Troubling as this is, this is no reason to be anti-semitic, just anti-Israel as it now is, and pro democatic and for full ciivil rights for Palestinians. It does raise major issues of why Americans should support this type of country to such an extreme extent. Poll: Majority of Israeli Jews Would Support Apartheid Regime in Israel About a third of the Jewish public - and 70 percent of the orthodox community - would support barring Israeli Arabs from voting by John Glaser, October 23, 2012 Most Israeli Jews support the establishment of an apartheid regime in Israel if it formally annexes the West Bank, and a majority explicitly favors systematic discrimination against Israeli Arabs, according to a new poll. A new survey conducted by the Israeli data firm Dialog “exposes anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews,” reports the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they want preferences for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries. Almost half, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don’t want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don’t want their children in the same classes with Arab children. About a third of the Jewish public wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset 69 percent objects to giving Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank. “A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank,” Haaretz reports. “Almost half – 47 percent – want part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 percent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements.” ‘Transferring’ is another term for ethnic cleansing and represents a stark violation of international law. While the West Bank and Gaza have not been formally annexed, “most of the Jewish public (58 percent ) already believes Israel practices apartheid against Arabs.” http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/23/...ews-would-support-apartheid-regime-in-israel/
Although this is pathetic, I'm sure that if you asked the palistinians he same questions we get a similar result. This is what violent conflict does to people.
Same type of craziness is going to happen whenever you get multiple ethnic groups fighting over the same resources. Look for similar problems here in America. It's inevitable.
Agree. This effect on is also prevalent among veterans when they return from war and residents of post-war countries. Many of these people then instill these views into their children and friends, who think that they are receiving truthful accounts rather than violence-driven paranoia. Some of it is even transferred genetically, upto 30% by some accounts. It is one of the reasons why war is so terrible, it literally desensitizes humans from other humans. Many people discount or ignore this factor, but it is a fact. Unfortunately, this is the only way a military knows to get its citizens to approve war - by terrorizing their own people mentally. By attacking their own people's sense of security many leaders have fooled their people into approval and action towards violence.
So people in a state which has suffered many, many terrorist attacks from their neighbors think that if those same neighbors are suddenly within the borders of the state some security measures should be put in place? That is outrageous. If al Queda was relocated to the United States, I just know that Americans would prefer they be treated no different from any law abiding citizen and there would be rioting in the streets if people found out the FBI was keeping tabs on them or they were not allowed to fly on the same flights as other Americans.
An earthquake should separate Israel from the rest of the Middle East so nobody has to give a rats ass about the Israelis or the Palestinians.
SM, if you read the article a bit more closely, you would realize that a great deal of the questions with disturbing poll numbers are aimed at Israelis who happen not to be Jewish, but are Israelis never the less. With all due respect, your angst is misguided.
This is talking about the hypothetical case where Israel annexes the West Bank. So, Israeli Jews have to make a choice: either Israel because a truly democratic country where everyone has equal representation and thus loses its identity as a "Jewish" state, or it treats a certain segment of the population as "others" with less rights in order to preserve the state's Jewish identity (i.e. essentially, Apartheid). So, essentially, under that hypothetical scenario, its a choice between an Apartheid system over a situation where the Jewish people, yet again, become an ethnic minority. It is a difficult and troubling choice, but I'm not at all surprised that a majority choose Apartheid. Its also why most of these same Israelis are adamant about not wanting Israel to annex the West Bank.
Durvasa, some of the questions pertain to Israeli Arabs, not residents of the West Bank. It was those poll numbers I found disturbing.
Ideally, talking about the most right-wing Israelis who believe they have a right to that land, I guess they'd want the Palestinian people to be absorbed by other surrounding Arab countries. Additionally, they may be willing to cede a small partition out of the West Bank which the Palestinians may keep as their own "state" though Israel would indefinitely retain the right to its airspace and enforce a blockade of certain goods.
