Ynet News published a very interesting article last week, describing how hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem are rushing to apply for Israeli citizenship so that they won't have to experience the joys of living in an independent state of Palestine under the rule of (at best) the Fatah kleptocracy (or, of course, possibly the Islamist neo-Taliban style of government under Hamas). Obviously, they have recognized that the supposedly "evil apartheid state" of the Zionists will provide a better quality of life for them and their children.
Israel should welcome these residents as new citizens; after all, if large numbers of Arab residents of Jerusalem voluntarily request Israeli citizenship, then there is an even stronger case against relinquishing this territory to any Palestinian state. And if it is determined that this can indeed be forced on Israeli Arabs, then why can't Israel cede Umm al-Fahm and vicinity to a Palestinian state as well, given the hostility shown to the Jewish state by the Arab population of that area?
However, this also provides an opportunity to ensure that citizenship isn't just a free ride to Western-style health care, education, and social services. You want to become a citizen of Israel? Great-- first you pledge your allegiance to the Jewish state rather than its enemies. Then you do national service-- it doesn't have to be the IDF, but young Arab men and women will also have to serve their country while their fellow Jewish and Druse citizens protect them. (And yes, this writer fully supports ending exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox as well).
Privileges are valued a lot more when they are won by effort, rather than just handed out.
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First of all, had you any basic understanding of the situation in Jerusalem (East, West, Old, New, and sideways) you'd know that access to the city is being choked and is leaving many families split -- the article mentions this problem as well... so yeah, some Palestinians value their close family ties more than politics, and are willing to get Israeli citizenship if it means being able to remain with their loved ones. Secondly, knowing the conditions of life in Arab Jerusalem, and the amount of basic services -- or lack of them -- the figure of $700 a month certainly does sound like propaganda.
ReplyDeleteKnowing that what you publish here is partly rubbish based on pre-held conceptions fit onto realities you should be able to appreciate the possibility that other articles (especially ones from Israeli newspaper) operate in the same manner and are not 100% reliable. What should leave you to reconsider your role as re-teller of these myths, made to promote ethnic cleansing, but alas.
From the article:
ReplyDeleteAs accepting Israeli citizenship was viewed by many within the community as
tantamount to treason, most Palestinians opted to remain permanent residents
and enjoy the benefits of living under Israeli sovereignty - full welfare
rights, municipal voting rights and unrestricted movement - without putting
their loyalty to the Palestinian Authority into question. The average
Palestinian family in East Jerusalem currently receives a $770 monthly
stipend from Israel.
"They've weighed the pros and cons of life under the Palestinian Authority
and those under Israel and they've chosen," said residents in East Jerusalem
of their naturalization-seeking neighbors.
Leah Kleim's stats on her blog are way down and she's desperate for something to help her raise her stats.
ReplyDeleteFirst she tried to pose nude photos of herself.
That didn't work because she is quite ugly, tattooed with G-d name on her back side, and cheap looking fake tits in the front.
Not to mentioned that the insides of her arms, are as ugly as hell, being that she is a self-mutilated CUTTER.
She then resorted to posting generic porn on her blog, of the lowest grade but even that didn't help her stats.
Since her body is so fat, ugly, tattooed and mutilated by cutting, she decided to get herself painted with flowers, in hopes that the flowers will cover up for the ugliness of her natural body.
She even has a video online on her blog called Leah Kleim Tits and Flowers.
Why the Tits?
Because Sex Sells (Leah, hasn't got any real Brains, or anything else, to sell, except her fake tits) and she desperately needs her stats to go up.
But why the flowers to cover up her tits?
Because her tits are SO FAKE and ugly, no one would look at them unless it's covered up with flowers, so the beauty of the flowers will cover for the ugliness of her fake tits.
Leah is a child, which desperately needs, lots of attention to survive.
Even if you think Leah is ugly, please visit her blog, anyway, so she can get her desperately needed attention before she resorts to doing something much worse.
She regularly says she wants to commit suicide, but hasn't the IQ, to quite figure out, just how to do it, successfully and has failed, every time she tried, so far.
Palestinians who prefer Israel
ReplyDeleteDaniel Pipes , THE JERUSALEM POST
Jan. 1, 2008
Palestinians have a hidden history of appreciating Israel that contrasts with their better-known narrative of vilification and irredentism...
As the title of a Globe and Mail news item puts it, "Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime." The article offers the example of Nabil Gheit, who, with two stints in Israeli prisons and posters of "the martyr Saddam Hussein" over the cash register in his store, would be expected to cheer the prospect of parts of eastern Jerusalem coming under PA control.
Not so. As mukhtar of Ras Khamis, near Shuafat, Gheit dreads the PA and says he and others would fight a handover. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority...There would be another intifada to defend ourselves from the PA."
Two polls released last week, from Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications and the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sennara, survey representative samples of adult Israeli Arabs on the issue of joining the PA, and they corroborate what Gheit says. Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring the Triangle [an Arab-dominated area in northern Israel] to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18 percent support it.
IGNORING THE don't-knows/refused, the ratios of respondents are nearly identical preferring to stay within Israel - 82 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Gheit exaggerates that "no one" wants to live in the PA, but not by much. Thousands of Palestinian residents in Jerusalem who, fearful of the PA, have applied for Israeli citizenship since Olmert's statement further corroborate his point.
Why such affection for the state that Palestinians famously revile in the media, in scholarship, classrooms, mosques, and international bodies, that they terrorize on a daily basis? Best to let them explain their motivations in direct quotations.
Financial considerations: "I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here," says Ranya Mohammed. "I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport. I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I'm not ready to give up."
Law and order: Gazans, note Israeli-Arab journalists Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, now "miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime."
Raising children: "I want to live in peace and to raise my children in an orderly school," says Jamil Sanduqa. "I don't want to raise my child on throwing stones, or on Hamas."
A more predictable future: "I want to keep living here with my wife and child without having to worry about our future. That's why I want Israeli citizenship. I don't know what the future holds," says Samar Qassam, 33.
Others raise concerns about corruption, human rights, and even self-esteem ("When the Jews talk about swapping me, it's as though they are denying my right to be a person").
These earnest views do not repudiate the vicious anti-Zionism that reigns in the Middle East, but they reveal that four-fifths of those Palestinians who know Israel at first-hand understand the attractions of a decent life in a decent country, a fact with important and positive implications.