Dennis Fox’s Weblog

A primary theme of my course on Psychology, Law, and Justice at Ben Gurion University last fall was the consequences for Israelis of the ideological proposition that a Jewish state can be a democratic state in the Western sense of ensuring full legal equality and protecting individual rights for every citizen (at least in theory, even if rarely in practice). My Israeli students, as well as other Israelis I met, fully understood the inconsistency and acknowledged their government did not live up to its reputation as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” though they remained divided and uncertain about what to do about the situation.

One topic that came up in class was an Israeli Supreme Court decision that the Israeli Land Authority could not discriminate against Arab citizens. We wondered together if this would have any real impact or if the government would find a way around it. As it turns out, the Knesset has now passed new legislation to make the Supreme Court decision irrelevant. There’s now a petition circulating to protest the Knesset action:

We the undersigned express our profound disapproval and sorrow at the Israeli Knesset’s recent passage, on first reading, of the Jewish National Fund bill.  The bill would prohibit Israel’s Arab citizens from leasing land owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and managed by the Israeli Land Authority (which administers 93% of Israel’s land). The Israel High Court had earlier ruled that the ILA cannot discriminate against Arabs in leasing such land. This new legislation is an attempt to circumvent that ruling.

We applaud the High Court for putting an end to a discriminatory practice that should never have existed within a democratic state. We also applaud the Israeli MK’s, Jewish and Arab that voted against the amendment.  If Israel is to be truly democratic, all its citizens must have the right to lease land held in trust by the government of Israel.  Israel must not settle for anything less.

We call upon to the Knesset to defeat the amendment when it comes up for its next reading and to embrace values of equality and tolerance for all its citizens.

You can sign here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 10:26 am and is filed under Israel/Palestine, Law/Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.