The United States Department of State's annual report on Human Rights finds problems with how Israel treats its Arab citizens, how it treats West Bank Palestinians, how it seems to ignore or respond slowly to settler violence against Palestinians – and how it treats non-Jewish refugees and non-Orthodox Jews.
According to the Forward, the State Department's annual report on Human Rights in Israel found problems with how Israel treats its Arab citizens, how it treats West Bank Palestinians, and how it seems to ignore or respond slowly to settler violence against Palestinians.
But the Forward points out that the report also found problems with how Israel treats non-Jewish refugees and non-Orthodox Jews:
…The newly issued 2010 report on Israel notes multiple human rights issues facing foreign workers and asylum seekers in the country. Citing outside sources in some instances, the report states that:
• Some foreign workers were forced to live in conditions “that constituted involuntary servitude.”
• Laws regarding employment conditions were not enforced for foreign workers.
• The board that processes applications for asylum by refugees recommended granting asylum in just three of 3,211 cases before it between 2008 and 2009.
• Refugees living in Israel were targeted in violent attacks, including a beating in December of three young daughters of African refugees in Tel Aviv.
• Government officials referred routinely to asylum seekers as “infiltrators” in public statements in an atmosphere of increasing public protest against refugees. [In a speech last January, subsequent to the period the report covers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, referring to asylum seekers, “The infiltrators conquered Eilat and Arad, and they are conquering Tel Aviv from north to south.”]
The report also notes instances of discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews. “Many Jewish citizens objected to exclusive Orthodox rabbinic control over aspects of their personal lives,” the report states.…