Slashdot Mirror
Israel's Supreme Court Says Yes To Internet Anonymity
jonklinger writes "The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even tortious, may remain anonymous. The 69-page decision acknowledges the right to privacy and makes internet anonymity de facto a constitutional right in Israel. Justice Rivlin noted that revealing a person behind an IP address is 'an attempt to harness, prior to a legal proceeding, the justice system and a third party in order to conduct an inquiry which will lead to the revealing of a person committing a tort so that a civil suit could be filed against him.'"
Getting warmer. Tortious.
Unless they actually meant torturous - but most blogs aren't THAT bad.
In 1967, Arab armies were holding offensive formations next to Israeli borders, so Israel had to build up a reserve force for defense.
Israel's economy couldn't sustain holding the reserves for so long, so eventually Israel decided it had to either call of the reserves (and risk being defenseless against the coming Arab attack) or perform a preemptive strike.
First, your statistical data is wrong. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics the median age of Jews in Israel is 30.6 years (as of 2005) and it's impossible the average is 10 years higher. The median age for Arabs is 19.8 years, so the average is indeed just a little over 20 (as of 2005, again).
As for the number of births per woman, the number for Israeli Arabs is 3.72, for Israeli Jews 2.69, so the difference is not that great. The prediction is that by 2025 the Arab population will count for about 25% of the population in Israel. If you look further away, you're only guessing, as there are changes due to cultural changes, but there will probably never be an Arab majority in Israel, because you didn't count for demographic changes in the Jewish population. The ultra-orthodox (Haredim) have much higher birth rate than the Arabs, so if you'll just extrapolate based on current birth rates, you'll see they'll become the dominant group by the end of the century, while the Arabs never pass the 40%. However, the birth rate in the Druze population dropped from 3.5 to 2.6 per woman between 1995 and 2005. The birth rate in Arab population is already going down, it used to be around 4.4 in the 90s.
Oh, and all this numbers are about Israeli residents, which include a large group of permanent residents who are not citizens, mostly Arabs from eastern Jerusalem
As for an Arab prime minister, I wouldn't bet on it. You don't know Israeli politics. First you have the fact Jews will continue to be the majority. Second is that voting percentages are higher in Jewish population than in Arab population (although I can't find the numbers at the moment, it should be around 75% for Jews, 60% for Arabs for Israeli citizens living in Israel). Then you should remember that significant part of the Arabs vote to parties led by a Jew.
Regarding the poll, I don't think it means much. Teenagers tend to go for extremes, but when they grow up they, well, grow up. The poll also noted 31% saying they'll disobey an order in military service to serve in the occupied territories and 48% said they'll disobey orders to help in evacuation of settlers (also in the occupied territories, of course). This numbers have nothing to do with what the Israeli army is actually dealing with, with soldiers who are just a few years older (in Israel we have conscription just after high-school, 3 years for men, 2 for women).
In general, given a Palestinian state will exist, Israel might remain a democracy with a strong Jewish majority for many decades. In fact, the only real danger to Israel's existence as a democracy with Jewish majority (what people here call "a Democratic Jewish State") is the inability to separate from the Palestinians, but that's a different matter...
You know, I usually don't feed the troll, but seeing as you are not being modded down at the moment:
I live in Israel. Roughly 60% of the jewish population is completely secular. There are several parties in the current ruling coalition that are Religion-based, yes.
However:
1) The press here is free. Hell, it's so free that our citizens are getting somewhat tired from scandals being exposed.
2) There are "Arab" parties as well. They are represented in parliament according to the number of votes which they received.
3) I can - and often do - buy pork.
4) I can drive my car during Shabbas and have worked an unfortunate number of Saturdays. Almost all businesses are open 7 days a week.
5) I can convert to ANY religion I want and suffer no repercussions.
6) While we do study the bible (old testament) during our school years, we also study the theory of evolution (and believe you me, there is NO controversy here).
7) Our legal system is mostly based on British laws (due to their brief stay in power here).
You can disagree with current/past actions of the Israeli government (god knows I - and many other Israelis - do), but your attempt to paint Israel as a theocracy is either extremely naive or plain misleading.
So you're either an uninformed fool, or a propagandist asshole. Care to share which?
"can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"