Israel a Safe Haven for Arabs

Israel is only place in Middle East where Arabs are entitled to full democratic rights

Eddie Yair Fraiman

The Tunisian revolution began when a green grocer, Mohamed Bouazizi, self-immolated after suffering from severe police harassment. Through this brave, desperate act, he was transformed into the symbol of the new Arab revolution. Reflecting on Bouazizi’s ultimate act of protest, one can hardly conceive of what atmosphere and surroundings would compel an individual to resort to such an extreme.

The Arab states in the Middle East are ruled by dictators who act without mercy towards their own people and deprive them of their basic civil democratic rights. The anger rooted in decades of oppression and repression has finally bubbled up to the surface and erupted in the so-called “Arab Spring,” the wave of revolution and protest sweeping the region.

This cathartic expression of Arab peoples demanding their rights has in turn been met not with reform or concession, but with brutal, bloody crackdowns. The images broadcast from our regional neighbors are hard to watch: Live fire directed at protesters with lethal intentions in Syria and Yemen; missile fire on rebel and civilian positions in Libya; shelling, rape and mass killings of civilians by regime forces in Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Syria.

Civilian protests and freedom of expression are basic principles integral to and respected in any advanced state. The violence unleashed against protesters is antithetical to these important values, but reflective of the old patterns that Arab regimes have consistently employed; brutality and political repression have been the hallmark of Arab political control for more than half a century.

Even those states which offer some democratic privileges to their citizens are in fact engaged in a type of political theater - their elections are farcical in that the despotic leadership fails to allow any real pluralism. Opposition groups are denied true free expression and a real, effective voice.

Full civil rights

The extreme events we witnessed in recent weeks are contrary to all democratic and enlightenment principles. But they are the expected response from regimes that have already long demonstrated their total disregard for human rights and international values. Exactly as happened after Hamas took control of the Gaza strip in June 2007, these regimes have shown the inevitable outcome that results when non- and anti-democratic forces are given free rein over their populations.

Perhaps ironically, the only place in the Middle East where Arabs enjoy full democratic rights is the State of Israel. Arab citizens of Israel take for granted their freedom of movement, freedom of speech, the right to elect and be elected, freedom of assembly and protest - in short, all the individual and collective rights that are the essential and unassailable prerogatives of any citizen in any democratic state.

These rights don’t exist in any Arab state, but in Israel all of us, Jewish and Arab citizens alike, receive full civil rights. Everyone is equal in the eyes of Israeli law; all receive national insurance, education and national health care. Israel’s Arab citizens are also afforded affirmative action measures in educational institutions and government offices.

A poll published two months ago showed that a majority of east Jerusalem Arabs prefer to stay under Israeli rule rather than come under Palestinian Authority control. Many claimed they would be willing to leave their homes and relocate into Israel if their cities are transferred to PA control. Those living in Jerusalem are familiar with the phenomenon of east Jerusalem residents moving into Jewish neighborhoods - a trend in large part fueled by the fear that certain Arab communities in the city may be turned over to the PA. Apparently, Palestinian Arabs understand what we Israelis have often forgotten in recent years - the uniqueness of the state of Israel in the wild east.

Maybe the revolution in the Arab world will bring change, and the death and slaughter will bring about freedom of expression and, eventually, democracy. Alternatively, Islamic organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which represent a significant portion of the opposition, may take power, and true democracy will remain a distant dream.

One thing is certain: Israeli Arabs have nothing to worry about. They can freely exercise their democratic rights, and nobody will shoot them in the streets.



Ynet News

Israel and Zionism

What is Israel?

Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.
- Charles Krauthammer - The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998

"Israel is the expression of the Jewish resolve to live by what is good and just for the Jewish people and not by what finds favor in the eyes of others".

- Yosef Tekoah, From an address made in New York, April 15, 1975 -

Is Israel crucial to Jewish survival and continuity?

The stakes could not be higher. It is my contention that on Israel - on its existence and survival - hangs the very existence and survival of the Jewish people. Or, to put the thesis in the negative, that the end of Israel means the end of the Jewish people. They survived destruction and exile at the hands of Babylon in 586 B.C. They survived destruction and exile at the hands of Rome in 70 A.D., and finally in 132 A.D. They cannot survive another destruction and exile. The Third Commonwealth - modern Israel, born just 50 years ago - is the last.

The return to Zion is now the principal drama of Jewish history. What began as an experiment has become the very heart of the Jewish people - its cultural, spiritual, and psychological center, soon to become its demographic center as well. Israel is the hinge. Upon it rest the hopes--the only hope--for Jewish continuity and survival.

- Charles Krauthammer - The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998 -

What other names were used to describe the land including the modern State of Israel?

Many terms for the Land exist in other languages. The English call it "Palestine", and the Germans "Palastina", having adopted the name through the course of generations from the Greek and Roman inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast. As seagoing peoples, the Greeks and Romans first discovered the Land of Israel through direct contact with its Philistine inhabitants who according to the Old Testament (see Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4; Deuteronomy 2:23), came from Caphtor, which may probably be identified with Crete. A Pelasgian origin was also suggested, but modern scholars believe that the Philistines, undoubtedly immigrants, came from Crete.

During the period of Roman rule the land was divided into districts: "Palestina Prima" in the South, "Palestina Secunda" in the central portion, and "Palestina Tertia" in the southern part of Transjordan. The English also called the country "the Holy Land", and the French "Terre Sainte", from the Latin "Terra Sancta". The State of Israel issued a special medallion bearing the words "Terra Sancta" for non-Jewish pilgrims. The English "Land of Israel" and the French "Pays d'Israel" appear in Christian literature, and writers have called their books on the Land by these names. Another name common among non-Jews is "the promised land", found in Latin literature and maps of the country. The English and Germans also use the names "land of the Bible" and "land of the Holy Scriptures". "Das Gelobte Land" (the praiseworthy land) appears in German literature praiseworthy for the great events which occurred during the time ancient Israel dwelt in the homeland of the Holy Scriptures and cradle of Christianity.

In Arabic literature, the Land of Israel appears once in the Koran, as "Ard al Makdasa" (the Holy Land) in the Islamic version of Moses' words to the people of Israel: "Enter, my people, the Holy Land which Allah has assigned for you" (Koran, 5, "The Table", 24).

Today the Arabs call the land "Falestin", the Arabic version of "Palestina", appearing in ancient Jewish literature. This name is found also in medieval Arabic literature, where it designates only a part of the Land of Israel, the southern district and its capital Ramla, corresponding to the ancient Roman "Palestina Prima".

Between medieval and modern times, the Arabs also called the Land of Israel, together with neighboring Syria, "A-Sham".

During the modern period, after the end of World War I, nationalist Arabs called the Land, including Transjordan, "Suria a-Jenubiyeh" (southern Syria). This was also the name of an Arabic newspaper published in Jerusalem. These nationalists hoped to annex the Land of Israel, then under British rule, to Syria, where an Arabic kingdom had been established. When the French, who had been promised the mandate over all of Syria and Lebanon, put an end to this kingdom, the term "southern Syria" disappeared.

- HMAVERIK@aol.com -

Is Israel a democracy? Is Israel humanitarian?

Democracy: No culture has shown a more profound commitment to democracy and its values than Israel. The U.S., perhaps the most strenuous defender of human rights, cannot claim that the danger that led to internment camps for Japanese and to the McCarthy inquisition compares with the threat Israel has faced in its first fifty years. Look at Israel's free, untrammeled speech and multicultural dialogue. The Israelis are not without fault? They don't do well enough by their own Arabs or the falashas [Ethiopian Jews]? What grade would you give the rest of the world for its treatment of minorities and racially different refugees?

Place in the Global Community: Israel is actually a natural leader and model for would-be developing nations. In the early '60s, Israel had perhaps the single most successful program of "peace corps" volunteers and professionals in the world. How did the Israelis know all about the Entebbe airport? They built it.

- David S. Landes & Richard A. Landes, in The New Republic, September 8, 1997 -

Why is Israel so cautious when is comes to peace-making, territorial compromises, and foreign policy in general?

America is a country that has never had to conduct foreign policy as process, or felt the need to look upon diplomacy as a continuing set of relationships. Nor has it ever known tragedy as a people. By contrast the Jewish people have experienced an endless series of tragedies. Moreover; Americans inhabit a continent, while Israelis inhabit a territory which, at its widest point, is 50 miles--from the Jordan to the sea. Reconciling the imperatives of a superpower with the necessities of an ancient people is no simple matter.

- HENRY A. KISSINGER, in a speech for Commentary magazine -

Did the British ever say they supported establishing a national home in Palestine for the Jewish People?

His majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

- British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour in a letter to Baron Edward de Rothchild as a representative of the Jewish people, November 2, 1917, the letter would become known as 'The Balfour Declaration', which pledged the support of the British government for a national home for the Jewish People in the area of the British Mandate for Palestine.

"[The Jordan river] will not do as Palestine's eastern boundary. Our duty as Mandatory is to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling State but one that is capable of a vigorous and independent national life."

- the Times of London, September 19, 1919 -

"So far as the Arabs are concerned --I hope they will remember that it is we who have established an independent Arab sovereignty of the Hedjaz. I hope they will remember it is we who desire in Mesopotamia to prepare the way for the future of a self-governing, autonomous Arab State, and I hope that, remembering all that, they will not grudge that small notch -- for it is no more than that geographically, whatever it may be historically -- that small notch in what are now Arab territories being given to the people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it."

- A.J. Balfour, July 12, 1920 -



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