From the Times: “Today, Representative Emanuel called Mary Rose Oakar, president of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, apologized on behalf of
his family and offered to meet with representatives of the
Arab-American community at an appropriate time in the future,” said
Nick Papas, a spokesman for the congressman.
Now what about Rahm Emanuel's own defense of target assassination and of Israel's brutal invasion of Lebanon?
Just has soon as Nasrallah apologizes for touching off the war by the raid INTO Israel and Rose Mary Oakar apologizes for the suicide bomber who wiped out a sedar full of holocaust survivors in Netanya to quote one example. But to Phil Weiss and his merry band. Dead Jews are a goal.
Thats crap- Israel kidnapped two Palestinian civilians at about the same time – a father and son, without charge(see Chomksy).
Nobody would have recognized Israel as starting a war if, say, Iran bombed civilian centres such as Tel Aviv to the ground using those Palestinians as a pretext.
Thats garbage and you know it.
You just don't care 'cause you're a twat.
Sorry – the civilians were a doctor and his brother.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, can you talk about what is happening now, both in Lebanon and Gaza?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, of course, I have no inside information, other than what’s available to you and listeners. What’s happening in Gaza, to start with that—well, basically the current stage of what’s going on—there’s a lot more—begins with the Hamas election, back the end of January. Israel and the United States at once announced that they were going to punish the people of Palestine for voting the wrong way in a free election. And the punishment has been severe.
At the same time, it’s partly in Gaza, and sort of hidden in a way, but even more extreme in the West Bank, where Olmert announced his annexation program, what’s euphemistically called “convergence” and described here often as a “withdrawal,” but in fact it’s a formalization of the program of annexing the valuable lands, most of the resources, including water, of the West Bank and cantonizing the rest and imprisoning it, since he also announced that Israel would take over the Jordan Valley. Well, that proceeds without extreme violence or nothing much said about it.
Gaza, itself, the latest phase, began on June 24. It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don’t know their names. You don’t know the names of victims. They were taken to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate. The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot. Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier across the border. That’s Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that’s well known; first abduction is not. Then followed the escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which I don’t have to repeat. It’s reported on adequately.
The next stage was Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers, they say on the border. Their official reason for this is that they are aiming for prisoner release. There are a few, nobody knows how many. Officially, there are three Lebanese prisoners in Israel. There’s allegedly a couple hundred people missing. Who knows where they are?
But the real reason, I think it’s generally agreed by analysts, is that—I’ll read from the Financial Times, which happens to be right in front of me. “The timing and scale of its attack suggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on Palestinians by forcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously.” David Hearst, who knows this area well, describes it, I think this morning, as a display of solidarity with suffering people, the clinching impulse.
It’s a very—mind you—very irresponsible act. It subjects Lebanese to possible—certainly to plenty of terror and possible extreme disaster. Whether it can achieve any result, either in the secondary question of freeing prisoners or the primary question of some form of solidarity with the people of Gaza, I hope so, but I wouldn’t rank the probabilities very high.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/7/14/noam_chomsky_u_s_backed_israeli
Gideon: "But to Phil Weiss and his merry band. Dead Jews are a goal."
C.M.: If you honestly believe that, you should make more of an effort not to forget taking your meds. All that hate is going to burn you up.
In response to waves of mass murders of civilians, it is an open question of what is ethical response.
To allow the mass murders to continue, if one had power to stop them, is a violation of ethics as well, and more clearly a violation of a state's responsibilities to its civilians.
Phil,
Do you KNOW about Hezbollah yet? At last conversation about Hezbollah and the 2006 events, you stated "I don't know about Hezbollah".
Do you consider intra-Islamic issues to be a reasonable subject of discussion for non-Muslims?
Witty,
"Do you consider intra-Islamic issues to be a reasonable subject of discussion for non-Muslims?"
What an incomparable idiot. Richard, have not the Zionist right/left in America, through their media proxies, already mistakenly painted Islam as a whole as a religion of hate? We've got to keep the percentage of goyim sheep who support Israel as high as possible, don't you know, then when someone points the finger at the Lobby, accurately calling it a foreign Lobby, we can say "It's not the Lobby. All the Christians support Israel over the Arabs anyway."
And the circle spirals on, ever downward, pulling the US down with it, keeping its appointment with its ultimate destiny: to become the first post-developed undeveloped country.
PM
But we don't talk about it here, in ignorance or in knowledge.
Back to the original post… I think its very encouraging that he apologized. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that it was sincere. What kind of pressure does it take to make one chastise one's own dad in the international press? He obviously thought that the consequences of not apologizing would be worse. I am curious about his decision: were the undesirable consequences he feared personal, related to his career and position in the next administration, or was he worried about the image of the lobby? Also, who did he communicate with while coming to his decision, and what did they talk about? FBI counter-intelligence, I hope you guys are flies on the wall.
Obviously, if you regard Hezbollah's move was retaliation for the detention of two Palestinians, then you must note that Israelis will see that as Jihad, Fard on all believers until the end of time, a commandment of Islam and an all-encompassing war of every Muslim Arab against every Israeli Jew. That is a signal that Hezbollah and Hamas do NOT see the conflict as an extension of statecraft, politics by other means, as is the norm in the West, with goals of statecraft, but rather as Jihad for an Islamic Waqf, Falastin, until the Land is returned to Arab sovereignty and the Jews to the status of ahl al-dhimma.
So the Israeli response becomes reasonable, to the extent that the enemy's goal is the erasure of Israeli statehood, and therefore as many Hezbollah rocket launchers as possible must be destroyed whatever the cost, with the understanding that Western ideas of deterrence do not apply.
But we don't talk about it here, in ignorance or in knowledge.
***
Apparently, it's not enough for Richard that the whole of the establishment media is saturated with "discussion" on "intra-Islamic issues." Unpaid bloggers on the fringe of the blogosphere must also join the cacophony.
If Richard had any sense of proportion or justice he'd break camp here and settle down at the blogs, or better yet the offices of the NY Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, et al, pressuring them to have some of the kind of discourse that occurs here. But like most Zionists, he exhibits no sense of proportion or justice and figures his readers have no sense of the same.
If the consequences of this sick thinking weren't so great I would laugh at it, particularly at a recent example where the proportionless wonder euphemized Zionist cronyism in Washington as "friends and family helping one another."
The "goys" and "am haaretz" aren't nearly as stupid as you play them to be, Richard.
I don't regard Hezbhollah's reply to Israel bombing it's cities as having anything to do with the two Palestinians – you don't understand the point.
Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers as leverage to get some of there Lebanese brethren – languishing in Israeli detention, some from back to the first Lebanese war and for nothing more than being on the battlefield.
Israel responded by bombing Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah replied by bombing Israel.
Those are the facts…..
@ Eurosabra: “So the Israeli response becomes reasonable, to the extent that the enemy's goal is the erasure of Israeli statehood, and therefore as many Hezbollah rocket launchers as possible must be destroyed whatever the cost”
Because many Jews regard Zionism as the ongoing reclamation of the land promised by God to the Jews between the Nile and Euphrates, by your logic every Palestinian, Arab and Islamic response to any Jewish provocation becomes reasonable to the extent that the enemy's goal is the erasure of non-Jewish people hood from huge swaths of the Middle East. And given the hugely disproportionate violence and ethnic cleansing carried out thus far by Jewish Zionists against Palestinians than vice-versa, it is reasonable for Arabs and Muslims to conclude that the Jews do NOT see the conflict as an extension of statecraft or politics by other means, as is the norm in the West, with goals of statecraft, but rather as an attempt to attain the boundaries as Eretz Yisrael by cleansing the “Promised Land” of non-Jews.
Is it any wonder the surrounding peoples are so uptight and trigger happy? The Jews apparently want to steal their land and do to them what they’ve already done to the Palestinians.
More like bombing Beirut airport and the bridges to Syria to prevent the removal of the kidnapped soldiers to Iran. Remember Ron Arad? He probably died in an Iranian prison. We got the point: Hezbollah wants to wage total war against Israel, while Israel gets to be restrained by the UN. And Nasrallah claimed that the war was to free baby-murderer Samir Kuntar, and the whole Lebanese government showed up to cheer his release.
Lebanon = Hezbollah.
Ed,
I find the fact that Phil provides a forum for your groundless calumnies a sign of his reprehensible softness on anti-Semitism. While I cannot restrict him from that, I content myself with the fact that it solidifies his continuing marginalization in the Jewish community.
Eurosabra: "…Hezbollah and Hamas do NOT see the conflict as an extension of statecraft, politics by other means, as is the norm in the West, with goals of statecraft, but rather as Jihad for an Islamic Waqf, Falastin, until the Land is returned to Arab sovereignty and the Jews to the status of ahl al-dhimma."
C.M.: Please present a shred of evidence for this assertion. It makes far more sense that they are interested in getting their stolen land, water, and freedom back rather than in some fancy-pants faux intellectual notion of medieval 'Ahl al-Dhimma'.
C.M.: I don't do make-work for anti-Israel crowds, sorry. You can google Sayid Hassan Nasrallah's speeches if you like…it's there.
I regard this Israeli perception as correct. The Jaffee Institute for Strategic Studies and Begin-Sadat Center DO regard Hezbollah as subject to classical deterrence, however. So a balance-of-power is possible.
And read the Hamas Charter, puh-leeze.
Eurosabra responding to Ed: I find the fact that Phil provides a forum for your groundless calumnies a sign of his reprehensible softness on anti-Semitism.
C.M.: Exactly which sentences in Ed's post do you consider antisemitic, and why? I am still trying to understand the various 'schools of thought' on delineating what constitutes antisemitism or anti-Zionism.
C.M.: "From the Nile to the Euphrates" is standard Jewish world-conspiracy crap. Even the craziest Israeli maniacs, the "Canaanites" headed by the poet Yonatan Ratosh, only spoke of a "Hebrew state" that included the pre-1921 Mandate, i.e. the Holy Land plus Jordan. And Ratosh was the most marginal of marginals, although the state DID placate him by allowing him a "Hebrew" ID card (as opposed to "Jewish".)
Remember that '47 could have meant the cold peace of two mini-states staring jealously across militarized borders.
I personally disagree with the idea of "shtadlanut". A Zionism that has to argue for its survival is doomed.
Eurosabra, you are missing the forest for the trees. Why do you think Hamas and Hezbollah exist in the first place? Both are CLASSIC blowback, fundamentally creations of Israeli government policies. OF COURSE they are going to have inflammatory 'official' rhetoric. Zionists forced them to organize to defend themselves or be enslaved or killed. Do you really think they are going to have some namby-pamby charter that doesn't inspire their fighters and people to sacrifice? Their rhetoric is no more wicked or disturbing than that in 'A Clean Break'.
You are making the common mistake (of which I have been guilty as well) of seeing what you want to see, not what is. Do you honestly think that the theft of land, water, freedom, and livelihood has nothing at all to do with their resistance, and its vehemence? You can't seriously believe it's all just "Oh, look, there are some Jews who haven't been reduced to al-Dhimma! After them brothers!" It sounds more like a Monty Python skit than a thoughtful assessment.
@ Eurosabra: " "From the Nile to the Euphrates' is standard Jewish world-conspiracy crap. Even the craziest Israeli maniacs…only spoke of a "Hebrew state" that included the pre-1921 Mandate"
Why do you think the Jewish Zionist Neocons were so hot on invading Iraq? One would have to be naive, deluded, ignorant or complicit to profess to believe that the idea of the US attaining control of the "Promised Land" on behalf of their precious Jewish state never occurred to the Neocons. “Even the craziest Israeli maniacs” probably never contemplated that the nation of Zion could somehow manage to infiltrate the Pentagon. But the evidence shows that it did. And it put its access to use.
"If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now." — Jewish Zionist Neocon and Bush administration insider Richard Perle
Now who honestly believes Perle was referring to the US when he spoke of "we" and American kids when he spoke of "our children." It's not in America that kids regularly sing songs about national heroes, but they do do that in Israel.
Colin,
Use history as a guide.
The Arab world has experimented with changing identifications over the last century.
In 1948, the pan-Arab movement was in ascendency, the great hope of a pan-Arab nation. And, Israel stood in the way of that. Rather than a contiguous Arab nation from Iraq through Palestine to North Africa, it was divided (first by European England, and then by "European" Israel. The dislocation of Palestinians was salt on wounds, but a second wound, not the first.
Following the loss of prestige and unity of the Arab nation, pan-Islam comprised a component and now independant movement.
It does regard Israel similarly to the smaller pan-Arab movement, (a divider and usurper) and is expansionistic, per the example of Muhammed.
Most Muslims prefer to live and let live, as most Jews do. In the world, many Muslims feel harrassed, and rightfully engage in anti-defamation efforts (some historically with Jews as allies).
But, the ideological (the drunken) willingly harm for the "greater good".
Hamas and Hezbollah are mixes of national and pan-Islamic. BOTH voices are within each. They are neither purely defensive, nor purely offensive.
They both pretend to respect international law, usually when it applies to Israel, and rarely when it applies to them.
Eurosabra:
You make a lot of good points I think but I'd like to ask you a question about one in particular that's always been a biggie and that I've never understood.
You note that you believe that Nasrallah and/or whomever aren't really in pursuit of just getting a better bargaining position but instead are after "the erasure of Israeli statehood." And for all I know that's true of him and that's been the claim of the Israeli government for a long long time it seems. especially when justifying its refusal to talk to this or that group or etc. Seems to have lots of validity.
But what is Israel's refusal to entertain any right of actual return of the Palestinians? At the very least isn't this demanding an "erasure" of their rights not just to go back to their original houses but to even go back to the neighborhoods and regions from whence they originally came? Since they didn't have a "state" before I understand that it's not an erasure of their "statehood," but of course that's just a political concept. They could tomorrow announce a "statehood in exile" and that wouldn't change anything, would it?
So what's the crucial difference you see?
Eurosabra: "From the Nile to the Euphrates' is standard Jewish world-conspiracy crap. Even the craziest Israeli maniacs…only spoke of a "Hebrew state" that included the pre-1921 Mandate"
C.M.: I agree that the "Nile to the Euphrates" notion is "Jewish world-conspiracy theory crap". I have not seen any evidence that Zionism, as practiced in reality by a majority consensus, not the scribblings of extremists, has aspired to anything more than the territory that Israel currently controls. A tiny minority wanted Gaza, and up to the Litani in Lebanon, but these are small contiguous areas that most Israelis (or the Israeli government if you prefer) decided are not 'vital homeland areas' and gave up, perhaps roughly in the same sense as Americans would view Puerto Rico or Guam if they wanted to leave US control. My impression is that the notion of empire implicit in the "Nile to the Euphrates" is completely lacking in Israelis. They are not interested in ruling other people. They do now, because they have no choice in that the land they want is currently inhabited, but I have no doubt that if land east to the Jordan is removed of Palestinians, the land grabs will stop, and Israel will, with relief, cease ruling over large numbers of Arabs.
Ed, I think you are drawing the wrong conclusions about the necom role in the Iraq war. They were very open about what they wanted, e.g., 'A Clean Break'. Plan A was to establish a government in Iraq that would be friendly to Israel, or at least not hostile. Hence the rabid insistence on de-Bathification, and the bewildered consternation of non-neocoms charged with actually trying to re-construct a functioning society. Plan B was to smash Iraq to pieces if Plan A wasn't going to work. It was either going to be a government friendly to Israel, or ruins that could not threaten Israel for a hundred years. The American neocommunist objective was to remove potential threats to Israel and allow consolidation of ongoing ethnic cleansing and annexation in the contiguous occupied territories. The evidence does not support assertions that their goals included conquest, annexation, or desire to directly rule other areas such as Iraq and Syria. They just wanted them 'neutralized'. I have no doubt that if the Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al Likudnik crowd had not seen Iraq as a threat to the kind of Israel they wanted realized, there would have been no war.
I think it is important that Rahm Emanuel has apologized. Obama made him his first appointment, and already he's apologized for his father's anti-Arab or anti-Black racism. There was enough coverage, certainly not universal, in the MSM, to force it. This is good. Racist crap by Zionists with ties into the new administration has been outed and apologized for. Week 1 a success. And if Emanuel is ready to apologize for this, what else will he do? Will he deliver difficult messages to Zionists?
In addition, it is as if we are returning to the world of reality. A fierce partisan has done the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Time was, Karl Rove would advise a guy like Rahm in the Bush Administration to just attack the Terrorists and the opposing party for having racist fathers, and the MSM would report that bogus charge and then report he says, she says.
Not at all. Most of the Palestinian resistance in '36-'38 was Islamist, with maximalist goals as well, if anything Palestinian militias AS SUCH have been remarkably consistent, with Fateh/PFLP/DFLP being a historical aberration. Hamas and Hezbollah evolved as a return to "first principles" by the failure of leftist groups to deliver on the eradication of Israel. I think even if Israel's Lebanon policy had been confined to minor showcase actions like the Beirut Airport raid of '68 or '69, destroying property in retaliation for blood, a local Shia mass movement targeting Israel would have arisen because of the influence and hegemony of Iran and the PFLP infiltration of Northern Israel–and attendant deaths–would have continued unabated. It may be a bit Kipling-esque, but ONLY a retention of power in the South by the Lebanese state, made impossible in any case by Fateh by 1976, would have prevented that. And there is no indication that even if it had the capability, a non-Kata'eb Lebanon would have done so–hence Sharon's misguided attempt to intervene in the Lebanese War and securely enthrone the Kata'eb. And even the Kata'eb abrogated the peace treaty with Israel in 1983, and Hezbollah has been in the cabinet pretty much since the israeli withdrawal in 2000. Perhaps Amal might have been the Islamist militia to open the war, but Iran would undoubtedly exploited the opportunity, sorry. I believe these people when they say what they are about.
Regarding ROR: it has always been understood by both sides as a trojan horse for demographic conquest. Israel's limited offer of a return of 100,000 in 1949 was declined for that reason, and UNRWA allows the inheritance of refugee status for that reason. Israel has even refused ex gratia return to ITS OWN CITIZENS (in Birim and Iqrit) for fear of setting a precedent, which is in itself an extreme abrogation of Western norms of residential rights. Thus a group of Israeli citizens within Israel are refused return to the sites of their villages, while roughly 100,000 non-citizen Palestinians have been readmitted and given citizenship through a family reunification program. Completely ad hoc, and abnormal, except in the context of post-colonial states. Jordan's citizenship law of the 50s outlawed Jordanian citizenship for any native-born Palestinian Jews who might have remained, had any been allowed to remain in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. So Jordan's citizenship law is based only on a fait accompli of ethnic cleansing, and Jordan had no Jewish citizens even though it had the Jewish Quarter. Israel, in contrast, has citizens who identify as Palestinian Arabs.
The standard callous Israeli response is that an "exchange of populations" occurred, with Jews from the Arab world coming to Israel, and Palestinians leaving Israel, as a result of an Arab-initiated war. The usual response by Palestinians is that the 1947 partition is null and void no matter what, and that therefore any Jewish self-defense–even against fairly savage conduct by Palestinian militias–was illegitimate. So in that context, 1949 Israel demanded the erasure of SOME of Palestine, while 1947 Israel did not–but a Berlin-style partition and staring match was turned down by the Arab states, the Palestinian militias and the ALA, who felt they could win.
Radical approaches pushing for attenuated Jewish sovereignty arose as dissident currents within Zionism (Brit Shalom, etc) but no power-sharing suggestion ever arose from within the Palestinian leadership of the 30s and 40s.
I think we'll putter on without a real solution for quite a while, but I can pretty much guarantee there'll be no general expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza–too many Israelis themselves would resist it. You only get to behave that way if you're Croatia, which the US allowed a free hand in hopes of ending the war. Even after close to 40 years, Israeli civil law has not been applied to the West Bank except Jerusalem, and Gaza is effectively ruled by an independent Hamas. So in the legal sense, the West Bank is, according to the Knesset and the Supreme Court, not Israel in the way that Jerusalem or Tel Aviv are. Compare with Jordan's formal annexation of all of the W. Bank and E. Jerusalem in '49.
Eurosabra: So in the legal sense, the West Bank is, according to the Knesset and the Supreme Court, not Israel in the way that Jerusalem or Tel Aviv are. Compare with Jordan's formal annexation of all of the W. Bank and E. Jerusalem in '49.
C.M.: Your statement is disingenuous. Of course they haven't formally annexed the West Bank or applied Israeli civil law. That would REQUIRE a public legal commitment on the residency and citizenship status of Arabs. The whole point of the creeping ethnic cleansing campaign is to remove the Arabs from the land FIRST, then establish increasing sovereignty in the eyes of the rest of the world, i.e., "those settlements are too big to remove, they must be given to us in the final agreement, and of course we will put that off until the smaller settlements grow to that size too". Identical reasoning is behind the Israeli decision to NOT have a formal constitution. That would require enumeration of state power and its limits, and explicit definition of personal legal rights. Israelis have preferred to keep things 'flexible', and avoid having 'constitutional constraints' on tactical modification of laws. The Jordanians in 1948 simply weren't as politically deft.
Well, looks like 1967 was a grievous mistake for King Hussein then, wasn't it? It led to the mountaintop Jordanian state land and the military areas of East Jerusalem (Ammunition Hill, Sheikh Jarrah) coming under Israeli control, and those areas might, in a settlement, be transferred to Israel. Ramallah-El Bireh, not so much. But there won't BE a recognized transfer of land, because no Palestinian state will agree to that transfer. There might be de facto annexation, but not of the whole West Bank. And really, that annexation will be no more recognized that Jordan's. More likely, the whole area will putter along in some kind of legal limbo until some kind of repartition that mirrors the Armistice Agreement of '49 with some land swaps or apocalypse.
There is still a fundamental psychological distinction in the Israeli mind between the West Bank and Jerusalem and the Golan, and that's not going to change.
Eurosabra:
Thank you for responding to my question regarding the right of return. The Israeli government ought to hire you as a spokesperson; you are very much more persuasive at it than many others I have seen. However given what you've said I wonder if the situation doesn't indeed argue for a one-state solution.
That is, you note that any broad right of return of the Palestinians is unacceptable to Israel given that same constitutes a "Trojan Horse" for "demographic conquest."
On the other hand you note that without a right of return there has indeed been an "erasure of some of Palestine"—which of course still means a total erasure of all the rights of some palestinians.
So again while you are persuasive in noting that Israel has indeed gone a ways down the path of trying to accomodate a right of return to a limited extent, and then being fair about it in not allowing it to some of its own people even where it has drawn the line, this still leaves things in some equivalence, doesn't it?
That is, Israel says we won't be erased, and those palestinians who have been erased say they won't stay erased.
So why not a one-state solution given there's no reason to privilege one side's entirely reasonable position against the others'?
It can't after all be to prefer Israel's position merely because it's jewish birthrate will be lower than the palestinians, is it? After all the simple answer is birthrate is a choice, and the simple solution is to increase one's birthrate if some mere demographic proportion is important to you.
So are you a one-stater or am I missing something?
We have the infrastructure of one state, without the law being blind to communal identity, without juridical equality in certain areas of land law and family law. (For example, Muslims in Israel are allowed to practice polygamy, Jews and Christians are not. Israeli feminists hate that.) We also have the politics of two separatist nationalisms, with irreconcilable claims to all the land. There will be something, but it will not be one state. At least not until most Middle Eastern states quit treating the state as a tool for the advancement of the interests of one ethno-religious nationalism. Israel included, I'm afraid.
I would recommend Chaim Gans's _A Just Zionism_ for an up-to-date legal précis of the issues of law and nationalism.
"Muslims in Israel are allowed to practice polygamy, Jews and Christians are not."
From "Israel 2008: State of Polygamy"
"While polygamy is illegal, participants at the conference said the law wasn't enforced and that nobody in Israel had ever been arrested or punished for the practice."
Yup. They're allowed. Israel also has been gaps between the letter of the law and enforcement in land law as well, particularly in terms of discrimination in who gets their liens enforced, permits approved, etc.
Eurosabra,
As before thank you for the interesting answer and then the referral to the book too. I'll have to look it up.
Certainly "they're allowed" (they being mostly bedouins) though "polygamy is illegal" is not a valid example of "without the law being blind to communal identity, without juridical equality in certain areas of land law and family law." We would be pleased to learn about a valid example, thanks.