Israeli policies are becoming more oppressive and self-destructive and are isolating Israel, British-Israeli journalist Jonathan Cook asserts. He declared on a visit to Ottawa that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would result in total denial of basic rights to the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. The demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state is a part of Israel's strategy to Judaize all of Israel-Palestine and squeeze the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Gaza and Israel itself. Israelis are angry with US Secretary of State John Kerry and with other world leaders for pointing out this danger, but opposition to Israel's violation of the human rights of Palestinians is growing worldwide and is turning even supportive Jewish groups against Israeli policies, Cook stated. Cook, who is married to an Arab Israeli and has become an Israeli citizen, said in Ottawa that eight years ago there were 33 laws in Israel that discriminated against non-Jews. Now the number has reached 57 and Israel is becoming more oppressive against Palestinians, whom the Jewish state sees as a demographic threat. The Netanyahu government is also curbing dissent in Israel through laws that restrict the rights of citizens to criticize government policies. In most countries, Cook stated, minorities suffer because the law safeguarding their rights is usually not enforced. In Israel they suffer because it is the law that discriminates against non-Jews. Israel has had different laws from its very beginning for Jews and non-Jews. The 1950 law regarding the Right to Return makes Jews all over the world citizens of Israel, whether they like it or not, and gives them the right to settle in Israel with full citizenship rights. A different law, passed in 1952, governs non-Jews of Israel and denies them some basic rights. Jews get national and individual rights. Non-Jews only get national but no individual rights. This segregation in the country's legal system makes non-Jews second class citizens in Israel. The Palestinians who have lived in their homeland for generations do not enjoy fundamental rights. Those who were forcibly expelled from their homes and who live elsewhere in Israel cannot return to their homes. Those forced out of their homes and who are now living outside Israel can be shot if they try to return to their homes. Cook lives in Nazareth. He writes for the Guardian, Observer and other newspapers and has won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He has also authored three books, Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006); Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008); and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (2008). He is the only foreign correspondent based in Nazareth, the major city which the Palestinian minority of Israel sees at its cultural capital. Israel has enforced Judaization of the land since 1948, Cook stated. It does so through isolating and squeezing Palestinian communities in Israel, directing resources to Jews and keeping non-Jewish Israelis - meaning Palestinians - under surveillance. Israel has nationalized 93 percent of the land for Jews. Palestinians live on just 2.5 percent of the land and are caged in. The population of Nazareth has grown tenfold since 1948, but access to land, building permits, education and job opportunities are restricted for non-Jews. Nazareth is now being hemmed in and, despite an increase in its population, it is not allowed to grow. Israel practices resource apartheid as opposed to physical segregation. That makes Israel a democracy for Jews but not for its non-Jewish citizens. State companies, including electric utilities, bar non-Jews from jobs ostensibly for security reasons. Non-Jews have the right to vote in Israel, Cook said, but they are restricted in building permits, and face discrimination in funding for education, infrastructure, jobs and other fields. Housing is segregated and Jewish admissions committees bar non-Jews from most housing. They can elect a few members to the Knesset but are isolated and outvoted on major issues. Cook spoke in Ottawa at the First Unitarian Congregation, in a seminar on the role of the Jewish National Fund and at a meeting of the Middle East Discussion Group. Welcoming people to Cook's speech, Rev. John Marsh of the church stated that his congregation believes in truth and justice for all people. He reminded the audience that his church and the city of Ottawa sit on Algonquin land which the owners neither sold nor gave to the European settlers. He hoped that justice would prevail in this case, and in the Middle East as well. Dr. Dave Parnas, a retired professor, thanked Cook for reporting courageously and truthfully about the Middle East situation. Dr. Parnas is the son of two Holocaust survivors and the grandson of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. He stated that he believes in Jewish teachings of justice and truth and therefore opposes Israel's brutal oppression of Palestinians.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.
