Essentially, they want to be a state within a state. They want control over their education and culture. They do not want to integrate. They want the right to maintain a distinct identity and to have a veto over things that affect them.
They say that such rights are based on international law. Wrong, there is no such law. They are 20% of the population today. If we annex Judea and Samaria the Arabs will then be 33% of the population. This would strengthen their demands for this kind of bi-nationalism.
Finally I am against giving citizenship to Arabs in J&S were we to annex it. Others in the annexation camp favour citizenship. They rely on our 2/3 majority. They are foolish. I see all kinds of unrest and challenges as we have seen in Turkey and the Arab world. Why should Israel be immune to such things even if we had a 2/3 majority.. Ted Belman
Balad pushes bill to make Arabs autonomous minority
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, JPOST
MK Jamal Zahalka, tells ‘Post’ proposed legislation is for Israel to recognize Arab citizens as national minority, fulfill obligations.
The Israeli-Arab Balad party is pushing a bill that would enshrine the country’s Arabs as an official minority with autonomous national rights in fields such as culture and education. They seek to have the bill included in Israel’s Basic Laws, which serve as a quasi-constitution.
The head of the Balad party, MK Jamal Zahalka, told The Jerusalem Post that the proposed legislation is based on international law regarding minority rights, and that its purpose is for the State of Israel to recognize Arab citizens as a national minority and fulfill its obligations to them.
This is “in order to protect their existence and preserve their cultural and civic rights, which would guarantee their equality. This also means that Israel must accept our connection to the Palestinians in the territories and the Arab nation at large.”
The Basic Law proposal would guarantee the participation of minority representatives in government decisions that affect the minority.
For example, said Zahalka, according to this law, it would not be possible to advance a law like the Prawer- Begin plan to regulate Beduin settlement in the Negev because the law did not involve the effective participation of the Beduin in the decision-making process.
The law would guarantee that the minority would always be connected to decisions made by the majority that affect them.
“We demand cultural autonomy so that we can decide what we learn in our schools,” he said. “This means that the history taught in Arab schools would include the famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and the Nakba [the Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” that Arabs use to refer to the War of Independence], which are currently not mentioned in schoolbooks.
“Arab students don’t know about their history and why they are here,” he explained.
Asked by the Post if he saw any chance that this would pass, Zahalka responded, “There is no chance it will pass in this Knesset because the majority [of the Knesset] is right-wing and extremist.”
Zahalka said one of the purposes of his proposal was to generate a debate on the subject.
He asserted that in a previous Knesset during a discussion by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on a possible constitution for the state, former Likud MK Michael Eitan “had proposed to me that if we agree to an article that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, then he would guarantee our civic and collective rights.”
“I refused this deal. I could not accept a Jewish state,” said the Balad MK.
“If the first article in the constitution states that it is a Jewish state, it means that all our rights would be held hostage to this principle.”
Asked if he has support from other MKs for cultural and national autonomy, he said that some Likud members were ready to discuss it. He mentioned that a couple of Arab MKs opposed parts of his bill as they thought it would incite a strong reaction from the Jewish community.
Zahalka said that he also wants to guarantee that the Arabic language will remain an official language and become a Basic Law.
“I want cultural autonomy like religious Jews have in Israel, even less than that,” he said.
Further, he said, his bill would also call for Arab representation in all state institutions.
What a bi-national state would look like
Muslim Interfaith outreach…
Hamas Says 100,000 Kids To Enroll In Their Military-Style Summer Camps To “Spread The Spirit Of Jihad”…
yamit82 Said:
The Jews are more stupid than the Czechs! It took the Czechs the loss of their national independence before they moved to expel the disloyal Nazi Sudeten Germans from their country. Unfortunately, if that was to happen to Israel, the Jewish people would not get a second chance to rectify the situation. Expelling the Fifth Column Arabs from Israel is a matter of national survival. Meir Kahane pointed out the Jews are gripped by a mass psychosis in which the approval of others is more important to them than than doing what is necessary to save themselves. There is no reason a bi-national state in Israel is an inevitability. The Arabs are not important – the Jews must free themselves of their submissive Galut guilt first and the rest should fall into place.
Shy Guy Said:
Deport them to the PA/Hamastan – they love being “Palestinians” so much they can give up their Israeli citizenship. As for their ultimatum, I say the same thing to them an American general told the Germans at Bastogne: NUTS!
This would turn out to be a state within a state a disaster of the first order. Israel needs to integrate the Arabs just as the Druze have integrated into Israel. Equal civil rights for individuals but no group rights. They would teach the same crap as they do in the PA. This would make things way worse in the long run.
If they want to live in an Arab state let them move to Jordan or Egypt.
No bi-National State can be acceptable, no integration, no autonomy and no citizenship for any gentile… not Arab and not others.
The only solution is separation of populations and Israel is too small to accommodate separation between the Jordan and the Med.
If the government of Israel with the approval of the Whole world can conceive of transferring (ethnically cleansing) a half million Jews from their homes why not the reverse and transfer the Arabs from their homes? Same principle. Arab transfer would complete the historic exchange of populations and to that end Israel has already taken in and absorbed some million Jews from Arab countries.
Israel gave citizenship to Arab citizens and they can take back the same. Arab removal from Y&S is a given and absorbing them in any context such be beyond the pale in any context. Transfer such be the only solution considered.
The Jewish response to threats to destroy people and state: “If one comes to slay you, slay him first” (Sanhedrin, 72d). “Do not be overly righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7). “Said Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: He who becomes merciful unto the cruel is destined to be cruel unto the merciful.”
Ted, that sounds just like the Islamists in Europe, America, Canada, and every other part of the world.
But until everyone realises that Israel is on the front line of the global jihad, there can’t be any united, strong, and effective resistance to hold back the tide of creeping sharia!
NIS 453 billions – cost of Oslo according to MK Moshe Feiglin –
Interesting article itemizing some – not all – of the costs of the Oslo Accord. He presented his calculations to the Knesset. – http://israelmatzav.blogspot.ca/2013/06/moshe-feiglin-finds-nis-453-billion.html#links ~~~ Just the other day some of us here at Israpundit were discussing what the cost of partition would be for Israel over the years (defense, lost land, lost resources, conflicts) – something that never comes up in reference to Two States. ~~~ Maybe MK Feiglin or somebody else could do a projection of the cost of defending a long border with Nazi terrorists, and what lost assets, the possibility of more Jews leaving the country, and the deployment of more Iron Domes would do to the economy.
What about benefits? Do they want to take care of their own benefits as well? Such as health care, pensions, family allowances? Even if this does not go beyond a proposal, it should be used to highlight the situation of Israeli Arabs as a fifth column. It could be used to reduce and eventually terminate all affirmative action and to justify job discrimination. ~~~ 500 Arab teachers will be hired to teach Jewish school children! That means 500 Jewish teachers who will not get those positions (aside from having Israel-haters teaching your kids). http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/168636 ~~~ Instead of incentives to integrate them and all those benefits to keep them happy, Israel should be helping them to emigrate. If not the government directly, then some private organization.
TED writes: “Finally I am against giving citizenship to Arabs in J&S were we to annex it.” I hope Ted exerts his influence to open the eyes of pro-annexation Jews who still want to grant them automatic citizenship. There are legal alternatives. ~~~ That citizenship issue seems to be the greatest obstacle in convincing Zionists of the need to retain Judea/Samaria. It’s the justifiable fear of an increased number of Arab voters. ~~~ Arabs themselves provide Jews with reasons to deny them citizenship. The greatest one is their refusal to accept the duties of a citizen, such as to serve in the army. Yesha Arabs would definitely refuse to swear an oath of loyalty to the state and all its laws. ~~~ To those Jews still uncomfortable with limiting Yesha Arab rights to residency only, one could respond that citizenship could be granted individually – not wholesale – contingent on that oath of loyalty to the state, plus a clean police record. ~~~ The Europeans managed to keep some of their foreigners as residents only until they caught the multiculturalism bug. The Swiss used to put a foreigner’s application for citizenship to a local vote. Political correctness doomed Europe. Let that be a lesson to all. ~~~ Also, considering that another war is inevitable, residency would make relocation of Yesha Arabs easier because they used to have Jordanian citizenship.
I think this is great! Give them the day-to-day autonomy they want.
And remember to strip them of their citizenship while we’re at it.