What has the Israeli government done to the Palestinians?

Answer 1

The question and answers concerning Israeli policies and how they effect Palestinians is a long and complex situation that would and have filled many books. Currently, Palestinians living in Israel proper, have generous rights not afforded to peoples in other Middle Est nations. In the controversial West Bank, land that was acquired after the 1967 3 day war, live as people under the occupation of the IDF the Israeli army. There is much controversy concerning relations between Palestinians and Israelis that live in the occupied area called the West bank. There Palestinians are said by many to be treated fairly. Others have said that the Israeli occupation there is bad for all Palestinians.

Answer 2

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is a very complex situation and does not follow a simple "oppressor-oppressed paradigm" where Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the oppressed. For every grievance listed by the Palestinians, Israelis have an explanation, contextualization, or worse grievance on point, but this question will simply state the grievances stated by the Palestinians concerning Israeli authorities.

Palestinians Outside of Israel Proper (1950 Israel borders)

1) Expulsion: Israel was responsible for expelling 720,000 Palestinians in Nakba, which took place from 1947-1949. The Palestinians so-exiled and their 4 million current descendants are all forbidden from returning to Israel.

2) Israeli Land Confiscation: Israel has taken land from Palestinians in six distinct ways:

1. Jewish Investors bought land from absentee landlords on which Palestinians lived (as effective serfs and sharecroppers) and then, once they owned the land, they kicked the Palestinians off of it.
2. The United Nations creation of the Jewish State borders under UNGA Resolution 181 (II) gave the Jews land that they had not previously had.
3. Palestinians who fled as a result of war, military instigation, or fear of either had their lands expropriated.
4. Israel used the archaic Ard Mawt laws from the Ottoman Empire to take any lands not inhabited for three consecutive years directly into the hands Israeli government, both in Israel Proper and in the Occupied Territories. Much of the land used for building West Bank settlements was acquired by Israel this way.
   
5. Israeli Laws have been used a cudgel to push Palestinians out of their houses, such as permit citations, construction issues, and other violations.
6. Israeli extra-legal hooliganism has also been used to force Palestinians out of their houses, after which Israeli Jews enter the houses as squatters..

3) Israeli Military: Israel uses its military as a mechanism to make life difficult for Palestinians and shame them, from more benign issues like checkpoints to more violative acts like the "straw widow" (when Israeli troops will enter into a Palestinian House, force the occupants into a closet, and use the house as a strategic military outpost). Additionally, the Israeli Military kills Palestinians during conflict periods.

4) Israeli Disproportionate Responses: Israeli actions in response to any possible Palestinian aggression are disproportionate to threat leveled by the Palestinians. Sometimes, these forms of response have risen to the level of war-crimes, such as using white phosphorus in combat zones, using heavy bombardment in majority civilian area, and the imposition of collective punishment (this is when the family of a criminal is punished along with the criminal himself).

5) Failure to Deliver Taxes: This one is relatively convoluted. Under the terms of the Oslo Agreement of 1993, the West Bank was divided into three zones, Zone A (most Palestinian cities), Zone B (areas commonly trafficked by Palestinians, but outside of cities), and Zone C (areas Palestinians rarely visited and had low Palestinian populations). Israel was responsible for collecting taxes from Palestinians who lived in Zones B and C and delivering them to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Often, Israel has collected the taxes, but refused to pass them along to the Palestinian Authority. Instead, Israel used the taxes as leverage against the Palestinian Authority.

6) Military Tribunals & Mass Incarceration: Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli Military Law, which affords very few right to the victim and is conducted by the Israeli Army in Hebrew (which most Palestinians do not understand). This leads to high levels of incarceration among Palestinians and distrust of the judicial apparatus.

7) Destruction of Infrastructure: The numerous wars, especially between Israel and Gaza, have destroyed vast chunks of Palestinian infrastructure and made thousands of Palestinians homeless.

8) Blockade of Gaza: Israel has, jointly with Egypt, set up a blockade around the Gaza Strip and made commerce practically impossible for the Palestinians therein.

9) Defilement of the Haram al-Sharif: Non-Muslims are allowed to visit the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) under Israeli authority, in contravention to Palestinian Muslim desires to make the site an exclusively Muslim site. Additionally, Israeli archaeological teams are digging under the Haram al-Sharif and risking the stability of the structure.

10) Water Issues: Israel plumbs numerous aquifers in the West Bank for Israeli citizens' use as opposed to the use of the Palestinians. Israel also siphons out large amounts of water from the Sea of Galilee, preventing much of the freshwater from ever reaching West Bank areas.

Palestinians Within Israel Proper (1950 Israel borders)

1) Theft of identity: Palestinian Citizens of Israel are called Israeli Arabs and asked to pledge loyalty to the Jewish State. This is an intentional re-writing of Palestinian identity to benefit Israel.

2) Employment Discrimination from Lack of Military Experience: Most Palestinian Citizens of Israel refuse to serve in the Israeli Army. As a result, many Israelis refuse to hire people "without military experience" as an effective way to not hire Palestinian Citizens of Israel, even if they are completely qualified.

3) Resource Non-Equivalence: Communities of Palestinian Citizens of Israel receive fewer public funds (for schools, Plumbing, etc.) than Communities of Jewish Israelis and less water per person.

4) Restrictive Building Codes: Israel's building codes prevent cities from growing rapidly by demarcating city boundaries over which the town cannot step. Since Palestinian Citizens of Israel tend to have a high reproductive rate (and unlike the Haredi Jewish Israelis, they do not live terribly densely), communities of Palestinian Citizens of Israel tend to have more issues with the Israeli restrictions on growth.