“An Israeli Arab couple petitioned the High Court of Justice this week, asking it to issue a temporary injunction that would allow them to live in the predominately Jewish town of Rakefet.
The couple, residents of Sakhnin, said they were denied residency in the town because they are Arab, but say that local authorities in Rakefet and officials at the Israel Lands Authority found an alternative way to keep them from moving into the town- by stating that according to a “suitability test,” the couple are “not fit to live in the town.””
The couple are Ahmed Zvidat and Fahina Avrik, graduates of the archaeology department at Jerusalem’s Bezalel College. Yet not good enough to live with ‘real’ Israhellis.
“The couple is being represented by Adalah, a non-profit organization which fights discrimination against Israeli Arabs. According to the organization, the couple was refused permission to settle in the town because they are Arab.
…
“In instances where a couple is rejected due to reasons of unsuitability to the way of life of the community in question, the issue of greatest importance is the social unity of the community, not just the couple’s ability to assimilate and contribute to the community,” the Israel Lands Authority stated.”
Wonder how that argument would go down in Georgia these days if a black couple were denied residency in Atlanta?
How long can Israel hide behind its hideous sham democracy before its pathetic house of cards collapses?
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1755
Thursday, 22 February 2007
The Israeli military destroyed 3,500 dunams of Palestinian crops in the Negev Desert yesterday, leaving the ground black and barren. Several families in Arara Village watched from a distance as Israeli tractors sprayed poisonous chemicals under the pretext that the land belongs to the Israeli state.
However, the families report, this land has been with them since well before the establishment of the state of Israel.
Israeli authorities are in the process of annexing Bedouin villages and overtaking the lands in a process referred to by residents as “the Judaization of the Negev.â€
The plan is long standing with Shimon Peres saying that he was working to realize the dream of David Ben-Gurion. The desecration that the original community speaks of is referred to as the “development of the Negev†by the Israelis who are working to overtake it.
The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages, of which Arara is one, said that the land was planted with wheat and barley, a mainstay of the local economy, and that while unemployment was growing, the Israeli military pressured the community to sell livestock in order to persuade the original inhabitants to leave. Some 30,000 sheep were expelled from the land.
The Council President said, “This is the real face of the Israeli government towards Arabs: they get rid of the livestock yesterday, today they desecrate the land, and a few days later demolish the houses.†He continued, “Israel is undeterred by the United Nations and western governments, even the United States and the Arab states in its drive to exercise the ethnic cleansing that is with us day and night.â€
However the Council seems ready to continue the resistance. “Israel will not force anyone to willingly give up the land. They demolished houses and the people rebuilt them which illustrates that the Israeli plans are failing.â€
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/youre-not-welcome-town-tells-refugees/2006/12/14/1165685828180.html
The recent debacle surrounding Sudanese refugees in Tamworth has some parallels.
The White Orstralia syndrome was revealed to be alive and kicking.
“At a meeting where the poll was conducted, several residents had said they did “not want the refugees coming and drinking our water supply, or taking our jobs, that sort of thing”, Cr Woodley said. “I think you would have to say there was a racist element at play there.”
Another councillor and local publican, Robert Schofield, agreed that racism had to “be a part of it. These are people escaping war and persecution. “I’m sickened by the lack of compassion,” he said.”
The decision was later revised, but the nasty taste remains.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/695/36117
“BBC reporter Phil Mercer on January 15 quoted one Tamworth resident as saying: “They [the Sudanese] don’t know our laws and what our culture is like and they are just plonked here, they are going to react as they would in their own country, which is totally different to the Australian way of life.†Another told the ABC’s AM program on January 16: “We should not be slow to learn from the lessons of history. It is a fact that too many people from a different culture being dislocated from their usual cultural surrounding too quickly leads to problems.
There is a renewed push by the likes of Pauline Hanson and Andrew Robb, parliamentary secretary to the immigration minister, to legitimise a divisive and mean-spirited approach. On December 6, Hanson accused new arrivals from Africa of spreading disease and said they were of no benefit to Australia. The RCA criticised her ignorance and cowardice, and called on all political parties to condemn her comments.
Robb, who is pushing the controversial new citizenship test, told the Herald Sun’s John Masanauskas on December 29 that if African refugees are to be an “effective†part of our community, “they need to quickly come up to speed with our way of life in Australiaâ€.
Since World War II, more than 675,000 refugees have settled in Australia. According to RCA, more than 1 million people have experienced life as a refugee, or have a parent or grandparent who has.
Howard and Robb may want to take us back to the 1950s, but, as the Tamworth council’s backflip signals, these reactionaries will have a struggle on their hands.â€