Can you look at this map and say Israel does not systemically appropriate land?

Foofie, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the African American brain, but people like you need desperately to believe this to be so....it's a crutch many whites use to justify their lack of accomplishment in the US, and it's so damn good for your personal ego with a need to elevate your image as being superior to minorities.

When you denigrate any minority as you have, we assume it's based on your own insecurities and ignorance. Until you understand the history of each race, culture, and ethnicity, you are making assumptions that can be easily challenged.

Every race, culture, and ethnicity has their levels in socio-economic standings that are equal to each other when based on their history.

There are many other people of race, culture, and ethnicity who are brighter, richer, and admired than your own. That's a fact for all of us to comprehend.

Just another thought: it was revealed that standardized tests in US schools were prepared by and benefited Caucasians. Think how that impacted all the other race and cultures that went to the same schools and class.

Those were also the times when tv ads had all whites representing 99% of the products and services. Newsrooms didn't have any minority. THAT'S A FACT. *In other words, progress doesn't happen over night.

The above is pure garbage. There is good and bad in every grouping of people.

This is not the only instance where race has become an important factor for how standardized tests are used in public education. Just last month public schools in both Virginia and Washington D.C. announced targets for how many students in each racial group must pass for schools to remain in good standing. For example, in Virginia only 45% of black students in each school must pass standardized math tests while 68% of whites, and 82% of Asians must do the same. Officials say that these plans are not discriminatory because students who are the farthest behind must progress the most, but critics reason that if one expects less from some students, those lower educational expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy for school districts and those students will fall even farther behind.

(MORE: Why Do We Care More About Diversity on TV Than In Our Schools?)

What these recent developments make clear is that instead of setting different educational benchmarks for groups based on race or income, it may simply be time for us to stop relying so heavily on standardized tests to begin with. Though opinions differ as to why, on k-12 achievement tests and college entrance exams, lower income students, as well as black and Latino students, consistently score below privileged white and Asian students. These gaps persist despite decades of research and numerous studies attempting to explain and then close them. One theory suggests that students with grandparents who have graduated from college always score higher, suggesting that the tests unfairly penalize students who are the first in their family to attend college. Whatever the explanation, it is difficult to reconcile why we rely on such tests when we know that they so heavily advantage some and disadvantage others.

(MORE: Why the Online Education Craze Will Leave Many Students Behind)

And if the standardized testing gap between racial minorities is bad, it’s nothing compared to the gap between the poor and the wealthy. For example, one recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that the gap for achievement test scores between rich and poor have grown by almost 60% since the 1960s and are now almost twice as large as the gap between white students and children of other races. The playing field is far from level when we continue to use tests where we know at the outset that wealthy students will do better than less wealthy students and white and Asian students will outperform blacks and Latinos.

One thing all this research has shown us is that the issue lies with how we use these tests, not with the kids who take them. Just consider the history of standardized tests which — according to Columbia University Professor Nicholas Lemann’s history of the Educational Testing Service, The Big Test: The Secret History of America’s Meritocracy — were first developed in the 1940s as a way to exclude Jewish students from Ivy League campuses. Interestingly, Stanley Kaplan, today one of the largest test preparation organizations, got its start when Mr. Kaplan resolved to come up with test-taking techniques to “beat the test” and ensure that such students did well.



Read more: Why It's Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests | TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/11/why-its-time-to-get-rid-of-standardized-tests/#ixzz2o9B6q1Sv

Q: Are Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel treated equally?
A: No. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel are entitled to vote and participate in Israeli political life, and several Palestinians are members of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), they do not receive the same treatment as the Jewish citizens at the hands of the government. Israel still applies 20 laws that privilege Jews over Arabs. For example, the 1950 Law of Return grants automatic citizenship rights to Jews from anywhere in the world upon request, while denying that same right to Palestinians. The Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom ensures that Israel is the state of the "Jewish people," not its citizens. This law was passed in 1992 to serve as a "bill of rights," as Israel does not have a written constitution.

Israel's flag and other national symbols are Jewish religious symbols, not neutral or national ones that represent all the citizens of the state. Government resources, meanwhile, are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all economic indicators.

Human Rights Watch has compiled an extensive study of Israel's policy of "separate, not equal" schools for Palestinian children, finding that "Government-run Arab schools are a world apart from government-run Jewish schools. In virtually every respect, Palestinian Arab children get an education inferior to that of Jewish children, and their relatively poor performance in school reflects this."

Nearly 25% of Israel's population is not Jewish.

As many as 100 Palestinian villages in Israel, many of which pre-date the founding of the state, are not recognized by the Israeli government, and are not listed on maps and receive no services (water, electricity, sanitation, roads, etc.) from the government. More than 70,000 Palestinians live in these unrecognized villages. Meanwhile, hundreds of new Jewish towns have been established on lands confiscated from Palestinians.

I would say that the bias, relative to the student from Argentina, was the exception that proved the rule.

Advocate is stupid, he spouts nonsense all the time. That's why he's so into notions of racial superiorit; having achieved little himself he seeks solace in his race, which for him is an achievement. He's a textbook example of a dimwitted, small minded racist.

Foofie said: Brit, with their horrendous history at colonization..

Foofie said: Brit, with their horrendous history at colonization.

Horrendous? Nah! We Brits civilised half the world by stopping them eating each other.

A Palestinian has been shot dead in northern Gaza by Israeli troops, Palestinian sources say.

The body of 22-year-old Odeh Hamad was recovered from near Beit Hanoun, close to the border with Israel, emergency services in Gaza said.

All of us speaking against the apartheid of Israel are "anti-Semites."

They still haven't figured it out that they've twisted the use of that term so badly, it's lost any meaning.