Punishment depends on nationality

[Violet_Crumble]

Shortly after the murders in Shfaram, it was reported that those wounded and the families of the murder victims would receive recognition as victims of terrorism, dealt with and compensated accordingly. And the question immediately arose, since when do you highlight as a news item something that is self-explanatory and common sense? Except that equality among Jews and Arabs in Israel is not something self-explanatory. Therefore the news item, which should never have been a news item, was appropriate.

The news item - and the atmosphere of disgust which led to it - can challenge bureaucrats in the ministries of finance and health and the National Insurance Institute, who operate according to customs and laws that discriminate against Arab citizens.

A news item like this affords an opportunity to examine other layers of inequality among Jews and Arabs, which undermine the definition of the State of Israel as a democracy. One such "obvious" layer of inequality is the attitude of the judicial and prison system toward Arab Israeli defendants and inmates being held on security grounds, and the discrimination made between them and Jewish defendants and inmates.

Security prisoners who are Israeli Arabs are subject to discrimination, on three levels, compared with Israeli Jews who have harmed Arabs: In the severity of the punishment meted out by Israeli judges; in their chances for early parole (as a result of amnesty or time off for good behavior after serving two thirds of their sentence); and their conditions of incarceration.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610683.html