consortiumnews.com
Israel's Troubling Tilt Toward Apartheid
By Robert Parry
March 19, 2010
The United Nations General Assembly may well have been wrong in 1975 to equate Zionism with racism, since many early Israelis rejected extremist notions regarding separation of Jews from Arabs. But today a virulent form of Zionism is turning Israel in the direction of an intolerant apartheid state.
This ultra-conservative strain of Judaism is now represented at senior levels of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, especially in the Housing Ministry, which recently humiliated Vice President Joe Biden by announcing 1,600 more Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem as Biden was arriving to reaffirm U.S. solidarity with Israel.
An under-reported element of the flare-up between the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s government is that Israel’s Housing Minister Ariel Atias, who sprang the announcement during Biden’s visit, is a religious fanatic whose ultra-Orthodox Judaism is about as intolerant of others as many extreme forms of Islam are.
Atias, a rising star in the religious Shas Party, has publicly called for imposing legal and physical constraints on the housing choices of Israel’s Arab population. But his demands for segregation do not stop at Arabs. He also targets secular Jews who don’t follow strict religious rules.....
short excerpt of full article;
http://consortiumnews.com/Print/2010/031910.html
Israel's Troubling Tilt Toward Apartheid
By Robert Parry
March 19, 2010
The United Nations General Assembly may well have been wrong in 1975 to equate Zionism with racism, since many early Israelis rejected extremist notions regarding separation of Jews from Arabs. But today a virulent form of Zionism is turning Israel in the direction of an intolerant apartheid state.
This ultra-conservative strain of Judaism is now represented at senior levels of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, especially in the Housing Ministry, which recently humiliated Vice President Joe Biden by announcing 1,600 more Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem as Biden was arriving to reaffirm U.S. solidarity with Israel.
An under-reported element of the flare-up between the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s government is that Israel’s Housing Minister Ariel Atias, who sprang the announcement during Biden’s visit, is a religious fanatic whose ultra-Orthodox Judaism is about as intolerant of others as many extreme forms of Islam are.
Atias, a rising star in the religious Shas Party, has publicly called for imposing legal and physical constraints on the housing choices of Israel’s Arab population. But his demands for segregation do not stop at Arabs. He also targets secular Jews who don’t follow strict religious rules.....
short excerpt of full article;
http://consortiumnews.com/Print/2010/031910.html