No, actually I’m not, not by a long shot and the Red Cross and Amnesty International agree with me. My point was media contrived sympathy over the plight of one people over another due to focus for political reasons. And yes, the Israeli’s are an order of magnitude more brutal to Gaza than the mullah’s over their own people. Gaza is a weapons testing lab surrounded by concrete and barb wire and Israel continues to expand against the UN resolution because it is “their god given right”. All paid for by you tax dollars. Then again I would not expect much understanding from people caught inside the western media bubble. What’s the death toll up to in Iraq, million+. Half the country displaced. Oh, but we really care.
And arab discrimination is much more prevalent in Israel than Jewish in Iran.
Arab citizens feel that the state, as well as society at large, not only actively limits them to second-class citizenship, but treats them as enemies, impacting their perception of the de jure versus de facto quality of their citizenship.[103] The joint document The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, asserts: “Defining the Israeli State as a Jewish State and exploiting democracy in the service of its Jewishness excludes us, and creates tension between us and the nature and essence of the State.” The document explains that by definition the “Jewish State” concept is based on ethnically preferential treatment towards Jews enshrined in immigration (the Law of Return) and land policy (the Jewish National Fund), and calls for the establishment of minority rights protections enforced by an independent anti-discrimination commission.[104
Up to three houses are being demolished every day, and in some cases entire villages have been given blanket demolition orders by the Israeli authorities. The demolition orders leave more than 300,000 Palestinians under threat of losing their homes.
Broken Homes, a new report from Save the Children, Palestinian Counseling Centre and Welfare Association has found that families whose houses are demolished are given little warning and often have no time to collect any belongings. The impact of losing their home also has long-term health and mental consequences.
Since house demolitions started in 1967 it is estimated that the Israeli civilian and military authorities have destroyed over 24,000 homes. However, since 2000 the number of homes being destroyed has escalated with an average of more than a 1,000 homes demolished every year. This year (2009) has seen a massive increase, with more homes being destroyed than at any time since the Israeli occupation began 40 years ago. Nearly 4,000 homes were destroyed as a result of the military offensive in Gaza at the start of the year.
“House demolitions in the OPT have escalated and thousands of families and in some cases entire villages remain under the threat of bulldozers arriving to destroy their homes and being displaced any day”, said Salam Kanaan, Save the Children Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
“The majority of house demolitions are carried out for so called ‘administrative’ reasons or as a result of military operations,” he continued. “Families lose everything when their homes are demolished; clothes, food and furniture are all buried in the rubble. There is precious little help for these families who are left with nothing, no support, no protection.”
