Appeal for Arab railway workers

This blog had earlier noted the racist practices of Israel Railways, which has fired 40+ Arab employees. Now an appeal in solidarity with the discharged workers has been issue, it can be found here.

Kfar Qassem resists demolitions

The Arab town of Kfar Qassem witnessed riots yesterday night, as locals confronted the demolition of a greenhouse owned by an Arab, Majid Issa. As the Israeli Border Police and their bulldozers invaded the town, a call was issued from the louderspeakers of local mosques for the inhabitants to rally in solidarity with the affected family. Five Israeli policemen were injured in the confrontations. At least 12 persons have been arrested after the riots. The community is now active in mobilizing solidarity with the detainees.

Kfar Qassem is located on the Israeli side of the Apartheid Wall, Tulkarem is located just on the other side. Building permits are rarely given to Arab citizens of Israel, resulting in that a vast majority of newly-built structures lack permits. It is a consistent policy of discrimination against an entire community. A month earlier, Mr. Issa's sister's house had been demolished.

In 1956 Kfar Qassem was the site of a massacre by the Israeli military, see Haaretz and Wikipedia.


Israeli Border Police guarding the demolition


The site of the demolished building

Photo credits: Kfar Qassem website
Newslinks: Kfar Qassem website, JPost, Maan, Haaretz
Blogs: Loke, Esbati, Pastey

Ethnic cleansing @ Israel Railways

Regarding the 40+ Arab former employees of Israel Railways, their former employer has no changed their line of argumentation. The Arabs had been fired from their jobs in the beginning of April 2009, and at the same time Israel Railways introduced a new policy of only hiring IOF veterans (thus excluding the Arab ex-employees from applying for their old jobs).

Today, Israel Railways stated to the Tel Aviv Labor Court that 'mistakes' committed by the employees had been the cause of their dismissal and that decision to sack them had been made in order to "improve the level of supervision". Tawfiq Toubi, a lawyer representing 20 of the former employees has stated that their dismissal was a case of discrimination. On April 10, the Labor Court had suspended the dismissal of Arabs for a period of 10 days.

Source: Haaretz