So you are doing the same thing as the Palestinians.

I don’t agree that’s true. The IDF, with all my criticism of it, still doesn’t try to kill innocents. Soldiers don’t join the army in order to kill Arabs but in order to defend against terrorists attacks on innocent people.

The difference between terrorism and an army isn’t the amount of funding. The difference is the tactics. Terrorism targets civilians. The IDF does not. It happened several times in the past and always the people responsible were trialed.

Civilized people consider this racist/bigotry. Ya group millions of people as one. Good luck with that. Ohh and thieves and murderers calling the victims enemy for wanting their land back sounds kind of funny to me.

Jina, First of all, I wasn’t justifying the Israelis – I was trying to explain why people in Israel think the way they do. Racist? Well that’s just the plain truth the way they see it. The way to resolve it isn’t to hate them but to spread the information and show that there are many Palestinians that are good people. As obvious as it might seem to you, Israelis are many times surprised when they find out about a Palestinian that did a good deed.
The problem is that this information is something people don’t like to know because it’s in too much contrast with everything they grew on. It’s like Neo (from Matrix) choosing the pill to truth and not comfort – many people wouldn’t make the same choice.

Jina again, I haven’t murdered or stolen anything from anyone. I don’t serve in the army. Am I safe today in Israel from suicide bombing? Do you really believe it’s justified to suicide bomb on civilians? Launch missiles at civilian cities and villages?

2)In schools we are taught a very one sided version of history. Probably more self-criticizing than the Palestinian teachers’ version (according to reports I saw in the news) but still not enough in my opinion. Students are encouraged to be patriots and join the army as fighters to sacrifice for the country. Raising suspicion in the state’s actions will not encourage those teachings.

So you are doing the same thing as the Palestinians. Only issue you seem to have is the way in which you fight. Palestinians are taught to become suicide bombers/terrorist, you become soldiers (of course soldiers to me are also terrorists when they do what the IDF does). Too bad Palestinians don’t have a super power to back them up, if they did then they will also have soldiers, gunships and fighter jets and you can both kill each other in a more conventional way and none can be terrorists. Correct?

3)After all this, when the Israelis finally meat an Arab-Israeli in work or in an article about something other than suicide bombings, he tells them he is first a Palestinian (an enemy in their eyes) and then a Israeli.

Civilized people consider this racist/bigotry. Ya group millions of people as one. Good luck with that. Ohh and thieves and murderers calling the victims enemy for wanting their land back sounds kind of funny to me.

I definitely think hearing all sides of an issue is important, but in my mind there is a serious and distinct difference between dialogue and debate. The origins of the word debate come from the Latin battere, meaning to beat down. Though we don’t mean ‘to beat down’ in modern times when we refer to debating, I think the origin of the word is telling. Debating with people is really about getting them to shut up because you have been able to win by being smarter, wittier, or quicker. I feel like this type of ‘beat down’ is exactly what happened in some of the responses above.

In contrast, I think engaging in dialogue opens the possibility of greater understanding. I’m not trying to just be semantic; I think the terms and the ways of engaging in conversation are quite different. To me, when you are actually in a dialogue, you enter it from the position of trying to understand the other person and release, as much as possible, any prejudices. So you begin by wondering about the other person and why they feel a certain way instead of trying to beat them down and ‘win.’

I hope I don’t sound too pedantic, but I just wanted to bring it up for consideration. I honestly haven’t checked out the site ‘rules’ for discussions, but I personally hope to use this forum for conversations that resemble dialogue rather than debate.

Thanks again, everyone! I’m looking forward to posting more.

I am encouraged and inspired by this discussion among Middle East youth (according to the Website name, I assume you are youth). I’m older now, so won’t be participating actively, except for this comment to let you all know that it’s a very good thing that you are taking advantage of this opportunity to make contact with your diverse localities and opinions. Getting to know each other is a first step to creating understanding and reconciliation among us all. The world needs more of such person-to-person meetings.

You might be interested in another person-to-person initiative constantly being expanded via Len and Libby Traubman’s site:
http://traubman.igc.org/global.htm

“An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.”

You go to Europe, you go to other countries around and meet with the Israeli tourists, who are mostly the soldiers who ahve just finished their term and now for the fist time after so long can have the opportunity to move out, you speak as Midldle Eastern youth and you see them saying” We don’t want the things that happen in our country, we feel so bad about all Palestinians and Israeli conflict and we really don;t want that”, at the same time, if they put down the arms they mght get killed as well, and this is not serving life and justice and balance at the same time. We can see the wat for peace and non-violence on both side, both the yoth, both the people, and here the Arab and Islamic countries can have a good role in helping the conflict east so that if the soldiers from both sixdes, if they put down their arms, they are not killed in consequence. Europe and Islmic countries, big and powerful countries like USA and Russia, and individual voices heard here and there, all enclosed with G-d’s will, would definitely make a differnce for the residents of this trobuled region. Amen for the best results.

I am aware of the discrimination and oppose it. I just think that saying Arabs here don’t have rights at all doesn’t do justice with Israel. Arabs receive the same benefits from having many children, they receive health insurance and national security and have the right to criticize Israel (which they rightfully exploit). They also have the right to vote – a right that if they took enough advantage off, they would have had much more equality.

I think there is much hostility in the Jewish-Israelis towards the Arab-Israelis because:
1)Most don’t meet Arabs in day to day circumstances and thus see them most of the time on newspapers as terrorists and extremists that want them dead.
2)In schools we are taught a very one sided version of history. Probably more self-criticizing than the Palestinian teachers’ version (according to reports I saw in the news) but still not enough in my opinion. Students are encouraged to be patriots and join the army as fighters to sacrifice for the country. Raising suspicion in the state’s actions will not encourage those teachings.
3)After all this, when the Israelis finally meat an Arab-Israeli in work or in an article about something other than suicide bombings, he tells them he is first a Palestinian (an enemy in their eyes) and then a Israeli.

I haven’t oppressed or occupied anyone.I don’t care about the state being Jewish or not. I was just born here. I try to stop the occupation and the injustices with the tools I have as one person.
In the end, people who come to suicide-bomb on me and my family and friends need to be stopped. Would you agree to that?

also,
“Having rights on paper doesn’t mean anything.” – It’s not only on paper. They get health insurance, national insurance, education, the right to vote and criticize the country, etc – pretty much any right I have. They make use of those rights, whether people like it or not, and criticize Israel and get child benefit payments (just as they should).

Don’t get me wrong, I criticize my country a lot for the injustices and discriminations, I just feel that making it into giving “no rights at all” is also not just.

“I am saddened to see not many Israelis fighting this particular struggle for equality.” – the trouble is most Israelis, at least were I live, haven’t met many Arabs in their life outside of newspapers (usually not in welcoming circumstances). That, along with a very one sided representation of history in schools – leads to the alienation of the Israeli-Arabs. Afterwards, Israelis hear about the Israeli-Arabs referring to themselves as first Palestinians (the ones attacking them in their eyes) and only afterwards Israelis.

I think one of the main reason for the inequality is that the Israeli-Arabs don’t participate enough in the elections. Their representation in the Knesset is much lower than their numbers in Israel.

In the end, those that don’t serve leave others to serve for them

I don’t agree with this logic or its implication. That’s like saying teenagers refuse to be suicide bombers because they want others to pick up the fight for them instead. If this war was clearly about “self-defense,” as opposed to outright occupation, then they would have served. But it’s not. Clearly they find this war to be immoral and are probably too disturbed by the many injustices caused by Israeli soldiers to be a part of that corruption. This is far from “service,” this is about morals. These people are heroic for standing up for what’s right and risking their own freedom or reputation (because let’s face it, everyone is calling them self-hating traitors) in doing so. It takes more guts to commit to one’s own human values than to parade around in a gun.

About the prejudice against Arab-Israelis, it’s true that they are discriminated against here in Israel but saying they have no rights is very far from the truth.

Having rights on paper doesn’t mean anything. Kurds in Turkey have “rights” on paper, yet they are incredibly oppressed there. There are many ways in which Arabs face injustices within Israel. Arabs get treated like 2nd hand, dirty citizens, and for a country that prides itself on its supposed “democracy” that’s quite outrageous. It’s good to see people actually admitting that there’s a problem, considering the amount of people who spent years denying it. But I am still saddened to see not many Israelis fighting this particular struggle for equality, and have the utmost respect and love for those who actually do. In my opinion these are the real Israeli heroes, not the IDF.

About the prejudice against Arab-Israelis, it’s true that they are discriminated against here in Israel but saying they have no rights is very far from the truth. In truth the Arabs get the same technical as everyone else – the only differences are the law of returning (which grants any Jew that comes to live here citizenship and not sons of Arabs that left Israel) and the symbols. They’re municipalities get less money. Most of the problems with the Israeli-Arabs are a result of the Palestinian conflict.

Peace

Well duh, more people to tax,

People are not taxed here. I’m not a very big fan of uninformed comments.

The first time I saw a Bahrain flag was at the back of HUGE yacht. Didn’t even know it was a Bahrain flag till I looked up wikipedia today. 99.9999% of Westerners never even heard of Bahrain.

Honestly, I’m not interested in what you spend your free time looking at on Wikipedia, I mean it’s cute and all, but this post is about the Shministim Solidarity Campaign. It’s actually against our comment policy to be this incredibly irrelevant. I will have to ask you to move this discussion into our forums and to stop turning this thread into something that it’s not. You need to respect this post and the site’s rules, which frankly isn’t much to ask for.

The Israeli media criticizes Israel. The Arab media criticizes Israel. The UN does nothing but criticize Israel. So when does it go the other way? Self criticism is a Jewish tradition (Tanakh), maybe our cousins should pick up that tradition as well.

Just wondering, are all Arab news networks/agencies owned by Arab governments? Is Al-Jazeera owned by the Qatar government? Or is it just a private enterprise based in Qatar?

“Arab Jews who return to Bahrain get them for free”
Well duh, more people to tax, money that goes to the monarch. Bahrain is a pretty small country. Nobody’s existence is threatened there, unless you are gay I persume.

“however Jews do hold high offices and the government is, as noted earlier, favorable to them here.”
Don’t Arabs hold high offices in Israel as well? Supreme Court? Cabinet? Parliament? Military? Answer: Yes.

“For the record, no one can hold the “highest” office in the land but the monarchy itself, however …”
Maybe Israel should turn to a monarchy. That system works well in Bahrain, why not try it in Israel?

“So if the point of your comment was that, somehow, Jews are “suffering” in my country, you fail.”
I am not trying to make that point. Bahrain is pretty small and irrelevant country. As long as the monarch is in control, nobody’s existence is threatened. The first time I saw a Bahrain flag was at the back of HUGE yacht. Didn’t even know it was a Bahrain flag till I looked up wikipedia today. 99.9999% of Westerners never even heard of Bahrain.

However, I do find it revolting when I’m told that somehow I cannot criticize Israel in its own treatment of minorities as well, and that as an Arab I should “just” focus on “Arab governments.” It’s illogical and retarded. I will criticize any government or country that deserves it and Israel is one of them, whether you like it or not is something I really, really don’t care about.

Can a Jew can hold the highest office in the land of Bahrain?

Yes, we have a female Jewish ambassador serving the country, the first Arab Jew to hold such a position in the region. The King offered to build a Synagogue for the Jews here, and have offered land to Arab Jews who return to the country (FYI, some poor locals are dying to get land but Arab Jews who return to Bahrain get them for free.) At least 2 Bahraini Jews serve in the Parliament, others as advisers.

Either way, if I make a false claim like, “Bahrain is a democracy,” then you can spew these facts, otherwise, there’s no reason not to stay relevant. This thread is about Israel. Not Bahrain. My nationality doesn’t mean I can’t criticize other countries as much as I criticize my own (and in case you don’t read my posts, which you probably don’t, then I do that quite often.) Arab countries are corrupt, and no one here denies that, but Israel is corrupt as well and I don’t see why anyone can’t point that fact out.

But look at Baharain, your own country. You still have a monarch in power. There is no law barring an Israeli Arab from becoming PM, the highest office in the land. But can an Arab, a member of the majority, become the King of Bahrain, the highest office in that land? Can a Jew can hold the highest office in the land of Bahrain?

Oh really? Arabs don’t have even one right in Israel?

I’d like to see you deny the fact that Arab citizens face severe discrimination in Israel. Go ahead and try, and then let’s see your facts refuted, by actual Arabs in Israel.