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Pedro Gonçalves

Israelis must integrate to survive | Aluf Benn | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ntegration-orthodox-jews-arabs

Israel Society

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • If you're interested in Israel's future, all you need to know is one statistic: among Israeli kids in their first year at primary school, about half are Arabs or ultra-Orthodox Jews. And their portion is expanding. Looking forward, a very different Israeli society is emerging, with its Jewish secular core shrinking
  • Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from military service, and are under-represented in the workforce. As their relative weight in society keeps growing, Israel risks security and economic implosion, since fewer and fewer soldiers and employees will protect and provide for an expanding population of welfare recipients. The Jewish state's long-term survival depends on reversing the trend of non-participation among its Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens.
  • special treatment comes with a price. At the personal level, freedom from military service extends your youth, but also bars opportunity. In Israel, the military serves as the basis of networking. Our Oxford and Cambridge are the elite army and air force units. (Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his key political ally, defence minister Ehud Barak, served together in the special forces.) An Arab or ultra-Orthodox seeking a job, even with an academic degree, stays out of the club and often faces prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.
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  • Anti-Orthodox activists seek to curb their adversaries' birthrate through cutting child support incentives. It works: a recent Bank of Israel study found that expanding child-support incentives in the 1990s influenced a higher birthrate among Arab and ultra-Orthodox families. Subsequent cuts when Netanyahu was finance minister have reduced it
  • Coercing the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox into military service and employment is not going to work. It will only increase social tension.
  • Israel can't wait until these humble beginnings develop into a wider social revolution. Saving the country from implosion demands a sea change in perceptions and elimination of inter-"tribal" hatred and prejudice
Pedro Gonçalves

Seeking Balance on the Mideast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ng-balance-on-the-mideast.html

Israel Palestine US J Street

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • A prominent Israeli politician, Isaac Herzog, has shrewdly suggested that Israel actually offer, with conditions, to vote in favor of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
  • Yet the American House of Representatives voted 407 to 6 to call on the Obama administration to use its diplomatic capital to try to block the initiative, while also threatening to cut the Palestinians’ funding if they proceeded to seek statehood.
  • Similarly, when Israel stormed into Gaza in 2008 to halt rocket attacks, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed, along with 13 Israelis, according to B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights group. As Gazan blood flowed, the House, by a vote of 390 to 5, hailed the invasion as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
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  • Such Congressional tomfoolery bewilders our friends and fritters away our international capital. It also encourages the intransigence of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reduces the chance of a peace settlement.
  • American Jews have long trended liberal, and President Obama won 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. Yet major Jewish organizations, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, embrace hawkish positions.
  • That’s because those Jews who vote and donate based on Israel are disproportionately conservative (the same is true of Christians who are most passionate about Israel issues). Ben-Ami argues that “the loudest eight percent” have hijacked Jewish groups to press for policies that represent neither the Jewish mainstream nor the best interests of Israel.
  • Some see this influence of Jewish organizations on foreign policy as unique and sinister, but Congress often surrenders to loudmouths who have particular foreign policy grievances and claim to have large groups behind them. Look at the way extremists in the Cuban-American community have insisted upon sanctions on Cuba that have helped sustain Fidel Castro’s rule.
  • “What happens as Israel continues to become more religious and conservative, more isolated internationally and less democratic domestically?” Ben-Ami writes. “What happens to the relationship between American Jews and Israel as the face of Israel shifts from that of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to that of the national religious settlers and the ultra-Orthodox rabbis?”
  • When Glenn Beck becomes the best friend of Israel’s government and is invited to speak to the Knesset, what do liberals do? Some withdraw. Others join leftist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports divestment campaigns against companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
  • (Whenever I write about Israel, I get accused of double standards because I don’t spill as much ink denouncing worse abuses by, say, Syria. I plead guilty. I demand more of Israel partly because my tax dollars supply arms and aid to Israel. I hold democratic allies like Israel to a higher standard — just as I do the U.S.)
Pedro Gonçalves

Binyamin Netanyahu suffers setback as centrists gain ground in Israel election | World ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...l-elections-binyamin-netanyahu

Israel

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Yesh Atid, a new centrist party led by the former television personality Yair Lapid, won 19 seats. It concentrated its election campaign on socio-economic issues and removing the exemption for military service for ultra-orthodox Jews.
  • Yehuda Ben Meir of the Institute of National Security Studies, said: "The story of this election is a slight move to the centre, and above all the possibility of Netanyahu forming a coalition only with his 'natural partners' does not exist. He is definitely going to work for a wider coalition."
  • Kadima, which was the biggest party in the last parliament with 28 seats, saw its support plummet and only just crossed the threshold of votes needed to win two seats, according to the partial results.
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