equality

An Israeli child waves an Israeli flag in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old city during a march celebrating Jerusalem Day, May 12, 2010. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

In Israel’s official portrait, only Jewish lives matter

A new government report published on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day only concerns itself with infant mortality statistics and life expectancy of Jewish citizens. What does that say about Israel’s attitude towards non-Jews? It is not all that uncommon for nationalist Israelis to accuse anybody politically to the left of them of supporting, or…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 30, 2017

A Palestinian family sits in the remains of their demolished home in the West Bank village of Umm el-Kheir, South Hebron Hills, April 6, 2016. (Wissam Hashlamon/Flash90)

Equality could be the ultimate deterrence to violence

If the Israeli security establishment is looking for a proper way to put an end to violence, a little equality in the eyes of the law might go a long way. By Talal Jabari One of my very first assignments as a young journalist was to go to Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem to take…

By +972 Magazine July 17, 2016

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a press conference in Jerusalem on June 28, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Nobody is coming to end the occupation, part two

Israel’s response to the Quartet’s ‘recommendation’ that it halt settlement expansion makes one thing perfectly clear: Netanyahu has fully internalized that nobody is coming to end the occupation. The Quartet on Friday released a long-awaited report on … well, actually, nobody is really sure what it is about or why it was written. In fact,…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man July 2, 2016

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A Palestinian bus drives along Israel’s separation wall between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Jerusalem, February 23, 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Ethnic cleansing poll a dangerous sign for Israel

The vast majority of Jewish Israelis don’t want to give up their privilege. But nobody has the right to ‘democratically’ deny rights to another. The most shocking piece of information to come out of a Pew Research Center survey of Israeli society published Tuesday is that nearly half of Jews in the country say they support…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man March 9, 2016

A Palestinian photographer standing during a minute of silence commemorating the Nakba, during a ceremony held by Palestinian and Israeli students in the entrance to the Tel Aviv University. Rightwing vigil protesting the ceremony and policemen are seen in the background. May 13, 2013 (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills)

When equality is the biggest existential threat of all

In these days of entrapping human rights activists and blacklisting ‘traitors,’ the concept of equality has become as radical as it gets — and a threat to everything the governing regime stands for. Last week Israeli lawmakers had the opportunity to take a first step towards enshrining equality in the law. They rejected this opportunity,…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland January 31, 2016

An Israeli votes in the 2015 election, March 17, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Poll: 45% of Israeli Jews don’t think Arabs should have equal rights

Did the good folks at Israel’s Army Radio station not think to ask Arab citizens themselves whether they think they deserve full and equal rights? Israel’s Army Radio conducted a poll of Jewish citizens of Israel and asked them whether Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights. No, this is not the start of…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 19, 2016

Palestinian citizens of Israel march to commemorate the killing of 13 protesters by Israeli police in October 2000, Sakhnin, October 1, 2015. (Omar Sameer/Activestills.org)

‘The problem isn’t Arab protesters, it’s the society that sees them as an enemy’

Fifteen years since the events of October 2000, in which Israeli police killed 13 Arab protesters, Hassan Jabareen, head of Israel’s leading Arab civil rights organization, talks to +972 about the lessons Israel’s Palestinian population learned from the killings, the escalation of systematic discrimination since, and the vision of a democratic state of all its…

By Noam Sheizaf October 6, 2015

An Israeli soldiers is seen jumping along concrete blocks as Israeli authorities install a new section of the separation wall surrounding the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, December 3, 2014. (Activestills.org)

The real roots of violence in Jerusalem

Prior to the outbreak of violence in Jerusalem last summer, some believed a new trend of 'Israelization' within Palestinian society in East Jerusalem offered a 'solution' for securing Israeli dominance in the city. But true equality carries a cost Israelis are not necessarily ready to pay.

By +972 Magazine May 17, 2015

An Israeli votes in the 2015 election, March 17, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Israelis elected a non-democracy

Obama must understand that these elections were more than just a referendum on Netanyahu — they were a referendum on Israel’s character, and Israelis did not vote for democratic ideals. Many on the center-left in Israel are still trying to wrap their head around Netanyahu’s victory. They simply cannot grasp that most Israelis really want…

By Mairav Zonszein March 22, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C., March 2, 2015. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

The next time Netanyahu talks about ‘common values’

Hours after disavowing the two-state solution, the Israeli prime minister makes clear that his version of democracy includes as few Arabs as possible. A few hours after the polls opened in Israeli elections on Tuesday, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a message that offends the very spirit of democracy and equality. Invoking military terminology,…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man March 17, 2015

An Israeli soldier checks a Palestinian man’s documents at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Hebron on June 17, 2014, as the hunt for three Israeli teenagers believed kidnapped by militants entered its fifth day. (Photo: Tess Scheflan/Activestills.org)

Judge: Equality in the West Bank, just not for Palestinians

A Jerusalem judge acquits an Israeli man who broke through an West Bank checkpoint into Palestinian-controlled territory, ruling that it’s unacceptable for an Israeli citizen to be discriminated against by virtue of his religion. (Arab — but not Jewish — citizens of Israel are allowed to enter ‘Area A’.) But the ruling means nothing for…

By +972 Magazine December 29, 2014

A Druze soldier in the IDF guards a mobile power station, May 13, 1949. (Photo by GPO/Zultan Kluger)

[WATCH] The Druze in Israel: Appropriating identity (part 3)

According to the mainstream Israeli narrative the Druze population in Israel is loyal to and maintains an alliance with the state, the most famous element of which includes mandatory military service. But is that really the whole story? The third part of this series looks at Druze identity and its variations: from Palestinian to Israeli.…

By Social TV December 5, 2014

The Knesset floor. (Photo: Itzik Edri/CC)

The agonies of being an Arab democrat in the Knesset

When establishing the Knesset’s Palestinian democratic party, the founders of Balad had to shift their discourse and terminology: from the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of one inclusive democratic state, to the reinvention of Israel as a democratic state, the party’s secretary general writes. But has such a shift paid off? By Awad Abdelfattah On…

By +972 Magazine June 29, 2014