(no subject)
The other night I was having dinner with friends when I made a comment about Israel. I said that Israel has color-coded license plates based on ethnicity. I had heard this on the interwebz, where I find 90 percent of my information these days. But upon reflection I realized that it was such a serious claim that it would be worthless without at least finding a second source to back up the statement.
It didn't take me long:
http://nigelparry.com/diary/ramallah/plates.html
The practical application of the policy is, of course, more complicated. Israeli citizens, both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, generally have yellow license plates. Residents of the Palestinian territories have blue and green license plates with a variety of markers indicating which region they are from. The important thing is that soldiers can differentiate immediately who is an Israeli citizen and who is not. That's not exactly nothing in a country defined by religious conflict.
The next question is, of course, how many Palestinians qualify as an Israeli citizen? Clearly a certain portion of the non-jewish population are tagged through license plates. But what's the percentage? 15 percent? 20 percent? 70 percent?
So far I found the numbers to be a bit confusing. The standard number given is that over 7 million people live in Israel; 75% of the Israeli population is Jewish (approximately 5.5 million) and 20% is Arabic (approximately 1.5 million). But I wasn't certain whether that included the disenfranchised residents. Does that include the Gaza strip?
According to Wikipedia, 3.57 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as of 2003. So clearly every Palestinian who lives within the region is not classified as an Israeli citizen. If 1.4 million Palestinians(20 percent of the total Israeli population) are considered citizens, then roughly 2 million would fall under the non-citizen category. So more than half. (And, of course, this doesn't include the 5.5 million Palestinians living as refugees in other countries, namely Jordan, Syria & Lebanon.)
Additionally, it should be noted that these numbers are disputed by both sides. And didn't I hear once a long time ago that the Palestinian population was set to inevitably dwarf the Jewish majority, if not now then in a decade or so?
If you got this far in the journal entry then congratulations. You deserve a cookie. And if none of the above made sense, then I welcome the criticism because I have never had a fantastic head for figures.
The point being that, if my numbers are correct 2 million residents of the Israeli territory must, when owning a car, use tags that visually identify them as being a member of the minority, which really isn't any different than being required to wear a star of david on your lapel. Maybe they can just go without cars. And maybe the jews should have just gone around shirtless.
It didn't take me long:
http://nigelparry.com/diary/ramallah/plates.html
The practical application of the policy is, of course, more complicated. Israeli citizens, both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, generally have yellow license plates. Residents of the Palestinian territories have blue and green license plates with a variety of markers indicating which region they are from. The important thing is that soldiers can differentiate immediately who is an Israeli citizen and who is not. That's not exactly nothing in a country defined by religious conflict.
The next question is, of course, how many Palestinians qualify as an Israeli citizen? Clearly a certain portion of the non-jewish population are tagged through license plates. But what's the percentage? 15 percent? 20 percent? 70 percent?
So far I found the numbers to be a bit confusing. The standard number given is that over 7 million people live in Israel; 75% of the Israeli population is Jewish (approximately 5.5 million) and 20% is Arabic (approximately 1.5 million). But I wasn't certain whether that included the disenfranchised residents. Does that include the Gaza strip?
According to Wikipedia, 3.57 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as of 2003. So clearly every Palestinian who lives within the region is not classified as an Israeli citizen. If 1.4 million Palestinians(20 percent of the total Israeli population) are considered citizens, then roughly 2 million would fall under the non-citizen category. So more than half. (And, of course, this doesn't include the 5.5 million Palestinians living as refugees in other countries, namely Jordan, Syria & Lebanon.)
Additionally, it should be noted that these numbers are disputed by both sides. And didn't I hear once a long time ago that the Palestinian population was set to inevitably dwarf the Jewish majority, if not now then in a decade or so?
If you got this far in the journal entry then congratulations. You deserve a cookie. And if none of the above made sense, then I welcome the criticism because I have never had a fantastic head for figures.
The point being that, if my numbers are correct 2 million residents of the Israeli territory must, when owning a car, use tags that visually identify them as being a member of the minority, which really isn't any different than being required to wear a star of david on your lapel. Maybe they can just go without cars. And maybe the jews should have just gone around shirtless.