Israeli minister wants to build "Arab City" in northern Israel.

[NaptownKnight]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7241552.stm

A great and wonderful endeavor, that shows Israel really does care about it's Arabic citizens. Of course, Israel is the evil government that only wants to kill Palestinians, right? I What do you guys think?

[Commintern]

Meir Sheetrit?

I saw this guy at the news yesterday claiming that the only way to stop the Qassam's missiles are to wipe off an entire neighbourhood in Gaza.

Sorry, I'm not impressed by this kind of politicians.
This plan is meaningless and will not be excecuted anyway.

[NaptownKnight]

Meir Sheetrit?

I saw this guy at the news yesterday claiming that the only way to stop the Qassam's missiles are to wipe off an entire neighbourhood in Gaza.

Sorry, I'm not impressed by this kind of politicians.
This plan is meaningless and will not be excecuted anyway.

You being Israeli you have a better insight on this, but why don't you think he will actually carry this out? And he wants to wipe out an entire neighborhood in Gaza? I haven't heard that before.

[Commintern]

You being Israeli you have a better insight on this, but why don't you think he will actually carry this out? And he wants to wipe out an entire neighborhood in Gaza? I haven't heard that before.

Meir Sheetrit is not one of the key players in Israeli politics, lets start with that. He's a kind of a rebel in his political party, but I must admit he is mostly sensible. I heard that statement in the Israeli news, nothing special, it seems that his bitterness about not getting specific jobs as a minister(he was suppose to be a much higher minister, the interior minister or even economic) causes him to pinch Olmert at any way possible behind his back. This is neither special nor important, just a part of the complicated sad story of Israeli politics.

About the Arab city, it's kind of a weird idea, I have no idea why he chose talking about it right now, as it seems Israel has no intention(it does, but definately there is a huge part of the population, probably the majority that objects it) of stopping the expansion and construction of settlements,
which is the REAL border problem right now.

[PointOfViewGun]

An Arabic city so the Israeli can move every single Arab in it's borders to this city and treat it as they treat Gaza. Yeah I see how the Israeli government loves Arabs.

[Commintern]

An Arabic city so the Israeli can move every single Arab in it's borders to this city and treat it as they treat Gaza. Yeah I see how the Israeli government loves Arabs.

What a wonderful display of lack of knowledge in the topic you're talking about.
Israeli Arabs live in various cities and settlements, often not near the borders, and Sheetrit's idea is about constructing a small city anyway, while you're talking about a population of over a million.
Anyway, nice idea, not realy in touch with reality as this is definately not the kind of construction we should be spending about.

Israel has no intention of "moving" its Arab citizens to the border, you have lost touch with reality probably, show me some proofs for your very intresting claims.

[Erik]

An Arabic city so the Israeli can move every single Arab in it's borders to this city and treat it as they treat Gaza. Yeah I see how the Israeli government loves Arabs.

Yep.

I wished Israel would build a mixed city instead, where Jews, Muslims and all other religious and non-religious people could live together as equals.

[NaptownKnight]

Yep.

I wished Israel would build a mixed city instead, where Jews, Muslims and all other religious and non-religious people could live together as equals.

They already have this city, it's called Jerusalem...

Jewish settlements,
like the ones in Eastern Jerusalem, behind the Israeli borders and such.
It's like the ones which were in Gaza and got evacuated by the government.(a very complicated, yet much needed operation)

Let me guess, the big issue with these settlements is that they are not protected properly? Or that they are unofficially established? I did a project a while ago on some form of Jewish settlements, I believe they started with a K or something, I can't remember what they were called for the life of me.

[Commintern]

They already have this city, it's called Jerusalem...

Let me guess, the big issue with these settlements is that they are not protected properly? Or that they are unofficially established? I did a project a while ago on some form of Jewish settlements, I believe they started with a K or something, I can't remember what they were called for the life of me.

I have to react about Jerusalem, although the reaction wasnt meant for me.

Jerusalem, in fact, is a divided city in practice. Most of the Muslim population lives in the Eastern side and they hardly have any contact with Jews. As you can probably guess, the religious communities revolve around their holy places in Jerusalem and thus the city is divided between religion.
However, a dissillusioned man clearly realises that there is much more than religion that crosses between the people who live in Jerusalem. Again, in practice, 2 different ways of life, 2 different cities. Just to give you a hint, you wont see an Israeli walking in Eastern Jerusalem, you can geniounly say his life are in danger if he walks there.

The problem with the settlements is, first of all, that they are just an attempt to extend Israel to Palestinian land which is already even authorized as a part of the Palestinian Authority. It damages any possible peace process, it damages the credability of the borders, it is clearly an illigeal act that in practice doesnt even give any benefit to Israel and simply creates even more clashes and endangers the soldiers who are guarding these settlements.

[Commintern]

Yep.

I wished Israel would build a mixed city instead, where Jews, Muslims and all other religious and non-religious people could live together as equals.

This city will either be a rather small project or wont be build at all, dont get carried away with its importance.

By the way, mixed cities already exist.. the big port city of Haifa(300,000 inhabitants) has a big Arab population for example.

Sadly, however, it doesn't work perfectly as the disrespect is huge. Some acts like Arabs celebrating and blowing horns in Israeli memorial days have been seen and such. The hate and the sense of differences are there, even in the big cities, and it only gets worse in small settlements sadly.

[NaptownKnight]

@ Seth, we are talking a city here. If you read the article it is planned as an advanced city, with cheap living.

@ Commintern This settlement issue I am not aware of. Jewish or Arabic settlements? Please forgive me for my ignorance of that, lol.

[Commintern]

@ Seth, we are talking a city here. If you read the article it is planned as an advanced city, with cheap living.

@ Commintern This settlement issue I am not aware of. Jewish or Arabic settlements? Please forgive me for my ignorance of that, lol.

Jewish settlements,
like the ones in Eastern Jerusalem, behind the Israeli borders and such.
It's like the ones which were in Gaza and got evacuated by the government.(a very complicated, yet much needed operation)

I feel like the idea behind those settlements, mostly as strategic points which were supposed to use for bargain againts the Palestinian Authority, was and proved to be a failing idea and all those settlements do now is risk their inhabitants, the soldiers who are guarding them and of course the credability of the borders. Continuing the construction of the settlements is only in the intrest of religious Jews and their political parties, and other non-religious(also non-existing probably) Israeli nationalists. Seems to me like an attempt to grab control over land which was already declared as Palestinian, its a shame that a country which wants its borders to get stabilized doesn't pay attention to these activities and doesn't work hard enough to stop them.

[PointOfViewGun]

@NaptownKnight and Commintern

The article talks about a modern city than continues to say that there are 1.2 million Arabs in the country. It sure doesn't say it will be a small project. And before waving around accusation you can ask yourself why such a project would be done? Why not integrate Arabs more in to the Israeli society? Why not makes their lives better in where they live, educate them, help them prosper so that they don't follow a stupid idea? Instead we hear about a project that involves just Arabs in a single nation city? It sounds like a modern detention camp. There is no lost with the touch of reality here. You should keep looking for yours.

[Commintern]

@NaptownKnight and Commintern

The article talks about a modern city than continues to say that there are 1.2 million Arabs in the country. It sure doesn't say it will be a small project. And before waving around accusation you can ask yourself why such a project would be done? Why not integrate Arabs more in to the Israeli society? Why not makes their lives better in where they live, educate them, help them prosper so that they don't follow a stupid idea? Instead we hear about a project that involves just Arabs in a single nation city? It sounds like a modern detention camp. There is no lost with the touch of reality here. You should keep looking for yours.

Dark Lord,
First of all I have to wonder why do you think I'm not telling you the truth, as a person who lives in the country which you are talking about.
I hope that you are sensible enough to not wander into the realm of conspiracy and listen carefully to the simple truth. Reality carried the situation to what it is today. There are Arabs in practically every big city in Israel, there are also, of course, Arabs settlements of their own near and far from the border. As you can expect, part of the population is more integrated in the state and some are less, some are more religious and some are more secular. There has been no organised deportation of these Israeli citizens(remember that after all, Israel has given them full citizenship) and the notion that this mere call for constructing another city(just a suggestion, clearly not harmful in any way) has anything to do with deportation to the borders.. well, we both are reasonable, so I have to question you and ask you for at least some proof for that, you see my point?

The reason why this suggestion doesnt strike me in any surprise at all and why I dont think you should wonder about Israel not attempting to integrate the Arabs even more is that reality has shown us the results.
Many Arabs do not like the idea of integrating to our society and some even find that offensive and invasive when we try to do that. There are Arabs who chose to blend in and you can see that by many examples such as Arabs in our universities and such. The choice, after all, belongs to the individual and our society is way to complicated for you to just point fingers and blame for not attempting to bring those and others closer to our society. The truth is that their own society is polarized as well, and like our "Jewish" society cant be strictly defined as either "Jewish" or "Hebrew", such is their own, you cant simply call it all an "Arabic" society and blame the state for not working enough in order to integrate it all.

About the project again, even if you think we are talking about a big project here, why do you immedietly seek a sinister motive like trying to take (can you actually bring me an example of Israel moving its Arab citizen from one city to another recently?) all the Arab citizens away from their homes.
I mean... no one even think about that except extreme nationalists, and all they talk about in this perspective is deporting the Arab entirely out of Israel.

EDIT: Just remember, we are talking about the construction of a normal city. By what means are you expressing a fear that it is going to be a modern "detention camp"? Do you see anyone talking about MAKING people purchase those appartments? Even if there is a secret motive behind it, this is still no more than an ordinary city and no one is going to deport anyone to anywhere.

[PointOfViewGun]

Dark Lord,
First of all I have to wonder why do you think I'm not telling you the truth, as a person who lives in the country which you are talking about.
I hope that you are sensible enough to not wander into the realm of conspiracy and listen carefully to the simple truth. Reality carried the situation to what it is today. There are Arabs in practically every big city in Israel, there are also, of course, Arabs settlements of their own near and far from the border. As you can expect, part of the population is more integrated in the state and some are less, some are more religious and some are more secular. There has been no organized deportation of these Israeli citizens(remember that after all, Israel has given them full citizenship) and the notion that this mere call for constructing another city(just a suggestion, clearly not harmful in any way) has anything to do with deportation to the borders.. well, we both are reasonable, so I have to question you and ask you for at least some proof for that, you see my point?

The reason why this suggestion doesn't strike me in any surprise at all and why I don't think you should wonder about Israel not attempting to integrate the Arabs even more is that reality has shown us the results.
Many Arabs do not like the idea of integrating to our society and some even find that offensive and invasive when we try to do that. There are Arabs who chose to blend in and you can see that by many examples such as Arabs in our universities and such. The choice, after all, belongs to the individual and our society is way to complicated for you to just point fingers and blame for not attempting to bring those and others closer to our society. The truth is that their own society is polarized as well, and like our "Jewish" society cant be strictly defined as either "Jewish" or "Hebrew", such is their own, you cant simply call it all an "Arabic" society and blame the state for not working enough in order to integrate it all.

Why would I believe you right away? It's not like I live 10 thousand kilometers away from Israel. I'm a Turk and I'm pretty close to the region with a lot of family and personal friends from Israel. I've never said Arabs are not in the cities of Israel but you're trying to show that they are. Of course they are. Please drop that argument.

The question is here is why would a government build such a single-nation city? Saying that purely the Arabs don't want to live with Jews is just absurd. Isn't the government responsible of it's own people? Is there a discrimination between Arabs and Jews by the government? If you see hate from a set of people than show them love not isolate them.

[Commintern]

Why would I believe you right away? It's not like I live 10 thousand kilometers away from Israel. I'm a Turk and I'm pretty close to the region with a lot of family and personal friends from Israel. I've never said Arabs are not in the cities of Israel but you're trying to show that they are. Of course they are. Please drop that argument.

The question is here is why would a government build such a single-nation city? Saying that purely the Arabs don't want to live with Jews is just absurd. Isn't the government responsible of it's own people? Is there a discrimination between Arabs and Jews by the government? If you see hate from a set of people than show them love not isolate them.

The thing I dont get is the claim that the Israeli government is preparing to build a single nation-city...
A nation city? I mean, I'm not sure I even realise what your claim realy means. Do you think it's like a state-city or are you angry about the fact that it's going to be an "Arab" city, in the sense that only Arabs are going to live there?

About Arabs living with Jews. The thing is, it's not always that practical, you can see clearly that when there is an economical motive many have chosen to live with the Jews in our cities. However, tensions do arise even there, and in the lesser settlements you can clearly see that both sides aren't realy intrested in living together. Sure there is no 100% clarity and I'm not trying to make it look like that, but clearly the big picture shows you that things aren't going smoothly and interegation of both people is no longer a major focus of the country, esspecially because there are so many other problems around right now, and you must remember that when so much is going on it is inevitable that some ideals are left behind in priorities, like the integration ideal which was rather important after the Six-Days War.
Simply, I feel that you have focused on a problem which was revealed by a stupid claim of our minister, but you must understand that it is not seen like that here. The idea behind the city is not racist, integration means a lot of work from both sides, which also needs a lot of encouragement from the government and a lot of will from both people. As time passed this has became a much lesser problem and priority to other things around and that will to integrate is not big anymore as well. This has nothing to do with isolation, you do remember that people are the one who choose where they're going to live right?

[PointOfViewGun]

The thing I dont get is the claim that the Israeli government is preparing to build a single nation-city...
A nation city? I mean, I'm not sure I even realise what your claim realy means. Do you think it's like a state-city or are you angry about the fact that it's going to be an "Arab" city, in the sense that only Arabs are going to live there?

About Arabs living with Jews. The thing is, it's not always that practical, you can see clearly that when there is an economical motive many have chosen to live with the Jews in our cities. However, tensions do arise even there, and in the lesser settlements you can clearly see that both sides aren't really interested in living together. Sure there is no 100% clarity and I'm not trying to make it look like that, but clearly the big picture shows you that things aren't going smoothly and interegation of both people is no longer a major focus of the country, especially because there are so many other problems around right now, and you must remember that when so much is going on it is inevitable that some ideals are left behind in priorities, like the integration ideal which was rather important after the Six-Days War.
Simply, I feel that you have focused on a problem which was revealed by a stupid claim of our minister, but you must understand that it is not seen like that here. The idea behind the city is not racist, integration means a lot of work from both sides, which also needs a lot of encouragement from the government and a lot of will from both people. As time passed this has became a much lesser problem and priority to other things around and that will to integrate is not big anymore as well. This has nothing to do with isolation, you do remember that people are the one who choose where they're going to live right?

Segregation is just wrong, you can't justify it by any kind of argument. Than America should build a "Black" city for all the blacks that are having hard time to be a part of the society. I'm sure other such possibilities exist in the world. Than why would Arabs move to this city if they're prospering with the Jews? The people that would only went there would be the extremist ones than the city would turn in to a anti-Semitic crowd with a potential to become a boiling pot for the region. It just helps to spread the hatred making the distinction of us and them.

[Carach]

segregation leads to trouble.

[Icefrisco]

Why is it just for Arabs? I dont understand. Can other Israelis live there too?

[Commintern]

Why is it just for Arabs? I dont understand. Can other Israelis live there too?

I must also admit that I find Sheetrit's statement of "an Arab city" quite stupid. However, he is being practical, although this article doesn't give almost any information about the motive that leads to the construction of this new city.
As a Israeli citizen I certinately don't see why we need this distraction now when there are so many problems around.

If this plan is serious however, trust me there is a practical motive. Perhaps some Arab settlements are getting too crowded?