h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"(or to those nations which Israel has chosen as it's enemies)."

Israel did not "choose" to make the Arab states it's enemies, quite the opposite. The Arab nations surrounding Israel following it's formation by the UN decided that the "Jewish State" was unacceptable and that it was to be, effectively, obliterated. Some of them still believe this. The Jews did not go over there looking to make enemies.

And if you think that Palestine was Arab land that the Jews invaded, it should be pointed out that it was once Jewish land, then Roman land, then Arab land and now Arab/Israeli land. It has had many invaders.

Do you not agree that the Israeli state as always been agressively anti-arab? The very fact that Ben Gurian instituted Israel against UN resolution and local pressure. It is why i felt that this example was a good one - the state of Israel was unacceptable to it's neigbours because it proposed a Jewish only state, rather than an arab/jewish state. Arab Israeli's (as opposed to Palestinians enjoy a second class status as citizens in Israel - so profound was the Zionists need for their own state they felt they must give Jews increased rights over the rest of the population.

Do you think this point should be more specific in the entry? I had assumed people would understand the situaton (or would go off and research it) - a detailed account of the situation is not the remit of the article.

I don't think the Israeli state has been "anti-arab" so much as "pro-jewish". Certainly the trouble there in recent decades has led to strong anti-arab feeling amongst the Israeli population, but it by no means dates back to the nation's founding.

As for it's place in the entry, I think you should re-word it, make it more neutral.

The point was that in establishing a state outside of international law and agreements, Israel 'chose' to have certain states as enemies rather than see a watered down version of the Zionist state they'd envisaged.

Israel is anti-Arab. Israeli law forbids non-Jews to join the Air Force, and the Palestinians in the west bank and Gaza have been kept in a kind of limbo for most of the last 35 years: they had no right to be citizens of anywhere, and didn't even get to vote for a leader until about 1996 (when they chose PLO leader Yasir Arafat)

I remember Dancer - who is a member of the Israeli armed forces saying how much many Israelis disagreed with the ostracising of Arab Israelis (as opposed to Palestinians) by the state and their second class citizenry, one feels that in not allowing Arab citizens into the armed forces the Israelis are drawing certain battlelines, along very clear religious divisions.