A new poll has revealed that a majority of Israeli Jews believe that the Jewish state practices apartheid against Palestinians, with many openly supporting discriminatory policies against the country’s Arab citizens. A third of those interviewed believe that Israel’s Arab citizens should be denied the vote, while almost half would like to see them stripped of their citizenship rights and placed under Palestinian Authority control, according to Israel’s liberal newspaper, Haaretz. About 20 percent of Israel’s population — nearly eight million people are Israeli Arabs. Human rights groups have long decried existing Israeli policies that discriminate against Arabs, citing classroom shortages, smaller municipal budgets, and unequal property ownership rights as proof of Israeli Arabs’ status as second-class citizens. The only defense for this discrimination from the countries that support Israel is, “it is the only democracy in the Middle East.” This will convince none of those who are at the receiving end.
The survey “lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one” wrote Gideon Levy in Haaretz, in his comment to accompany the poll. If such treatments were to be meted to Jews in European countries, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to Israel or Jews the rules are different. Why not, with diehard defenders of the Zionist state in the UN what can’t it do? With conflicts after conflicts are being “created” in Arab and Muslim countries and with the American elections at full swing, what better cover Israel needs to continue its atrocities on the Israeli Arabs as well as the Palestinians? Israel is making hay while the sun is shining!
S.H. Moulana
Riyadh
Haj journey
Thousands of people belonging to different cultures and nationalities coming from all over the world to perform Haj is truly an amazing feeling. Haj shows the unity of Muslims all over the world from Asia to Africa and Europe to Australia and America. Now faster means of transportation have made Haj journey easy but some people still set great examples of devotion and bravery. According to reports, walking a distance of 6,000 kilometer on foot, a man from Bosnia reached Saudi Arabia for Haj. 47-year-old Senad Hadzic belongs to a poor family living in a Bosnian village. He started his Haj journey on foot from his hometown in northern Bosnia in December 2011 to travel to Makkah for Haj. Now in October 2012 he reached his final destination, Makkah, and is performing Haj. He started his journey with only just 200 euros. During his long journey he crossed six different countries. When he was warned that he might face difficulties and danger during his journey to Makkah to perform Haj he simply replied I am not worried, these are the best days of my life, I don’t fear anything because Allah is with me.
Khawaja Umer Farooq
Jeddah
Favoritism in schools
This is in reference to a letter regarding favoritism in schools. It is indeed disheartening to know that students were not informed of certain events at the cluster meet, which should not have happened. However, as for the claims of favoritism, as a former student of IIS Riyadh, I would say that it is uncalled for. Having spent more than a decade at the place, I believe that talent has always been rewarded and recognized at IIS Riyadh. As for the particular statement by the PE instructor, it might be that a set of students had been training under him/her for a long while, and the trials might have been conducted to see if there were any as good as the trained students. This might have been the “previously selected” students as mentioned. As for the argument of student editors being the toppers in English, I’d say that it is a mere misconception that marks mean it all. The skills required for proof reading, and editing a publication is different from what exams focus on. Skill is one thing, marks are another, and, mind it, they are not synonymous.
A reader
Riyadh
Narrow mindset
This refers to the letter “Divorcing Pakistan” (Oct. 25). I call on Masood Khan to write something new which can be of some benefit to the readers of Arab News, as his ideas always revolve only around some specific aspects such as terrorists, militants, Al-Qaeda, Taleban, the US, Pakistan. Masood Khan must know that rise of militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan is due to unnecessary US intervention in those countries and killing of thousands of innocent people through drone attacks. The US in Iraq, and Israel in Palestine have killed more people than that of as per your statistics 40,000 people killed by militants.
Anees Lokhande
Mumbai
Letters — Israeli apartheid
