Tel-Chai Nation

The whole matter of segregation at Superland was discussed in the Knesset, and it turns out, none too surprisingly, that the amusement park does have separate arrangements for Haredis visiting:

Representatives of an Israeli amusement park that were accused of discriminating against Arabs revealed Monday that the facility hosts haredi groups on separate days, as well as Arabs.

The policy was discussed in the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee, together with the discriminated school principal, Superland owners and representatives from the Justice Ministry. "There are days in which haredim want to come alone, Superland is closed to the public on those days," said the park's representative, and apologized to those who were offended by the policy.

Superland had initially claimed that a separation policy at the park was only practiced when it comes to Jewish and Arab youths.

The amusement park tried to explain that the policy was meant to prevent friction and violence, and that there is no truth to the racism claims.

Superland representative Hani Baruch explained on Monday that the park received requests from different sectors for private days, and that has been the policy for the past two years. "Some sectors want to be alone," she said. "We also have separate days for haredim, and then whoever isn't haredi can't come in, and the park is closed to the public."

Baruch added: "On Saturdays we have families from all sectors, and it is fun and everything is fine. But there's a problem when teenagers come, it's a problematic age and they come to have graduation parties, it is a few days in which Jewish and Arab youths meet for the first time, and it creates some friction."

She further added that "when we realized some people are offended by this, we gave a clear direction to our salesmen to stop the policy." She asked for the forgiveness of those who were hurt: "We apologize to everyone and to the teacher in particular. This is the opportunity to say there is no policy, it was in good faith.

While I don't approve of the Haredi concepts of segregation - at least not if they didn't pay for their time there - I don't see why anyone who had a problem with Jewish-Arab segregation didn't raise a fuss about the Haredi-non-Haredi segregation either, regardless of whether the Haredis would have raised a ruckus or not. What they do need to have is both good and bold security in place, and if there's any violence, to call the police and have the perpetrators thrown out. Why they don't have the guts to fulfill that is beyond me.

Update: here's another report where some Superland customers voiced their support for the company for doing what they felt was needed to protect them against unprovoked Islamic hooliganism.

Labels: anti-semitism, dhimmitude, haredi corruption, islam, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Knesset, misogyny