Gonna Make 'Em Wear Crescents On Their Sleeves, Too?

Flexing their muscles after electoral victories, and emboldened by the weakness of Obama in reining in Netanyahu and Israeli territorial ambitions, Israel’s conservative parliamentarians--especially Avigdor Lieberman--are drafting laws that appear to target and harrass Isareli Arab citizens, causing both allies and civil libertarians to cringe.

Via TruthDig:

One measure would create a loyalty oath, while another would punish any “call to negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state” with a year in jail.

Haaretz:

The Knesset plenum gave initial approval on Wednesday to a bill that would make it a crime to publicly deny Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, punishable by a sentence of up to a year in prison.

The measure was the latest of several introduced in the past week by right-wing lawmakers and denounced by critics as an assault on free speech, particularly for Israeli Arab citizens, most of whom are of Palestinian origin.

It would outlaw the publication of any "call to negate Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state, where the content of such publication would have a reasonable possibility of causing an act of hatred, disdain or disloyalty" to Israel...

MK Haim Oron (Meretz) attacked the proposal, saying “this insane government, what exactly are you doing? Creating a thought police? Have you run off the rails?”...

Oron said that even though he disagrees with those who do not support Israel’s identity as a Jewish, democratic state, there is no reason to make it a criminal issue.

Civil rights activists have cautioned that this and other legislation threatens to curb the rights of Arab citizens. Its approval on a preliminary reading showed how Israeli support for laws seen as targetting Israeli Arabs has grown since a right-wing government was sworn in after a February election.

Another bill introduced by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party this week would require Israeli citizens to take a loyalty oath to the Jewish state before they could be issued a national identity card.

The cabinet was scheduled to debate the loyalty oath measure at a session next week.

Of course, Israel must completely secure Palestine. It has been clear for some time that the "State" of Israel has territorial ambitions between the Jordan and the Sea. Each successive step isolating, marginalizing and alienating Israeli Arab citizens is another step, too, toward the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine. So there can be NO independent Palestinian State.

Israel cannot tolerate another state side-by-side. ANY State. For by granting such a State legitimacy, Israel would be bound by law and convention to share the resources of the region equitably. Since Israel already claims preferred usage of about 80% of the resources, this would require Israel to concede a substantial fraction of "their" resources to the Arabs, something I promise you, NO "State of Israel" will EVER do...