Arabs in Israel | The American Task Force on Palestine

In Lod, destruction of homes may be harbinger of more woes for Israel's Arabs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - June 3, 2011 - 12:00am

Where six modest homes of the Abu Eid family once stood rest piles of rubble, refrigerators and personal belongings. Demolitions that target Arab homes are certainly not a new issue inside Israel: as many as 800 were destroyed last year, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Because many lack the difficult-to-obtain housing permits, tens of thousands more are at risk for demolition.

Palestinians are people, too
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Hill
by Mustafa Barghouthi - (Blog) June 3, 2011 - 12:00am

Every June 5 for the past 44 years of my life has brought back memories of being a 13-year-old facing life under Israeli occupation. Forty-four years ago I saw Israelis for the first time. It took my generation a very long and difficult time to come to terms with accepting the need for peace and compromise with our occupier. That compromise was the two-state solution. Our goal was to end occupation and achieve freedom, dignity, and self-determination.

A word on your Arab citizens
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Mohammad Darawshe - (Opinion) June 1, 2011 - 12:00am

The prime minister’s mention of Israeli Arabs in Congress last month was a step in the right direction but mere mention, without addressing any of the challenges they face, certainly wasn’t enough. Dear Prime Minister, I would like to congratulate you on your decision to mention the Arab citizens of Israel in your speech to the US Congress last month. Clearly, one of the most significant indicators of the quality of a democracy is the status of its minorities. Like you, I too believe it is important to look at Israeli society and ask: Does the Arab minority in Israel enjoy equal rights?

Jerusalem is already divided
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Analysis) May 31, 2011 - 12:00am

"Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at Sunday's festive cabinet meeting, held at the Tower of David, in the Old City, in honor of Jerusalem Day. In the conciliatory spirit that has recently taken hold of him, Netanyahu added: "This creates a difficulty for the Palestinians, but with creativity and good will, a solution is possible."

Majority of both Palestinians and Israeli expect new intifada
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - (Blog) May 31, 2011 - 12:00am

Two polls earlier this month gave strikingly similar results on one question: do you think a third intifada (Palestinian uprising) is looming? An Israeli poll for The Peace Index found that 70% of Jews in Israel expect a popular uprising following the expected declaration of a Palestinian state in September and its possible recognition by the UN. (62% of Israeli-Arabs also think an intifada is likely.)

Op-Ed: We must talk about the two Jerusalems
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Jill Jacobs - (Opinion) May 31, 2011 - 12:00am

NEW YORK (JTA) -- After my first visit to Israel, at age 6, I proudly toted my photo album to Hebrew school for show-and-tell. As the class crowded around a picture of the Kotel, my teacher marveled, “Look how blue the sky is!” I squinted at the picture: The sky didn’t look any bluer than the sky in Framingham, Mass., where I grew up. But I believed her. Of course, the Jerusalem sky would be bluer than anywhere else in the world.

Palestinian makes artistic mark on passports
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
by Jihan Abdalla - (Analysis) May 30, 2011 - 12:00am

It is like no other passport control on earth. No stern official sitting behind a glass wall, no scanning of travel documents, no terse questions about where you are going. Instead, a lone artist greets arriving visitors and politely asks them if they would like an entry stamp. Living in occupied territory, the Palestinians do not have the right to set up their own frontier controls. Anyone who passes through Israeli checkpoints is swiftly absorbed into the bustling streets of West Bank cities like Ramallah.

Beneath Jerusalem, an underground city takes shape
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Matti Friedman - May 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Underneath the crowded alleys and holy sites of old Jerusalem, hundreds of people are snaking at any given moment through tunnels, vaulted medieval chambers and Roman sewers in a rapidly expanding subterranean city invisible from the streets above. At street level, the walled Old City is an energetic and fractious enclave with a physical landscape that is predominantly Islamic and a population that is mainly Arab.

Misgav Residents Say They Want To Combat Urban Sprawl, Not Exclude Arabs as Neighbors
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - (Analysis) May 30, 2011 - 12:00am

This rural, laidback municipality, spread over 44,000 acres in the Galilee hills, is home to 29 Jewish villages, six Arab Bedouin villages and one of the few mixed Jewish-Arab schools in Israel. Because of this, its residents resent being called racists. But that is just how they have been portrayed frequently in the Israeli press. Ever since the Knesset passed a law in March that gave villages such as these the right to screen who may live in them for “social suitability,” the residents of Misgav have been cited as prime examples of the law’s alleged discriminatory intent.

Independence Day and the ‘Nakba Law’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Issa Boursheh - (Opinion) May 8, 2011 - 12:00am

‘We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” This is what the founders of the State of Israel guaranteed to the family of nations and its own people. Full and equal citizenship; and this is what I, as a Palestinian-Israeli, am anticipating, with fairly low expectations.

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