Friday, June 25, 2010

What a surprise, religious extremists being racist too.

While the ultra-Orthodox guys are pretty appalling, it's hard to have sympathy for the sub-group of the Jewish community that are being discriminated against here. They themselves are so much better off than the Arab-Israelis when it comes to provision and funding of education (of course the article doesn't mention that).

Once you decide you're going to live somewhere with a a religious/ethnic caste system, you can't really complain if you yourself end up excluded from something because you're not in the right group!

内容: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/ultra-orthodox-israeli-jews-stage-mass-protests-against-religious-school-integration-ruling-96637554.htmlGoogle サイドウィキで表示

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Once you decide you're going to live somewhere with a a religious/ethnic caste system, you can't really complain if you yourself end up excluded from something because you're not in the right group!"

You mean like Palestine, Syria, Iran, etc?

Fergal Daly said...

Lyda?

Not sure what you mean exactly. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel, about 30% of Israeli Jews are immigrants and I think they are mostly there by choice. If by Palestine you mean where the Palestinian refugees live then they are not there by choice and many would much rather be in the homes they were forced out of last century.

Nobody (or very few people at least) voluntarily move to the countries you mention. So I would have a lot more sympathy for a victims of racial discrimination in one of those countries.

That said, those countries do not claim to be modern, "western" democracies. They are not treated as such and they don't have vocal proponents in media and in public life fighting their corner. Israel does and as such must be held to a much higher standard.