TVNL REMINDER: July 2007 - A new bill in the Knesset seeks to perpetuate discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens.
Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed, on first reading, the Jewish National Fund bill which allows the JNF to refuse to lease land to Arab citizens. The JNF is a quasi-public charity established to raise funds to purchase land for Jewish settlement within Israel. In 1961, the Israeli government transferred 13% of Israeli land to the JNF. Included in this were one million dunams expropriated from Arab residents who fled Israel in 1948.
The government had sold the land to the JNF at bargain-basement prices in order to remain at arm's length from the tainted process. Historically, the JNF has maintained a ban against Arab use of its land. But the Israeli supreme court, in a landmark ruling, said that the JNF can no longer discriminate against the Arab population. The Court maintained that such a ban defies the norms of a democratic state and must be ended.
The Knesset bill, co-sponsored by a ruling party Kadima Knesset member, is an attempt to get around the court ruling.
Only in America can elected officials go on TV and confess to felonies (including torture and warrantless spying, not to mention aggressive war) and the resulting debate focus around the question of whether investigating the "possibility" of wrong-doing would be too radical. This week a coalition of dozens of human rights groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Society of American Law Teachers released a statement, as drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, cutting to the chase.
President Obama arrived at one of the nation’s most storied military bases Friday morning to unveil plans to pull most troops out of Iraq by August 2010 after receiving support from an unlikely quarter — Senator John McCain, the Republican he beat in last year’s election.
