From Mondoweiss – Just imagine the outcry if the New York Times completely ignored the existence of black and Latino voters in its analysis of the U.S. elections. But the paper continues to practice electoral apartheid in its coverage of Israel, which goes to the polls again Monday for the third time in less than a year. Let’s start with a fact: 20 percent of the population of Israel within the 1967 borders are Arab Palestinians. Yet David Halbfinger’s pre-election survey today finds 6 different Jewish Israelis to quote, but not one single Arab. He also treats the repeat elections as a kind of joke: Is this election more ‘Groundhog Day’ or an episode of the ‘Twilight Zone’? A Sartre novel or a Beckett play? His attempt at wit covers up the ugly truth; Israel continues to have one election after another partly because there is so much anti-Arab racism in the country that none of the major Jewish political parties will dare to form even a tacit alliance with the Joint List, which...

The European Union should consider Israel's treatment of its Arab population a "core issue, not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," according to a classified working paper produced by European embassies in Israel, parts of which were obtained by Haaretz. This is an unprecedented document in that it deals with internal Israeli issues. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials, it was written and sent to EU headquarters in Brussels behind the back of the Israeli government. Other issues the document deals with include the lack of progress in the peace process, the continued occupation of the territories, Israel's definition of itself as Jewish and democratic, and the influence of the Israeli Arab population. The original document also included suggestions for action the EU should take, but these were removed from the final version at the insistence of several countries. more

Netanyahu condemns attacks on graves of Muslims and Christians but it is his government that is bolstering anti-Arab racism in a state that officially treats Palestinians within its borders as second-class citizens. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday decried the desecration of graves in Christian and Muslim cemeteries in Jaffa during Yom Kippur, saying that Israel is "not willing to tolerate vandalism, especially not the kind that would offend religious sensibilities." “Israel shows tolerance for religious sentiments and a desire for peaceful coexistence without violence, but will show no tolerance for those who oppose it”, said Netanyahu during a cabinet meeting. Netanyahu’s words came after both a Muslim and Christian cemetery were vandalized by graffiti that said “Death to the Arabs”, and “price tag”. Headstones were smashed and racist slogans were spray-painted on graves. The incident occurred less than a week after a mosque was torched, also by alleged Jewish ex...

(pic: Hanin Zoabi being attacked in Israel's 'democratic' parliament) (Reuters) - Israel's parliament suspended an Arab lawmaker on Monday for sailing with a flotilla that challenged the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip last year and was intercepted in a deadly raid. The Knesset's Ethics Committee voted to suspend Hanin Zoabi from most parliamentary debates until the summer recess early next month, while allowing her to take part in any votes held in the current session. Zoabi was punished after three lawmakers filed complaints against her for traveling aboard the Mavi Marmara, a converted cruise ship stormed by the Israeli navy as it led a six-vessel pro-Palestinian flotilla toward Gaza in May 2010. Nine Turkish activists on the ship were killed in fighting with marines. The ethics committee said in a statement that Zoabi had "participated in an action destined to threaten state security." It accused her of cooperating with the Turkish chari...

From the Palestine News and Information Agency NAZARETH, June 16, 2011 (WAFA) - Arab member of Israeli parliament (Knesset) Talab al-Sana, Chairman of the Arab Democratic Party in Israel, Thursday received a letter threatening him with death, from an unknown right-wing group. ‘You described Lieberman not only as a racist but also as a criminal, so I want to tell you that you will die soon because you are a dirty Arab and a traitor. You are all traitors and spies,’ the letter said. Al-Sana, who had received multiple death threats in the past, said: ‘These threats don’t scare me or sway me from my national and human stance. Fascist, right-wing threats make us more determined to tell the truth and advocate justice in issues facing our Arab society and Palestinian cause. Those who stand behind these threats are from the extreme right-wing which is trying to take over and control state affairs.’ more

Palestinian member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi (pictured above) has been stripped of her parliamentary privileges and passport to stop her joining flotilla 2. Israel the 'only democracy in the Middle East'? That's a joke, surely? The Knesset House Committee voted to strip Zoabi of her privileges as an MK, including the right to hold a diplomatic passport, "in order to prevent Zoabi from participating in a similar event in the future," the committee chair explained. Levin then requested from Weinstein "to take action to ensure that MK Zoabi will not be able to take part in the events of the planned flotilla, including preventing her from leaving the country." The Likud MK also pointed out that the Attorney-General's Office has yet to decide whether Zoabi should stand trial for her participation in last year's flotilla incident, saying that the delay "is not justified and shows weakness and inconsistency." more

More on the video, posted Tuesday showing the casual violence of the Israeli police towards Palestinians. Pictured is not just any old cop but Kobi Bachar, deputy commander of the Galilee District Police. The woman assaults is an Arab lawyer who had the temerity to ask him why he was arresting peaceful protesters.

Thanks to Mondoweiss This incident occurred inside Israel near the site of two ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, Kafr Bir'im and Iqrith. The Palestinian Israeli protestors originally made plans to meet up with Palestinian refugees coming from Maroun al Ras, Lebanon. After being prevented from traveling to that meeting place they took their protest to Kafr Bir'im and Iqrith. These are Israeli police and unarmed Israeli protestors. more

By Roi Maor - The State of Israel is building a town in the country’s north. Its purpose: to make sure “the Arabs won’t rear their heads” and to “put them in proportion.” Anybody objecting to this goal should “go live with the Palestinians” and is “harming Israel’s security.” Last week, the Knesset passed a bill that legalizes “acceptance committees” in small localities, a tool that is used to maintain segregation between Jews and Arabs (as well as keeping out various other “undesirables”). As I wrote, this bill is just one of the many policies through which Israel denies its Palestinian citizens the right for adequate housing, even on their own private land. Another one of these policies is called “Judaization.” It is aimed mainly at Israel’s northern and southern periphery, where most Israeli Palestinians reside. Its purpose is to prevent Palestinians from forming a majority in any area of Israel, so that they will not be able to secede or demand autonomy in that area. This aim is ...

The Apartheid character of the Israeli state on show again. So-called Arab Israelis - Palestinians living inside Israel - are treated as second-class citizens in their own land. A Palestinian-Israeli bus driver holding Israeli citizenship has been threatened with firing after he was assigned to a route that serves the Israeli colonial settlement of Elazar. Jewish Israeli residents of the settlement have launched a campaign to have the bus driver fired, submitting a letter to the regional council to that effect. Although the settlers said that they were not motivated by racism, they had to consider the safety of their children, and could not accept the possibility of an Arab bus driver driving their children. At the same time, one of the letters calling for the firing of the driver was submitted by the right-wing organization Komemiyut, which said that “the enemy” should be deprived of their sources of livelihood. more

Israel has imprisoned four prominent Palestinian Israeli citizens who were on the flotilla. The court’s decision to detain the Arab political leaders who took part in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla is discriminatory and constitutes selective prosecution. They are not being detained because of their Israeli citizenship but because they are Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. Instead, the Israeli military, which attacked the ship and its passengers, should be investigated for violations of international law.” (Haifa, Israel) Last night, 1 June 2010, Judge Dina Cohen of the Magistrates’ Court in Ashkelon, after a nine-hour hearing before a packed courtroom, decided to extend the detention of Arab political leaders — Mr. Muhammed Zeidan, the Chairman of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel; Sheikh Raed Salah, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (northern branch); and Sheikh Hamad Abu Daabes, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (southern branch) — and Ms. Lubn...

Video above from Sky News - repeats a lot of Israeli lies but makes it clear this massacre, that has led to up at least 19 dead and 60 injured, is a PR disaster for Israel and its already frosty relationship with erstwhile ally Turkey is now dead. Palestinians living insider the borders of the settler state have called a general strik e. Sadly Sheikh Raed Salah is thought to have been killed in the massacre - perhaps deliberately targeted. Acting Higher Arab Monitoring Committee head calls incident 'massacre'. Deputy of Islamic Movement official Sheikh Raed Salah, rumored to have been injured in takeover, says 'this was an assassination attempt' VIsraeli Arabs are protesting against the takeover of the Gaza flotilla, which claimed to lives of at least 10 activists. The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee on Monday called for a general strip on Tuesday. The committee's acting chairman, Ramez Jaraisi, called for an international proe into what he called "the State ...

Apologists for Israel are fond of describing the settler state as the 'only democracy in the Middle East', but the repression meted out against anti-war protesters during Israel's 22-day war on the Gazan population, should help to put that lie to rest. There's no democracy in Israel if you are an Arab 'citizen'. 'The only apartheid state in the Middle East' would be a more accurate description of Israel. A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. "This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people's morale." This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city... ...Here are some of the pearls in Adalah's new report: "Prohibited protest - how the law enforcement authorities limit t...

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth The increasingly harsh political climate in Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has prompted the leadership of the country’s 1.3 million Arab citizens to call the first general strike in several years. The one-day stoppage is due to take place on October 1, a date heavy with symbolism because it marks the anniversary of another general strike, in 2000 at the start of the second intifada, when 13 Arab demonstrators were shot dead by Israeli police. The Arab leadership said it was responding to a string of what it called “racist” government measures that cast the Arab minority, a fifth of the population, as enemies of the state. “In recent months, there has been a parallel situation of racist policies in the parliament and greater condoning of violence towards Arab citizens by the police and courts,” said Jafar Farah, the head of Mossawa, an Arab advocacy group in Israel. “This attitude is feeding down to the streets....

Israel intends to introduce a new law that demands allegiance to the 'Jewish state' from Palestinians living inside Israel. It is a ploy to deny citizenship to Arabs and maintain the "Jewish' identity of the state. Sounds horribly racist to me.

In an article entited ' The racist Israeli fascist in me ' Bradley Burston expresses well the fact that, from a strategic point of view, Israel is cornered... and Hamas knows it. The weakening of support among American Jews for the Israeli state is of deep concern to Israelis, hence the peculiarly honest article that asserts the right to be racist and fascistic on the basis of rockets harmlessly landing in the Negev desert. The Palestinians of course have no right to defend themselves against the might of the Israeli army, air force and navy: The best way to destroy Israel But now, Hamas is beginning to see something else. At this point, the best way to destroy Israel, is to leave it exactly as it is. Titrate, adjust the flow of rockets fired at Israeli civilians to a level which is thoroughly acceptable to the rest of the world, but which is also entirely unbearable to Israelis. Then, sit back and watch demographics and despair work their magic. No wonder Hamas officials who a...

Palestinians that live in Israel have been smashed off the streets by police as they tried to prevent a bunch of Israeli racists marching through their town. These sort of marches remind me of when the racist, anti-semitic and fascist National Front would attempt to stage provocative marches in the multicultural areas of UK cities in the 1970s. The police poured huge resources into protecting the NF but we eventually smashed them off the streets through force of numbers, notably in Lewisham, south-east London. The National Union rally also sounds similar to the sectarian Orange Order marches through Catholic areas of the north of Ireland which were designed as a statement of superiority and supremacy by the Protestants over the Catholics. Unfortunately in this case in northern Israel it was the police that succeeded, and the racist ant-Arab rally to 'assert sovereignty' went ahead. Mind you in the UK at the time we didn't have to put up with shock grenades and tear gas, alt...

An 'Arab Israeli' woman, Rasmiya Saadi, (in other words a Palestinian living inside the so-called 'Jewish state') and her young children aged between 8 and 14 were assaulted by police on Wednesday in Jaffa. Her kids were playing with a toy gun - a dangerous for an Palestinian to do in the apartheid state - when a passing police vehicle stopped and attacked the children. When the pregnant mother tried to intervene she was hit in the stomach. The female Israeli officer stood by and laughed according to reports at ynetnews . The police then entered the woman's house and among other things locked her 14-year-old son in a room and beat him, later taking him away for detention, and no doubt more beatings. These instances of police brutality against Palestinians in Israel are an everyday event but are rarely reported in the media. None of the Israeli police involved have been arrested let alone charged but hey - they are 'investigating'.

Right in the ascendancy. Extreme right in third place. 'Left' hammered. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are still struggling to survive in their open-air prison.

From the Guardian Lieberman has made his campaign slogan "No loyalty, no citizenship", directed at Israel's 20% Arab population. [Above] is one of his campaign ads, starting with mugshots of current and former Arab-Israeli Knesset members (MKs). The narrator's voice intones ominously ... Former MK Abdel Malek Dehamsheh: "I am ready to be a shahid [martyr]." Monthly state pension: NIS 7,000 An emergency beeping sound is heard as a sign reading "A shame and a disgrace" flashes over Dehamsheh's face. It repeats for the next Arab-Israeli politician. MK Abbas Zakour: "We are proud of Hamas and all those who support it." Monthly salary paid by the state: NIS 33,000 Again, the emergency beeping sign and "A shame and a disgrace". MK Jamal Zahalka is excoriated for saying that Arab citizens who volunteer for national service are lepers. After the slogan "Only Lieberman understands Arabic" comes footage of students dem...