Munayyer in the ‘NYT’: ‘For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them’

The New York Times has published a succinct and devastating Op-Ed from Yousef Munayyer on the systemic inequality at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Munayyer breaks it down on twitter:

All Palestinians between the River & Sea fall under 1 system of inequality aimed at empowering a Jewish majority nyti.ms/LsB1hD

— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) May 24, 2012

There will be a hasbara response, but the facts here are undeniable.

From “Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal”:

Two generations after the Nakba, the effect of discriminatory Israeli policies still reverberates. Israel still seeks to safeguard its image by claiming to be a bastion of democracy that treats its Palestinian citizens well, all the while continuing illiberal policies that target this very population. There is a long history of such discrimination.

In the 1950s new laws permitted the state to take control over Palestinians’ land by classifying them “absentees.” Of course, it was the state that made them absentees by either preventing refugees from returning to Israel or barring internally displaced Palestinians from having access to their land. This last group was ironically termed “present absentees” — able to see their land but not to reach it because of military restrictions that ultimately resulted in their watching the state confiscate it. Until 1966, Palestinian citizens were governed under martial law.

Today, a Jew from any country can move to Israel, while a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. And although Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population, the 2012 budget allocates less than 7 percent for Palestinian citizens.

Tragically for Palestinians, Zionism requires the state to empower and maintain a Jewish majority even at the expense of its non-Jewish citizens, and the occupation of the West Bank is only one part of it. What exists today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is therefore essentially one state, under Israeli control, where Palestinians have varying degrees of limited rights: 1.5 million are second-class citizens, and four million more are not citizens at all. If this is not apartheid, then whatever it is, it’s certainly not democracy.

The failure of Israeli and American leaders to grapple with this nondemocratic reality is not helping. Even if a two-state solution were achieved, which seems fanciful at this point, a fundamental contradiction would remain: more than 35 laws in ostensibly democratic Israel discriminate against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them right now, and it will not be until Israel’s leaders are willing to recognize Palestinians as equals, not just in name, but in law.

You know the letters are coming, so write the Times at letters@nytimes.com to add your thoughts. The discourse is shifting quickly, let’s encourage more voices like Munayyer’s be heard.