Continuing on the theme of education, Jebreal writes:
According to Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a Hebrew University professor of sociology who has produced the most comprehensive survey of Israeli public school curriculums, not one positive reference to Palestinians exists in Israeli high school textbooks. Palestinians are described as either “Arab farmers with no nationality” or fearsome “terrorists,” as Professor Peled-Elhanan documented in her book “Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education.”
In fact, this book by Peled-Elhanan was thoroughly debunked by Arnon Groiss, Director of Research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, who concluded:
it is clear that Dr. Peled-Elhanan set out with the objective of labeling the Israeli curriculum racist. Motivated by her personal political agenda rather than an investigative spirit, she shot her arrow and then drew a target around it – or stated her preconceived thesis and then tried to find evidence for it. That was not an easy task, since Israeli school textbooks do not contain significant racist material, but she was not deterred by this problem. She made a formidable effort to find supposed evidence, whatever the cost.
. . .
This heavily politicized and thus biased approach distorts the material to produce a picture to her liking. This is not a scholarly work.
Jebreal states:
Israel’s system of segregation has led to a situation where, according to a recent poll, 42 percent of Jews say they have never met a Palestinian.
Jebreal conveniently forgets that Israeli Jews shopped and ate in Palestinian towns without a second thought until the advent of the Palestinian Authority and the outbreak of violence and terror in 2000. It is not a “system of segregation” that has led to these poll results but the inherent risks to Israeli lives caused by Palestinian terrorism that has brought an end to the days when Jews and Arabs mixed freely together.
Jebreal makes a bizarre claim that ultra-Orthodox Jews play a pivotal role in the IDF and that the Israeli army is dominated by religion:
The greater integration of ultra-Orthodox Jews clearly offers benefits to Jewish Israelis, but for Palestinian Israeli citizens, it has meant a new, religiously inspired racism, on top of the old secular discrimination.
Just what is Jebreal arguing? That Arab citizens of Israel are exempted from service in the IDF is in order not to place them in the uncomfortable position of having to take up arms against their cousins in neighboring countries. Israeli Arabs are able, however, to volunteer for IDF service and, indeed, many Arabs, particularly in Druze and Bedouin communities serve with distinction. There is no evidence that a small increase in ultra-Orthodox Jews serving in the IDF is encouraging “religiously inspired racism.”
Jebreal’s screed continues:
National leaders proudly promote hate policies. Israel’s foreign minister and the leader of the secular nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, has championed a call to boycott the businesses of Palestinian citizens of Israel and, ominously, has even sought to make the “transfer” of Palestinians legal.
Neither of these so-call “hate policies” are the policies of the government of Israel and Jebreal leaves out vital context. Lieberman’s call for a boycott was specifically aimed at those businesses taking part in a general strike supporting Palestinians in Gaza and condemning Operation Protective Edge, not Arab businesses in general.
Likewise, Jebreal even links to an article that contradicts her claim that Lieberman endorses “transfer.” The report clearly states Lieberman’s assertion that his plan would involve moving Israel’s border and not moving people and specifically rejects the term “transfer.” Furthermore:
the move would comply with international law on condition that it were done with the consent of the Palestinians, did not leave anyone without citizenship and included a mechanism for providing compensation, similar to the one used with Jewish settlers during Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
In any event, Jebreal opines against policies that are not Israeli law and are not even on the legislative radar at this time.
Jebreal concludes:
While Israel (like the United States) claims to abhor racism and human rights violations elsewhere, the country’s political leadership is actively enacting laws that ensure a pervasive institutionalized system of discrimination. What Israel needs, conversely, is a civil rights movement.
As demonstrated above, Israel’s political leadership is not actively promoting a “pervasive institutionalized system of discrimination.” Israel is instead grappling with how best to ensure its Arab minority has every opportunity open to it and all of the legal and democratic rights that Israel’s Jewish citizens have.
That all of the laws that Jebreal quotes have been argued over extensively by Israel’s legal system and the fact that an extensive network of non-governmental organizations advocate on behalf of Israel’s Arabs is a sign that civil rights in Israel are alive and well.
The New York Times has jumped on the opportunity to once again take Israel’s imperfections and magnify them to the extent of demonizing an entire country. Unfortunately this is what we have come to expect from the “paper of record.”
[sc:graybox ]You can send your considered comments to the New York Times – [email protected] – remembering to include your address and phone numbers to stand a chance of publication.
