OlehGirl.com
U. of Cal program–no Jews allowed
Thanks to Yid with a Lid for bringing this story to my attention:
A U.S. State Department-funded University of California program which provides business training for residents of the Middle East specifically excluded Israeli Jews – although Israeli Arabs were allowed into the program –until Jewish journalists protested.
The program in question is The Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET) program:
“The Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET) program is an innovative training program designed to identify, develop and sustain a new core of leaders in business and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.â€
The guidelines for the program claimed that it did not discriminate on the basis on age, gender, religion, and so forth –the standard things. Yet, the guidelines –listed at U.S. Embassy websites –also noted that, for Israel, participation was limited to Israeli Arabs. A young (Jewish) woman in Jerusalem was very interested in the program, until she discovered the criteria for taking part.
The people running the MEET program initially confirmed to a journalist from Israel National News (see article at link) who called to question the criteria that they, indeed, were not accepting Israeli Jews. But, it seems, when they figured out that this was going to create a stink in the media they began trying to surreptitiously cover themselves, saying that there had been a misunderstanding and for the 2008 program they were accepting all applicants (horrors, even Jews –Yael) with no bias according to their policy and they quietly and quickly took down the word document with the criteria for acceptance and put it back up reflecting just that. But the track changes on the document quite clearly shows the freshly deleted words “limited to Israeli Arabs” under the criteria for acceptance. A cached google document also reflects the original including that discriminatory bias. You can view the originals and the document showing track changes in the article by INN here.
The Meet program is run through the Beyster Institute at the University of California at San Diego. It is heavily funded by the U.S. State Department.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Yael on September 28, 2007 at 5:29 pm, and is filed under Anti-semitism, Daily Israeli, Israel. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
(Photo by Dani Machlis)
about 2 years ago
The Middle East desk at the State Dept. is and always has been a bunch of Arabists. Surprise, surprise.
about 2 years ago
These people are disgusting.
about 2 years ago
My take on this was actually quite different (it was debated ad nauseum on a local writers list). I think the group was simply trying to provide tools for empowering citizens of the region who, for whatever reason, are not receiving those tools from their home countries. Israeli Jews, for the most part, can get these tools at home. We have a flourishing, free economy, and, when it comes to matters of entrepreneurship, democracy, economics, etc, we are eons ahead of most of our regional neighbors.
about 2 years ago
Liza –those same opportunities available to Israeli Jews here at home are also open to Israeli arabs here at home. As well we have a good number of programs that cater almost exclusively to Israeli arabs simply by dint of the region in which they operate. For instance, one of my students started and got govt funding for a training program for young Israelis who did not finish school in the Nazareth area to better equip them to enter the workforce–70% of the participants are arab-Israeli and nearly all the rest are russian immigrants. It is a government based program so it is open to all regardless of gender or religion or ethnicity so long as they are citizens.
about 2 years ago
True, but if you take a look at the overall economic situation of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, the Arab sector has a much higher level of unemployment, not to mention a lower quality of day-to-day life with regard to infrastructure and opportunity. It’s definitely more difficult for an Arab Israeli to get ahead than for a Jewish Israeli to get ahead.
about 2 years ago
Yes and no. If you compare the Israeli-Arab sector to the Haredi (Jewish) sector, Arab-Israelis come out looking very good in comparison. I’m working on a grant for a “get women working” project that focuses on arab-israelis because this is the crucial gap. Your average secular or traditional Jewish-Israeli couple is a two-income family with both parents working, both before and after children are born to the family. Indeed, the figure for secular-Israeli couples with both spouses working is slightly above 85%. Among arab-Israeli couples the figure drops to slightly below 30% once a child is born, and among Haredi couples the figure is less than 10% –though in the case of the Haredim, it is the female spouse who generally works and not the male spouse. The largest discrepancy in family income is not between the salaries of an arab-israeli and a jewish-israeli doing the same job for different pay, or lack of job-opportunity, but rather between one-working-parent versus two-working-parents family incomes. This was a real eye-opener when I started working on this and certainly one that resonates personally –my colleagues who earn the same salary as I do all, also, have an additional income bolstering their finances and thus the same “mortgage/rent” is 40-50% of their family finances rather than 80%. There will be two incomes going toward the support of children and not just one (of which 80% is spent on rent/mortgage) and so forth.