Last post, I made fun of CNN for apparently not realizing that Jim Crow laws were no longer in effect. Turns out I misspoke (miswrote?). As luck would have it, Jim Crow is alive and well. Ha’aretz is reporting that:
The Yemin Yehuda non-profit association has begun building 200 housing units in the Shimon Hatzaddik compound, in the heart of East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarra neighborhood. In the process, the organization intends to demolish the homes of dozens of Palestinian families who live there.Ah. So you demolish the homes of Palestinians in order to build Jews-only neighborhoods. But why would anyone enact such a blatantly racist project?
This neighborhood is in a strategic location: If Yemin Yehuda completes its plan, it will cut the Old City off from the Palestinian neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem.As a complete non-sequitar, the Oxford English Dictionary (membership required) defines 'ethnic cleansing' as:
The purging, by mass expulsion or killing, of one ethnic or religious group by another, esp. from an area of former cohabitation. Cf. earlier *CLEANSING vbl. n.Meanwhile, all of Israel is trying to figure out what to do with Jerusalem. So, they launch a survey, and find:
Only 16 percent of Israeli Jews think that Diaspora Jewry should be involved in decisions on the future of Jerusalem, according to a poll commissioned by the Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies.OK. So far so good: Jews who are not citizens of Israel have no business deciding national affairs. I’m optimistic, so let’s continue:
However, most Israeli Jews also oppose leaving the decision solely to the government: Only 5 percent of the 500 respondents thought the prime minister was entitled to decide Jerusalem's fate, and only 13 percent were willing to let the cabinet and Knesset make this choice. Fully 34 percent said it should be made by all Israeli citizens, and 32 percent thought it should be made by all Israeli Jews. (emphasis added).I don’t know what to be more amazed by: that one third of Israeli citizens think that 1 in 5 of their fellow citizens should have no say in what is quite possibly the most important and contentious national issue, or the fact that the person who designed the survey thought it prudent to include an option in the multiple-choice response survey that says 20% of citizens are second-class citizens.
PS. The irony of Jim Crow laws being used against Jews in the U.S. is both acknowledged and intentional.
2 comments:
I think Jim Crow must leave us black people alone,and mess wit the whites
An emotional issue, to be sure; let's keep our footing. It should be noted that European Jewry laws were taken almost verbatim from the Jim Crow laws of the American south. In America, if if you were orphaned by a black woman and were therefore "legally black", you needed to know that it could be an issue of significance to individuals who were interested in that sort of thing, even if you weren't. It's amazing how this sort of thing becomes a part of us and a part of our culture without our even realizing it. Don't lose your moral high ground; don't allow yourself to get dragged down into the world of hatred, suspicion and persecution that we have fought against for so long. Keep the faith. One day all will be revealed to us and we will be the better for it.
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