Postscript to the Knesset Bill Banning JNF Land Lease to Goyim

Aren't orthodox progressives naifs? I thought that Haaretz's print edition would make a big deal of the preliminary passage of the Knesset bill discriminating against non-Jews that I reported on this blog yesterday. Yet the item got two paragraphs on p. 14 of this morning's edition.

Realistic Dove wrote a heartfelt elegy on the JNF, appropriate for the beginning of the month of Av. Check it out.

According to a piece written by Uri Avnery some time ago, much of the lands currently belonging to the JNF were not bought by Jewish donations, but were expropriated by the Israel government from Arab villages after 1948, and then given to the JNF precisely to preserve the fiction that Israeli institutions do not discriminate against its Arab citizens. As long as Uncle Ahmad and Aunt Jemimah knew their place and stayed in their own shanty-towns, things were harmonious. It was only when that uppity one, Adil Ka'adan, tried to get smart, and integrate a Jews-only settlement, that problems started. The High Court stepped in, the policy was changed, and now the true Zionists have reasserted their privileges.

Will the bill pass? Will it be upheld by the courts? Are separate communities justifable, as Ruth Gavison seems to think? Time will tell...but if you really want to be depressed -- and I can't think of a better time of year -- read the Talk-backs to the Haaretz article.