Quotes from Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State, Zed Books, London 1987. Peter Myers, November 22, 2000; update May 3, 2003. My comments are shown {thus}.

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{p. 8} {quote ... } are willing to listen. He arrived in al-Duwayma immediately after its occupation. The conquering army was Battalion 89 . . . They killed some 80-100 Arabs, women and children. The children were killed by smashing their skulls with clubs. There was not a single house without dead. The second wave of the army consisted of the Battalion of the soldier who gave this eyewitness report . . . In the village there remained Arab men and women who were put in the houses without food or drink. Then the sappers came to blow up the houses. One officer ordered a sapper to put two old women into the house he was about to blow up. The sapper refused, and said that he would obey only such orders as were handed down to him by his immediate commander. So the officer ordered his own soldiers to put the old women in, and the atrocity was carried out. Another soldier boasted that he had raped an Arab woman and then shot her. Another Arab woman with a day-old baby was employed in cleaning jobs in the yard . . . She worked for one or two days in the service, and then she was shot together with her baby ... Cultured and well mannered commanders who are considered good fellows . . . have turned into low murdeners, and this happened not in the storm of the battle and blind passion, but because of a system of expulslon and annihilation. The fewer Arabs remain the better .. " (quoted in Eyal Kafkafi. 'A Ghetto Attitude in the Jewish State', Davar, 6 September 1979). {end quote}

Al-Duwayma, prior to its destruction in 1948, was a large Palestinian Arab village some l7 kilometres west of Hebron, with a population of some 2,700. 1n 1955 Kibbutz Amatziyah was established on the site by a nucleus of Israeli-born Jews and new Anglo-Saxon Jewish immigrants. The settlement has since altered its status to that of a co-operative smallholder moshav.

The impact of the Deir Yasin massacre in 1948 was subsequently assessed by Israel Eldad (Scheib), who together with the future Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir and Nathan Yalin-Mor (Friedman), led the LEHI. As noted above, the LEHI and the Irgun together both planned the attack and perpetrated the massacre as Deir Yasin. Speaking at a closed discussion in the summer of 1967, as subsequently transcribed and published in the influential journal De'ot ('Opinions') in the winter of the following year, Eldad commented:

{quote} I have always said that if the deepest and profoundest hope symbolizing redemption is the re-building of the Jewish Temple ... then it is obvious that those mosques [al-Haram al-Sharif and al-Aqsa] will have, one way or another, to disappear one of these days ... Had it not been for Deir Yasin - half a million Arabs would be living in the state of lsrael [in l948]. The state of Israel would not have existed. We must not disregard this, with full awareness of the responsibility involved. All wars are cruel. There is no way out of that. This country will either be Eretz Israel with an absolute Jewish majority and a small Arab minority, or Eretz Ishmael, and Jewish emigration will begin again if we do not expel the Arabs one way or another .. (Eldad. 'On the Spirit That Was Revealed in the People', De'ot, Winter 1968; as quoted in Davis and Mezvinsky (eds.) Documents from Israel (1967-1973, pp.l86-7). {end quote}

It is against this historical background that MK Aharon Yariv, former military intelligence chief and Minister of Information, stated at a public seminar in the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the

{p. 9} Hebrew University in Jerusalem that:

{quote} There are opinions which advocate that a war situation be utilized in order to exile 700-800 thousand Arabs. These opinions are widespread. Statements have been voiced on the matter and also instruments (apparatuses) have been prepared (Haaretz, 23 May 1980)

Israel and Palestinian Return

Israel was established as a Jewish state. It was not intended as a state for all of its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike. Rather, it was primarily envisaged as a state for Jews, that is, a state of which every Jewish individual throughout the world would be a potential citizen. Thus, when the state was unilaterally established on 15 May 1948, it became imperative for its legislative body, the Knesset, to define in law those persons who would qualify as actual or potential citizens, and those who would be excluded - that is, non-Jews in general, and Palestinian Arabs in particular. This was done without undue delay. In 1950 the Israeli Knesset passed two laws: the Law of Return, defining the boundaries of inclusion ('every Jew has the right to immigrate into the country') and the Absentee Property Law, defining the boundaries of exclusion ('absentee'). Under these laws, every Jew throughout the world is legally entitled to become a citizen of the state of Israel upon immigration into the country, while some two million people, the 1948 Palestinian Arabs and their descendants, who were exiled as a consequence of the 1948-9 and the 1967 wars, are denied the rights of citizenship. Nevertheless, their right of return is universally recognized in international law and in repeated UN resolutions (beginning with Resolution 194 (III), 11 December 1948). They clearly exist. Yet, they are defined in Israeli law as 'non-existent', and as 'absentees', and they are excluded by law from actual or p~aential citizenship in the Jewish state. (See Appendix III for David Ben Gurion's speech introducing the Law of Return to the Knesset, 1950.) {included below}

The Law of Return (1950) is the cornerstone of the Israel Nationality Law (1952). The details of the Law of Return (1950), the Absentee Property Law (1950), the Israel Nationality Law (1952), and the legal mechanisms of exclusion that are codified in this body of legislation will be discussed in detail below. It is important to note here, however, that the Israeli Knesset, having elevated the attribute of 'being Jewish' to the status of a legally determining principle of exclusion from, or inclusion in, the constituency of actual or potential citizens of the state of Israel, has brought into sharp focus the crisis of modern secular Jewish identity which the Zionist movement claimed to have solved. Under this body of legislation, as amended over the past three and a half decades, it is not only the Palestinian non-Jew - first and foremost the Palestinian Arab 'absentee' - who is excluded from his or her right to undisputed citizenship. Large categories of Jews are similarly excluded: Jewish bastards, Jewish persons born to non-Jewish mothers, Jewish persons born to

{p. 10} Jewish mothers who converted to another religion, and non-Jews converted to Judaism by conservative or reform rabbis (only the Jewish onhodox conversion procedure is effectively recognized in Israel The question of 'who is a Jew has bedevilled Israeli political practice and legislation since the passage of the Law of Return in 1950. As Akiva Orr noted:

{quote} First, Zionism did not believe in the existence of God the movement was secular, not religious . . . Zionism insisted that suffering in exile was a result of minority status, not of sin. Zionism preached that the Jews must act on their own behalf to create their state in Zion, rather than wait till God did it for them. Finally, Zionism argued that when Jewish independence was resurrected the Jews would become "a nation like all other nations" or "normalized" as some put it (Orr, The unJewish State, p.6). {end quote}

And yet, by every conventional criterion, the state of Israel is a theocracy. Civil marriage is not permitted under Israeli law, and marriage can be legally consecrated only by Rabbinical, Church or Shari'a courts. The same applies to divorce. Under Israeli law (Jurisdiction of Rabbinical Courts (Marriage and Divorce), 1953), religious courts are state courts and the religious judiciary (Rabbinical, Church and Shari'a) are paid by the state.

Political practice and legislation have been similarly bedevilled by the question of 'who is an Israeli' in the state of Israel. Clearly, the terms 'Israeli' and 'Jew' are not coterminous. Seven hundred thousand of the over four million citizens of the state of Israel (some 17 percent) are non-Jewish. They are Palestlnlan Arabs, the descendants of the remnants of the Palestinian people who have remained In Palestine under Israeli rule (some 150,000 in 1948-9). Much of this volume will be devoted to the analysis and explication of the political and legal mechanisms in terms of which the state of Israel confers a priori exclusive and privileged access to national resources and services on its Jewish citizens, to the exclusion of its non-Jewish, mainly Palestinian Arab citizens.

In this context, however, it is necessary to remember that Israeli legislation is not directed against those non-Jews who are legally incorporated, albeit in terms of extreme legal discrimination, into the Israeli body politic as citizens of the Jewish state. Rather, the most damaging manifestation of Israeli legislation is directed against those non-Jews who are legally excluded as 'absentees' from the body of Israeli polity: two million Palestinian Arab displaced persons conventionally referred to as 'refugees'.

Thus, each Israeli Jew has a shadow: the Palestinian Arab refugee of 1948. Israeli Jewish homes are built on the ruins of their homes. Israeli Jews cultivate their land.

The Palestinian Arab refugee of 1948 is today a soldier in the Palestine Liberation Army: a fida'i. All human beings will rebel, must rebel in such circumstances, to reconstitute their full human existence, to reclaim their rights, if necessary by armed struggle, inside every part of the homeland from which they have been excluded. And in this struggle the Palestinian Arab deserves our full moral and material support.

{p. 11} Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue

For Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to succeed, it must be based on truth and on critical awareness. Hypocrisy and duplicity in this context mislead and misdirect.

The first truth on which, in my view, Israeli-Palestinian dialogue must be based is that as long as the 1948 refugees are excluded from any part of their homeland, including Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Beer Sheba, and reduced to the misery of refugee camps and exile, they are right to reassert their presence in the homeland from which they are excluded, if necessary by military means and armed struggle, and that we must support them morally and materially in this struggle.

The second fundamental point is that an Israeli-Jewish people has been created in the process of the Zionist colonization of Palestine. This people must be guaranteed full rights to cultural autonomy: Hebrew schools, newspapers, clubs, etc. It cannot and must not be allowed a state of its own for the single reason that the continued existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state must necessarily entail the continued exclusion of the 1948 Palestinian Arab refugees from all and any parts of their homeland. If all 1948 refugees are allowed to return and all UN Assembly resolutions are implemented, including the 1947 Partition Plan and Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, stipulating the return of all Palestinian Arab refugees or the payment of compensatlon, there can be no Jewish state.

The third truth of the Israeli Palestinian dialogue is critical awareness. It is in terms of this critical awareness that the limitations of the Israeli Peace Now movement are assessed in this study, and the work of Uri Avinery and Isam Sartawi is subjected to scrutiny.

Notes

1. I am indebted to Professor Israel Shahak, Chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights for the reference 2 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from original Hebrew sources are the author's own. ...

{p. 24} the mandate on which they had been elected to the Assembly. They violated the stipulations of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, thereby contravening the UN Charter and international law, and they failed to fulfil the purpose for which the Assembly had been elected, namely, to adopt a constitution for the newly established state. Instead, the Constituent Assembly passed the Transition Law (1949) transforming itself into the First Knesset, namely, into Israel's legislative Parliament. As Member of the Knesset, Advocate Shulamit Aloni pointed out:

{quote} The Minutes of the First Knesset contain long sections dealing with the controversy over this question. But the Minutes do not tell all. It does not appear anywhere in the records, for instance that Mr Hillel Cook, a delegate to the Constituent Assembly, cried out: "This is a political putsch! The Constituent Assembly must either adopt a constitution or disband!" (Aloni, Israel Has Na Constitution - Why?, undated pamphlet (c. 1970) ). {end quote}

The task of formulating a constitution for the state of Israel has been delegated by the Israeli Knesset to its Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. To date, thirty-eight years after the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel, the Committee has failed to present a constitution to the Knesset.

Having successfully aborted the UN requirement for a democratic constitution, the newly established state of Israel was then enabled to act without constitutional legal restriction in violation of the specific terms of the said Declaration. Thus, holy places, religious buildings and sites are not preserved, and rights in respect of holy places and religious buildings and sites are systematically denied. To cite but a handful of many thousands of cases of violation under this legal category: the mosque of the city of Safad in the Galilee has been transformed into an art gallery, while the mosque of the village of Ain Hud in the Haifa district has been transformed into a restaurant and bar. The mosque of the village of Caesaria similarly serves as a restaurant and bar. The central mosque of Beer Sheba serves as the city museum. The Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel and the adjacent park, named Independence Park, are built on the site of a Muslim cemetery. The Jerusalem Plaza Hotel and the adjacent park, also named Independence Park, are likewise built on the site of a Muslim cemetery.'

Religious and minority rights have similarly been subject to outright and radical violation. For example, freedom of conscience and of worship are not available in Israel. Unfortunately, a fuller treatment of the subject is outside the scope of this work. It is in order, however, to cite one area of violation of religious and minority rhzhts to illustrate the case.

The state of Israel, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, recognizes only one of the three contemporary Jewish confessions, namely, the minority orthodox Jewish confession. Not only is atheism not recognized (the secular registration of marriage, divorce or death is not available in Israel), but the majority conservative and reform Jewish confessions are likewise denied recognition in Israel. Thus, conservative and reform Jewish Rabbis can legally officiate in marriage, divorce, conversion and burial throughout the world, with the exception of the territory of the Jewish state. In the state of Israel,

{p. 25} conservative and reform Jewish Rabbis cannot legally carry out their public official duties. Only private congregational services are permitted without risking legal prosecution.

But most significantly, the state of Israel is guilty of flagrant violation of the constitutional principle regarding citizenship as stipulated by the UN General Assembly in the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine. There is no question that under the stipulations of the said Plan all the 1948 Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants, by now some two million people defined under Israeli law as'absentees', are constitutionally entitled without qualification to Israeli citizenship. The persistent denial of Israeli citizenship to this Palestinian constituency is an act of mass denationalization, and a blatant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

All students of the Palestinian-lsraeli conflict, Zionist apologists or otherwise, acknowledge that the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution recommending the partition of Palestine was highly controversial. The state of Israel and the legitimacy of its continued existence as a Jewish state were (correctly, I submit) challenged at the outset, both in the field in Palestine and in the Middle East, and in all international, diplomatic and political arenas. It was, therefore, politically impossible for the newly established state of Israel immediately to contravene the terms of the UN Charter by passing open and explicit apartheid legislation. For the newly established government of Israel it was both morally and materially imperative to present Israel to the West as an advanced form of democracy and social progress.

Israel and South Africa: Two Forms of Apartheid

The Republic of South Africa is not the creation of the United Nations Organization, and it can survive as a 'white' supremacy state for a considerable period of time, though by no means indefinitely, with the aid of its diamond, gold, uranium and other abundant resources, in the face of international isolation, and the moral and material boycott of the international community. Israel is much more vulnerable in this, as in other respects. Whereas the Republic of South Africa does not critically depend on enlightened public opinion in the West, as institutionalized in the United National Organization and the UN Charter, Israel does.

Formally speaking, the Israeli procedure of denationalization is far more radical and far-reaching than its South African equivalent. The Republic of South Africa, in the framework of its apartheid policy, devised a legal mechanism to deprive some 75 per cent of its inhabitants - the majority of its black people - of their South African citizenship. Under the Bantu Laws Amendment Act (1970) (amended as the Bantu Homeland Citizenship Act (1974)) every black person with South African citizenship becomes a 'citizen' of one of ten ethnic homelands. Originally constituted as part of the Republic of South Africa, since 1976 four homelands (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) have been granted independence, thereby depriving eight out of the

{p. 26} twenty million black citizens of the Republic of South Africa of their South African citizenship.

In the Republic of South Africa, the principle of apartheid is applied under the categories of 'white', 'coloured', 'Indian', and 'black'. Under the new 1984 Constitution, a stratified hierarchy was established inside the Republic recognizing the minority of 25 per cent of the 'white', 'coloured' and 'indian' inhabitants of South Africa as citizens of the Republic (though segregated politically in three separate Houses of Parliament, 'white', 'coloured' and 'Indian respectively) while denying access to South African citizenship to the majority of 75 per cent of the inhabitants of South Africa, namely, its twenty million black people.

It still remains the case, however, that South African apartheid recognizes the legal personality of its black inhabitants in a way that Zionist apartheid with regard to the Palestinian Arabs does not. While aiming to exclude its black inhabitants from citizenship in the Republic of South Africa, South African apartheid still recognizes them as legal persons (albeit inferior), and thus predicates the legal mechanism of their exclusion on the replacement of their citizenship in the Republic of South Africa with an alternative citizenship, namely, citizenship in one of the ten bogus ethnic 'new independent states'. Through this mechanism the majority of the inhabitants of the Republic of South Africa, its black people, are rendered aliens in their own homeland, but they are not defined out of legal existence.

In the case of Israel, Zionist apartheid is applied under the categories of 'Jew' versus 'non-Jew'. Of the almost three million non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs who are today entitled, under the constitutional stipulations of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, to Israeli citizenship, less than 25 per cent (approximately 700,000 persons) are Israeli citizens. Under the Absentee Property Law (1950), the state of Israel has similarly denationalized 75 per cent of its non-Jewish Palestinian Arab inhabitants (over two million persons classified as 'absentees'). However, having classified them as 'absentees' in the eyes of the law, it has thereby not only defined them as aliens in their own homeland, hut has cast them outside legal existence altogether.

Jewish Presence - Arab Absence

Registration of Births, Citizenship and Residence Registration of Births: The registration of births in the state of Israel was regulated until 1965 by the Registration of Inhabitants Ordinance (1949), and as of 1965 by the Population Registry Law. Registration is administered by the Population Registry Division at the Ministry of the Interior. However, the birth certificates issued in the state of Israel for newly-born Jewish and non-Jewish babies differ in a number of important ways. Birth certificates for Jews list the following categories: Religion (dat); Nationality (leom); Citizenship (ezrahut) of the infant at the date of birth. Birth certificates for non-Jews (Palestinian Arabs in our case) list the following categories: Religion and confession (al-din

{p. 27} wa-al-taifa); Nationality (al-qawmiyya); Citizenship (al-jinsiyya) of the infant at the date of hinh. Thus, the first important variation between the registration of the births of Jewish versus non-Jewish infants in the state of Israel is revealed. In the case of the Jewish infants, the registration of religion alone is stipulated. The registration of confession (orthodox, conservative or reform) is not required, presumably in order not to undermine the effective state-supported monopoly of the orthodox Jewish confession in Israel. (As we have already noted, conservative and reform Jewish Rabbis, who may legally lead their congregations in all parts of the world outside the territory of the state of Israel, cannot legally officiate in the Jewish state.)

In the case of non-Jewish Palestinian Arab infants, however, the registration of confession (for example, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim) is mandatory, in line with the supreme policy of all Israeli governments to consolidate confessional divisions within the non-Jewish population.

The examination of Jewish versus non-Jewish - in our case, Jewish versus Arab - birth certificates, however, reveals a much more shocking practice: whereas the citizenship of the Jewish infant is registered as Israeli at the time of his or her birth, the citizenship of the non Jewish Arab infant is left indefinite at the time of his or her birth.

The documents reproduced below are facsimiles of the birth certificates of Mirah Doberzinsky, of Jewish religion and nationality, born on 14 May 1956 in Kefar Sava, and Mahmud Fazwi Aghbariyya, of Sunni Muslim religion and Arab nationality, born on 23 March 1957 in Umm al-Fahm. As will he noted by those who can follow the Hebrew, the citizenship of Mirah Doberzinsky at birth is Israeli. The citizenship of Mahmud Fawzi Aghhariyya at birth is indefinite (blank).

Both babies were born in the state of Israel. Both birth certificates were issued by the State of Israel, Ministry of the Interior, Population Registry Division. For the clerk at the Population Registry Division at the Ministry of the Interior a Jewish infant in the state of Israel has Israeli citizenship at birth, but an Arab infant in the state of Israel is devoid of citizenship and is, therefore, stateless at birth.

{p. 32} Law of Return (Amendment No.2), 1970

Addition of Sections 4A and 4B

1. In the Law of Return (1950), the following sections shall be inserted after section 4:

"Rights of members of family

4A. (a) The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law, (1952), as well as the rights of an oleh of any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.

(b) It shall be immaterial whether or not a Jew by whose right a right under subsection (a) is claimed is still alive and whether or not he has immigrated to Israel.

(c) The restrictions and conditions prescribed in respect of a Jew or an oleh by or under this law or by the enactments referred to in subsection (a) shall also apply to a person who claims a right under subsection (a).

Definition 4B. For the purpose of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or who has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion" (emphasis added).

{p. 33} Amendment of the Population Registry Law (1965)

3. In the Population Registry Law (1965) the following section shall be inserted after section 3: "Power of registration and definition

3A. (a) A person shall not be registered by ethnic affiliation or religion if a notification under this Law or another entry in the Registry or a public document indicates that he is not a Jew, so long as the said notification, entry or document has not been controverted to the satisfaction of the Chief Registration Officer or so long as declaratory judgement of a competent court or tribunal has not otherwise determined.

(b) For the purpose of this Law and of any registration or document thereunder, "Jew" has the same meaning as in section 4B of the Law of Return (1950) (emphasis added).

(c) This section shall not derogate from a registration effected before its coming into force."

{p. 34} ... under Israeli law, any Jew throughout the world has the right of immediate immigration into, settlement in and citizenship of the state of Israel after an alleged forced absence of 2,000 years. On the other hand, the displaced Palestinian Arab refugees of 1948 and their descendants - some two million people - are denied the same right, in violation of international law and United Nations resolutions, although their forced absence is less than forty years.

{p. 35} The Absentee Property Law (1950), having defined the mass of the Palestinian Arab refurees from the territories that came under Israeli rule and occupation in 1948-49 out of existence as 'absentees', not only denies them the right of citizenship in the Jewish state as stipulated by the 1947 UN Resolution, but at the same time denies them the right to their vast properties inside Israel. It is imponant to note that the status of 'absentee' is inherited. Children of 'absentees', whether born inside or outside the state of Israel, are similarly classified as 'absentees'.

{p. 49} Histadrut, Kibbutz, Moshav: The Masquerade

It is conventional in the West to refer to the efforts of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel in the domain of cooperative and trade union organization as one of the outstanding modern contributions to the development of modern socialist or social-democratic achievements. Most prominent among these achievements are considered to be the collective kibbutz and smallholder moshav.

This conventional reference to the Histadrut, the kibbutz and the moshav as positive Zionist contributions to socialist or social democratic achievement is plainly wrong. It is predicated on cultivated ignorance of the legal and political structures that inform Zionist and Israeli organization and settlement policics, and is directed to veil the reality of radical legal apartheid masquerading as 'socialist Zionism'.

The Histadrut is not a trade union organization in the conventional sense of the term in the West. It was established in 1920 as the General Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel in an effort by the two major rival Labour Zionist parties at the time - Ahdut ha-Avodoh (Union of Lahour) and Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir (The Young Worker) - to co-ordinate Jewish lahour matters and colonization enterprises. It soon developed into the primary infrastructure of the Jewish state-in-waiting, controlling the mainstream of Zionist colonization efforts, econonic production and marketing, labour employment and defence (the Haganah).

{p. 50} The Histadrut is an economic empire, controlling a good portion of Israel's economy: holding corporations, companies, banks, industrial concerns, agro-industries, etc. Its trade union activities constitute a mere fraction of its overall interests, and are administered out of one of its numerous departments, the Department for Labour Unions. Other major Histadrut depanments are: The Central Tax Department; The Political Department; The Department of Organization; The Arab Department; The Department of Absorption and Development; The Depanment for Religious Needs; The Department of Culture and Education; The Employment Fund, The Pensions Department; The Mutual Aid Department; The Department for the Academic Employee; The Department of Tourism and Excursions; The Secretariat of the Workers' Company; The Legal Department; The Central Auditing Committee; The (Histadrut) Supreme Court (see Joseph Olitzki (ed)., Pirqei Din ve-Heshbon le-V'e'idat ha-Histadrut ha-Ahat Eshreh 1966-1969 (Summary Reports to the Eleventh Histadrut Convention 1966-1969) (The General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel, The Executive Committee, Tel Aviv, 1969).

It is not commonly known that this so called 'trade union federation' is the second largest employer in Israel (second to state employment), employing just under 25 per cent of the total of Israel's labour force (excluding the labour force of the post-1967 occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), whose interests it alleges to represent through the activities of its Department of Labour Unions. Nor is it commonly known that the Histadrut-owned Workers' Company produced, in 1979, 21 per cent of the total sales of industrial production in Israel through its industrial plants and corporations, and 75 per cent of the total agricultural production through its kibbutz and moshav federations and related agricultural cooperatives (The Workers' Company, The Workers' Company 1979-1980, pp.5-6). In the following, detailed attention will be given to the legal structure of the Histadrut as a whole, and especially to the legal structure of its agricultural settlement concerns, the kibbutz and the moshav. It is through this examination that the radical apartheid efforts of so called Labour Zionism can be best illuminated.

All kibbutz and moshav agricultural settlements in Israel are incorporated as daughter companies of Nir: A Cooperative Company for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers Ltd. (known as Nir Cooperative). Nir Cooperative is fully owned and controlled by the Workers' Company: The General Cooperative Company of Workers in the Land of Israel Ltd., which is the holding company of all Histadrut agricultural, marketing, service and manufacturing companies and associations. The Workers' Company, in turn, is wholly owned by the Histadrut. As will be outlined below, the Workers' Company is, in fact, the Histadrut incorporated. {editor's note: this information discloses considerable similarities with the communist system of ownership; or, given its racial exclusiveness, with the National Socialist system.}

Founded as the General Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) in 1920, it was only in 1960 (at the Ninth Histadrut Convention) that legal provisions were made permitting membership in the Histadrut for Palestinian Arab workers, citizens of the state of Israel. The following Tenth Histadrut Convention in 1966 introduced the official change

{p. 51} of the name of the Histadrut Federation from 'The General Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel' to 'The General Federation of Workers in the Land of Isracl', and the corresponding adjustments were made in the Constitution of the Histadrut .

Following the Resolution of the Tenth Histadrut Convention to alter the official name of the Federation, the term 'Hebrew' was removed from the name of the Histadrut and from Chapter 1, 'The Foundations of the Histadrut', Article 1, which otherwise remains identical with the original pre-1966 text:

{quote} 1. The General Federation of Workers [until 1966, Hebrew Workers] in the Land of Israel unites and incorporates all the workers who live on their own labour without exploiting others with the aim of organizing the war of defence and the liberation of the working class in the country; defence of its interests and improvement of the conditions of its labour and its standard of living; the promotion of cooperation and mutual aid among the workers: the elevation of the value of labour; the elevation of the working man and his liberation from exploitation: the building of a workers' society in Israel while guaranteeing the freedom of the individual in matters of religion and world philosophy . . . The General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel (Constitution of tht Histadrut, p.l3) {end quote}

Except for this change, the Constitution of the Histadrut remained unaltered, including its commitment to: 'cultural and social activity inside the workers' public: the imparting of the values of the labour movement, the instruction of the Hebrew language, publication of literature and press, etc. (Constitution of the Histadrut, p. 13: emphasis added).

It is worth noting the reference to the 'instruction of the Hebrew language', not Hebrew and Arabic, although Arabic is the second official language of the state of Israel and the Histadrut initiated the change of its name in recognition of the 'new reality' of Arab workers' membership in the Federation.

The change of the official name of the Histadrut was strongly debated. Through this debate, the underlying motives for the introduction of the change were revealed. Prominent among the opponents of the change was future Prime Minister, Member of Knesset (MK) Shimon Peres representing the Israel Workers' List (Rafi):

{quote} The question of the change of name will become more serious if we recall that though the name of the Histadrut Federation implies no limitation, it does imply a commitment. Are we not a Federation aiming - and not just chanting in its anthems - for aliyah [Jewish immigration]? A Federation dealing with the absorption of aliyah? A Federation dealing with the teaching of the Hebrew language? This is clearly a General Federation; this is a Hebrew Federation in Israel. Let us not make it nameless. Let us not make it devoid of identity. Let us not deny its anthems Let us not manipulate its challenges. This is not a Federation that ends with a question mark. I heard that one of the additional arguments for the change of name is: what will they say in the world? I do not consider the proposed apologetics as necessary (Joseph Olitzki(ed.) The Tenth Histadrut Convention, 3-7January 1966, Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Complete Protocols of the Debates, p. 541). {end quote}

{p. 52} In his summary of the debate. the late MK Israel Yeshaavahu Chairman or the Histadrut Permanent Committee concluded as follows:

{quote} I now reach the subject of the change of the Histadrut's name. I listened with great attention to the speech of my friend Shimon Peres ... I want to tell him that on one matter we can achieve agreement, namely, that it is not the name that counts but the contents. With the change of the name, the value foundations do not change, nor do the heritage and the future of the Histadrut as the General Federation of the Workers of the Land of Israel. ... A new reality created: the Histadrut has opened its gates to the Arab worker. It is now necessary to change the name in order that it be compatible with the new reality, but the contents and te mission of the Histadrut are not thereby altered (Tenth Histadrut Convention, p.547). {end quote}

Indeed. the reality of the Histadrut policy following the official change of name very strongly supports the late MK Israel Yeshaayahu's position in this debate. It is also significant that the Amendment proposed by the Israeli Communist Pany (Maki) to alter the name of the Histadrut to 'The General Federation of Workers in Israel' was turned down. After all in 1966 the Histadrut saw no reason to replace its committment to the Zionist mission in the Land of Israel for a territorially much more modern Zionist commitment inside the boundaries of the state of Israel. One year later, the Israeli victory in the 1967 war indeed gave ample scope to the Histadrut to demonstrate that the said change of name did not in any way entail alteration of the Zionist mission of the Histadrut, and that the General Federation of Labour in the Land of Israel could effectively accommodate itself to the reality of the post-1967 Israeli occupation and abandon the Palestinian Arab workers of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the most extreme and degrading forms of economic exploitation and social and political oppression.

Yet it is precisely the resolution by the Ninth Histadrut Convention to 'open its gates to the Arab worker' that highlights the legal apartheid structure of the organization. The name of the Histadrut was altered, and the reference to 'Hebrew workers' was replaced with the reference to 'workers' in Article 1, Chapter 1, 'The Foundations of the Histadrut', of the Histadrut Constitution, but that is all. The constitutions of all the subsidiary companies and associations of the Histadrut were not amended and remained by deliberate design, exclusive to the body of Hebrew workers alone. As the late MK Israel Yeshaayahu noted in his summary of the debate quoted above, 'the contents and the mission of the Histadrut are not thereby altered'.

Similarly, the full official name of the Workers' Company, the holding company of all Histadrut agricultural, marketing, service and manufacturing companies and associations (established in 1922) was until 1979, The General Cooperative Company of the Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel Ltd. Its Constitution begins with the following statement of aims:

{quote} 1. The object of the Company is to unite, on cooperative foundations, the Hebrew workers in the Land of Israel in all professions of labour, both manual labour and spiritual labour.

{p. 53} 2. In order to achieve this object the Company will have the following power of authority:

(a) To engage in the settlement of its members in the villate and in town; to purchase, rent, receive in exchange or as a gift and purchase in other ways agricultural farms, plantations, estates, lands, houses, real estate and moveable properties: to establish, found, build cities, villages, settlements, residential quarters, or participate in the building and the establishment of the same (The General Cooperative Company of the Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel, Constitution (undated mimeo). Amendments to the Constitution included as footnotes. Latest Amendment noted is dated 15-16 April 1970). {end quote}

In 1979 the name of the General Cooperative Company of the Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel Ltd., was changed to the General Coopcrative Company of the Workers in the Land of Israel Ltd. But only the name was changed; the constitutional statement of the aims of the Company remained unaltered.

One cannot but speculate on the considerations that motivated the Council of the Workers Company to effect this change of name. The Protocols of the meeting in question do not enlighten us on the subject. They merely record the presentation of the resolution as drafted bv the Histadrut Permanent Committee, the presentation of the Amendments proposed by the Israeli Communist Party (Rakah), and by the Israeli Peace and Equality Movement (Sheli), the rejection of the proposed Amendments, and the adoption by the Council of the resolution as proposed by the Permanent Committee (Rakah proposed that the name of the Workers' Company be changed to 'The General Cooperative Company of the Workers in Israel', and Sheli proposed a change to 'The General Socialist Cooperative Company of the Workers in Israel' (The General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel, Draft Protocols, 1979).

Presumably thirteen years after the change in the name of the Histadrut, external pressure in the form of 'what will the world say?' finally caught up with the Workers' Company. For the Council of the Workers' Company, as for all Zionist bodies and institutions, the problem was reduced to one of how to evade that pressure, and how to maintain effectively the lie of apartheid presented abroad as an advanced form of social democracy.

The principle of the legal exclusion of non-Jews is clearly a constitutional unifying norm through the hierarchy of the Histadrut institutions, corporations and enterprises. As noted above, all kibbutz and moshav agricultural settlements are incorporated as daughter companies of Nir: A Cooperative Company for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers, Ltd. (emphasis added) which, in turn is wholly owned by the Histadrut Workers Company. Nir was established in 1924 as the 'official legal expression of the authority of the Agricultural Federation on the farms and the agricultural plants as part of the Workers' Company ... ' (Zvi Maten, Nir Shitufi: Its History, Development and Tasks, p 12). In 1973, the name of the Compan~y was changed to Nir Shitufi: An All Country Cooperative Association for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers in Israel. Ltd. The change in the name of the Company in 1973 was

{p. 54} related lo important structural changes, the outline of which is beyond the scope of this study. Clearly, however, the changes were in the structure of the Company, not in its underlying principles. Although by 1973 the General Assembly and Management of the Company cannot have been oblivious of the bitter discussions that accompanied the change in the name of the Histadrut in 1966, they chose, presumably by conscious deslgn, to uphold the restriction of the Company, as reflected in its name, to Hebrew workers exclusively.

Correspondingly, the Constitution of the Workers' Moshav Federation stipulated, among others, the following Provisions:

¥ The nullification of the private property of the settler in land, and the possession of the land by the nation [i.e. Jewish nation] (Article 1(a)).

¥ The Moshav is certified as a cooperative company a daughter company of Nir (Article 2(a)).

¥ Admission by members to the Moshav requires endorsement by Nir (Article 4 (a) and (c)).

¥ Nir Ltd, has the right of veto in every case where it considers the resolutions of the General Meetings of the Moshav or the activities of the institutions a violation of the foundation principles of the Moshav. In case of disagreement - the final decision is vested with the Supreme Council of the Workers' Company or the Agricultural Council (Article 6 (e)) (The Generai Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel, The Histadrut Constitutions, pp.92-4; see also the Introduction by the late David Remez, Second Secretary-Generai of the Histadrut, Ibid., pp.9-12).

The same three constitutional elements - national (Jewish) land, incorporation as a daughter company of Nir: A Cooperative Company for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers, Ltd., and the requirement to secure the endorsement by Nir of the admission of members - are incorporated into the constitutional foundations of the various kihbutz federations, and are further specified in the kibbutz Regulations (The Histadrut Constitutions, pp.98-118 and 252).

According to the Constitution of the Histadrut, membership in the Histadrut entails, by legal constitutional definition, membership in the Workers'Company as well. The Histadrut Convention also sits constitutionally as the Convention of the Workers' Company, and the delegates to the Histadrut Convention are also delegates to the Convention of the Workers' Company. The Histadrut Council is the Council of the Workers' Company, and the Histadrut Executive Committee is the Board of Directors of the Workers' Company, and the Secretary-General of the Histadrut is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Workers' Company.

With thc introduction, by the Ninth Histadrut Convention in 1960, of the legal changes that made Arab membership in the Histadrut possible, membership of the Workers' Company is ipso facto no longer exclusively Jewish, and a legal contradiction has thereby been introduced into the heart of the Histadrut constitutional structure. The Workers' Company, which is legally constituted to 'unite on cooperative foundations the Hebrew workers of the land in all professions of labour, both manual labour and spiritual labour',

{p. 55} now has non-Jews, namely, Palestinian Arabs who are Citizens of the state of Israel, as members. It seems that the Histadrut accepts this legal contradiction as an unavoidable and necessary ideological concession dictated by the 'new reality' of the establishment in 1948 of a Jewish state which, despite the enormous efforts and criminal designs to clear its territory of the majority of its native Palestinian Arab population, nevertheless remains with a significant minority of non-Jews: the so-called 'Arab minority in Israel. This 'Arab minority' today constitutes 17 per cent of the total Israeli population within Israel's 1948-49 boundaries.

From the foregoing, it emerges that non-Jews' membership in Israeli-Jewish moshav and kibbutz is legally barred by two insurmountable obstacles:

1. Moshav and kibhutz land is constitutionally defined as being in the possession of 'the nation', namely the Jewish people, as incorporated inthe framework of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and Israeli legishation (for example, WZO-JA Status Law (1952)).

2. Moshav and kibbutz membership require endorsement by Nir: A Cooperative Company for the Settlement of Hebrew Workers Ltd., and Nir Ltd., is constitutionally restricted to the promotion of the settlement of Hebrew workers only.

The Regulation of Apartheid in Israel

The legal regulation of apartheid in Israel is structured in terms that are very different from the structures of legal apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. Nevertheless, apartheid in Israel is an overarching legal reality that determines the quality of everyday life and the circumstances of living for all the inhabitants of the state of Israel.

The official and hegemonic ideological value system of the Republic of South Africa is apartheid, and the key legal distinction in South African apartheid legislation is between 'white' versus 'coloured', 'Indian' and 'black'. The official hegemonic ideological value system operating in the state of Israel is Zionism, and the key legal distinction is between 'Jew' versus 'non-Jew'. The introduction of this key distinction into the foundation of Israeli law is, however, accomanied as part of a two-tier structure. It is this two-tier structure which has preserved the veil over Israeli apartheid legislation for almost four decades. {editor's note: I also postulate a two-tier structure in world affairs, the top tier being the Round Table, CFR, Bildebegers etc., who govern or think they govern; the lower tier being the conspiracy operating through the top tier, by "entryist" methods.}

The first tier, the level at which the key distinction between 'Jew' and 'non-Jew' is rendered openly and explicitly, is in the Constitutions and Articles of Association of all the institutions of the Zionist movement and, in the first instance, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel, and the Jewish National Fund.

Thus, the Constitution of the Jewish agency stipulates:

{quote} Land is to be acquired as Jewish property and ... the title of the lands acquired is to be taken in the name of the JNF to the end that the same shall he held the inalienable property of the Jewish people. The Agency shall promote agricultural

{p. 56} colonization based on Jewish labour, and in all works or undertakings carried out or furthered by the Agency, it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed (Article 3(d) & (e)) {end quote}

Similarly, the Memorandum of Association of the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (JNF) Ltd., as incorporated in the United Kingdom in 1907, defines the primary object of the company:

{quote} To purchase, take on lease or in exchange, or otherwise acquire any lands, forests, rights of possession and other rights, easements and other immovable property in the prescribed region (which expression shall in this Memorandum mean Palestine, Syria, and other parts of Turkey in Asia and the Peninsula of Sinai) or any other part thereof, for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands (Article 3, subclause 1). {end quote}

In parallel, the Memorandum of Association of the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (JNF) as incorporated in Israel in 1954, similarly defines the primary object of the Israel company:

{quote} To purchase, acquire on lease or in exchange, etc., ... in the prescribed region (which expression shall in this Memorandum mean the state of Israel in any area within the jurisdiction of the Government of Israel) or any part thereof, for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties (Article 3 (a) ). {end quote}

The second tier is the level at which this key distinction between 'Jew' and non Jew' as institutionalized in the Constitutions and Articles of Association of all the executive bodies of the World Zionist Organization, is incorporated into the body of the laws of the state of Israel.

Until 1948 it could have been argued with some justice that the WZO, the JA, the JNF and the various other corporate subsidiaries of the Zionist movement are institutional expressions of a legally voluntary organization of primarily parochial interests, and that they should, therefore, be properly judged by standards relevant to similar establishments, for instance the establishment of the Catholic Church and its various corporate organizational and business subsidiaries. It could be argued that Zionist institutions are constitutionally restricted to the promotion of Jewish interests in terms very similar to the constitutional limitations on Catholic institutions to promote Catholic interests. I am not sure that the analogy applies at all, in that I am not sufficiently acquainted with Catholic dogma and the constitutional charters of the various relevant Catholic establishments. However, to the extent that this analogy does apply, it applies only to the period of activity of the WZO, JA and JNF in Palestine until 1948 and before the establishment of the state of Israel.

The situation alters radically after the establishment of the state of Israel, in that now the exclusivist constitutional stipulation of the WZO, JA and the JNF are incorporated into the body of the laws of the state of Israel through a detailed sequence of legislation, Thus, organizations and bodies which, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, could credibly have claimed to be voluntary, have bcen incorporated, following the introduction of the legislation

{p. 57} listed below, into the legal, compulsory, judicial state machinery:

1950 - Law of Return; Absentee Property Law; Development Authority Law

1952 - World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency Status Law

1953 - Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (Jewish National Fund) Law; Land Acquisition (Validations of Acts and Compensation) Law

1954 - Covenant between the Government of Israel and the Zionist Executive, also known as the Executive of the Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel

1958 - Prescription Law

1960 - Basic Law: Israel Lands, Israel Lands Law; Israel Lands Administration Law

1961 - Covenant Between the Government of Israel and the Jewish National Fund

1967 - Agricultural Settlement (Restriction on Use of Agricultural Land and Water) Law

1980 - Lands (Allocation of Rights to Foreigners) Law

The laws listed above were promulgated in addition to the unlimited powers with regard to the requisition of lands and property which are vested in the Israeli authorities under the various Defence (Emergency) Regulations (1945) and Ordinances which have been in force from 1948-49 up to the present. These are, inter alia: Defence (Emergency) Regulations (1945); Emergency (Security Zones) Regulations (1949); Requisitioning of Property in Times of Emergency Law (1949); Emergency Regulations (Cultivation of Waste Lands) Ordinance (1949).

The problems arising from the introduction of this two-tier mechanism of legal duplicity were clearly and eloquently articulated by Mr Zerah Wahrhaftig, then Minister of Religious Affairs and Chairman of the Israeli Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, when presenting the Basic Law: Israel Lands, on behalf of the government before the House:

{quote} The reasons for this proposed law, as I put it before you, are as follows: to give legal garb to a principle that is fundamentally religious, namely, "the land shall not he sold forever, for the land is mine" (Leviticus 25.23). Irrespective of whether this verse is explictly mentioned in the law, as one proposal had it, or whether it is not mentioned, the law gives legal garb to this rule and principle in our Torah. This law, expressed our original view concerning the holiness of the land of lsrael. "For the land is mine" - "the holiness of the land belongs to me" says Gemara [Talmud] in "Tractate Gittin", page 47a. And Ibn Ezra explains why the land should not he sold forever: "For the land is mine" - "this is a most important reason". And Nachmanides says: "And the intelligent will understand". I also trust that the educated will understand; therefore, I will not further explain the reasons for this principle ...

Concerning the name, we gave this law the name Basic Law:Israel Lands. There were a number of proposals with regard to the name. MK Harari proposaed to name it "The People's Lands". On the face of it, I do not see any great difference between the two names. I admit that neither name hits the target. What is it that we want? We want something that is difficult to define. We want to make

{p. 58} it clear that the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. The "people of Israel" is a concept that is broader than that of the "people resident in Zion", because the people of Israel live throughout the world. On the other hand, every law that is passed is for the benefit of all the residents of the state, and all the residents of the state include also people who do not belong to the people of Israel, the worldwide people of Israel.

Menahem Begin (Herut Movement): This is not expressed [in the law].

Zerah Wahrhaftig: We cannot express this. Whatever we write, Israel lands or people's lands, from the strictly legal point of view, the reference is necessarily to the people resident in Zion only. Every law is valid only in the area under the jurisdiction of the state and therefore it makes no difference what we write. We thought it might be better to write "Israel" rather than "people". It is also a question of tradition, of habit ... MK Meridor was wrong when he said that there is no legal innovation in the law. There is therein a very significant legal innovation: we are giving legal garb to the Memorandum of Association and the JNF ... As for the JNF, the legal innovation is enormous: it gives legal garb to a matter that thus far was incorporated only in the JNF's Memorandum (Knesset Debates, Sessions 138-39, Fourth Knesset, 19 July 1960, vol. 29 pp.l916-20). {end quote}

It is through this mechanism that an all-encompassing apartheid system could be legislated by the Israeli Knesset without resoning to explicit and frequent mention of 'Jew'. as a legal category versus 'non-Jew'.

The legal mechanism operates as follows: with the exception of the Law of Return (1950), none of the laws listed above resort in the text of the law to the distinction between 'Jew' and 'non-Jew'. Thus for example the World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency Status Law (1952) makes the World Zionist Organization responsible for 'settlement projects in the state' (section 3) but makes no open reference to Jewish settlement. It is necessary to know that the WZO-JA is constitutionally restricted to promoting 'agricultural colonization based on Jewish labour' and that for the WZO-JA 'it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed', in order to begin to appreciate how the Israeli mechanism of legal duplicity has allowed the legislation of an all-encompassing apartheid system to be covered in seemingly non-discriminatory legal terms. Thus the Israeli Knesset through its WZO-JA Status Law (1952) committed the state of Israel by law to secure a monopolistic concession in the area of 'settlement projects in Israel' for an organization that is constitutionally restricted to 'agricultural colonization based on Jewish labour' for which it 'be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed'.

The law further authorizes the WZO to coordinate 'the activities in Israel of Jewish institutions and orzanizations active in ... development and settlement of the country' (section 4). Prominent among these Jewish institutions - 'various bodies' (section 8), 'funds and other institutions' (section 12 ) of the WZO - is of course, the Jewish National Fund, over which the WZO holds absolute control. The Law also identifies the Jewish Agency with the WZO (sections 3 & 7).

{p. 59} In addition to the above, in 1954 the legal status of the WZO inside the state of Israel was further confirmed through the Covenant signed between the government of the state of Israel and the World Zionist Organization Executive. Following the statement that 'this Covenant is made subject to the WZO-JA (Status) Law (1952)', the 14 Articles are provided of which the following are illustrative and noteworthy. Article 1 defines the duties of the WZO Executive as:

{quote} the organization of aliyah [Jewish immigration] from abroad and transfer of the olim [Jcwish immigrants] and their property to thc country; participation in the absorption of olim in the country; youth aliyah; agricultural settlement in the country and the purchase of land and its development by the institutions of the Zionist Organization: the JNF and the Foundation Fund; participation in the establishment and expansion of development projects in the country; encouragement of private capital investments in the country; assistance to cultural projects and institutions of higher education in the country; mobilization of funds to finance these activities; coordination of the activities in Israel of Jewish institutions and organizations which are active in the domains outlined above and are financed by public funding (Laws of the State of Israel, official translation). {end quote}

Anicle 2 subjects the activities of the Executive to the laws of Israel. Anicle 5 specifies that the Executive

{quote} is permitted to execute its duties itself or through its currently-existing institutions or through institutions which it may establish in the future; it is permitted to seek the cooperation of other institutions in Israel in its activities provided that it shall not delegate its authority and rights under this Covenant without the consent of the government and shall not authorize any other body or institution to execute its duties in whole or in part without prior notice to the government. {end quote}

Anicle 7 specifies that the government will consult the Executive 'in matters of legislation that pertain, in particular, to the duties of the Executive before they are brought before the Knesset'. Article 10 specifies the government's commitment to undertake that 'its authorized agencies issue the Executive and its institutions all the permits and exemptions required by law for the activities carried out under this Covenant in execution of the duties of the Executive'. Article 11 specifies that the tax exemptions granted to the Executive and its institutions will be the subject of a special agreement to be appended to this Covenant 'as an inalienable part thereof'.

On the signing of this Covenant, the government and the WZO Executive exchanged formal letters, all dated 26 July 1954, confirming and acknowledging the agreement and specifying the position of the Executive functionaries in official ceremonies. For example, the Chairman of the Executive ranks 'immediately after the members of the Cabinet', and the rank of the members of the Execulive is 'equal to that of the members of the Knesset'. Ihe lelters confirm the impression that the WZO and its several institutions constitute, legally and effectively, an equal of the government, hence virtually a state within the state of Israel. {editor's note: like the position of the Communist party in the USSR, or the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany}

{p. 60} In other words, in the critical areas of immigration, settlement and land administration the Israeli sovereign, the Knesset, which is formally accountable to all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, has formulated and passed legislation ceding state sovereignty to organizations such as the World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency which are constitutionally committed to serving and promoting the interests of Jews and Jews only. At the same time, these organizations are constitutionally committed to the statement that, for example, 'in all works and undertaking' 'it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed'.

It is through this procedure of legal duplicity, the ceding of state sovereignty to Zionist organizations constitutionally committed to the exclusive principle of 'only for Jews', that legal apartheid is regulated in Israel. And it is through this mechanism of legal duplicity that the state of Israel has successfully veiled the reality of Zionist apartheid in the guise of legal democracy for much of the past four decades.

The same proccdure has been applied by the Knesset in order to veil the reality of clerical legislation in Israel. As occasionally noted above, Israel is a theocracy in that all domains of marriage, divorce and death are regulated under Israeli law by religious courts. In order to effect the transformation of Israel from a state ruled by secular law to a state ruled by religious law - to borrow the phrase coined by MK Shulamit Aloni - and in order to veil the reality of clerical theocracy in the guise of legal democracy, the Knesset formulated and passed the Jurisdiction of Rabbinical Courts (Marriage and Divorce) Law (1953), thereby ceding its sovereignty in the said areas of registration of marriage, divorce and death to the religious courts. Under the terms of this law, the religious courts (Rabbinical, Shari'a and Christian) are declared state courts. Thus, religious court judiciary draw their salaries from the state; and all matters pertaining to the registration of marriage, divorce and death are removed from the civil courts and vested in the religious courts, whose verdict in these areas is not subject to civil appeal. Civil (state) registration of marrage, divorce and death is not available in Israel.

Notes ...

3. The city of Jerusalem was established as a Corpus Seporatum under the special international administration of the United Nations.

{p. 61 - notes, continued} 9. A further complication is introduced in the classification of categories in Israeli identity cards, which each permanent resident of the state of Israel - Jew and non-Jew - from the age of sixteen must carry at all times, under penalty of the law.

Identity cards do not register citizenship, only nationality and religion. In the classification of categories in Israeli identity cards, nationality is rendered in Hebrew as leom but in Arabic as milla (not qawmiyya). Milla is the Ottoman lezal tenm for confession; sections of the Ottoman law (Majalla) apply in lsrael up to the present.

10. Oleh (the one who ascends) is a legal tenm in Israel, designated to classify Jewish immigrants only. Non-Jewish immigrants into Israel are not entitled to this designation under Israeli law. Non-Jewish immigration into Israel does not, presumably, entail ascent. The status of oleh entitles the person so classified not only to 'automatic' immigration, settlement and citizenship in Israel, but also to a substantial and comprehensive set of material benefits with regard to housing, tax exemption, the import of household equipment, employment, university tuition, etc. These benefits are allocated by law to Jewish immigrants (olim) only. Under the 1970 Amendment to the Law of Return, non Jewish members of mixed marriage families are regarded, for the purpose of the Law of Retum, as Jewish immigrants (see below).

11 The relevant Articles of the Entry into Israel Law and the lsrael Nationality Law (both passed by the Knesset in 1962) read as follows:

{quote} Entry into lsrael Law: 'The entry of a person, other than an Israeli national or an oleh under the Law of Relurn (1950), into Israel shall be by visa and his residence in Israel shall be by permit of residence under this law (Article 1)'. The granting of a residence permit under this law is at the exclusive discretion of the Minister for the Interior. {end quote}

The Israel Land Authority owns 92% of the land of Israel; users can only lease it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22israel+land+authority%22.

Arthur Koestler on the Histadrut: koestler.html.

Zeev Sternhell's book The Founding Myths of Israel - about Israel's Nationalist
Socialist political system - provides much detail about the Histadrut: nat-soc-isr.html.

Uri Davis has a new book out, on citizenship in Middle-Eastern countries. To buy it from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0863722180/qid=974959363/sr=1-1/t/107-8066109-7882934

Write to me at contact.html.

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