Jewish and "Democratic" -- Israel Racism Watch

Today I kick off a new feature on The Magnes Zionist -- I call it the Israel Racism Watch. Israel is a deeply racist state. By that, I don't mean that Israelis are any more racist than other folks. Who isn't bigoted when it comes to race? It is not the racism of Israelis that should be of particular interest, but the racism inherent in political Zionism, which set at its goal the creation of an ethnic nation state that distinguishes between citizenship and nationality. That is racist.

Is Zionism racist? Not all kinds of Zionism. But the sort of Zionism that is embodied within the state of Israel is indeed racist.

And please, don't tell me that Zionism can't be racist because any gentile can convert to Judaism, blah, blah, blah. By "racism" I mean unwarranted discrimination on the basic of religion, ethnicity, national origin, etc.

For instance, suppose this scenario: 64% of Americans support legislation requiring the president of the United States to be Christian (or White, or Anglo-Saxon). That would get US Jews up in arms, right? After all, even though the majority culture of the US is Christian, and even though the chances of a Jew being elected president are slim, though not as slim as in the past, still -- wouldn't you American Jews be outraged if legislation like that were supported by almost 2/3 of the American public? Wouldn't you cry antisemitism, and rightfully so?

So read this (in Hebrew)

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3420441,00.html

Yup, you guessed it -- 64% of the Israeli public supports legislation requiring that the Prime Minister be Jewish. So the son of the Rumanian foreign worker, who is born in Israel, and serves in the army as a distinguished war hero, and gets elected as the leader of the Likud party, would be barred -- by law -- because of his religion. And the Palestinian Israeli whose has lived in it for generations would be barred -- by law -- because of his religion.

And pulleez, don't quote Arnold Schwarzenegger to me. He can't be president of the US because he is not a native American. But twenty percent (at least) of Israelis who are NATIVE Israelis would be barred.

You may say, "Oh, but that will never get to the stage of legislation"...but that's not the point. The point is that most people say, "Well, of course only a Jew can be a prime minister -- this is a Jewish state." And so citizenship goes out the tubes.

Just another reason why "the only democracy in the Middle East" is hardly a democracy, but rather an ethnocracy which gives lip service to democracy....