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From: Center for Policy Research <cpr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Date: 22 Apr 93 17:31 PDT
Subject: Re: rejoinder. Questions to Israelis
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From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: rejoinder. Questions to Israelis


Dear Josh

I appreciate the fact that you sought to answer my questions.

Having said that, I am not totally happy with your answers.

1.   You did not fully answer my question whether Israeli ID cards
identify the holders as Jews or Arabs. You imply that U.S.
citizens must identify themselves by RACE. Is that true ? Or are
just trying to mislead the reader ? Do you know of any democratic
country where people are asked to reveal their ethnical or
religious identity to any public official who so requests ?

2.  The answer to the second question is evasive. There are all
kinds of maps issued.  They are not equivalent to State policy.
You did not respond to my question.

3.  Your answer to the third question (Israeli nuclear arsenal) is
interesting. You say that Israeli 'probably' stocks nuclear
weapons. What evidence have you for maintaining that ?

4.  My fourth question was answered by someone else who posted a
Ma'ariv article documenting such cases. I did not ask about cases
like Vanunu (everybody knew he was tried and imprisoned) but about
those about whom nobody even knows that they have been tried and
imprisoned.

5.  Thanks for clarifying the question concerning the legal status
of the inhabitants of the occupied territories. From it I
understand that there are two sets of laws in these ares, one for
the occupier (civil law) and one for the occupied (military law).
The law allows Israeli Arabs to settle in Hebron, it seems. If so,
why doesn't it allow Hebron Arabs to settle in Israel ?

6. Your answer to the question concerning rights to return
conflicts with what I was told, namely that hundreds of thousands
of non-Jews who left for some reason or other the area under
Israel control during the war of 1947-8, were prevented from
returning for the sole reason they were not Jews. Jews who also
left, for example to Europe, to avoid the clashes, were allowed to
return. How can you justify such discrimination, if this is true ?
Is the mere fact of a person leaving area of combat to seek refuge
somewhere else a reason for stripping him of his right to live in
his homeland ?

7.  Somebody answered my 7.question regarding Y. Rabin signing an
order for ethnical cleansing in 1948. According to that
information, Y. Rabin signed the order for the expulsion of all
inhabitants of Lydda and Ramleh, about 50,000 people.  These
expulsions were helped by massacres of civilians and other
atrocities which remind Bosnia. I was referred to a book by
Israeli journalist Benny Goodman called The Origin of the
Palestinian Refugee Problem, published by Cambridge University
Press. Is this book available in your library ?

8.  You maintain that there are some Israeli Arabs living in
Israeli kibbutzim. I wonder how many and where. There is very
little evidence available about that. As much as I know, many
Arabs are working *for* kibbutzim, even for many years, but are
not accepted as members. Could it be that kibbutzim do not want
Arabs ?

9.  My question about the lack of civil marriage in Israel was
whether it is true that the Israeli legislator intended to
discourage intermarriage. You did not address this question but
evaded it by saying that the 'entire religious establishment wants
to keep it what way'. I am certain that if only religious
communities in the U.S. would be asked, they would gladly abolish
civil marriage so that people would depend upon rabbis and priests
to officiate marriages. But Israel has always been ruled by a
secular majority. Your answer is not satisfactory.


I would be glad to have some more input from you after these
comments.

Elias

