"The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions" also takes donations:

http://icahd.org/eng/18000homesdonate.asp

#grateful

Arab propaganda is Arab propaganda whether it is disseminated by Jews, Christians or Calathumpians.

Arab propaganda - like Nazi propaganda - has been spectacularly successful in demonizing the Jews and additionally delegitimizing the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

Anyone making a general statement in this kind of contentious and emotive environment must be prepared to back it up with a source that can be verified for its accuracy and lack of bias.

For example you say ICHAD are "all Jews living in Israel" I don't know whether that is true or not. What is your source?

You infer that Israel is discriminating on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Is ICHAD your authority? I will give you a source to rebut your statement:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106498.html

Demolition of unauthorized structures is not solely restricted to Arabs but applies to Jews as well. Your claim is malicious and misleading.

You also infer that no Arab applications to build are approved. This again is wrong.

I repeat - both Jews and Arabs are required to observe the law. If they don't they both pay the consequences.

Of course none of this would even be discussed today if the Arabs had accepted the offers made to them in 1937 and 1947 and the West Bank Arabs had not chosen to unify the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Jordan between 1950-1967 when not one Jew lived there as they had all been driven out by the invading Arab armies.

The problems the Arabs and the Jews face today are the results of those poor Arab decisions and the Arabs' insistence that they are entitled to sovereignty in every square meter of the West Bank and East Jerusalem contrary to the Security Council Resolution 242, the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

Yes - more law that is being subverted in a smokescreen of propaganda that Jews have no human and legal rights to live in peace and security within recognized and secure boundaries as decreed by the international community and enshrined in international law.

David,

Although your definition of "Arab propaganda" itself smacks of racism, let's side-step the issue and get to the facts.

You challenge the claim of discrimination against non-Jews. To mind an objective test of racism would be the following:

Consider the proportion of Jews and non-Jews in an area (eg. I think the proportions are 70/30 in East Jerusalem)

Compare this proportion to other proportions such as:
-the poportion of housing permits issued to Jews and non-Jews
-the proportion of council services going to Jews and non-Jews
and so on

Before we start, would you agree that this is a fair method of testing the claim of discrimination?

..just to add.

If there is no discrimination then we would expect the allocation of permits, council funds etc to be roughly the same as the population proportions.

If the proportions are significantly different from the population proportions then we can conclude there is likely to be discrimination.

What ye say, David? A reasonable approach to the issue?

# grateful

Funny how you avoid answering my queries. For the record I ask you again:

1. What is the source of your statement that ICHAD is comprised of "all Jews living in Israel"?

2. Do you agree that Jewish as well as Arab unauthorized structures are being demolished in the light of the authority I gave you?

3. Do you agree that some Arab construction permits are being approved?

I don't think it is really productive to continue a dialogue that clearly does not deal with the subject matter of my article which points to the unbridgeable gaps between the Israeli and Arabs positions as honestly acknowledged by Saeb Erekat and Dr Liel and the need to look to alternative options to end the conflict.

I am the first to agree that the present status quo must be changed.It is intolerable for both Jews and Arabs - especially Arabs.

Separation of the populations has been the preferred international option since 1937. It appears nothing has changed to alter that view.

In my opinion such separation can now only be achieved by Israel and Jordan dividing the West Bank since attempts at separation by Israel and the Palestinian Authority have yielded no results for the last 17 years.

As an aside I am interested in your statement:

"Consider the proportion of Jews and non-Jews in an area (eg. I think the proportions are 70/30 in East Jerusalem)"

What is your authority for "thinking" the proportions are 70/30 in East Jerusalem and does that mean 70 Jews/30 Arabs or 70 Arabs/30 Jews?

The "all Jews" is based on the videos (Jews speaking in Hebrew along with other articles). this is what they say about themselves:

QUOTE
ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories. As our activists gained direct knowledge of the brutalities of the Occupation, we expanded our resistance activities to other areas - land expropriation, settlement expansion, by-pass road construction, policies of "closure" and "separation," the wholesale uprooting of fruit and olive trees and more. The fierce repression of Palestinian efforts to "shake off" the Occupation following the latest Intifada has only added urgency to our efforts.

As a direct-action group, ICAHD is comprised of members of many Israeli peace and human rights organizations. All of our work in the Occupied Territories is closely coordinated with local Palestinian organizations.
QUOTE

Do you speak Hebrew? Some of the videos are in Hebrew with English subtitles: http://icahd.org/eng/video.asp?menu=video&submenu=video

Regarding the demolition of structures and permits the true test is a comparison between the proportion of the population that is Jewish and non-Jewish (i cann't use the term Arab because according to you it includes Jews and calithumpians) with

i) the proportion of permits issued
ii) proportion of council funds received for things like water sewerage
iii) anything you'd like to add?

According to you there is no discrimination. If this were so then i think we can both agree that we'd expect to find these proportions to be roughly similar to the proportion of population. Otherwise, we would have evidence to support discrimination.

As to whether the proportion is 70/30, this would need to be verified.

So, do you agree that this would be a reasonable procedure for evaluating whether there is evidence of discrimination?