Israel's rights groups condemn 'Jews only' businesses

This is though one of the basic questions in determining what is "freedom". The problem with the argument that you are pointing out is as Lscoladominates notes does make a might makes right argument under economic might. While one can say that freedom of association means that businesses should be able to sell and hire who they want an economy that ends up systematically excluding a group of people for no reason other than that another group doesn't like them will run into problems. What that means is that while there is a freedom to discriminate the ability of everyone in the economy to participate on an equal level is also hampered.

What you end up with a society that is free in terms of theory but is not free in terms of practice.

 

I think it's difficult to grow angst over articles like this, because in reality, they are merely anecdotal to larger issue, which is the ongoing occupation and settlement expansion. Discriminatory practices, though abhorrent, are byproducts of attitudes extant in a given population, and I'd venture to guess that Palestinians, if given the opportunity, would introduce and legislate similar measures against Israelis. The obvious difference here is that they dont have that opportunity, and that American foreign policy toward Israel remains, for the most part, uncritically loyal.

An underreported aspect of Israeli occupation is the financial benefit Israel gleans from it. Whoprofits.org is an excellent site in this regard; I havent been able to reach it this morning, but it details the natural resources that get usurped from Palestinian lands by Israel, including agricultural resources, electromagnetic spheres, and water aquifiers. Moreover, in preventing Palestinians from constructing their own cement factories or electric power plants, Palestinians are forced to rely on Israeli cement exports (millions of tons annually) as well as electricity from the Israel Electric Corporation. Go to any Palestinian grocery store and you'll see the effect of import restrictions; grocery stores are almost entirely stocked with Israeli products. The commercial profiteering is a major aspect of the occupation, and can not be understated.

I'm sure most people read about this already, but if not, you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that 81 congressmen recently made an excursion to Israel on an AIPAC sponsored trip. 26 of the 81 were Democrats, and it was representative Steny Hoyer's comments that I found the most troubling. Hoyer's comment:

At a time where our national finances are parlous, it is unconscionable that we have politicians capitulating to the Israeli lobby, reassuring them that their financially security will remain unaffected, even if ours wont by way of major spending cuts to existing entitlement programs and potential tax hikes.

 

Really? People hate "the Jews" because of a few bigoted Hasidim? I doubt you could find any group of significant size that doesn't have its share of assholes.

Let's see here...

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1ReOyLbXdFs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q3WsY3jeXXM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DpzovzNdYkw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BLjpNZ3R9SQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Clearly we have no shortage of reasons for group x to hate group y. The video you posted doesn't really contribute to the discussion. I believe our time would be better served figuring out reasons to love each other in spite of our differences. You may disagree, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're just an impartial observer pointing out the hard facts of ethnic tension; your choices will necessarily legitimize or else undermine the root causes of hatred.

 

This is an excellent point. The occupation of Palestinian territories along with aborted attempts at peace are too often boiled down to religious or ethnic issues when the are much more complicated than that. Water rights and economic rights is a huge issue that often gets unreported so when you have stories that one side is rejecting a proposal that gives the 90% of the land it makes them seem unreasonable until you realize that the 10% of land in question is where water and other economic factors are.

 

This assumes that everyone will discriminate against the minority group though, which seems unlikely to say the least. The more likely scenario is that some businesses discriminate and some do not. Look at the area where discrimination is allowed, interpersonal relationships. There are no laws in the United States that prevent people from associating personally with only members of their own race. We will use white people as the example. There are some that will only associate socially with other white people. More will associate with members of any race. Why would you expect businesses to be different. If anything, businesses would be more inclusive because there is a financial motive to allow other races. Everyone's money is green. It is a nonsense fear that if discrimination in private enterprise is allowed it would lead to a minority group having no access to the economy. More likely is that a few fringe businesses would discriminate, much as a few fringe groups discriminate now.

This would be better than a society that is free in neither theory nor practice.

 

Except if you look at history you did have situations where collectively businesses did discriminate against minority groups. Take for much of history the non-Confederate US. While yes in the South there was legal discrimination but even in much of the North discrimination was practiced culturally. What that meant was that very few blacks were able to advance economically even though they were legally not discriminated against. In that sense cultural discrimination rather than legal blocked minority advancement in cities such as New York and Boston even though they weren't legally segregated.

While blacks weren't legally blocked from access to the economy they were highly constrained by discrimination. Further it wasn't just black who were but other groups such as Chinese were which is why certain groups ended up limited to ethnic ghettoes like Chinatowns and / or only finding success in certain business types like laundries and restaurants. Also this pattern wasn't just limited to the US but to many other countries and societies.

In the US you didn't really see a widespread advancement of minorities economically until the Civil Rights movement legally ended both legal and cultural discrimination.

So basically then you are fine with just lip service to the idea of freedom even if it isn't in practice. For me I will take free in theory and practice.