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At his "farewell" press conference earlier today, President Bush commented that, "most Israelis understand there needs to be a democracy on their border in order for there to be long-lasting peace." A short time later, Israel announced that they were barring Arab political parties from running in…
Eric Margolis in the Toronto Sun on the current situtation in the Middle East:
All parties involved are to blame for this frightful mess: The Palestinians and Hezbollah for provoking Israel, and Israel for its continuing brutal repression of Palestinians and assassinating their leaders. But most at…
A letter appeared in yesterday's Guardian calling on Science Museums to cancel planned 'Israel Day of Science' events in London and Manchester. The letter carried 383 signatories including well-known figures such as Ian Gibson MP and Professor Jim Al-Khalili. Full details below the fold.
There'…
Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Chait states a central truth regarding the situation in Gaza. He was replying to this standard bit of lazy moral relativism from Ezra Klein:
The point is simple: You can argue, as Israel is arguing, that their air strikes are a response to Hamas's missiles. But…
Was tried earlier in the decade. The Israeli Supreme Court threw it out. Besides this ain't gerrymandering, it's voter supression. (see the wiki)
[Yes yes I knew that, but its not such a cute word for a blog title -W]
Not that I think that parties should be banned - and I don't think they will be - but talking of your country as "they" doesn't exactly gives the image that they themselves consider to belong.
You could try Caging (look it up under voter supression)
My first reaction was "Oh, I didn't realise that the Arabs had a vote in Israel." But presumabley that does not include those on the West Bank and in Gaza.
My second point is that although 30% of the population are Arab, they only have about 5% of the seats in the Knesset. I thought that Israel had a propotional system, and that is why a few fundamentalist MPs could get elected and hold the government to ransom.
If that is true then banning two of the three Arab parties will "force" all Arabs to vote for the legal one, and should increase the overall Arab representation in the Knesset, since the Arab vote will no longer be split.
But then perhaps the Jews have gerrymandered the constituencies to prevent that.
The Israeli supreme court threw it out again.
Alastair,
You are making the mistake of assuming that Israeli Arabs only vote for Arab parties. Many, I believe, vote for Labour or other left-Zionist parties.
Eli,
That's because this whole banning thing was political theatre, as Kadima tries to convince the Israeli public that they are as "tough" as Likud. There seems to be a wonderful positive feedback in Israel between the public and the politicians that is stoking anti-Palestinian or at least anti-Hamas fervor. (I make no comment on Hamas' contribution to this.)