One Law for Us, Another Law for Jews

In the last months, many American cities, overwhelmed by illegal immigration, are trying to ban landlords from renting to aliens without papers.


Organizations around the country are trying to challenge these laws, but imagine the fuss, if the laws would ban even legal non-Whites! The Jew organizations would be the first to condemn such “racism” – but this is exactly what Israel is planning to do right now: ban property sales to non-Jews!


Israel's parliament is weighing a law that would reserve almost one-seventh of the nation's land area for Jewish ownership, touching off a heated debate over whether the plan undermines Israel's democracy or is essential to preserve its Jewish character.


The land, comprising almost 1,000 square miles scattered around Israel, is owned by the Jewish National Fund — a public trust set up by the Zionist movement a century ago to purchase tracts in Palestine for Jewish settlement.


For nearly five decades, JNF land has been made available for purchase through the government-run Israel Lands Authority, which has given the JNF nearly half the seats on its board and honored the fund's policy of selling only to Jews.


But early next month, Israel's Supreme Court will hear three petitions from civil rights groups challenging the government's compliance with that policy, arguing that it discriminates against the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish.


The bill moving through parliament is an attempt to pre-empt the court, which is expected to rule against the JNF policy. Backers of the legislation say it is necessary to protect land purchased with money donated by the Jewish diaspora to foster Jewish settlement.


The JNF law "is urgently needed to stop the anti-Zionist wave that has spread over Israel," said lawmaker Aryeh Eldad, whose colleagues in the far-right National Union Party introduced the legislation.


"This is Jewish land that was bought with Jewish money that was collected for generations, to liberate and redeem a land that was occupied and captured by others.