supposed quality of journalists in charge of investigating this.

Then please enlighten us, what's the rationale?

Exactly my question.

There have been cases of Israeli citizens marrying terrorists to get them into the country. Though this law is an overreaction. It's one thing to do background checks and impose a waiting period on Palestinian spouses, but a total ban is ridiculous.

Thanks, at least we have an idea what this law is an overreaction of, I think telling a bit about that would have made the reuters article on-par with the journalistic quality that I expect from my standards.

"Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed a law denying naturalization to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens"

Don't agree with the headline or the law.

They aren't banning spouses, they are banning naturalization of them.

I don't know what other visas are applicable for Israel, in Japan if you get married you can get a spouse visa(1,3,5 year) but you won't be able to get a permanent residency right away.

Right ... So we here are opposing theories about this:

1) Journalists at Reuters suck, 2) It's standard clickbait to drive traffic in, or 3) Journalists at Reuters purposedly oriented their article.

Whatever the explanation is for this debacle of an article, I don't like it.

But one does not need citizenship to explode a bomb. How is the law going to help here?

Plenty of people in other countries feel the same way about their native population, I don't see why Israel gets a pass.

Exactly why I'm asking why proponents believe they do: it's not in the article. Sorry if this wasn't clear, I'm non native. I'm also asking why it's not in the article. I don't mind the downvotes, but I'd love an answer ;)

I think it’s just about making their lives miserable so they go live somewhere else.

That is a probability, but seems too simple, and is in complete contradiction with all the other stuff Israel has done so far make the life of arabic Israelians enjoyable there, such as hiring arab police officers, the entry of an Arab political party—the Islamist United Arab List, or Ra’am—into government for the first time has signaled that progress could be in the offing, having the same rights as Jewish Israelis...

From what I have seen with my Israeli friends (so caveat, sample size of 2 and one of them was quite a long time ago) there seem to be a serious case of collective cognitive dissonance. It’s not that they really want to hurt the Arabs (though some of them definitely do), it’s just that they don’t see this sort of things as bad. An example is the borders walls and checkpoints. Or bombing Gaza.

You're not wrong.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-right-wing-party...

Paying them isn't quite the same as making them miserable, at the same time, it's the kind of proposals that a right-wing party, which I don't believe is specific to Israel, and as such, does not explain that law ... Nonetheless, thanks for the info!

If you start dating and marrying “the enemy” suddenly they’re not the enemy anymore. You start to understand them and treat them as an equal. As more mixing happens, opinion will start to shift and the state will start to see some resistance to the disturbing and inhuman way they treat Palestinians. The state doesn’t want to have to start treating Palestinian’s like equals. This law may not make marriage between the two groups illegal but it makes it unworkable.

Interesting conspiracy theory, but the actual rationale has been shared in another comment: it's an overreaction to a number of events involving marrying terrorists to get them in the country. About "the enemy", one side is constantly attacking the other, but you might be surprised to know which is which - or, you believe you have justifications. Anyway, my conspiracy theory is that this article purposely omits contextualisation so to drive the opinion to believe that's it's a free act of pure hate, which makes it fall into the "propaganda" category rather than the "journalism" category. And I'm not even supporting this stupid bill, but I've had more than enough of this kind of jorunlasmism which purpose is apparently to tell us how to think... IMHO this jurnolims is not a solution: it's a problem. Again, not discussing the silly law, discussing about the article in itself.

The actual rationale was outright given by the politicians who enacted this law:

it allows Israel's favored demographic to maintain a majority.

It's in the article.

I'm sorry, I'm non native, I've read the article again and didn't find that, can I ask you to quote that please?

Fourth paragraph.

> Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".

That does not explain why they believe marriages threaten its "jewish character", it does not explain why they think that. If it's about demographics, then the article should show graphics or at least some number projections so that we can build an opinion.

Wow! So marrying Palestinians is banned because… those people are actually marrying terrorists.

Apparently, we have two opposed rationales.

Rationale 1: Terrorists are constantly looking for ways to get in a country, if the marriage background checks are proven not to be secure then it makes sense to pause it until a solution is found indeed.

Rationale 2: Jewish hate Arabs is the explanation for everything.

And I'm saying it would have been great if the article provided enough information so that we could make our own opinion based on more facts.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/months-after-citizenship-law-f...

Thanks! considering this I'm now wondering: I fill Nigeria with Norvegians, is it still Nigeria or an extension of Norway? I believe Nigerians have the right to have their country that doesn't look like an extension of another.

The verb “Fill” is so dehumanizing. This law is about banning Arab Israelis from bringing their spouse to live with them in Israel and to have a family life together.

In fact Nigeria recognizes the right of Nigerians to bring their spouse to live with them in Nigeria and even offers Nigerian citizenship. Nigeria is actually more advanced than many western countries in this respect.

Interesting, but not answering the question.

Israel has always been the ethno-state white nationalists dream of, just centered on the wrong race.

Oh the irony...

I think it's actually perfection: it enshrines the conceptual absurdity of it. It's also incredibly sad, of course, from the perspective of judging the political maturity of the human race in the third millennium CE.

According to this article[1], it’s not so rosy:

“another real problem remains unresolved in Israel: The visceral hatred and contempt that many “Ashkenazi” or European-origin Israelis have for “Mizrahi” Jews, and the way that the media exacerbates racial stereotypes by repeating them without self-critique.”

1. https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/15/israel-must-banish-its...

That language is an explicit part of Israel - the Declaration of Independence enshrines the idea that Israel is, first and foremost, a Jewish state. In more recent times, the nature of the state is often referred to as "Jewish and democratic". It is also enshrined in the basic laws of Israel (Israel doesn't have a constitution).

This entire concept has a dedicated article on Wikipedia [0]. It's a pretty fun read for those that believe Arab(or those of other non-Jewish ehtnicities, though they are far fewer) citizens of Israel are fundamentally equal to Jewish citizens of Israel.

Basically, Israel is all for equality, but with some limits - essentially, it would not be acceptable for people who are not Jewish to have an outsize power in Israel, though they are free to participate as minority parties. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why Israel has never attempted to annex the Palestinian territories. The Arab majority (or near majority today) that would form in the population would seriously challenge the idea of a Jewish and democratic state - they would be forced to stop recognizing Arabs' right to vote and/or hold office.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state

Yeah see, sh*t like that happens when you make a country only based on/for a religion.

Judaism is not just a religion; because of how they define membership of such religion, it's intrinsecally inseparable from a tribalistic element. Whether that ends up in outright racism, depends on who you ask.

Hindu religion is quite similar. In fact Judaism explicitly allows for conversion (which, to be sure, is a difficult process) whereas Hinduism only acknowledges "purification" of "ethnically/ancestrally Hindu" people who were introduced to other religions.

Conversions don't grant full "membership" in all circumstances, there are strict conditions.

Jews are an ethnic group, not a religion. (Even if traditionally most members of that ethnic group followed a particular religion, many don’t now).

Except they will give residency to people that converted to Judaism via special programs not available to members of other religions.

>Jews are an ethnic group, not a religion.

Ethnoreligious...to be precise.

Atheist Christian doesn't make much sense last time I checked.

And yet Zizek offers himself as that exact contradiction:

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/zizek-has-a-lot-to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UOM3C3q7II

Zizek is certainly a madman, being both an atheist christian and a marxist in our day and age

It's a raw definition of a group and not of a single person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnoreligious_group

Based on ethnic identity, which is how the vast majority of non-Americas nations are structured. Japan for Japanese, Italy for Italians, Israel for Jews. As an immigrant, I’m partial to the American civic approach, but Israel ain’t special.

>Japan for Japanese, Italy for Italians, Israel for Jews

With your logic it would be like: Japan is for Shintos, Italy for Roman Catholics, Israel for Jews....sounds terrible no?

Since like forever Jews where all over the world (and called it their home) with vastly different cultures/food/music, there is not the ONE Jewish Culture but thousands, you just cant compare it to Japan or Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah#Zionist_Aliyah_(1882_on...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah#From_Iran

The problem is judaism is used both for ethnicity and religion.

You cannot become a Japanese if you practice their religion for seven years, but you can become Jewish.

Italy is explicitly defined in its constitution as a state that does not discriminate on the basis of religion or race. It even recognises a level of jus-soli citizenship for children of non-citizens if born in the country, although after they reach 18 years of age. So I don't know why you'd point it out as an ethnostate - which it definitely has not been for generations, if ever.

I know "Italians are racists lol" trends in football subreddits, but that has nothing to do with the law of the land.

There are two major problems when comparing these:

1. Israel wasn't formed organically, they first had to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of pesky Palestinians living in Palestine for a few hundred years. The Japanese didn't take over a, say, Chinese island and settle there (though they tried in Manchuria during WWII).

2. None of the other states you mention has anything resembling the ethno-state character of Israel. There is nothing in the Italian constitution that is even slightly aimed at making sure a non-Italian can't become president (even if not explicitly prohibiting it)[0]. Italy doesn't recognize the right of ethnic Italians to automatically become citizens by moving to Italy.

[0] though it's rare, there are well known cases of nation states having presidents of minority ethnicity. For example, right now in the middle of war, the president of Ukraine is himself Jewish. Also right now, Klaus Iohannis, of German ethnicity, is president of Romania. Peru has had an ethnically Japanese president (Alberto Fujimori) and more recently the son of an Austrian immigrant.

Older founding documents for the US enshrined it as a White nation.

I've never heard that. Source?

Perhaps referring to:

> The Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to "free White person(s) ... of good character", thus excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free black people and later Asians, although free black people were allowed citizenship at the state level in a number of states.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism#United_State...

> This is, in my opinion, the main reason why Israel has never attempted to annex the Palestinian territories. The Arab majority (or near majority today) that would form in the population would seriously challenge the idea of a Jewish and democratic state - they would be forced to stop recognizing Arabs' right to vote and/or hold office.

For what it's worth Israel could go the federation route - basically, have three largely autonomous federal states, one for Jewish Israel, one for the West Bank and one for Gaza, with the federal government only taking care of finances, energy, water and security, and the rest - including passports and diplomatic relations - be done by the individual states.

Instead they want to have their cake and eat it too. Keep the ethnostate, but opt for land encroachment and kicking people out.

Or they could do the obvious, which is to let the Palestinians form a full state within the internationally recognized borders. But Israel does not want to respect those borders so does not want to accept a two (or three) state solution with a Palestinian state.

No way that will happen as long as Iran and others supply the Palestinians with rockets to terrorize the Israeli population.

Even if they did that, as long as they allow universal voting, they run the risk of an Arabic party leading the federal government.

Also, a federal government that is not in charge of diplomatic relationships is no government at all.

What the fuck indeed. I can't help but think of the Nuremberg laws in Germany. More specifically the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" [1]. Sure, it's not _that bad_ (e.g., the Israeli law is not banning marriages per se) but has a similar sentiment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Pro...

>> Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".

> What the fuck?

Israel was founded as a state for the Jewish people, so they could have some political self-determination, which given their history, doesn't seem like a such bad thing. It would entirely subvert that if it became a state controlled by other kinds of people, like all other states in the world.

Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? There are also literally dozens of other Muslim Arab states, so the transmogrification of Israel into another would be a net-negative for diversity.

IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves.

> Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)?

The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina

Certainly there was a diaspora before that, but the (Second) Temple was still a large focus, but that ended as well:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)

Certainly there were always Jews (and Christians, and later Muslims) in that geographic area, but to say that Jews particularly 'deserve' exclusive governing of that area may be stretching it given the two thousand years of history since they last had 'exclusivity' to it.

> IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves.

A reasonable desire. The Poles also wanted a state for themselves for a while, and finally got one (after a messy twentieth century), but would it be okay for them to say "no blacks or Arabs" in their naturalization/citizenship laws? (Versus the perhaps 'simpler' idea of "must be fluent in Polish and be familiar with Polish culture/history".)

Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine

Don't both have a right (?) to exist? Why does Israel deny to others what it wants for itself?

>> Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)?

> The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed:

That's not what I had in mind. I was thinking of more recent history, like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/opinion/last-jew-afghanis...

> Dozens of countries around the world have had their Last Jews. The Libyan city of Tripoli was, astonishingly, one-quarter Jewish in 1941; today the entire country is Jew-free. After the fall of Muammar el-Qaddafi, who banished the country’s lingering Jews during his reign, a lone Libyan Jew came back to Tripoli and took down a concrete wall sealing the city’s one remaining synagogue. But he was soon forced to flee, having been warned that an antisemitic mob was coming for his head.

----

> Certainly there were always Jews (and Christians, and later Muslims) in that geographic area, but to say that Jews particularly 'deserve' exclusive governing of that area may be stretching it given the two thousand years of history since they last had 'exclusivity' to it.

I don't think it's a stretch. There's more to it than just historical tenancy.

> Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land:

Sure, but it would be yet another Middle Eastern Arab Muslim state. Why erase something unique for that?

> Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land:

> Don't both have a right (?) to exist? Why does Israel deny to others what it wants for itself?

Unfortunately, the world doesn't divide into nice neat categories that don't conflict.

>>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".

>What the fuck?

Why all the outrage? Should France not maintain it's French character?

No, and France does not have any laws whatsoever protecting its French character in this sense. The Jewish character of Israel does not refer to cultural character, but to ethno-relgious character. Israel very explicitly accepts democracy only insofar as it doesn't lead to Israel being led by people who are not ethnically and/or religiously Jewish.

The only other countries on Earth today that have anything similar to this type of language and laws are Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Russia (which both offer passports to foreign nationals of hungarian/russian ethnicity, for example).

Israel is a racist apartheid state at its core.

This.

This is an apartheid regime. Plain and simple.

South Africa took a lot of flak for their apartheid. Wonder why the same doesn't happen with this apartheid in the XXI century. That's a shame.

Same reason Russia is getting flak for invading and occupying territory (including, even, from Israel!) when Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank for decades with no consequences.

Western countries apply their moral principles differently to their allies.

South Africa is/was a western ally. And the West did ignore apartheid for a long time.

> South Africa is/was a western ally.

Maybe, but not one of nearly the same strategic importance (and lobbying/PR prowess) as Israel.

South Africa abstained to vote on UN resolution against Russian large attack on Ukraine.

West didn't ignore apartheid, they quietly supported it, because USSR supported Mandela and anti-apartheid struggle. Kinda "enemy of my enemy is my friend".

IMHO that was the stupidest position of the US, they should've "united" with USSR on anti-apartheid position.

When one factor "Capitalism vs. Communism" is the lens through which you view the world, then "are they on our side" becomes more important than "are they good people".

That is why the west supported some terrible regimes, including Apartheid South Africa and Pinochet in Chile. Because they could claim to be "anti-communist".

Yes. And on the other hand, USSR supported a ton of very terrible regimes. Like cannibal Bokassa in Central African Republic.

The old regime in south Africa prior to 1994 was a "western ally". Reagan and Thatcher turned a blind eye to Apartheid (and sometime supported it) because the South African government was "anti-communist", or at least they dressed their oppression in that language of "total onslaught of Soviet communism" and that was more important to the west.

The new regime in south Africa has some nostalgia for the assistance offered to them by the USSR back then, that is why they abstained on the vote on UN resolution against Russian attack on Ukraine.

In some ways it was a proxy war.

I'm not a fan of the occupation of the West Bank, but those are not 1:1 scenarios. West Bank was occupied after Jordan initiated the offensive, not Israel, as opposed to Russia who is the aggressor.

A 1:1 scenario would be if Ukraine invaded Russia and then Russia took control over Ukraine territory, which in that case i'd argue the outcry would be minimal.

As I replied to a similar comment that was deleted: this is irrelevant ancient history.

What matters is that Israel is maintaining their illegal occupation even today, and even expanding it (building new settlements, etc.)

The fact that the Arab world united and attempted to destroy Israel through invasion multiple times is not ancient history and certainly not irrelevant.

Most recently in 1973. Their occupation has gone on for almost fifty years since then.

The occupation of the West Bank does nothing to deter this.

The annexation of the Golan Heights is somewhat justifiable on strategic grounds. The occupation of the West Bank is a land grab, pure and simple.

I think continuing to occupy West Bank and Gaza is unconscionable.

But you’re mischaracterising the strategic importance of the West Bank. If it was a sovereign nation, the logical thing for the West Bank government to do would be to place artillery on the high ground near Israeli cities. The artillery would be sufficiently protected and would be capable of causing widespread destruction. That’s powerful negotiating leverage, even if the artillery isn’t used. This is similar to the state Seoul is in - within range of NK artillery.

That’s why there is no 2 state solution the Israelis will agree to where the Palestinian state operates its own military. It might be morally right, but it would be a death sentence for Israel.

Source - Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall.

Not arguing your statements, they make sense, but with this logic, horrible amoral inhumane things can be done (and are done daily) to innocent civilians basically forever, anywhere... not something I can accept.

Not that my opinion makes any meaningful impact on global scale, but I do at least vote with wallet and don't buy any Israeli products. I respect their military prowess but I have much higher moral expectations from place I will anyhow support with my money.

Fascinating! I may have to read that.

> it would be a death sentence for Israel

That's a massive exaggeration.

It would theoretically be a risk for Israeli citizens living close to the border, but would lead to an overwhelming punitive response from the Israeli army, strongly backed by America.

Israel has by far the most capable military in the region, routinely inflicts casualty ratios of 10-20:1 in its favour in any conflict with Palestinians, and is backed by the most powerful military in the world.

The threat posed by an independent Palestine would be negligible. However the spectre of that threat is used to justify the continued occupation and expropriation of the West Bank.

Yes, just like the obviously better equipped South Korean armed forces will eventually defeat North Korea. They’re backed by the most powerful military in the world, as you say.

But artillery still exists. And if the enemy has the high ground and the cities are in the plains, the death toll will be in the tens of thousands before victory is achieved.

This is the reason every citizen in Seoul knows where the nearest bomb shelter is. I can understand (but not condone) someone wanting to avoid that fate.

A two-state solution isn't wanted by Israel (at least, not by the settlers and their supporters), nor by most Palestinians. Israel wants to keep the whole of the West Bank. Most Palestinians would like to live in a single state that isn't based on apartheid and oppression.

It's really hard to imagine a two-state solution working, when leading Israeli politicians repeatedly declare that Israel consists of all the land between the Jordan and the sea. And even if it could be agreed, Israel would remain a segregated state. A single state with one-man one-vote would quickly put an end to apartheid, and to many of the most serious complaints of the Palestinians.

The argument against a single-state solution is that it would put an end to the idea of a "Jewish homeland". That is true; but a "Jewish homeland" must necessarily be an apartheid homeland, which discriminates against non-Jews.

But thats not the situation today, you cant base current policy on past grievances

It is entirely irrelevant to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the illegal transfer of populations into occupied territory.

If history doesn't matter why do you even consider it occupied territory?

Because it’s under military occupation. And not recognized as Israeli territory by anyone, including Israel.

If the territory had been annexed and put under civilian law and everyone there had been given Israeli citizenship 60 years ago, I would indeed agree that although that was bad, it’s not worth crying over spilled milk in the present day, much like e.g. the British conquest of Quebec. But that’s not the case. It remains a military occupation and bad stuff continues to happen, today.

Quebec happened because britian and france signed a peace treaty that both sides respected. Nobody has managed to cobble together a peace treaty for the israel-palestine situation that actually got respected.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abra...

Not quite...

I disagree, the peace of paris (with its conditions like respecting roman catholics) not the battle, is what lead to quebec being relatively peacefully integrated into british rule. (To be clear not saying that things were perfect or anything)

The people of the West Bank have engaged in terrorism against Israeli civilians up to 2005 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada - and that's not particularly ancient history.

If the Ukraine war goes on for 50 more years you might start to see Ukrainians attacking Russian civilians too, once it’s clear they have no other option.

The IDF have also murdered a lot of innocent palestinians, but if you do it dressed like a soldier somehow it's not "terrorism"

People in the UK have engaged in terrorism against UK citizens up until the present; that doesn't justify the UK occupying Ireland, and installing groups of settlers.

I know, that's exactly what England did under Cromwell; one of my ancestors was such a settler.

I don't have a lot of background in this, so tell me if I'm off-base. Israel is occupying land that it took from Palestine, is it not? I don't feel that terrorism is the correct term for attacks on an occupying force.

Umm, that's basically the definition of terrorism.

9/11 didn't happen out of the blue, it was a response to american foreign policy in the middle east.

The troubles didn't happen because the IRA thought British rule was legitimate

Etc.

The vast majority of terrorism is because one group is controlling a region that the other group thinks they should not.

I see what you mean. I never thought about it that way. It kind of just depends what side you're on whether it immediately leaps out as terrorism.

Yeah, typically if you agree with them they are "freedom fighters" if you don't they're "terrorists".

In my opinion, most long running conflicts tend to have both sides doing terrible things over the course of the conflict, so its rare there is one side that is "good" and one that is "evil".

If you're making a comparison its pretty relavent.

If you don't consider the details of the situation, the comparison basically becomes so vauge as to be useless.

Jordan started a war and lost territory as a result. How is this abnormal?

West Bank occupation began on, or after, the six day war, a conflict started by Israel.

It's also not a complete 1:1 because the a big reason they are holding these territories is for national security. The west bank and golan heights are both ideal places which can be used to launch rockets into israeli. They tried relinquishing the gaza strip and what immediately happened was hamas took over it and started firing rockets at israel. so they're not likely to change their mind about the other territories after that.

What’s “legal” or “illegal” has always been defined by whichever country has the biggest stick.

If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine. Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need.

As a strictly emotional thought, this makes me feel Israel is a country to cozy up to the strongest nation at the time. If the US falls from grace Israel will have no problem ‘switching’ sides to Russia.

I think switching sides to China might be a more realistic possibility.

Agreed, they have been caught sending US military weapons and intel to China. Yet, the US still sends them ~$5B in military aid every year.

Which is equivalent to an $800 tax break the US gives the Israeli citizens each year.

> If Israel was an ally

"Israel Passes U.S. Military Technology to China" [1]

"a 2013 National Intelligence Estimate on cyber threats “ranked Israel the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US” behind only China and Russia" [2]

"Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service." [3]

"Israel’s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal" [4]

[1] https://www.military.com/defensetech/2013/12/24/report-israe...

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-nsa-document-highlights-is...

[3] https://theintercept.com/2015/03/25/netanyahus-spying-denial...

[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-spied-on-iran-talks-1427...

These are enlightening links. Incredible really.

How a so called ally can perform such levels of espionage and the US has a hand in paying for their own ‘downfall’. I suppose the only reason Israel gets away with it is due to the influence Israel has on politicians with AIPAC/lobbying efforts.

> How a so called ally can perform such levels of espionage

"NSA tapped German Chancellery for decades, WikiLeaks claims"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/nsa-tapped-g...

Danuker - HN is not allowing me to reply to you directly.

Though, I do disagree with spying on allies. There is a history with Germany that may have given credence to the wiretapping.

With that said, the US is not giving Israel weapons to China. But, Israel has given US tech to China (and likely will again).

Ally != puppet state

> As a strictly emotional thought, this makes me feel Israel is a country to cozy up to the strongest nation at the time. If the US falls from grace Israel will have no problem ‘switching’ sides to Russia.

That's in line with Israel's priorities, which first and foremost is its own survival.

At lot people kind of lazily expect Israel to act like your typical invincible Western state, but it's pretty vulnerable. It's also probably acutely aware of that fact, since within living memory all its neighbors vowed to destroy it and nearly did so.

I think part of the ‘invincibility’ thought comes from them having a nuclear arsenal on top of the iron dome.

By that yard stick many countries would no longer count as allys. Mexico for example.

I understand you are mentioning many countries. But to touch just on Mexico. Personally, I do not believe Mexico to be an ally. Mexico seems to be a narco state that is largely run by cartel sponsored politicians.

> If Israel was an ally they would be helping to supply weapons and armor to Ukraine.

Citation needed. A strongly held opinion isn't a fact.

> Instead they will not supply anything more than medication. The US gives Israel plenty of military $ for them to share in times of need.

They have or are going to have a field hospital, and have given aid to Ukraine and surrounding countries.

Israel is a US ally. Israel would be strategically harmed by pissing off Russia (they depend on Russian good will to stop Iranian spread of weapons to Syria and Lebanon). And for what - symbolic gain alone?

It's pretty obvious what the Israeli government and population generally seem to think about Russia's actions (as it is obvious what the Chinese government and Chinese population generally seem to think, another country that's trying to stay more "on the fence" but clearly supportive as opposed to Israel that is clearly not supportive).

Israel can also help mediate the end of this conflict as they have pretty good relations with both Ukraine and Russia, and odds of that are higher if they don't give or sell weapons directly to Ukraine.

What you are describing in geopolitics. Israel is not special in this regard.

One major factor of alliances is realpolitik and benefits to ones' country. The US has close relations to Israel for many reasons, and the relationship didn't benefit the US in some or many ways, do you really think the US would be a close ally of Israel?

For any smaller country (in terms of population, economics, etc) like Israel, being aware of the massive countries (like the US, China, EU, to a lesser extent Japan and India) are sensible considerations. The US would do the same thing in Israel or any similar sized country's position, would it not?

Can't edit but I would change:

1. "And for what - symbolic gain alone?"

You advocate giving (or selling) weapons. That isn't symbolic alone, so I'd remove this if I could. It's really more common to see the view that Israel isn't taking a clear enough stance again Russia with symbolic things. It seems pretty clear (see the UN vote).

Nonetheless, Israel giving or selling weapons would complicate an already tricky relationship with Russia. Russia may act as if it is an act of war (arguably it would be reasonable for Russia to do so).

2. India is another country to consider. While not as close an ally to the US compared to Israel, they are either an ally or friendly (depending on the arena / what you mean by ally). India abstained from voting in the UN vote criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In US media and social media, they got relatively little criticism and attention for this compared to comments I've seen directed at Israel. Even though Israel did in fact vote to criticize Russia. Some people in this thread were at best unaware or at worst lied about this basic, verifiable fact. Apparently Israel even lobbied some other countries to vote the same way they did.

India's reasons for abstaining are also realpolitik and largely driven from considerations around military cooperation with Russia. I don't know too much about Indian / Russian military cooperation, but from what I've read it is much closer and deeper than Israel and Russia. Israel and Russia I'd describe as having few overlaps and at a distance. I'd characterize it as Russia begrudgingly accepting Israel's occasional attacks on Syrian targets and / or Iranian targets in Syria that are trying to supply better weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas, or other people closer to Israel. Given that Syria is a close ally of Russia, it's mildly awkward for Russia, but Syria depends on Russia more than the other way around, Russia is more powerful, Israel is useful for Russia for economic reasons, and Russia can understand Israel's military considerations.

All countries. Western countries aren't especially evil or hypocritical.

Yes, that’s true.

> Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank

Did you forget the part where all Israel's neighbours attempted to invade it and ended up losing territory?

Ukraine never attacked Russia on the other hand...

The government most certainly not. But the assertion by Russia is that the nazi nationalists attacked the separatists. Of course, you or I could say that’s complete bs. But then I would say the same about Israel’s claims about the beginnings of the intifadas.

Consequences for taking Crimea, and other countries once part of the Soviet Union, were also virtually nil.

> Wonder why the same doesn't happen with this apartheid in the XXI century.

Because it's supported by the wealthiest country with the biggest army.

Probably because South Africa isn't as important strategic position for the military

A _tremendous_ amount of money is spent on public relations and lobbying each year for the past 40 years.

It’s no doubt a powerful thought experiment to imagine a Palestinian version of Nelson Mandela sitting in a Israeli prison right now serving a life sentence, entirely sure that is where they have been fated to die, and after a 27 year term this person will not only unexpectedly be released and gain their freedom, they will go on to become President of Israel and win a Nobel Peace Prize.

The fact that Israel was created specifically as a national refuge for a historically marginalized and genocided people makes it very difficult to make nuanced criticism of that country. The rhetorical distance between anti-Zionism[0] and anti-Semitism is actually not that high. You can make a nuanced critique of Israel, but most people doing so would much rather consider the people and the government one and the same... and call for death to both of them. Conversely, early on in Israel's history, a lot of well-meaning people really did think we actually needed a Jewish-majority nation to prevent another Holocaust; so they had even more support than they do today.

Geopolitically, Israel made the diplomatic masterstroke of allying itself heavily with America, which makes it rather difficult to actually punish them through the official channels for such things. Even things like symbolic non-binding UN condemnations of the most heinous things Israel has done would get regularly vetoed by the US up until recently.

Furthermore, there's a question that most anti-Zionism doesn't have a good answer to: how do we keep another Holocaust from happening? Winding down the underlying Israel-Palestine conflict in a one-state solution means significantly diluting the Jewish majority in Israel with people who are, justifiably, very angry about the shit Israel did. Actually, they're unjustifiably angry, too; and one of the prevailing political parties in Palestine has made "commit another Holocaust" one of their explicit goals[1].

Conditioning any peace solution on special protected status for Jews might fix this, but the only difference between that and "special protected status for whites in South Africa" is an increasingly flimsy social context that's doing an awful lot of work. It would be difficult to balance the need to prevent another Holocaust against the needs of Palestinians, and the sort of right-wingers that like the idea of race wars would absolutely insist on their needs overriding the "other side's"[2].

Nothing I said above should be taken as justifying Israel's nonsense, or the nonsense of Hamas, of course. But Zionism relies upon all other alternatives either being unworkable, or worse. Israel is very much akin to an apartheid state, but all the countries that can really put pressure on Israel to stop that have no moral authority to do so. The UK and France are responsible for partitioning Palestine in the first place; Germany killed six million Jews; and America refused to admit refugees from that genocide. Zionism is banking on history repeating[3]; or at least people believing that it will repeat should Israel step back from the brink of ethnostate nationalism.

[0] For the purpose of this comment I will restrict "Zionism" to just the demand for a non-secular Jewish state in the land currently occupied by Israel and/or Palestine; i.e. Zionism in it's current form.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant

Granted, this is #NotAllOfHamas, but party hardliners still insist it's their manifesto.

[2] Insamuch as you can even neatly divide the people in question into two "sides". In fact, Israel and Palestine do not divide neatly into Jewish and Muslim; there are plenty of Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Jews out there.

[3] When they aren't insisting that this is an "ancient conflict" to make their side seem more legitimate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analo...

Time to boycott, divest, and sanction!

Provide weapons. Maybe nuclear, chemical and biological to boot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...

Possibly illegal

That just makes it more fun

48 of 130,000 amounts to 0.037% being involved in terrorist activities which seems very low to be used as justification for a law around security.

well, and the israeli definition of "terror activities" for palestinians could be as simple as "showed up at a protest"

Yep. Qualitative words are meaningless.

The US let’s in millions of people each year and the number of terrorists is essentially 0.000000%

48 terrorists means somewhere between hundreds and thousands of innocent people died.

Blackstone's ratio says "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

Assuming the ratios of terrorists to innocent spouses stays constant, 2708 innocent spouses will be denied citizenship for every terrorist mildly inconvenienced.

Off-topic: Did you copy this other comment [1] from this same thread but forgot to copy the reference for "[0]"?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639558

This is not only about terror activity.

I'm an Israeli, politically left leaning and it's a shame that I need to write the following(and for many years I've believed the opposite) :

The Israeli Arabs are a big problem. We've seen it during the last war with Gaza, when those many Israeli Arab citizens created mobs that did many violent actions in quite a few places. Israeli people in some cities had to flee their homes. And yes there we're also Israeli mobs.

This is not the first time this happens.

It's gotten seriously bad, so bad that now the Israeli Army is building special roads bypassing areas with a lot of Israeli Arab citizens, because those areas aren't safe to use in the case of a war on our borders,

So objectively, Arabs and Jews mix very poorly.

So is it wise to add another 130K such citizens every ten years ? Or more specifically, Palestinians, who hate us even more ? Or is it just increasing the problem ?

And sure, this isn't a nice decision. We Israelis live in a partial war situation. That's the reality.

So you can't compare it to barring Mexicans from enter to the US. It's much more complicated.

That is correct. I grew up under apartheid. This phrase is key: “ Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".”

Consider if the US passed a law banning Mexican spouses from uniting with their US spouse to keep America’s “Christian character”.

> Consider if the US passed a law banning Mexican spouses from uniting with their US spouse to keep America’s “Christian character”.

That's not a very good analogy, because Mexico is probably more Christian than the US.

In this context Christian almost always means white even if they try to pretend that isn't the case. At least Australia didn't mince words and called it the White Australia Policy, everyone else feels like they need to make it about religon or something else to make the racism more palatable.

"Western Culture" is the dog whistle we're hearing a lot in the US.

I love Western Culture as a term. In Central Europe it meant whatever was on the right side of Iron Curtain (mostly liberal democracy and all what comes with it), then Iron Curtain dissapeared and it got second meaning as white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant values protected in white, orthodox/catholic Slavic countries. Currently you have to guess which one it is from the context of the sentence.

> In this context Christian almost always means white even if they try to pretend that isn't the case.

No, it doesn't. Also, aren't most Mexicans technically white (i.e. that's what they're supposed to check on a US census form)? It's just a bad analogy.

There are paths to modify that analogy to make it work (or at least work better) for the pair America and Mexico, but you're not following any of those.

I wasn't commenting specifically in the lens of Mexico/America just that generally it's thinly veiled racism.

Mexico is certainly more homogeneous in its Christianity, being almost entirely Catholic. I doubt its more Christian in general than the U.S. though, with its diverse array of Protestant sects.

What if we change it to "Protestant"?

I agree with your first paragraph.

Your second paragraph is one of the worst analogies I've seen in a while. You have to find a bordering country with a different religion with whom USA has been at war for decades.

Specifically, one of the legislative cornerstones of Apartheid in South Africa was the "Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949" (1) which prohibited marriage between person of different "racial groups".

It was repealed in 1985

1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_of_Mixed_Marriages...

When you combine everything together, all of the geopolitical issues, the end game becomes pretty clear..

Ok this is about security... so what's the alternative?

...and the answer is easy: marry anyone you want, but there'll be enhanced background checks for some people.

While the eyes of the world are looking at Russia, they are not looking at the other nasty groups of the world. Expect a lot of these groups to quickly pass all kinds of nasty laws while they have a chance.

Consider the following word replacements.

[Ukraine/Israel] is established as an ethnic state after the end of the [Soviet/British] regime.

[Ukraine/Israel] passes laws to protect its language and national identity in the face of its neighboring [Russia/Arab states]

[Ukraine/Israel] is persecuting its [Russian/Arab] minorities by enacting discriminatory laws.

[Ukraine/Israel] does not recognize [DNR/Palestinian] statehood.

Obviously the parallels are not perfect, but the key is to understand that the Israeli right wing views Palestinians as Arabs, not as an independent nation, and views the establishment of the West Bank as a Jordanian/Arab land grab.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic

I’m not trying to assign right or wrong here, but trying to say that these sort of actions are not about pure evil racism than the outcome of regional conflict, and are much less one-dimensional than they are made out to be. As essentially all conflicts are. Racism/apartheid is one-dimensional, and this is not the same.

In other news, Israel appointed the first Muslim justice to its Supreme Court.

https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-698154/amp

Racism exists in Israel just as it does in America even though Barack Obama was elected president, and as it does in almost all countries. But its disingenuous to call Israel an apartheid state.

> [Ukraine/Israel] is persecuting its [Russian/Arab] minorities by enacting discriminatory laws

The analogy doesn’t hold here. Ukraine shouldn’t persecute it’s Russian minority. (Hell, it’s Russian-speaking cities are lobbing Molotov cocktails at the invaders.)

And Palestine isn’t mounting an invasion of Israel, though if they had the capability, it’s uncertain they wouldn’t—the Arab nations tried twice.

Ukraine passed laws banning the Russian language, which was one of the excuses made by Russia to begin this conflict.

> Ukraine passed laws banning the Russian language

This is totally false.

Ukranian is Ukraine's official language. But Russian was allowed in "courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the national minorities exceed 10% of the population" when Crimea was invaded [1]. That law was repealed, of course. But Russian was never banned.

Most recently, Ukranian was given primacy in "media, education and business." But again, not even talk of banning Russian in any meaningful sense.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine

So-called "DNR" region of Ukraine was created with the help of Russian army. There was nothing similar to Israel-Palestine situation. So your analogy is wrong.

I’m not saying they have equivalent claims to legitimacy, or that siding with one equals siding with the other. I’m saying that the Israeli right wing views the PA as illegitimate.

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