By Arieh Eldad

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel recently published its annual report for 2007. The report was released to mark International Human Rights Day. The association claims that its purpose is to defend all human rights for all people in Israel. More than half of the report relates to violations of Arab rights, and I could not find even one line about violations of the rights of those expelled from Gush Katif, or about discrimination against Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia.

The highlight of the report, which received much media attention, is the chapter dealing with the rights of Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. Its conclusion is that racist winds are blowing in Israel. The report cites polls by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Center for Combating Racism. According to these polls, 78 percent of the Jewish population opposes having Arab parties or ministers in the governing coalition, 50 percent is afraid when they hear Arabic in the street, 75 percent would not agree to live in an apartment building with Arabs, and 55 percent support the idea that the state should encourage the emigration of Arabs from Israel. The authors of this report compared the current situation with previous years’ and concluded that racism towards Arab citizens is on a continual rise.

The report is full of citations and quotes, statistics and footnotes, and pretends to be a scientific document, but its premises are baseless and therefore it is not even worth the paper on which it is printed, and it is a shame that so many trees had to be felled in rainforests in order to publish this propaganda. Let’s take as an example the manipulative use the report’s authors make of the term “racism.”

Racism is defined as a position or a behavior discriminating against people on the basis of color, ethnicity, nationality or religion. The German destruction of the Jews was racist, as was what they did to the Gypsies, and what the Turks did to the Armenians. However, the hatred of the Russians for the Germans in the Second World War was not racist. In that terrible war, the Russians hated those who invaded their homeland, brought destruction upon them, and murdered millions. When 50 percent of the Jews in Israel say they are afraid when they hear someone speaking Arabic in the street, is this racism? Or perhaps the fear stems from the remarkable phenomena that 100 percent of the suicide bombers in our streets have been Arabic speakers? Whoever hears the shout Allah hu akhbar does not hate Moslems because he is racist, he just fears becoming the next victim of Jihadi terrorist organizations’ attempt to murder Jews wherever they are and destroy Western culture simply because it is Western culture.

The authors of the report act as if they are aliens from a far away planet who have landed in Eretz Israel, where they see a Jewish majority hating an Arab minority, and they pity the Arabs. Were they to take a slightly more comprehensive perspective, they would see 6 million Jews living in a sea of 200 million Arabs who for a hundred years have been exerting all their energies to destroy us. Maybe then they would pity the Jews. But not to worry, the Association for Civil Rights has chosen the perspective by which its “discoveries” fit its world view.

The report’s authors do not for one moment ask themselves why hatred towards Arabs has increased in recent years. They ignore “The Future Vision” report published by The Arab Israeli Follow-up Committee, which negates the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. They ignore the Arab demands to turn Israel into a bi-national state where Arabs would have the right to veto decisions by “the Jewish side.” They ignore calls by Arab leaders to boycott any young Arab who dares volunteer for national service, and they boycott Independence Day celebrations. It would be better if Israeli Arabs and those who assist them, who openly identify with Israel’s enemies who call for its destruction, examined themselves before they call “racist” the hopes of half of the Jews that the Arabs will emigrate. The Arabs have honestly earned every expression of enmity and hate.

Is there then no racism in Israel? Of course there is. If 74 percent of the youth believe that “Arabs are unclean,” this is ugly racism that needs to be uprooted. And there are other instances: the discrimination against and isolation of immigrants from Ethiopia, and the setting of limits on the immigration of the Falashmura. During the time of the British White Paper, which set limits on immigration by Jews, tens of thousands demonstrated in the streets in opposition. Similar decisions are now being implemented by a Jewish Israeli government against Jews in Ethiopia. This is racism pure and simple. The fact that the Association for Civil Rights ignores this is apparently further evidence that the Falashmura are Jews.