Israel restricts rights

Prime Minister Netanyahu will insist in Sharm el-Sheikh that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. President Mahmoud Abbas will be exceedingly reluctant to do that. Here’s why:

Israel is an apartheid state. It is as though we asked American Indians to recognize the U.S. as the nation state of white Western and Northern Europeans.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports a recent poll, showing that 64 percent of Israeli teenagers are aware that “Arab Israelis do not enjoy full equal rights in Israel.” Indeed, 59 percent “believe that they should not have full equal rights.” Half of the respondents would be unwilling to “learn in a classroom with one or more … Arab students.”

A month ago, Gideon Levy wrote in Ha’aretz: “Israel is not the only place where racism is on the rise. Europe and the United States are awash in a turbid wave of xenophobia; but in Israel, this racism is embedded in the state’s most fundamental values. There is no other state whose immigration laws are blatantly and unequivocally based on the candidates’ bloodlines.”

Neither Americans nor Palestinians should recognize a racist state as, well, a racist state.

Wayne B. Kraft

Spokane