Ibrahim wrote:HAL9000 wrote:Since Israel has been accused of being a de facto Apartheid country due to the grievances of the Palestinians (this accusation has encompassed both the Palestinians in occupied territories as well as the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel), this time it is worth mentioning the plight of the Coptic Christians who are citizens of Egypt, since their situation can surely be compared to de facto Apartheid, if these articles below are correct.
What's your point, HAL?
That Israel is just as bad as extremist groups in Egypt who harass Copts? Glad you're finally admitting how bad Israeli treatment of Palestinians is.
Oh and note that, according to the law at least, Egyptian Copts have way more rights and freedoms that the Palestinians do under Israeli occupation.
I NEVER said Israel is perfect.
It's just your distortion of the nature of the injustice the Palestinians are incurring when you say it is de facto Apartheid. Until the new wars with Palestinians, opinion polls indicated that of the 1.5 million
Palestinian citizens of Israel, only about 30 % had negative opinions of Jews overall. IF Israel had real Apartheid against Palestinian Israelis the way the Egyptians are treating their Christian minority, then the Palestinian Israelis would have had a much more negative opinion about Jews long before the new eruption of additional tensions with the Palestinians during the last 12 years.
IF Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank had recognized Israel in some form (even Turkey recognized Israel in 1949), then they would be in very good shape, in fact they would have their own state. The word Apartheid is normally applied to the actual citizens of a country. Israel
never annexed West Bank. There are illegal Jewish settlements that comprise 6 % of West Bank, but the Jewish settlements can be dismantled just as the ones in Gaza were dismantled. So it is not accurate to apply the word Apartheid to the occupied territories that are never claimed to be Israel.
To summarize,
1) the Israeli Palestinians get mistreated primarily due to the perception (mostly correct) that they are not sympathetic to the existence of Israel. In Israel there far less discrimination against Israeli Palestinians in any area compared to Egyptian situation against Copts.
But my point about Egypt was not to emphasize the fact that Israel is less bad than Egypt.Rather, my point was the plight of the Christian Egyptian citizens who get discriminated in a de facto Apartheid situation. Furthermore this is on the basis of religion. If they convert to Islam like Omar Sharif did, their social status will improve dramatically.
I want to see as much sympathy for Egyptian Christians in this forum, just as in the case of Palestinians. Where is it?
2) Israel is NOT anti-Islam, the discrimination is only a political situation against THOSE Palestinians (most of them unfortunately) who don't want to recognize Israel.
The Druze quasi-Muslims (they are not considered mainstream Muslims, but still influenced by Islam somewhat) in Israel have very high status and equalitywith Jews, as evidenced by the fact that there are many Druze officers and generals in the Israel Defense Forces, and this is despite the war! This is because as soon as Israel was created in 1947, the Druze who are in Israel instantly supported Israel and the Jews. I admit that recently the Druze are also turning pro-Palestinian and things will go bad with the Druze also, but at least it started very well with the Druze people in Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Druze
In the following video there is a Druze
pilot in Israeli Air Force. This guy has access to top secret Israeli electronics and he can bring down Israel if he gives away the secrets to enemies of Israel, but he is trusted because he is a friend of Jews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_uYzcCjN8I
Another video about Druze soldiers in Israel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uGiqBs ... re=related
Previously I mentioned the Circassian Muslim Israeli community that have full equality with the Jews, as evidenced by this video where pious
Circassian Muslim Imam who says good things about Israel in the video with subtitles in English, he speaks better Hebrew than me:):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vXD84Pv0I
In this video Israel gives its support to the Circassians who are protesting (in Israel) against the Russian genocide that killed 1.5 million Circassians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywOPoKS3Eks
More Circassian videos from Israel, they have as much freedom as in Turkey, because they like Jews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZoQaOLQ ... ure=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b1L_poT5Hs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CRfl4jwzmE