Anti-Israel activists are now putting all their energy into their Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign (BDS). Their goal is to portray Israel and Israelis as pariahs that should be excluded from all international spheres—diplomatic, political, economic, social, and cultural.
Jews have been victims of such policies before. In the millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, they have been singled out, demonized, and excluded, as they were, for example, in 13th century England and 1930’s Europe. The Jewish State, too, has experienced such policies since its founding when Arab nations implemented strict exclusion and boycotts against Israel, most of which are still in place. The current global BDS campaign began in 2001 and grew after 2005, when Israel effectively defeated the terrorist campaign known as the Second Intifada. Today, hard core anti-Israel activists around the world are feverishly lobbying artists, universities, churches, retailers, unions, municipalities, and other institutions to adopt BDS.
Any public figures, retailers, institutions or organizations that adopt or defer to BDS policies should themselves be boycotted.
They should be boycotted because they advocate destructive rather than constructive, measures. BDS is anti-coexistence, undermines peace efforts, and does nothing to help Palestinians begin state building, improve their lives, or move toward reconciliation.
They should be boycotted because BDS policies are fundamentally anti-Semitic even though some of the movement’s advocates are Jews. The campaign uses the propaganda techniques and imagery of classical anti-Semitism now applied not to individual Jews, but to the world’s largest Jewish community and its only Jewish State. Boycott activists strip away all context for Israel’s actions, such as ongoing terrorism and the virulent ideology that propels it, in order to depict Israel as motivated by sheer malice in what are often simply modern blood libels. They obsessively put a microscope on Israel to detect its flaws, and expect it to live up to standards they do not expect of any other nation. They never call for BDS against nations that do systematically commit war crimes and human rights abuses, such as Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Bashir’s Sudan, Lebanon’s apartheid practices against Palestinians, or Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus and violent repression of its Kurdish minority.
They should be boycotted because of their hypocrisy. Where was the outrage of the boycotters, who claim to be champions of social justice and human rights, when the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign targeted innocent Jewish men, women, and children, and Hamas fired thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israeli communities, murdering toddlers and turning daily life into a lethal game of Russian roulette? Where were they when Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust even as he called for genocide against Jews? Where is their protest against the Judeophobic incitement that dominates the Middle East? Their callous indifference and implicit support of murdering Jews is both morally perverse and anti-Semitic.
Above all, they should be boycotted because they endorse the agendas of the dictatorial regimes and radical Islamist groups who share their hatred of the Jewish State and who are also enemies of human rights, social justice values, tolerance, and modernity. These states and groups like Hamas oppress women, persecute religious and other minorities, and oppress their own citizens. Those who adopt BDS should be exposed and pay the price for supporting and enabling the intransigent enemies of humanitarian and liberal values.
Boycotting those who comply with BDS means that any university that does not unequivocally denounce campus divestment campaigns should not receive another nickel from donors who care about fairness, the survival of Israel, and modern liberal values. Recording artists who refuse to perform in Israel should be labeled as extremists for the regressive, anti-Semitic values they endorse. Fair-minded people should stop buying their records and attending their concerts. Consumers should boycott any retailers who refuse to stock Israeli products, and support the new StandWithUs campaign, “BIG” and “RIG,” acronyms for “Buy Israeli Goods” and “Request Israeli Goods.”
It is time to expose the distorted values that drive the BDS movement, and its alliance with the most repressive and dangerous forces in the world today. It is time to unequivocally say no to this BDS movement and to all who would consider complying with it.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
sefardi selichot at the kotel erev yom kippur 5769 (1 of 3)
sefardi selichot at the kotel erev yom kippur 5769 (1 of 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sAS1YtB3dw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sAS1YtB3dw&feature=player_embedded
bomb attacks kill twenty-one US brave soldiers in 48 hours in a shitehole called Afghanistan
A U.S. army medic runs to the scene of a road side bomb explosion in Kandahar province Photo: REUTERS US and Afghan troops inspect the site of a roadside bomb in Kandahar Photo: EPA
A series of bomb attacks have badly hit US troops in eastern and southern Afghanistan in the past 48 hours.
The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009’s total of 521.
Afghanistan offensive 'shows signs of success' says Gordon BrownDeaths have risen consistently each year since 2001. Afghan police and civilians have suffered far higher casualties.
The coalition blames the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance.
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would “get harder before it gets easier”.
In two of the most deadly recent incidents, three Americans died in eastern Afghanistan on one bomb attack on Tuesday. Five died in a single bomb attack in the south on Monday.
Military spokesmen would not say if the bombs hit vehicles or foot patrols.
Homemade bombs using old shells or homemade explosives and hidden in roads, tracks, walls, streams and buildings have become the Taliban’s favoured weapon.
Their use has sparked an arms race with foreign troops evolving tactics, or relying on more heavily armed vehicles and mine detectors to try and avoid them.
The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009’s total of 521.
Afghanistan offensive 'shows signs of success' says Gordon BrownDeaths have risen consistently each year since 2001. Afghan police and civilians have suffered far higher casualties.
The coalition blames the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance.
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would “get harder before it gets easier”.
In two of the most deadly recent incidents, three Americans died in eastern Afghanistan on one bomb attack on Tuesday. Five died in a single bomb attack in the south on Monday.
Military spokesmen would not say if the bombs hit vehicles or foot patrols.
Homemade bombs using old shells or homemade explosives and hidden in roads, tracks, walls, streams and buildings have become the Taliban’s favoured weapon.
Their use has sparked an arms race with foreign troops evolving tactics, or relying on more heavily armed vehicles and mine detectors to try and avoid them.
Gaddafi in 'black Europe' warning
Despite historical tensions Col Gaddafi has forged friendlier relations with Italy Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe". Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe "could turn into Africa" as "there are millions of Africans who want to come in".
Italy has drawn criticism for handing over to Libya migrants it intercepts at sea, without screening them first.
Far fewer now reach Italy from Libya.
Start Quote
We don't know... what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans”
End Quote
Col Muammar Gaddafi
European Commission figures show that in 2009 the number of people caught trying to enter Italy illegally fell to 7,300, from 32,052 in 2008. The data was collected under the EU's Eurodac fingerprinting system.
Col Gaddafi has forged close ties with Italy since a friendship treaty was signed two years ago. It sought to draw a line under historic bitterness between Libya and Italy, its former colonial master.
"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," said Col Gaddafi, quoted by the AFP news agency.
He was speaking at a ceremony in Rome late on Monday, standing next to Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," Col Gaddafi said.
"We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."
Audience of women
Col Gaddafi has long seen himself as a champion of African interests on the international stage and has hosted many summits with African leaders.
Mr Berlusconi made no immediate comment on Col Gaddafi's demand.
Italy has been carrying out joint naval patrols with Libya for the past year, intercepting illegal migrants at sea.
The BBC's David Willey says Col Gaddafi's visit to Rome was overshadowed by another controversial speech he made - to two groups of several hundred young Italian women, hired at a fee of 70 or 80 euros each from a local modelling agency.
He told them that Islam should become the religion of Europe and gave them free copies of the Koran, after he had lectured them for an hour on the freedoms enjoyed by women in Libya.
Italy has drawn criticism for handing over to Libya migrants it intercepts at sea, without screening them first.
Far fewer now reach Italy from Libya.
Start Quote
We don't know... what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans”
End Quote
Col Muammar Gaddafi
European Commission figures show that in 2009 the number of people caught trying to enter Italy illegally fell to 7,300, from 32,052 in 2008. The data was collected under the EU's Eurodac fingerprinting system.
Col Gaddafi has forged close ties with Italy since a friendship treaty was signed two years ago. It sought to draw a line under historic bitterness between Libya and Italy, its former colonial master.
"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," said Col Gaddafi, quoted by the AFP news agency.
He was speaking at a ceremony in Rome late on Monday, standing next to Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," Col Gaddafi said.
"We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."
Audience of women
Col Gaddafi has long seen himself as a champion of African interests on the international stage and has hosted many summits with African leaders.
Mr Berlusconi made no immediate comment on Col Gaddafi's demand.
Italy has been carrying out joint naval patrols with Libya for the past year, intercepting illegal migrants at sea.
The BBC's David Willey says Col Gaddafi's visit to Rome was overshadowed by another controversial speech he made - to two groups of several hundred young Italian women, hired at a fee of 70 or 80 euros each from a local modelling agency.
He told them that Islam should become the religion of Europe and gave them free copies of the Koran, after he had lectured them for an hour on the freedoms enjoyed by women in Libya.
Obama's Appalling Mistreatment of Israel
As Israeli and Palestinian peace talks are scheduled to resume in Washington in a few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish homeland is an essential condition for peace. Completely reasonable, yet don't keep your fingers crossed, especially with the Obama administration's attitude toward Israel.
In my new book, "Crimes Against Liberty" (I know, another shameless plug, but you'd do the same in my position), I dedicate an entire chapter to detailing the Obama administration's horrendous and unprecedented mistreatment of Israel. Can you believe we're even having a discussion about Israel's right to the land six-plus decades and numerous wars after the modern Israeli state was restored to the Jews?
It's bad enough when misfit countries oppose Israel's right to existence and always demonize Israel while downplaying the Palestinians' misdeeds, but it's shocking and disturbing when the president of the United States abuses our greatest ally in the Mideast.
It's mystifying to me that so many Jewish people in America have been so tolerant of Obama's behavior toward Israel, almost as if in denial, but what more evidence do we need?
During the campaign, it was widely suspected that Obama had strong ties with pro-Palestinian groups, not to mention his membership in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church -- one that is known for its sympathy for the causes of certain terrorist organizations and the Palestinian position.
The Los Angeles Times reportedly possessed and protected a damning video of Obama toasting Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO operative and an outspoken Israel critic who, after the 9/11 attacks, referred to the media's "hysteria about suicide bombers."
Obama's official campaign website, Organizing for America, permitted the posting of a blog entry titled "How the Jewish Lobby Works." Though the post was eventually removed, it's suspicious that someone with posting privileges had these virulently anti-Semitic views. The post said: "No lobby is feared more or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, or re-elected, and he will either be smeared or ignored by the Jewish-owned major media." NewsBusters cited numerous other links to similar anti-Jewish posts on the website, showing this was not an isolated event. How does one explain away that kind of climate in the bowels of the administration?
Once elected, Obama appointed James Jones as his national security adviser, a man The Lid said is "not known as a friend of the Jewish State." Jones assembled a team that reportedly intended to be tougher and "impose a solution on" Israel. Early in his term, Obama pledged more than $900 million to rebuild Gaza and to shore up the Palestinian Authority. The rationale was to strengthen Palestinian moderates, but many experts warned that much of this money could get into the hands of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gratuitously denounced Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza while ignoring the many Palestinian sins against Israel. The administration also demanded that Israel negotiate with Syria -- a primary sponsor of Hezbollah -- just two days after Syrian foreign minister Walid Mueller praised a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Israel "the most cruel and repressive racist regime."
The administration has also applied fierce pressure on Israel to acquiesce on the matter of the creation of a Palestinian state, even to the point of conditioning our efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions on that Israeli concession. Obama directed our return to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had left nine months before because the council had incessantly condemned Israel while ignoring the abuses of Mideast dictatorships. Obama snubbed Netanyahu and announced he would discontinue the established practice of hosting Israeli prime ministers when they are in Washington.
Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, adopted the controversial 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which called for Israel to withdraw from east Jerusalem, the entire West Bank and Golan Heights and also for Israel to accept the influx of millions of foreign Arabs as Israeli citizens as part of the "right of return." Mideast expert Caroline Glick says this would mean "Israel would effectively cease to be a Jewish state."
Vice President Biden engaged in a public temper tantrum and harshly "condemned" Israel for not bowing to the administration's demands that it discontinue its settlements in east Jerusalem. Rarely does the United States publicly condemn an ally, especially in such harsh terms.
We're just scratching the surface, but surely you get the picture. There is, however, one gratifying development in this ongoing saga. Finally, some Jewish Americans have had enough and are speaking up. As I chronicle in the book, former New York Mayor Ed Koch wrote two scathing editorials against Obama's appalling policies and called out his fellow Jews to speak up against them. Amazingly, Obama's stalwart supporter Sen. Chuck Schumer finally joined Koch in pushing back. Others, not just American Jews, need to wake up.
In my new book, "Crimes Against Liberty" (I know, another shameless plug, but you'd do the same in my position), I dedicate an entire chapter to detailing the Obama administration's horrendous and unprecedented mistreatment of Israel. Can you believe we're even having a discussion about Israel's right to the land six-plus decades and numerous wars after the modern Israeli state was restored to the Jews?
It's bad enough when misfit countries oppose Israel's right to existence and always demonize Israel while downplaying the Palestinians' misdeeds, but it's shocking and disturbing when the president of the United States abuses our greatest ally in the Mideast.
It's mystifying to me that so many Jewish people in America have been so tolerant of Obama's behavior toward Israel, almost as if in denial, but what more evidence do we need?
During the campaign, it was widely suspected that Obama had strong ties with pro-Palestinian groups, not to mention his membership in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church -- one that is known for its sympathy for the causes of certain terrorist organizations and the Palestinian position.
The Los Angeles Times reportedly possessed and protected a damning video of Obama toasting Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO operative and an outspoken Israel critic who, after the 9/11 attacks, referred to the media's "hysteria about suicide bombers."
Obama's official campaign website, Organizing for America, permitted the posting of a blog entry titled "How the Jewish Lobby Works." Though the post was eventually removed, it's suspicious that someone with posting privileges had these virulently anti-Semitic views. The post said: "No lobby is feared more or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, or re-elected, and he will either be smeared or ignored by the Jewish-owned major media." NewsBusters cited numerous other links to similar anti-Jewish posts on the website, showing this was not an isolated event. How does one explain away that kind of climate in the bowels of the administration?
Once elected, Obama appointed James Jones as his national security adviser, a man The Lid said is "not known as a friend of the Jewish State." Jones assembled a team that reportedly intended to be tougher and "impose a solution on" Israel. Early in his term, Obama pledged more than $900 million to rebuild Gaza and to shore up the Palestinian Authority. The rationale was to strengthen Palestinian moderates, but many experts warned that much of this money could get into the hands of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gratuitously denounced Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza while ignoring the many Palestinian sins against Israel. The administration also demanded that Israel negotiate with Syria -- a primary sponsor of Hezbollah -- just two days after Syrian foreign minister Walid Mueller praised a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Israel "the most cruel and repressive racist regime."
The administration has also applied fierce pressure on Israel to acquiesce on the matter of the creation of a Palestinian state, even to the point of conditioning our efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions on that Israeli concession. Obama directed our return to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had left nine months before because the council had incessantly condemned Israel while ignoring the abuses of Mideast dictatorships. Obama snubbed Netanyahu and announced he would discontinue the established practice of hosting Israeli prime ministers when they are in Washington.
Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, adopted the controversial 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which called for Israel to withdraw from east Jerusalem, the entire West Bank and Golan Heights and also for Israel to accept the influx of millions of foreign Arabs as Israeli citizens as part of the "right of return." Mideast expert Caroline Glick says this would mean "Israel would effectively cease to be a Jewish state."
Vice President Biden engaged in a public temper tantrum and harshly "condemned" Israel for not bowing to the administration's demands that it discontinue its settlements in east Jerusalem. Rarely does the United States publicly condemn an ally, especially in such harsh terms.
We're just scratching the surface, but surely you get the picture. There is, however, one gratifying development in this ongoing saga. Finally, some Jewish Americans have had enough and are speaking up. As I chronicle in the book, former New York Mayor Ed Koch wrote two scathing editorials against Obama's appalling policies and called out his fellow Jews to speak up against them. Amazingly, Obama's stalwart supporter Sen. Chuck Schumer finally joined Koch in pushing back. Others, not just American Jews, need to wake up.
‘Direct Access’ Stimulus Grants for the Muslim Brotherhood
On August 31, this coming Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood-associated “Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations” (CCMO) will bring 25-30 Muslim leaders of 20 national Muslim groups to attend a special workshop presented by the White House and U.S. Government agencies (Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services etc.) to provide the groups “funding, government assistance and resources.”
Video: Correcting BBC Crusades Propaganda
Frankly, to properly answer all the misinformation, disinformation and outright lies of the BBC propaganda video about the crusades and middle ages, I would need a month at least and the result would be absurd as I would have to stop the video every 90 frames and cut in with what is wrong. So I had to content myself with addressing some of the worst outright lies of this video and one major 'oversight'. http://www.youtube.com/user/vladtepesblogdotcom
Monday, 30 August 2010
In praise of Israel – Qatar Tribune
How did this one slip through? Although it has been noted that it does not appear in the Arabic version, this article by David Brooks, first published in the New York Times, appeared recently in the Qatar Tribune’s English language website:
The Israeli Identity
Tel Aviv’s economic leap will widen the gap between it and its neighbours
DAVID BROOKS
NYT NEWS SERVICE
JEWS are a famously accomplished group.
They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the
Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.
Jews make up 2 percent of the US population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy
Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.
In his book, The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement, Steven L Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement.
The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability.
It is learning-based, not rite-based.
Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendents have been living off of their wits ever since.
They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive.
They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.
No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement.
The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest.
Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.
Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype.
People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.
But that has changed.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift.
The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics.
This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.
Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots.
Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far.
It leads the world in civilian research-anddevelopment spending per capita.
It ranks second behind the US in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq.
Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.
As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.
Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well.
The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending.
Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term.
Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream.
The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron.
It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.
This shift in the Israeli identity has longterm implications.
Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world.
And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.
But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbours.
All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation.
Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centres.
But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money.
The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.
For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US Saudis registered 171.
Israelis registered 7,652.
The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability.
As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth.
To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country.
It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes.
American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here.
Now Israelis keep a foothold in the US.
During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.
One little quibble: Jewish achievement and Israeli achievement appear to morph into a single identity. Not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis. And why ‘Tel Aviv’s economic leap’? Surely ‘Israel’s’.
Maybe the Qatari English language editor is a covert philosemite.
Let the comments on how terrible Israel is and how it couldn’t do it without American tax dollars start rolling in.
The Israeli Identity
Tel Aviv’s economic leap will widen the gap between it and its neighbours
DAVID BROOKS
NYT NEWS SERVICE
JEWS are a famously accomplished group.
They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the
Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.
Jews make up 2 percent of the US population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy
Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.
In his book, The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement, Steven L Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement.
The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability.
It is learning-based, not rite-based.
Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendents have been living off of their wits ever since.
They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive.
They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.
No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement.
The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest.
Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.
Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype.
People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.
But that has changed.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift.
The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics.
This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.
Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots.
Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far.
It leads the world in civilian research-anddevelopment spending per capita.
It ranks second behind the US in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq.
Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.
As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.
Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well.
The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending.
Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term.
Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream.
The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron.
It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.
This shift in the Israeli identity has longterm implications.
Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world.
And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.
But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbours.
All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation.
Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centres.
But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money.
The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.
For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US Saudis registered 171.
Israelis registered 7,652.
The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability.
As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth.
To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country.
It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes.
American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here.
Now Israelis keep a foothold in the US.
During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.
One little quibble: Jewish achievement and Israeli achievement appear to morph into a single identity. Not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis. And why ‘Tel Aviv’s economic leap’? Surely ‘Israel’s’.
Maybe the Qatari English language editor is a covert philosemite.
Let the comments on how terrible Israel is and how it couldn’t do it without American tax dollars start rolling in.
Pakistan floods: British Muslims should give money to UK causes, says charity
Haroon Siddique
The Guardian News Mon 30 Aug 2010 16:18 BST
Mercy Mission UK says Zakat religious contributions should help poor within Britain
An Islamic charity says British Muslims should fulfil their religious obligation to help the poor by giving money within the UK rather than abroad – despite the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan.
Muslims are required to pay 2.5% of their wealth above a minimum amount to the poor and needy each year. The Zakat, as it is known, is often paid during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which ends next week. Many British Muslims traditionally donate the Zakat to help the needy in their mother countries and with the floods that have devastated Pakistan, the country would seem an obvious choice for help this year, especially for the 43% of British Muslims who are of Pakistani origin.
But Mercy Mission UK, a charity set up three years ago to encourage Muslims to play an active part in their communities, is launching the National Zakat Foundation this week to encourage British Muslims to give to local causes rather than overseas. "Although it hurts us to see what's going on around the world, the Zakat is meant to be given locally. The idea is to reach out to the poor right here," said Azim Kidwai, Mercy Mission UK general manager.
British charities such as Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief UK are currently encouraging Muslims to pay Zakat to help fund their overseas operations, including in Pakistan, which aim to help people regardless of their faith. But the National Zakat Foundation points to the high number of Muslims living below the poverty line in Britain and is pledging to distribute donations received towards local communities where Muslims are in need.
Kidwai acknowledged that the campaign would prove controversial, given the situation in Pakistan, but said that there was a religious basis for the position of the National Zakat Foundation. "It's 2.5% [the Zakat], you can still give to other countries over and above the 2.5%," he said. "We genuinely believe Zakat should be given locally. We [also] genuinely believe extra support should be given to Pakistan. You need to support different types of giving. There's some that is required [under the religion] and other that is extra."
Haroun Atallah, finance director of Islamic Relief, said: "There is the religious basis that you should spend the Zakat on the land that it is collected. However, there is very strong Islamic belief for saying where in a land where people have enough provision for themselves, the Zakat can be moved to another land. We have [in the UK] a social welfare system, a health system. We do spend some Zakat in Britain but when you have disasters like we're having in Pakistan some people are giving specifically for Pakistan and, as a charity, we have to give the money to where they want it to go."
A spokeswoman for Muslim Aid said the charity spends 10% of Zakat funds on education and social ills in the UK, but added: "Every day 1.02 billion people go hungry; one sixth of humanity. Zakat spent in these [developing] countries addresses a greater need for humanity than addressing causes in the UK. Zakat can be spent on the deserving anywhere in the world, including the UK, taking into consideration elements of proportionality and maximising the beneficiaries."
Despite generosity in Britain, where the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal has reached £40m, the UN says the relief operation in Pakistan is still underfunded.
The Guardian News Mon 30 Aug 2010 16:18 BST
Mercy Mission UK says Zakat religious contributions should help poor within Britain
An Islamic charity says British Muslims should fulfil their religious obligation to help the poor by giving money within the UK rather than abroad – despite the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan.
Muslims are required to pay 2.5% of their wealth above a minimum amount to the poor and needy each year. The Zakat, as it is known, is often paid during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which ends next week. Many British Muslims traditionally donate the Zakat to help the needy in their mother countries and with the floods that have devastated Pakistan, the country would seem an obvious choice for help this year, especially for the 43% of British Muslims who are of Pakistani origin.
But Mercy Mission UK, a charity set up three years ago to encourage Muslims to play an active part in their communities, is launching the National Zakat Foundation this week to encourage British Muslims to give to local causes rather than overseas. "Although it hurts us to see what's going on around the world, the Zakat is meant to be given locally. The idea is to reach out to the poor right here," said Azim Kidwai, Mercy Mission UK general manager.
British charities such as Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief UK are currently encouraging Muslims to pay Zakat to help fund their overseas operations, including in Pakistan, which aim to help people regardless of their faith. But the National Zakat Foundation points to the high number of Muslims living below the poverty line in Britain and is pledging to distribute donations received towards local communities where Muslims are in need.
Kidwai acknowledged that the campaign would prove controversial, given the situation in Pakistan, but said that there was a religious basis for the position of the National Zakat Foundation. "It's 2.5% [the Zakat], you can still give to other countries over and above the 2.5%," he said. "We genuinely believe Zakat should be given locally. We [also] genuinely believe extra support should be given to Pakistan. You need to support different types of giving. There's some that is required [under the religion] and other that is extra."
Haroun Atallah, finance director of Islamic Relief, said: "There is the religious basis that you should spend the Zakat on the land that it is collected. However, there is very strong Islamic belief for saying where in a land where people have enough provision for themselves, the Zakat can be moved to another land. We have [in the UK] a social welfare system, a health system. We do spend some Zakat in Britain but when you have disasters like we're having in Pakistan some people are giving specifically for Pakistan and, as a charity, we have to give the money to where they want it to go."
A spokeswoman for Muslim Aid said the charity spends 10% of Zakat funds on education and social ills in the UK, but added: "Every day 1.02 billion people go hungry; one sixth of humanity. Zakat spent in these [developing] countries addresses a greater need for humanity than addressing causes in the UK. Zakat can be spent on the deserving anywhere in the world, including the UK, taking into consideration elements of proportionality and maximising the beneficiaries."
Despite generosity in Britain, where the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal has reached £40m, the UN says the relief operation in Pakistan is still underfunded.
August 30, 2010 Recent Easing of Measures in the West Bank, 30 Aug 2010
August 30, 2010 Recent Easing of Measures in the West Bank, 30 Aug 2010
The following is a comprehensive list of recent measures taken to improve the quality of life for West Bank residents, as well as for Gaza Strip, Jewish, and Arab residents wishing to enter the West Bank. Along with easing measures during the current Ramadan period (including the increased issuance of permits to enter Israel and the Temple Mount), measures have been taken that have led to positive changes in the West Bank throughout the past year including:
■Since the beginning of 2010, 60 roadblocks have been removed. 16 checkpoints remain in the West Bank, all of them regularly open.
■Road number 443 has opened for Palestinian traffic.
■50% increase since 2009 of permits issued to enter Israel.
■In the first half of 2010, there has been a 15% increase for Palestinian patients receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. 82,058 of these permits were issued; 14,675 of which were issued for children.
■11% increase of the number of trade permits issued for entry to Israel. In the first half of 2010, 22,910 trade permits were issued, compared to 20,503 trade permits issued during the same period last year. 500 additional permits were issued to merchants to enter Israel.
■78% increase in vehicle imports to the West Bank in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009.
■2.7% increase in the al-Quds stock market index for the first half of 2010, while unemployment decreased by 3% in the first quarter of 2010
■3,000 housing units were built for a new city in the Ramallah district.
■6 Palestinian Security Forces battalions and 150 civil defense personnel have been coordinated for special training in Jordan.
■There have been regular joint meetings between heads of the Palestinian Security Forces and the IDF Central Command. In addition, there have been joint Israeli and Palestinian police and firefighters’ meetings.
The following is a comprehensive list of recent measures taken to improve the quality of life for West Bank residents, as well as for Gaza Strip, Jewish, and Arab residents wishing to enter the West Bank. Along with easing measures during the current Ramadan period (including the increased issuance of permits to enter Israel and the Temple Mount), measures have been taken that have led to positive changes in the West Bank throughout the past year including:
■Since the beginning of 2010, 60 roadblocks have been removed. 16 checkpoints remain in the West Bank, all of them regularly open.
■Road number 443 has opened for Palestinian traffic.
■50% increase since 2009 of permits issued to enter Israel.
■In the first half of 2010, there has been a 15% increase for Palestinian patients receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. 82,058 of these permits were issued; 14,675 of which were issued for children.
■11% increase of the number of trade permits issued for entry to Israel. In the first half of 2010, 22,910 trade permits were issued, compared to 20,503 trade permits issued during the same period last year. 500 additional permits were issued to merchants to enter Israel.
■78% increase in vehicle imports to the West Bank in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009.
■2.7% increase in the al-Quds stock market index for the first half of 2010, while unemployment decreased by 3% in the first quarter of 2010
■3,000 housing units were built for a new city in the Ramallah district.
■6 Palestinian Security Forces battalions and 150 civil defense personnel have been coordinated for special training in Jordan.
■There have been regular joint meetings between heads of the Palestinian Security Forces and the IDF Central Command. In addition, there have been joint Israeli and Palestinian police and firefighters’ meetings.
(look at what these sick bastards art work), Buying Israeli Goods is Funding Apartheid
(look at what these sick bastards art work), Buying Israeli Goods is Funding Apartheid
http://twitpic.com/2i59ay
http://twitpic.com/2i59ay
The Israeli Army Breeds Technology Entrepreneurs
The Israeli Army Breeds Technology Entrepreneurs
MANY Israeli start-ups should pay royalties to the army, says Edouard Cukierman, a venture capitalist in Tel Aviv. He is only half joking. Despite the recession, Israel’s technology exports grew by more than 5% last year. Mr Cukierman thinks military service deserves some of the credit. Israel’s army does not just train soldiers, he says; it nurtures entrepreneurs.
Teenagers conscripted into high-tech units gain experience “akin to a bachelor’s degree in computer science”, says Ruvi Kitov, co-founder and chief executive of Tufin Technologies, an Israeli software firm. Almost all of Tufin’s employees in the country are, like Mr Kitov himself, veterans of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). One of the firm’s cash cows is software that finds spam servers and blocks their transmissions. It is based on IDF cyberwarfare technologies that developers first used as soldiers.
Traditional armies drill unquestioning obedience into their grunts. Israel’s encourages creativity. An IDF spokesman says it is “highly acceptable” for soldiers to point out problems and pitch ideas to superiors. That is why veterans are snapped up by start-ups, says Alan Baker, president of the Israel-Canada Chamber of Commerce in Tel Aviv. They also do well raising money, he says, because investors assume the IDF has already weeded out the dishonest and irresponsible. In other countries, employers rely on the college-entry obstacle course to select the brightest and best. In Israel, thanks to conscription, most job applicants have tackled real obstacle courses.
Like Americans, Israelis are quick to challenge authority, says Shlomo Maital, the author of “Global Risk/Global Opportunity”, a new management book. In the IDF, which he served as a reservist for nearly a quarter of a century, soldiers are encouraged to improvise, lest they lose the initiative in the fog of battle. This culture helps ex-army entrepreneurs solve civilian problems, Mr Maital says. He points to Check Point, a large developer of internet-security software. Its founders used to build firewalls to protect systems run by Israeli intelligence.
Optibase, a company based in Herzliya in greater Tel Aviv, sells video technology. Its founders cut their teeth tinkering with video technologies used in the IDF’s intelligence and weapons systems. The firm might not exist without the IDF, says Eli Garten, a vice-president (who commanded 34 soldiers in an air-force intelligence agency when he was 20). Ironically, tech companies such as Optibase are now poaching talent from the IDF with higher salaries.
Teenagers conscripted into high-tech units gain experience “akin to a bachelor’s degree in computer science”, says Ruvi Kitov, co-founder and chief executive of Tufin Technologies, an Israeli software firm. Almost all of Tufin’s employees in the country are, like Mr Kitov himself, veterans of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). One of the firm’s cash cows is software that finds spam servers and blocks their transmissions. It is based on IDF cyberwarfare technologies that developers first used as soldiers.
Traditional armies drill unquestioning obedience into their grunts. Israel’s encourages creativity. An IDF spokesman says it is “highly acceptable” for soldiers to point out problems and pitch ideas to superiors. That is why veterans are snapped up by start-ups, says Alan Baker, president of the Israel-Canada Chamber of Commerce in Tel Aviv. They also do well raising money, he says, because investors assume the IDF has already weeded out the dishonest and irresponsible. In other countries, employers rely on the college-entry obstacle course to select the brightest and best. In Israel, thanks to conscription, most job applicants have tackled real obstacle courses.
Like Americans, Israelis are quick to challenge authority, says Shlomo Maital, the author of “Global Risk/Global Opportunity”, a new management book. In the IDF, which he served as a reservist for nearly a quarter of a century, soldiers are encouraged to improvise, lest they lose the initiative in the fog of battle. This culture helps ex-army entrepreneurs solve civilian problems, Mr Maital says. He points to Check Point, a large developer of internet-security software. Its founders used to build firewalls to protect systems run by Israeli intelligence.
Optibase, a company based in Herzliya in greater Tel Aviv, sells video technology. Its founders cut their teeth tinkering with video technologies used in the IDF’s intelligence and weapons systems. The firm might not exist without the IDF, says Eli Garten, a vice-president (who commanded 34 soldiers in an air-force intelligence agency when he was 20). Ironically, tech companies such as Optibase are now poaching talent from the IDF with higher salaries.
The Arab world, sick man of the globe
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Looking around the Arab world this week, it is hard to know what are the region’s real priority challenges, because multiple issues stand out as problems, vulnerabilities, weaknesses or threats. Most of the problems in our region can be traced to local incompetence, or, in the worst cases, criminality and irresponsibility in the seats of power – though everywhere there is also an element of foreign involvement or manipulation that should not be ignored. The regional picture is not pretty.
The Somali capital Mogadishu is once again ripped apart by vicious street battles, the state-level equivalent of senseless drug wars among poor urban youth in other parts of the world. Somalia is the sad global laboratory of a society without a state, chaos masquerading as statehood.
Bahrain is once again plagued by street demonstrations and security crackdowns, reflecting a total inability of citizens and leaders to engage one another in a sensible political negotiation over the exercise and sharing of power. Bahrain should have been a leader in sustainable development and social equity in the region, given its small population and its early emphasis on educating men and women alike.
Iraq remains the most dangerous place in the region today, given its combination of internal stress, rekindled high levels of terror and political violence, the inability of the political class to achieve consensus, and the rampant interference of foreign countries. The destructive ripples that have radiated from Iraq outward to the region and the world in the form of foreign invasion and interference, terror groups, sectarian fighting and nation-state fragility are unprecedented in the modern era.
Lebanon remains trapped in its continuing dilemma of being both the vanguard of Arab liberalism, cultural creativity, intellectual production, tolerance, and multiculturalism, on the one hand, and a perpetual proxy battleground for regional and global powers who link up with fierce local fighters, on the other. The best of the Arab and universal human condition is on display in Lebanon every day, and every few weeks or months this is complemented by street fighting, assassinations, political stand-offs or large or small wars.
Yemen is caught in its own whirlwind of national fragility, polarization and low-intensity disintegration, having several times in its modern history split up and united, fought and reconciled, stabilized and plunged into warfare. Now it embodies a new destructive dimension in the form of militant Salafists linked with Al-Qaeda, making it another local breeding ground and battleground in the global terror industry.
Palestine becomes stronger and stronger as a national identity in the hearts and minds of its own citizens, but also more and more fragmented and disjointed politically on the ground. Several different Palestinian leaderships share legitimacy with some of their own people, but none has been able to achieve the more important international legitimacy or credibility and respect in the eyes of Israeli leaders and society.
Sudan chronically displays its own stresses and national deficiencies, including internal fighting on several fronts, the possibility of the south seceding after a referendum, and the ignominy of the president being indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Everywhere else, the Arab world is defined by top-heavy states where small groups of men surrounded by many soldiers make decisions without seriously consulting their fellow citizens. This legacy is firmly supported by major foreign powers who see “security and stability” as critical priorities in this region, by which they mean that Israel should remain dominant, Arab nationalists and Islamists should be fought and diminished, and security-minded Arab governing elites should rule forever.
This translates into a perpetual cycle of mostly disempowered and disenchanted Arab nationals who never get to experience the thrills of true and full citizenship – participation, accountability, opportunity, transparency. They share in transforming their states into shopping malls, their identities into categories of security clearances, and their humanity into unthinking automatons who wave the flag on command, cheer on cue, and otherwise restrict the exercise of their rational, emotional and creative human dimensions to subservience, acquiescence, and obedience in the political and social spheres.
Religion helps many such dehumanized Arabs cope with their constraints and discomforts. Emigration is a solution for some. Most people simply adjust to life in modern non-democratic states where the two most prevalent public manifestations of collective norms are in the domains of security and consumerism.
In “secure” Arab societies like Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and others like this them that do not suffer the chronic violence of Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, the ubiquitous symbols of Arab statehood and citizenship are guns in the hands of police and army personnel, and cell phones in the hands of all other nationals. This is another kind of unstable statehood, one whose vulnerabilities do not appear in the open as they do in those other Arab countries engulfed by fighting.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Looking around the Arab world this week, it is hard to know what are the region’s real priority challenges, because multiple issues stand out as problems, vulnerabilities, weaknesses or threats. Most of the problems in our region can be traced to local incompetence, or, in the worst cases, criminality and irresponsibility in the seats of power – though everywhere there is also an element of foreign involvement or manipulation that should not be ignored. The regional picture is not pretty.
The Somali capital Mogadishu is once again ripped apart by vicious street battles, the state-level equivalent of senseless drug wars among poor urban youth in other parts of the world. Somalia is the sad global laboratory of a society without a state, chaos masquerading as statehood.
Bahrain is once again plagued by street demonstrations and security crackdowns, reflecting a total inability of citizens and leaders to engage one another in a sensible political negotiation over the exercise and sharing of power. Bahrain should have been a leader in sustainable development and social equity in the region, given its small population and its early emphasis on educating men and women alike.
Iraq remains the most dangerous place in the region today, given its combination of internal stress, rekindled high levels of terror and political violence, the inability of the political class to achieve consensus, and the rampant interference of foreign countries. The destructive ripples that have radiated from Iraq outward to the region and the world in the form of foreign invasion and interference, terror groups, sectarian fighting and nation-state fragility are unprecedented in the modern era.
Lebanon remains trapped in its continuing dilemma of being both the vanguard of Arab liberalism, cultural creativity, intellectual production, tolerance, and multiculturalism, on the one hand, and a perpetual proxy battleground for regional and global powers who link up with fierce local fighters, on the other. The best of the Arab and universal human condition is on display in Lebanon every day, and every few weeks or months this is complemented by street fighting, assassinations, political stand-offs or large or small wars.
Yemen is caught in its own whirlwind of national fragility, polarization and low-intensity disintegration, having several times in its modern history split up and united, fought and reconciled, stabilized and plunged into warfare. Now it embodies a new destructive dimension in the form of militant Salafists linked with Al-Qaeda, making it another local breeding ground and battleground in the global terror industry.
Palestine becomes stronger and stronger as a national identity in the hearts and minds of its own citizens, but also more and more fragmented and disjointed politically on the ground. Several different Palestinian leaderships share legitimacy with some of their own people, but none has been able to achieve the more important international legitimacy or credibility and respect in the eyes of Israeli leaders and society.
Sudan chronically displays its own stresses and national deficiencies, including internal fighting on several fronts, the possibility of the south seceding after a referendum, and the ignominy of the president being indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Everywhere else, the Arab world is defined by top-heavy states where small groups of men surrounded by many soldiers make decisions without seriously consulting their fellow citizens. This legacy is firmly supported by major foreign powers who see “security and stability” as critical priorities in this region, by which they mean that Israel should remain dominant, Arab nationalists and Islamists should be fought and diminished, and security-minded Arab governing elites should rule forever.
This translates into a perpetual cycle of mostly disempowered and disenchanted Arab nationals who never get to experience the thrills of true and full citizenship – participation, accountability, opportunity, transparency. They share in transforming their states into shopping malls, their identities into categories of security clearances, and their humanity into unthinking automatons who wave the flag on command, cheer on cue, and otherwise restrict the exercise of their rational, emotional and creative human dimensions to subservience, acquiescence, and obedience in the political and social spheres.
Religion helps many such dehumanized Arabs cope with their constraints and discomforts. Emigration is a solution for some. Most people simply adjust to life in modern non-democratic states where the two most prevalent public manifestations of collective norms are in the domains of security and consumerism.
In “secure” Arab societies like Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and others like this them that do not suffer the chronic violence of Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, the ubiquitous symbols of Arab statehood and citizenship are guns in the hands of police and army personnel, and cell phones in the hands of all other nationals. This is another kind of unstable statehood, one whose vulnerabilities do not appear in the open as they do in those other Arab countries engulfed by fighting.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
An Arab Scandal: Saudi Arabia Assumes Moroccan Women Are Prostitutes
This is unbelievable. Morrocan women “of a certain age” are not allowed to go to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage? This is indeed a stereotype too far. as Nisreen Malek wrote in the Guardian today:
Instead of diverting resources to investigate and tackle the problem within Saudi Arabia, the blame and responsibility for the problem has been placed squarely on the shoulders of Moroccan women. This, if I may indulge in a little generalisation myself, is a characteristic way of dealing with issues that touch on morality. Sweep under the carpet, blame the other, and if all else fails, ban something.
But the blame sits not only with the Saudis. The Moroccans should have made a bigger stink out of this. They should have threatened to go all the way and if need-be ban their citizens from going to Saudi Arabia. Maybe this would generate the kind of publicity that forces the entire Arab world to debate this all-too-common stereotype.
For Arabs in Israel, a house is not a home
Edward Platt
Published 30 August 2010
Three representatives of Hamas have been forced to seek sanctuary at the Red Cross compound in East Jerusalem — charged not with terrorism, but with “disloyalty” to the state. Edward Platt on a strange case of exile inside Israel.
Day 33 of the sit-in at the Red Cross compound in East Jerusalem began much like those that preceded it. The three Hamas parliamentarians who have been charged with disloyalty to a state whose jurisdiction they do not recognise awoke at 6am in the meeting room on the second floor of the white stone building in the Sheikh Jarrah area. Ahmad Atoun, who was an imam before he began his brief political career, led the first prayers of the day. The men washed in a bucket, ate breakfast and at ten o'clock came down to the L-shaped courtyard that has become the site of their protest. The plain white walls of the courtyard are decorated with posters that explain their case: "Jerusalem Is An Occupied City." "We Will Stay Here For Ever." "We Will Not Leave Our Homes."
Photographs of the three bearded men, and a fourth colleague who is in prison, were superimposed on an image of the gold-plated Dome of the Rock - the holiest site in the city in which they were born, and from which the Israeli authorities are attempting to expel them.
When I arrived five minutes later, a television crew was setting up outside the green metal gates at the entrance to the courtyard, and one of the teenage boys who attends to the men and their guests was updating the sign that keeps a tally of the length of their confinement. As the numerals changed from 32 to 33, Mohammed Totah, Khaled Abu Arafeh and Ahmad Atoun took their seats beneath the canopy where they would spend the day receiving guests. The chairs lined up against the walls in the traditional Arab manner are constantly in use, and sometimes the courtyard is full to overflowing: on Friday lunchtimes, an awning is erected in the street, and an imam says prayers to the assembled crowd. According to Red Cross officials, most of East Jerusalem society has passed through the courtyard. Three British peers - Jenny Tonge, Nazir Ahmed and Raymond Hylton - have been among the guests.
Despite the uncomfortable conditions in which they live, the three men at the centre of the protest were smartly dressed in pressed shirts and dark trousers. Until 2006, Mohammed Totah taught business administration at al-Quds University and Abu Arafeh was an engineer, while the preacher, Ahmad Atoun, worked for various Islamic charities. Yet their lack of experience did not prevent them from standing as candidates for the "Change and Reform" movement, as Hamas was called in the legislative elections held in the Palestinian territories in January 2006; if anything, it was an advantage, because the endemic corruption of the Palestinian Authority, which was dominated by Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, had turned the voters against the political elite. "People knew we were good Muslims and they trusted us," said Mohammed Totah, a tall and well-mannered man with thinning hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
Hamas, which was set up in the Gaza Strip in 1988, is known in the west for the crude, anti-Semitic rhetoric of its founding charter and for its terrorist activities. Its paramilitary wing has killed several hundred Israeli citizens, through the use of suicide bombers and other means, yet it also runs a network of charitable organisations in the Palestinian territories, and is respected for the even-handed way in which it distributes resources. In 2006, it won 44 per cent of the vote; Mohammed Totah and Ahmad Atoun won two of the 74 seats that gave it a majority in the 132-seat parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and Abu Arafeh became minister for Jerusalem affairs.
“The world witnessed that we were democratically elected," Abu Arafeh said through his colleague Mohammed Totah, who speaks the best English of the three. But the men had little chance to implement their mandate. "The European Union said there must be democratic elections, and we must accept the results," says Mohammed Totah. "But afterwards, they said, 'No, we will not accept Hamas.'"
Four months after the election, the then Israeli minister of the interior revoked the men's rights to residency in Jerusalem and ordered them to leave Jerusalem and Israel "permanently". Events prevented the order being carried out: before the 30-day limit had expired, the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas militants in Gaza, and Israel began arresting officials and representatives of the movement. The three men, together with their colleague Sheikh Mohammed Abu Teir (who is distinguished in the many posters by his bright red beard, which he dyes in honour of a tradition supposedly established by the Prophet Muhammad), spent the next three and a half years in Israeli prisons.
That none of them has been accused of terrorist offences is irrelevant as far as Israel is concerned - it regards Hamas's paramilitary, political and charitable activities as inextric-ably linked and mutually reinforcing, and the men's attitudes to Hamas's use of violence would do little to persuade it that it is wrong. If they could "secure their rights" by peaceful means, Mohammed Totah said, then they would do so, but negotiations have led nowhere, and under international law they have the right to use all available means to resist the occupation. "It isn't violence," he insisted repeatedly, "it's resistance - and even if you don't want to resist, the occupation will give you no choice. It will come to your house, it will kill your children, it will take your land, it will put you in prison."
The four men were released at the end of May, and the Israeli authorities promptly "unfroze" the 30-day order that had been issued in 2006. Mohammed Abu Teir - the eldest of the four, and the most experienced politician, who has spent a total of 30 years in Israeli prisons - was told to leave Jerusalem by 19 June. The others were told to leave by 3 July.
The concern their case provoked was sufficient to overcome the bitter factional dispute between Fatah and Hamas. All four men went to see Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, at his office in Ramallah on two occasions during the 30-day period. He told the men that the deportations were "a red line" and they couldn't be permitted to proceed. In public, he described the decision to deport them as a "grave act", and yet he was unable to do anything to prevent it.
Mohammed Abu Teir said that he would not leave the country where his family has lived for 500 years, or renounce his membership of a parliament to which he was democratically elected, and he was arrested and imprisoned "for staying in Israel illegally". The other three knew their time would come, and sought sanctuary at the Red Cross compound on 1 July. The aim of their protest is simple, says Mohammed Totah: "We want our rights - nothing more - and we will stay here until the international community recognises the justice of our case."
It is not the first time that Israel has attempted to deport Hamas representatives: on 17 December 1992, it responded to the killing of a border police officer by deporting 415 of the organisation's leading figures to Lebanon. The tactic was meant to destroy Hamas, but instead it provoked a wave of international condemnation that enhanced its status. "Everyone wanted to meet with them, Hamas became stronger, and, in the end, Israel was forced to bring them back," said Abu Arafeh.
On 18 December 1992, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 799, which expressed "its firm opposition" to the measure, and reaffirmed that the "deportation of civilians constitutes a contravention" of Israel's obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies "to all the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem". Eighteen years later, the men's lawyers have urged the Security Council to hold Israel accountable by Resolution 799, though Israel is unlikely to comply, simply because it does not recognise East Jerusalem as occupied territory. The international community regards Israel's decision to annex the areas of East Jerusalem that it captured during the Six Day War of 1967 as illegal, but the Israelis insist that Jerusalem is the "eternal and indivisible capital" of the Jewish people.
Since 1967, they have built settlements for 250,000 people on occupied land and devised various policies to combat demographic trends which indicate that the Jewish proportion of the city's population could fall to no more than 50 per cent by 2035. One-off measures, such as the decision to exclude almost a third of the Arab-Palestinian population from the city's first census, and the construction of the "separation wall" along a route designed to "remove 50,000 Arabs from East Jerusalem", as one official put it, are complemented by a long-term policy of revoking and restricting Palestinian residency rights. There are said to be at least 10,000 unregistered children in East Jerusalem; a child who has only one parent with residency rights does not receive a Jerusalem ID, and a person without residency rights cannot win them by marriage - though a person with them may well lose them. Residency rights can be revoked if a resident of East Jerusalem cannot fulfil stringent bureaucratic requirements to prove that the city is their "centre of life", or if they are said to have "severed their connection" to the city.
Israel revoked the residency rights of 8,558 Palestinians between 1967 and 2007, yet this is the first time that it has attempted to do so on the grounds of "disloyalty". Whether rumours that Israel has drawn up a list of 315 people who are next in line for revocation of residency status are true or not, the vagueness of the charge concerns the parliamentarians' lawyer, Hassan Jabareen, general director of the human rights organisation Adalah. "If this decision is final," he told me, "the conclusion is that residency can be revoked from any Palestinian engaging in public political activity. Today it's a Hamas member; tomorrow they'll revoke the residency of a Fatah member, or a senior PA adviser. Or a Palestinian journalist."
The protest tent at the Red Cross compound is just one of several that have been set up across Jerusalem in the past two years. There is another in the village of Silwan, where a group of settlers that controls the archaeological site and visitor attraction known as the "City of David" is attempting to expand the Jewish presence, and another on the far side of Sheikh Jarrah, where settlers have displaced two Palestinian families from their homes.
Sheikh Jarrah is a typically run-down district of East Jerusalem, though also home to many of the city's embassies, hotels and international NGOs. On my way back to the Red Cross compound later in the afternoon, I watched an Orthodox Jew in tailcoat and ringlets emerge from the turning to the contested houses - 300 metres beyond the hotel where Tony Blair maintains lavish headquarters on his rare visits to the Middle East - and walk past a patch of derelict land where a group of Palestinian kids were playing. Such sights are increasingly common in East Jerusalem.
Mahmoud Abbas insists that Israel must stop building settlements as a precondition for starting peace talks, but President Barack Obama's administration has failed to force Israel to comply. Last November, Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing administration agreed to a ten-month, partial freeze on settlement-building in the West Bank, but it insisted that Jerusalem was exempt. And in March, the interior minister, Eliyahu Yishai, precipitated the most severe breach in US-Israeli relations in years when he announced, during a visit by the US vice-president, Joe Biden, the construction of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
The previous day, George Mitchell, the US peace envoy to the Middle East, had announced that the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to hold four months of indirect peace talks - the first since December 2008, when Israel began the three-week assault on Gaza that it called Operation Cast Lead. Biden had begun the day by asserting America's "absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel's security", but finished it by condemning "the substance and timing of the announcement".
Abbas, whose democratic mandate has expired, and whose credibility with the Palestinian electorate has been severely weakened, had little choice but to pull out of the talks. When they eventually began in May, they made no progress, and yet the Americans pressured both parties to move to face-to-face negotiations.
On 20 August, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, announced that Netanyahu and Abbas will meet in Washington, DC on 2 September. It is highly unlikely that these new talks will lead to a successful conclusion: unless the Israelis renew their moratorium on settlement development, which expires in September, there will be only the briefest opportunity for engagement on the possibility of creating a circumscribed Palestinian state on the West Bank. And in any case, the other final status issues - the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the future of Jerusalem - are likely to prove insurmountable.
The parliamentarians' fate would form no more than an insignificant footnote in any negotiation, and yet it is indicative of the deadlock over the city's status. When I arrived at the compound, I was told that the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, had been to see them earlier in the day. It had been a busy afternoon.
At three o'clock, the men had retired upstairs to pray and sleep, and at five they had handed out school leaving certificates to four coachloads of students. In the evening, the men's families arrived to see them. Each man has at least four children, and by eight o'clock, as the call to prayer from a nearby mosque drifted through the evening air, there were as many as 50 people in the courtyard. The men and women formed separate lines facing the wall of the building, their discarded shoes heaped beside the carpets that served as prayer mats, as Ahmad Atoun intoned prayers in a rich baritone.
Afterwards, the guests sat on the chairs beneath the awnings, or remained seated on the mats as a boy distributed bitter coffee in plastic cups and a girl in a blue headscarf passed round an ice-cream tub filled with home-made fig rolls. Children ran in and out of the gates, or darted through the open doors of the Red Cross building. Mohammed Totah gestured towards a girl in a dark dress. "I have an eight-year-old daughter, and she says to me that families all over the world live under one roof - why aren't you allowed to come home?"
The men say the attempt to deport them will prove as counterproductive as the mass deportation of 1992: they see it as another step on the long road to Palestinian liberation. Yet such optimism seems at odds with the precariousness of their situation. The Red Cross does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, and the main police station in East Jerusalem is no more than a hundred metres up the hill.
Israel has recently begun inquiries into the deaths of nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara, the ship that was attacked by Israeli forces as it attempted to carry aid to Gaza in May. Mohammed Totah believes it is only the disastrous consequences of that raid that have prevented their rearrest. "There are no red lines for the occupation, but after they killed nine people on the ship, they don't want to add another crime to their account. They don't want to do it now, but they will come, sooner or later - maybe after a few days, maybe less."
Edward Platt is a contributing writer for the NS. He is working on a book about Hebron.
How Hamas works
The role of Hamas - considered a terrorist organisation by the EU and US - divides broadly into two main spheres of operation: social programmes such as building infrastructure, and the militant operations carried out by the underground Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.
Given its beginnings as a guerrilla movement, Hamas retains a degree of secrecy about its power structures. Gaza is led by the disputed prime minister Ismail Haniyeh (who was dismissed in 2007 by President Mahmoud Abbas but ignored the decree). However, most of the day-to-day decisions are made by the political bureau, chaired by Khaled Meshal and made up of about ten members, many of whom live in exile in Syria.
Major policy decisions are made by the Shura Council, an internal parliament consisting of roughly 50 members inside and outside the Palestinian territories. It cannot meet often, because some of its members are unable to travel into Gaza or the West Bank for fear of assassination.
Meshal's political bureau in Syria is the main fundraising arm of Hamas, and manages relations with Arab and Muslim countries. Some argue that this makes the bureau more pragmatic than the leadership within the territories. However, there is a question mark over how much control Meshal, though the group's leader, has in this uncohesive organisation.
Samira Shackle
Published 30 August 2010
Three representatives of Hamas have been forced to seek sanctuary at the Red Cross compound in East Jerusalem — charged not with terrorism, but with “disloyalty” to the state. Edward Platt on a strange case of exile inside Israel.
Photographs of the three bearded men, and a fourth colleague who is in prison, were superimposed on an image of the gold-plated Dome of the Rock - the holiest site in the city in which they were born, and from which the Israeli authorities are attempting to expel them.
When I arrived five minutes later, a television crew was setting up outside the green metal gates at the entrance to the courtyard, and one of the teenage boys who attends to the men and their guests was updating the sign that keeps a tally of the length of their confinement. As the numerals changed from 32 to 33, Mohammed Totah, Khaled Abu Arafeh and Ahmad Atoun took their seats beneath the canopy where they would spend the day receiving guests. The chairs lined up against the walls in the traditional Arab manner are constantly in use, and sometimes the courtyard is full to overflowing: on Friday lunchtimes, an awning is erected in the street, and an imam says prayers to the assembled crowd. According to Red Cross officials, most of East Jerusalem society has passed through the courtyard. Three British peers - Jenny Tonge, Nazir Ahmed and Raymond Hylton - have been among the guests.
Despite the uncomfortable conditions in which they live, the three men at the centre of the protest were smartly dressed in pressed shirts and dark trousers. Until 2006, Mohammed Totah taught business administration at al-Quds University and Abu Arafeh was an engineer, while the preacher, Ahmad Atoun, worked for various Islamic charities. Yet their lack of experience did not prevent them from standing as candidates for the "Change and Reform" movement, as Hamas was called in the legislative elections held in the Palestinian territories in January 2006; if anything, it was an advantage, because the endemic corruption of the Palestinian Authority, which was dominated by Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, had turned the voters against the political elite. "People knew we were good Muslims and they trusted us," said Mohammed Totah, a tall and well-mannered man with thinning hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
Hamas, which was set up in the Gaza Strip in 1988, is known in the west for the crude, anti-Semitic rhetoric of its founding charter and for its terrorist activities. Its paramilitary wing has killed several hundred Israeli citizens, through the use of suicide bombers and other means, yet it also runs a network of charitable organisations in the Palestinian territories, and is respected for the even-handed way in which it distributes resources. In 2006, it won 44 per cent of the vote; Mohammed Totah and Ahmad Atoun won two of the 74 seats that gave it a majority in the 132-seat parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and Abu Arafeh became minister for Jerusalem affairs.
“The world witnessed that we were democratically elected," Abu Arafeh said through his colleague Mohammed Totah, who speaks the best English of the three. But the men had little chance to implement their mandate. "The European Union said there must be democratic elections, and we must accept the results," says Mohammed Totah. "But afterwards, they said, 'No, we will not accept Hamas.'"
Four months after the election, the then Israeli minister of the interior revoked the men's rights to residency in Jerusalem and ordered them to leave Jerusalem and Israel "permanently". Events prevented the order being carried out: before the 30-day limit had expired, the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas militants in Gaza, and Israel began arresting officials and representatives of the movement. The three men, together with their colleague Sheikh Mohammed Abu Teir (who is distinguished in the many posters by his bright red beard, which he dyes in honour of a tradition supposedly established by the Prophet Muhammad), spent the next three and a half years in Israeli prisons.
That none of them has been accused of terrorist offences is irrelevant as far as Israel is concerned - it regards Hamas's paramilitary, political and charitable activities as inextric-ably linked and mutually reinforcing, and the men's attitudes to Hamas's use of violence would do little to persuade it that it is wrong. If they could "secure their rights" by peaceful means, Mohammed Totah said, then they would do so, but negotiations have led nowhere, and under international law they have the right to use all available means to resist the occupation. "It isn't violence," he insisted repeatedly, "it's resistance - and even if you don't want to resist, the occupation will give you no choice. It will come to your house, it will kill your children, it will take your land, it will put you in prison."
The four men were released at the end of May, and the Israeli authorities promptly "unfroze" the 30-day order that had been issued in 2006. Mohammed Abu Teir - the eldest of the four, and the most experienced politician, who has spent a total of 30 years in Israeli prisons - was told to leave Jerusalem by 19 June. The others were told to leave by 3 July.
The concern their case provoked was sufficient to overcome the bitter factional dispute between Fatah and Hamas. All four men went to see Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, at his office in Ramallah on two occasions during the 30-day period. He told the men that the deportations were "a red line" and they couldn't be permitted to proceed. In public, he described the decision to deport them as a "grave act", and yet he was unable to do anything to prevent it.
Mohammed Abu Teir said that he would not leave the country where his family has lived for 500 years, or renounce his membership of a parliament to which he was democratically elected, and he was arrested and imprisoned "for staying in Israel illegally". The other three knew their time would come, and sought sanctuary at the Red Cross compound on 1 July. The aim of their protest is simple, says Mohammed Totah: "We want our rights - nothing more - and we will stay here until the international community recognises the justice of our case."
It is not the first time that Israel has attempted to deport Hamas representatives: on 17 December 1992, it responded to the killing of a border police officer by deporting 415 of the organisation's leading figures to Lebanon. The tactic was meant to destroy Hamas, but instead it provoked a wave of international condemnation that enhanced its status. "Everyone wanted to meet with them, Hamas became stronger, and, in the end, Israel was forced to bring them back," said Abu Arafeh.
On 18 December 1992, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 799, which expressed "its firm opposition" to the measure, and reaffirmed that the "deportation of civilians constitutes a contravention" of Israel's obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies "to all the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem". Eighteen years later, the men's lawyers have urged the Security Council to hold Israel accountable by Resolution 799, though Israel is unlikely to comply, simply because it does not recognise East Jerusalem as occupied territory. The international community regards Israel's decision to annex the areas of East Jerusalem that it captured during the Six Day War of 1967 as illegal, but the Israelis insist that Jerusalem is the "eternal and indivisible capital" of the Jewish people.
Since 1967, they have built settlements for 250,000 people on occupied land and devised various policies to combat demographic trends which indicate that the Jewish proportion of the city's population could fall to no more than 50 per cent by 2035. One-off measures, such as the decision to exclude almost a third of the Arab-Palestinian population from the city's first census, and the construction of the "separation wall" along a route designed to "remove 50,000 Arabs from East Jerusalem", as one official put it, are complemented by a long-term policy of revoking and restricting Palestinian residency rights. There are said to be at least 10,000 unregistered children in East Jerusalem; a child who has only one parent with residency rights does not receive a Jerusalem ID, and a person without residency rights cannot win them by marriage - though a person with them may well lose them. Residency rights can be revoked if a resident of East Jerusalem cannot fulfil stringent bureaucratic requirements to prove that the city is their "centre of life", or if they are said to have "severed their connection" to the city.
Israel revoked the residency rights of 8,558 Palestinians between 1967 and 2007, yet this is the first time that it has attempted to do so on the grounds of "disloyalty". Whether rumours that Israel has drawn up a list of 315 people who are next in line for revocation of residency status are true or not, the vagueness of the charge concerns the parliamentarians' lawyer, Hassan Jabareen, general director of the human rights organisation Adalah. "If this decision is final," he told me, "the conclusion is that residency can be revoked from any Palestinian engaging in public political activity. Today it's a Hamas member; tomorrow they'll revoke the residency of a Fatah member, or a senior PA adviser. Or a Palestinian journalist."
The protest tent at the Red Cross compound is just one of several that have been set up across Jerusalem in the past two years. There is another in the village of Silwan, where a group of settlers that controls the archaeological site and visitor attraction known as the "City of David" is attempting to expand the Jewish presence, and another on the far side of Sheikh Jarrah, where settlers have displaced two Palestinian families from their homes.
Sheikh Jarrah is a typically run-down district of East Jerusalem, though also home to many of the city's embassies, hotels and international NGOs. On my way back to the Red Cross compound later in the afternoon, I watched an Orthodox Jew in tailcoat and ringlets emerge from the turning to the contested houses - 300 metres beyond the hotel where Tony Blair maintains lavish headquarters on his rare visits to the Middle East - and walk past a patch of derelict land where a group of Palestinian kids were playing. Such sights are increasingly common in East Jerusalem.
Mahmoud Abbas insists that Israel must stop building settlements as a precondition for starting peace talks, but President Barack Obama's administration has failed to force Israel to comply. Last November, Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing administration agreed to a ten-month, partial freeze on settlement-building in the West Bank, but it insisted that Jerusalem was exempt. And in March, the interior minister, Eliyahu Yishai, precipitated the most severe breach in US-Israeli relations in years when he announced, during a visit by the US vice-president, Joe Biden, the construction of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
The previous day, George Mitchell, the US peace envoy to the Middle East, had announced that the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to hold four months of indirect peace talks - the first since December 2008, when Israel began the three-week assault on Gaza that it called Operation Cast Lead. Biden had begun the day by asserting America's "absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel's security", but finished it by condemning "the substance and timing of the announcement".
Abbas, whose democratic mandate has expired, and whose credibility with the Palestinian electorate has been severely weakened, had little choice but to pull out of the talks. When they eventually began in May, they made no progress, and yet the Americans pressured both parties to move to face-to-face negotiations.
On 20 August, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, announced that Netanyahu and Abbas will meet in Washington, DC on 2 September. It is highly unlikely that these new talks will lead to a successful conclusion: unless the Israelis renew their moratorium on settlement development, which expires in September, there will be only the briefest opportunity for engagement on the possibility of creating a circumscribed Palestinian state on the West Bank. And in any case, the other final status issues - the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the future of Jerusalem - are likely to prove insurmountable.
The parliamentarians' fate would form no more than an insignificant footnote in any negotiation, and yet it is indicative of the deadlock over the city's status. When I arrived at the compound, I was told that the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, had been to see them earlier in the day. It had been a busy afternoon.
At three o'clock, the men had retired upstairs to pray and sleep, and at five they had handed out school leaving certificates to four coachloads of students. In the evening, the men's families arrived to see them. Each man has at least four children, and by eight o'clock, as the call to prayer from a nearby mosque drifted through the evening air, there were as many as 50 people in the courtyard. The men and women formed separate lines facing the wall of the building, their discarded shoes heaped beside the carpets that served as prayer mats, as Ahmad Atoun intoned prayers in a rich baritone.
Afterwards, the guests sat on the chairs beneath the awnings, or remained seated on the mats as a boy distributed bitter coffee in plastic cups and a girl in a blue headscarf passed round an ice-cream tub filled with home-made fig rolls. Children ran in and out of the gates, or darted through the open doors of the Red Cross building. Mohammed Totah gestured towards a girl in a dark dress. "I have an eight-year-old daughter, and she says to me that families all over the world live under one roof - why aren't you allowed to come home?"
The men say the attempt to deport them will prove as counterproductive as the mass deportation of 1992: they see it as another step on the long road to Palestinian liberation. Yet such optimism seems at odds with the precariousness of their situation. The Red Cross does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, and the main police station in East Jerusalem is no more than a hundred metres up the hill.
Israel has recently begun inquiries into the deaths of nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara, the ship that was attacked by Israeli forces as it attempted to carry aid to Gaza in May. Mohammed Totah believes it is only the disastrous consequences of that raid that have prevented their rearrest. "There are no red lines for the occupation, but after they killed nine people on the ship, they don't want to add another crime to their account. They don't want to do it now, but they will come, sooner or later - maybe after a few days, maybe less."
Edward Platt is a contributing writer for the NS. He is working on a book about Hebron.
How Hamas works
The role of Hamas - considered a terrorist organisation by the EU and US - divides broadly into two main spheres of operation: social programmes such as building infrastructure, and the militant operations carried out by the underground Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.
Given its beginnings as a guerrilla movement, Hamas retains a degree of secrecy about its power structures. Gaza is led by the disputed prime minister Ismail Haniyeh (who was dismissed in 2007 by President Mahmoud Abbas but ignored the decree). However, most of the day-to-day decisions are made by the political bureau, chaired by Khaled Meshal and made up of about ten members, many of whom live in exile in Syria.
Major policy decisions are made by the Shura Council, an internal parliament consisting of roughly 50 members inside and outside the Palestinian territories. It cannot meet often, because some of its members are unable to travel into Gaza or the West Bank for fear of assassination.
Meshal's political bureau in Syria is the main fundraising arm of Hamas, and manages relations with Arab and Muslim countries. Some argue that this makes the bureau more pragmatic than the leadership within the territories. However, there is a question mark over how much control Meshal, though the group's leader, has in this uncohesive organisation.
Samira Shackle
The Arab world's dirty little secret
The dirty little secret of the Arab world is that it has consistently treated Palestinians living in its midst with contempt and often violence. In 1970, Jordan expelled thousands of Palestinian militants after Yasser Arafat attempted a coup against King Hussein. In 1991, Kuwait expelled some 400,000 Palestinians working in the country as punishment for Arafat's support for Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War.
For six decades, Palestinians have been forced by Arab governments to live in often squalid conditions so that they could serve as propaganda tools against Israel, even as millions of refugees elsewhere have been repatriated and absorbed by their host countries. This month's vote still falls short of giving Palestinian Lebanese the rights they deserve, including citizenship. But it's a reminder of the cynicism of so much Arab pro-Palestinian propaganda, and the credulity of those who fall for it.
UK Left wing Unions single out Israel
The resolution to be adopted by Britain's six-and-a-half million trade union members at thier conference in Manchester, northwest England, condemns Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip where the living conditions are increasingly being deteriorated for more than 1.5 million impoverished people living in the impoverished territory.
It states that Israel is undermining the viability of the occupied West Bank and the East Al-Quds areas and their potentials for establishing an independent Palestinian state through the deliberate strategy of annexing massive swathes of land, destroying Palestinians' homes and erecting walls and checkpoints in defiance of international laws and UN resolutions.
The resolution also strongly condemns Israeli army's assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla last year which was seeking to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, calling on world leaders to hold Israel accountable for massacring international activists in international waters.
The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) Global Solidarity will also urge the British government and the EU leaders to take "much stronger political steps" to ensure Israel abides by UN resolutions.
Delegates are also urged to back instructions for the TUC General Council to "organize and support a boycott of Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank."
Affiliates and employers are also being encouraged to cease investment in Israel, with amendments to extend the boycott to companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation, reads a copy of the final agenda obtained by the British media.
At the annual conference last year, the TUC took the historic step of voting for a boycott of Israeli goods in the first resolution of its kind since the campaign to end anti-apartheid in South Africa.
In April, trade unionists stepped up the boycott campaign with the publication of a new leaflet entitled 'Would You Buy Stolen Goods' that called on consumers not to buy any goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
The TUC conference, which kicks off on September 13, traditionally opens a new political year in Britain and is followed by a season of annual party conferences.
The resolution to be adopted by Britain's six-and-a-half million trade union members at thier conference in Manchester, northwest England, condemns Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip where the living conditions are increasingly being deteriorated for more than 1.5 million impoverished people living in the impoverished territory.
It states that Israel is undermining the viability of the occupied West Bank and the East Al-Quds areas and their potentials for establishing an independent Palestinian state through the deliberate strategy of annexing massive swathes of land, destroying Palestinians' homes and erecting walls and checkpoints in defiance of international laws and UN resolutions.
The resolution also strongly condemns Israeli army's assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla last year which was seeking to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, calling on world leaders to hold Israel accountable for massacring international activists in international waters.
The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) Global Solidarity will also urge the British government and the EU leaders to take "much stronger political steps" to ensure Israel abides by UN resolutions.
Delegates are also urged to back instructions for the TUC General Council to "organize and support a boycott of Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank."
Affiliates and employers are also being encouraged to cease investment in Israel, with amendments to extend the boycott to companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation, reads a copy of the final agenda obtained by the British media.
At the annual conference last year, the TUC took the historic step of voting for a boycott of Israeli goods in the first resolution of its kind since the campaign to end anti-apartheid in South Africa.
In April, trade unionists stepped up the boycott campaign with the publication of a new leaflet entitled 'Would You Buy Stolen Goods' that called on consumers not to buy any goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
The TUC conference, which kicks off on September 13, traditionally opens a new political year in Britain and is followed by a season of annual party conferences.
It states that Israel is undermining the viability of the occupied West Bank and the East Al-Quds areas and their potentials for establishing an independent Palestinian state through the deliberate strategy of annexing massive swathes of land, destroying Palestinians' homes and erecting walls and checkpoints in defiance of international laws and UN resolutions.
The resolution also strongly condemns Israeli army's assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla last year which was seeking to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, calling on world leaders to hold Israel accountable for massacring international activists in international waters.
The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) Global Solidarity will also urge the British government and the EU leaders to take "much stronger political steps" to ensure Israel abides by UN resolutions.
Delegates are also urged to back instructions for the TUC General Council to "organize and support a boycott of Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank."
Affiliates and employers are also being encouraged to cease investment in Israel, with amendments to extend the boycott to companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation, reads a copy of the final agenda obtained by the British media.
At the annual conference last year, the TUC took the historic step of voting for a boycott of Israeli goods in the first resolution of its kind since the campaign to end anti-apartheid in South Africa.
In April, trade unionists stepped up the boycott campaign with the publication of a new leaflet entitled 'Would You Buy Stolen Goods' that called on consumers not to buy any goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
The TUC conference, which kicks off on September 13, traditionally opens a new political year in Britain and is followed by a season of annual party conferences.
The resolution to be adopted by Britain's six-and-a-half million trade union members at thier conference in Manchester, northwest England, condemns Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip where the living conditions are increasingly being deteriorated for more than 1.5 million impoverished people living in the impoverished territory.
It states that Israel is undermining the viability of the occupied West Bank and the East Al-Quds areas and their potentials for establishing an independent Palestinian state through the deliberate strategy of annexing massive swathes of land, destroying Palestinians' homes and erecting walls and checkpoints in defiance of international laws and UN resolutions.
The resolution also strongly condemns Israeli army's assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla last year which was seeking to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, calling on world leaders to hold Israel accountable for massacring international activists in international waters.
The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) Global Solidarity will also urge the British government and the EU leaders to take "much stronger political steps" to ensure Israel abides by UN resolutions.
Delegates are also urged to back instructions for the TUC General Council to "organize and support a boycott of Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank."
Affiliates and employers are also being encouraged to cease investment in Israel, with amendments to extend the boycott to companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation, reads a copy of the final agenda obtained by the British media.
At the annual conference last year, the TUC took the historic step of voting for a boycott of Israeli goods in the first resolution of its kind since the campaign to end anti-apartheid in South Africa.
In April, trade unionists stepped up the boycott campaign with the publication of a new leaflet entitled 'Would You Buy Stolen Goods' that called on consumers not to buy any goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
The TUC conference, which kicks off on September 13, traditionally opens a new political year in Britain and is followed by a season of annual party conferences.
Islamo-fascists take a leaf out of old-style Nazi boycotts in Glasgow
Muslim shops ban Israeli produce in Palestine protest
Exclusive: Deborah Anderson
29 Aug 2010
Asian shopkeepers in one of the biggest Muslim areas in Scotland are backing a boycott of Israeli produce.
In a move that has worried Jewish groups, Muslim families who own stores in Glasgow’s south side are refusing to stock Israeli goods in protest at Israel’s West Bank settlements and policy towards Palestinians.
Around 30 stores in Muslim communities in Pollokshields, Pollokshaws and Govanhill are supporting the drive and yesterday campaigners took to the streets to applaud shopkeepers who are no longer stocking Israeli products.
The campaigners, who toured stores handing out flyers to shoppers, say shops which continue to stock Israeli goods will be “named and shamed”.
Led by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Friends of Al Aqsa Glasgow, many stores in the area are now displaying posters declaring “No Israeli Produce sold here”.
Organisers say that following its success in Glasgow, the campaign is expected to be rolled out across the country.
The focus of the boycott is fruit such as dates, traditonally eaten by Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. Some of the dates sent to the UK are produced on highly contentious Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley.
Saddaqat Khan, of Friends of Al Aqsa, Glasgow, said: “Many Muslims are unaware of this and unwittingly purchase Israeli dates, thereby supporting the Israeli economy.”
Campaigners, some draped in the Palestinian flag, held a day of action in Allison Street in Govanhill to target store owners and customers.
Rizwan Khan, who owns Rizwan stores on Allison Street, dumped a box of dates after being told of their origin and is supporting the boycott. He said: “I have been wary of the dates I buy, but had been stocking Jordan Valley dates thinking these were safe.”
Customer Isahaq Ali, 50, said: “I know what to look out for when buying these items and wouldn’t give stores who stock them my custom.”
However, Edward Isaacs, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, said: “We have excellent relations in the Jewish Community with our Muslim friends and we think that bringing Middle East politics into the Glasgow sphere to this extent is not a good idea. Everyone is entitled to have their views on the Middle East, but we don’t think a boycott is the correct way to advance their political process.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/muslim-shops-ban-israeli-produce-in-palestine-protest-1.1051191
Exclusive: Deborah Anderson
29 Aug 2010
Asian shopkeepers in one of the biggest Muslim areas in Scotland are backing a boycott of Israeli produce.
In a move that has worried Jewish groups, Muslim families who own stores in Glasgow’s south side are refusing to stock Israeli goods in protest at Israel’s West Bank settlements and policy towards Palestinians.
The campaigners, who toured stores handing out flyers to shoppers, say shops which continue to stock Israeli goods will be “named and shamed”.
Led by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Friends of Al Aqsa Glasgow, many stores in the area are now displaying posters declaring “No Israeli Produce sold here”.
Organisers say that following its success in Glasgow, the campaign is expected to be rolled out across the country.
The focus of the boycott is fruit such as dates, traditonally eaten by Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. Some of the dates sent to the UK are produced on highly contentious Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley.
Saddaqat Khan, of Friends of Al Aqsa, Glasgow, said: “Many Muslims are unaware of this and unwittingly purchase Israeli dates, thereby supporting the Israeli economy.”
Campaigners, some draped in the Palestinian flag, held a day of action in Allison Street in Govanhill to target store owners and customers.
Rizwan Khan, who owns Rizwan stores on Allison Street, dumped a box of dates after being told of their origin and is supporting the boycott. He said: “I have been wary of the dates I buy, but had been stocking Jordan Valley dates thinking these were safe.”
Customer Isahaq Ali, 50, said: “I know what to look out for when buying these items and wouldn’t give stores who stock them my custom.”
However, Edward Isaacs, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, said: “We have excellent relations in the Jewish Community with our Muslim friends and we think that bringing Middle East politics into the Glasgow sphere to this extent is not a good idea. Everyone is entitled to have their views on the Middle East, but we don’t think a boycott is the correct way to advance their political process.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/muslim-shops-ban-israeli-produce-in-palestine-protest-1.1051191
Sunday, 29 August 2010
LaRouche supporter assaulted by Alaska State Fair Security
LaRouche supporter assaulted by Alaska State Fair Security
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppBZM88mHvQ&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppBZM88mHvQ&feature=player_embedded#!
1938-9 Jewish Life in Cracow (Kazimierz)
1938-9 Jewish Life in Cracow (Kazimierz) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QNO-hIembc&feature=player_
Britain faces new terror wave
Michael Clarke, a former government adviser and the head of the Royal United Services Institute, says he believes the security services could struggle to cope with a new generation of extremists seeking to carry out "lone wolf" attacks.
In a report published today, Prof Clarke says that, over the next five to 10 years, about 800 prisoners – in jail for non-terrorism offences – are due to be released on to the streets having been radicalised in jail. They will be joined by convicted terrorists serving short sentences who, once freed, are likely to be just as committed to the cause of jihad as before they were jailed, the report claims. (...)
The report warns that leaders such as Anwar al-Awlaki are encouraging individuals to launch less sophisticated but equally deadly attacks on crowded places Photo: AP Michael Clarke, a former government adviser and the head of the Royal United Services Institute, says he believes the security services could struggle to cope with a new generation of extremists seeking to carry out "lone wolf" attacks.
In a report published today, Prof Clarke says that, over the next five to 10 years, about 800 prisoners – in jail for non-terrorism offences – are due to be released on to the streets having been radicalised in jail.
Indonesia bombings: a set back for a much admired anti-terror policyThey will be joined by convicted terrorists serving short sentences who, once freed, are likely to be just as committed to the cause of jihad as before they were jailed, the report claims.
Prof Clarke, who advised Gordon Brown as a member of the National Security Forum and is a visiting professor at King's College London, warns that this "new wave" will pose a significant challenge to the security services responsible for identifying and monitoring them.
While previous al-Qaeda tactics involved so-called "spectacular" attacks, the report warns that the terrorist group's leaders, such as Yemeni preacher and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, are encouraging individuals to launch less sophisticated but equally deadly attacks on crowded places.
Their targets have also changed from concentrating on aircraft to including attacks on trains, hotels and sporting events. The report will serve as a stark reminder to the Government and public that the threat from Islamist terrorism remains severe, even though there has not been a fatal attack on British soil since 2005.
The current government threat level stands at "severe", indicating a terrorist attack is considered "highly likely". The level was raised from "substantial" in January.
In the Western world, Britain has the "greatest to fear" from home grown terrorists, the report says.
One of the major threats in Britain, according to Prof Clarke, is from released prisoners who may have been convicted of terrorist offences or may have been radicalised while in jail. "British prisons still house more terrorists than in any other European country, though not for very long periods," he warns.
He points out that just 23 people, around 19 per cent of those convicted of terrorism offences, have been given life or indeterminate sentences. Twenty per cent have been sentenced to more than 10 years, and the largest single proportion, 32 per cent, received between eight months and four years. "It raises immediate questions about the motivations of those now released, or soon to be released: are they more or less inclined to reoffend?" he says.
"From previous experience in Northern Ireland, it is more likely that the majority of those released will remain as committed to their cause as before, and may serve as a source of motivation to others, albeit in clandestine ways."
Prison authorities have become increasingly concerned about radicalisation behind bars, especially in the eight high-security jails where most terrorist prisoners are kept.
Probation officers have warned that about one in 10 of the 8,000 Muslim prisoners in high-security institutions in England and Wales is successfully targeted.
This amounts to "around 800 potentially violent radicals, not previously guilty of terrorism charges, [who] will be back in society over the coming five to 10 years," Prof Clarke says.
These radicals are ideal candidates to form a "new wave" of terrorists threatening Britain, the report says.
The release of 800 prisoners would see an increase by nearly a half of the 2,000 radicalised individuals MI5 is currently said to be watching.
Large, well co-ordinated terrorist attacks have become more difficult to carry out and instead attacks have evolved into “more individual efforts” warns the report by Prof Clarke and co-author Valentina Soria in the Royal United Services Institute Journal.
They point to attacks such as that of Umar Farouk Abulmutallab, a former student in London, who tried to blow himself up in an aircraft coming into land in Detroit on Christmas Day last year and also the Times Square attack by Faisal Shahzad in May.
“Rather than sending out trained 'cell leaders’ to conduct preparation for sophisticated operations, AQAP
(al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and other related organisations have recently been content to send out a higher number of lone individuals (or at least lightly supported ones) whose chances of success are considerably lower but whose number and presence raise similar public anxieties,” the report says.
“Eventually, it is reasoned, one of them will be lucky enough to succeed in a major way against high profile targets in western countries.”
Britain’s “globalised society” makes it more vulnerable, says Prof Clarke. “In an open society there is only so much that any government can do to protect the public.’’
By Duncan Gardham,
Obama Coming to Israel?
President Barack Hussein Obama has announced that he is now willing and interested in coming to Jerusalem. My first thought was to beg him not to come. Jerusalem is a very old city and, to be honest, not well planned. Some cities and schools cancel for snow days, we have big-shot days. These are days when foreign visitors come to our capital and in so doing, honor our country while incapacitating the city for hours.
Generally, we don't mind it. We accept it as part of living in this beautiful city, the capital of our country. But now I hear Obama is coming to Israel. My first thought was to tell him not to bother. I have no faith in his politicking. I have no belief that his grandstanding is good for Israel. I have heard his message and am not interested. He says he wants peace for this land. But only on his terms, and his terms are dangerous for Israel. So, my first thought was to tell him not to come; my second thought was to tell him what to see.
I have no doubt the government will take him to the Western Wall, there to snap his picture looking serious and devout. They'll take him to Yad VaShem, there to look sad and contemplative. But these are not the places I would have him see, not the people I would have him meet.
If you want to really see Israel, President Obama, here are the places you must see:
Masada at dawn, as the sun rises above our country. Masada is a part of our psyche and it would do you good to understand this. Stand up there and look around at that desolate mountain top and understand our history, our connection, our determination and yes, our desperation. We will not surrender our country to those who would destroy not just the State, but the culture and religion we cherish. We are Jews. We have stood on this land and chosen to die rather than be enslaved by foreign and alien values.
Nitzan. This is where the people from Gush Katif have settled temporarily. Little more than a refugee camp, Nitzan is the single best example of why unilateral moves are meaningless and destructive to Israel. Nitzan is the fulfillment of Ariel Sharon's dream of peace and I have little doubt that another Nitzan will be the result of your peace dream.
Golan Heights. Before you pressure Israel to surrender the heights, see the land of Israel laid out before your eyes, there in the valleys below. Understand the strategic significance of the pressure you would place on us and the murder and damage that the Syrians could so easily achieve if this small but important land buffer were ever to be placed in their hands.
Maale Adumim. Come see the wonder we have built from barren desert lands. See the thriving mall, a city of more than 40,000 people, the incredible flower beds and palm trees that blow gently in the wind. Come see the schools - rows and rows of schools for children of all ages and understand the absurdity of a line drawn in the sand 62 years; one that lasted only 19 years and has been meaningless for more than 40 years.
Abu Ghosh and Daliat HaCarmel. Come see these thriving cities: one Arab, one Druse. See that we can live with our neighbors, when our neighbors choose to live with us. See city streets filled with Israelis shopping and visiting and understand that it is not we who are the obstacles to peace here.
Hadassah Ein Kerem, Shneider Medical Center, Soroka Hospital - it doesn't matter which one. Go to one of our hospitals and greet the patients there. Try the children's wards and see the love our nurses and doctors give to all our patients - Arab and Jew alike; Palestinian and Israeli. Think, President Obama - think of one hospital in any Arab country where you are likely to find anything that compares to the wondrous generosity of an Israeli hospital. You can't, of course, and you likely never will.
Drive along the Security Fence: You will learn something amazing, something you probably don't know. The Security Fence, for most of its distance, is not a wall at all. Much aligned and misinterpreted by many, the Security Fence becomes a wall only in areas where the proximity between Palestinians and Israelis puts Israelis in danger. There, in those areas, you will see how close Arab homes are to the wall and perhaps someone will point to the place where Israelis have been injured by rock-throwing, and perhaps, perhaps, someone will mention little Noam and the exact place where the little 7-year-old girl was when she was murdered as her father drove. Her 3-year-old sister was badly injured in the attack, along with her brother and grandfather. And if you goes there, though I doubt US security forces would allow it, maybe you will understand why the wall is sometimes a fence and the fence is sometimes a wall.
The Temple Mount: I'm sure they will take you to the Western Wall, clear the place so no one will see him but still allow him to get that all important photo-op of him looking up to the heavens beside the wall, or stuffing a piece of paper into the crevices of the ancient retaining wall of our holiest site. But I'd rather they take you up to the Temple Mount itself. From there, let him see the freedom of religion the Arabs have up there and more, notice that it is one of the few places in our land that have been declared Judenrein - Jews can only go up there at certain times of the day, their every move limited. Not a single prayer can be said up there on our holiest of holy sites lest we inflame the anger of the Arabs. This is the people you would have us make peace with, President Obama - a culture that cannot even tolerate the whispered prayers of another's religion.
Kayaking: By now, after these many heavy sites, you must think we are a most serious nation, Obama. So go kayaking on the Jordan River - we all do it in the summer and early fall. It is our relaxation, our fun. Watch how the people call to each other - though most have never met. They will help you if you need it, steer your boat in the right direction, fish out an oar or fallen hat. They will laugh if you try to splash them, splash back if they are close enough.
Eilat's shoreline: I doubt they'll let you go snorkeling, though we have some amazing underwater sites, but just stand on the shore and gaze towards Jordan. Across the water, you'll see a huge Jordanian flag. It was a gift from the people of Israel. Notice how close they are, close enough to get hit by rockets aimed at us. Close enough to see Egypt, from where the rockets were fired. Look there in the distance - not so far, but a world away. That's Saudi Arabia over there. This is such a small geographical area and yet it is so packed with history and reality. When you want to start drawing lines on a map, maybe seeing how close we are to our neighbors might have some impact.
Mt. Herzl Cemetery: This is one of our military cemeteries here. For you, ask them to close a section and go by yourself. Look at the names, look at the years they died and calculate their ages. This is what this never-ending war has cost us. We do not need you to preach to us the importance of peace. We live it, we face it. It haunts us and devastates us. We want no more of our sons to die. We want peace more than you. Your telling us that this is the time is an abomination because we know you are wrong. You are wrong because you are too stubborn or blind to accept that one nation cannot make peace alone. And we are alone, Mr. Obama, more alone now that you are president.
Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron: No, I know that your security forces would never let you go there and yet, I wish you could. For one simple reason. Stand there before the graves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rifka, and Leah. Stand there and understand. This is our land. We were given it by God and even you can't take it from us. Abraham bought the land where he is buried - it is probably the oldest documented real estate deal in history. He bought that land to bury his wife and his children, in the land that God gave to us. You don't have to agree. You are a dot in the history of man; long after you are gone, we will be here in this land - as we always have been, as we always will be. Go to the grave on Abraham and maybe there, finally, you will understand. Yes, they built a mosque on Abraham's grave, as you would likely have them do near the grounds of the World Trade Center, but we as a people have outlived the ancient ones and the modern ones. You can come as a friend or you can come as an enemy. You can come as a Christian; you can come as a Muslim. It makes no difference why you come or when. It matters only that we will be here - always.
There are so many places to see in this amazing land but if you are going to come, President Obama - see the real Israel and meet the real Israelis. If you are coming for the oh-so-pure and political, please don't come. I hate to have to cancel class and I can't stand the traffic and you won't learn anything anyway. So really, please don't bother us or yourself. Stay in Washington and keep telling us how to make peace here. It will be as meaningless as your coming here, but at least you'll save the gas and our inconvenience.
Posted by A Soldier's Mother at 11:27 AM
Generally, we don't mind it. We accept it as part of living in this beautiful city, the capital of our country. But now I hear Obama is coming to Israel. My first thought was to tell him not to bother. I have no faith in his politicking. I have no belief that his grandstanding is good for Israel. I have heard his message and am not interested. He says he wants peace for this land. But only on his terms, and his terms are dangerous for Israel. So, my first thought was to tell him not to come; my second thought was to tell him what to see.
I have no doubt the government will take him to the Western Wall, there to snap his picture looking serious and devout. They'll take him to Yad VaShem, there to look sad and contemplative. But these are not the places I would have him see, not the people I would have him meet.
If you want to really see Israel, President Obama, here are the places you must see:
Masada at dawn, as the sun rises above our country. Masada is a part of our psyche and it would do you good to understand this. Stand up there and look around at that desolate mountain top and understand our history, our connection, our determination and yes, our desperation. We will not surrender our country to those who would destroy not just the State, but the culture and religion we cherish. We are Jews. We have stood on this land and chosen to die rather than be enslaved by foreign and alien values.
Nitzan. This is where the people from Gush Katif have settled temporarily. Little more than a refugee camp, Nitzan is the single best example of why unilateral moves are meaningless and destructive to Israel. Nitzan is the fulfillment of Ariel Sharon's dream of peace and I have little doubt that another Nitzan will be the result of your peace dream.
Golan Heights. Before you pressure Israel to surrender the heights, see the land of Israel laid out before your eyes, there in the valleys below. Understand the strategic significance of the pressure you would place on us and the murder and damage that the Syrians could so easily achieve if this small but important land buffer were ever to be placed in their hands.
Maale Adumim. Come see the wonder we have built from barren desert lands. See the thriving mall, a city of more than 40,000 people, the incredible flower beds and palm trees that blow gently in the wind. Come see the schools - rows and rows of schools for children of all ages and understand the absurdity of a line drawn in the sand 62 years; one that lasted only 19 years and has been meaningless for more than 40 years.
Abu Ghosh and Daliat HaCarmel. Come see these thriving cities: one Arab, one Druse. See that we can live with our neighbors, when our neighbors choose to live with us. See city streets filled with Israelis shopping and visiting and understand that it is not we who are the obstacles to peace here.
Hadassah Ein Kerem, Shneider Medical Center, Soroka Hospital - it doesn't matter which one. Go to one of our hospitals and greet the patients there. Try the children's wards and see the love our nurses and doctors give to all our patients - Arab and Jew alike; Palestinian and Israeli. Think, President Obama - think of one hospital in any Arab country where you are likely to find anything that compares to the wondrous generosity of an Israeli hospital. You can't, of course, and you likely never will.
Drive along the Security Fence: You will learn something amazing, something you probably don't know. The Security Fence, for most of its distance, is not a wall at all. Much aligned and misinterpreted by many, the Security Fence becomes a wall only in areas where the proximity between Palestinians and Israelis puts Israelis in danger. There, in those areas, you will see how close Arab homes are to the wall and perhaps someone will point to the place where Israelis have been injured by rock-throwing, and perhaps, perhaps, someone will mention little Noam and the exact place where the little 7-year-old girl was when she was murdered as her father drove. Her 3-year-old sister was badly injured in the attack, along with her brother and grandfather. And if you goes there, though I doubt US security forces would allow it, maybe you will understand why the wall is sometimes a fence and the fence is sometimes a wall.
The Temple Mount: I'm sure they will take you to the Western Wall, clear the place so no one will see him but still allow him to get that all important photo-op of him looking up to the heavens beside the wall, or stuffing a piece of paper into the crevices of the ancient retaining wall of our holiest site. But I'd rather they take you up to the Temple Mount itself. From there, let him see the freedom of religion the Arabs have up there and more, notice that it is one of the few places in our land that have been declared Judenrein - Jews can only go up there at certain times of the day, their every move limited. Not a single prayer can be said up there on our holiest of holy sites lest we inflame the anger of the Arabs. This is the people you would have us make peace with, President Obama - a culture that cannot even tolerate the whispered prayers of another's religion.
Kayaking: By now, after these many heavy sites, you must think we are a most serious nation, Obama. So go kayaking on the Jordan River - we all do it in the summer and early fall. It is our relaxation, our fun. Watch how the people call to each other - though most have never met. They will help you if you need it, steer your boat in the right direction, fish out an oar or fallen hat. They will laugh if you try to splash them, splash back if they are close enough.
Eilat's shoreline: I doubt they'll let you go snorkeling, though we have some amazing underwater sites, but just stand on the shore and gaze towards Jordan. Across the water, you'll see a huge Jordanian flag. It was a gift from the people of Israel. Notice how close they are, close enough to get hit by rockets aimed at us. Close enough to see Egypt, from where the rockets were fired. Look there in the distance - not so far, but a world away. That's Saudi Arabia over there. This is such a small geographical area and yet it is so packed with history and reality. When you want to start drawing lines on a map, maybe seeing how close we are to our neighbors might have some impact.
Mt. Herzl Cemetery: This is one of our military cemeteries here. For you, ask them to close a section and go by yourself. Look at the names, look at the years they died and calculate their ages. This is what this never-ending war has cost us. We do not need you to preach to us the importance of peace. We live it, we face it. It haunts us and devastates us. We want no more of our sons to die. We want peace more than you. Your telling us that this is the time is an abomination because we know you are wrong. You are wrong because you are too stubborn or blind to accept that one nation cannot make peace alone. And we are alone, Mr. Obama, more alone now that you are president.
Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron: No, I know that your security forces would never let you go there and yet, I wish you could. For one simple reason. Stand there before the graves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rifka, and Leah. Stand there and understand. This is our land. We were given it by God and even you can't take it from us. Abraham bought the land where he is buried - it is probably the oldest documented real estate deal in history. He bought that land to bury his wife and his children, in the land that God gave to us. You don't have to agree. You are a dot in the history of man; long after you are gone, we will be here in this land - as we always have been, as we always will be. Go to the grave on Abraham and maybe there, finally, you will understand. Yes, they built a mosque on Abraham's grave, as you would likely have them do near the grounds of the World Trade Center, but we as a people have outlived the ancient ones and the modern ones. You can come as a friend or you can come as an enemy. You can come as a Christian; you can come as a Muslim. It makes no difference why you come or when. It matters only that we will be here - always.
There are so many places to see in this amazing land but if you are going to come, President Obama - see the real Israel and meet the real Israelis. If you are coming for the oh-so-pure and political, please don't come. I hate to have to cancel class and I can't stand the traffic and you won't learn anything anyway. So really, please don't bother us or yourself. Stay in Washington and keep telling us how to make peace here. It will be as meaningless as your coming here, but at least you'll save the gas and our inconvenience.
Posted by A Soldier's Mother at 11:27 AM
Gilad Shalit in Captivity - First Video ENGLISH SUBTITLED גלעד שליט הקלטת
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUR5HIHkYUs
INTERVIEW-Moussa pessimistic on Israeli-Palestinian talks
Source: Reuters
By Marja Novak
BLED, Slovenia, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Arab League chief Amr Moussa said on Sunday he had little hope that direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine, which are due to start on Thursday, will be successful.
He also said he will not seek re-election as secretary general of the Arab League after his second mandate expires in March.
"We are hoping that talks will succeed but we are all very pessimistic about the viability of the peace process because of the past experience," Moussa told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a political conference in Slovenia.
He said U.S. President Barack Obama's sponsorship of talks was the only reason to hope for success.
"The only reason (for the hope in the success of the talks) is the sincerity of President Obama and his wish to achieve something good in his presidency," Moussa said.
He said Obama had given the Palestinians assurances that Israel would stop settling new territory during talks that are due to last for one year.
"If we find that during that year Israel continues to build settlements, there is no use in waiting for the full year (of talks)," Moussa said.
"Then we will have to reconsider the situation because you cannot negotiate while the Israelis are settling the territory," he added.
Asked whether he would run for another mandate as the Arab League chief, Moussa said: "It is not my intention to do so."
He refused to be drawn on his future plans and when asked whether he plans to play a role in Egyptian politics he said: "This remains to be seen."
Moussa had been Egypt's foreign minister for 10 years before becoming chief of the Arab League in 2001 and has been tipped as a possible candidate for president in Egyptian elections due to be held in late 2011.
(Reporting by Marja Novak; Editing by Michael Roddy)
By Marja Novak
BLED, Slovenia, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Arab League chief Amr Moussa said on Sunday he had little hope that direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine, which are due to start on Thursday, will be successful.
He also said he will not seek re-election as secretary general of the Arab League after his second mandate expires in March.
"We are hoping that talks will succeed but we are all very pessimistic about the viability of the peace process because of the past experience," Moussa told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a political conference in Slovenia.
He said U.S. President Barack Obama's sponsorship of talks was the only reason to hope for success.
"The only reason (for the hope in the success of the talks) is the sincerity of President Obama and his wish to achieve something good in his presidency," Moussa said.
He said Obama had given the Palestinians assurances that Israel would stop settling new territory during talks that are due to last for one year.
"If we find that during that year Israel continues to build settlements, there is no use in waiting for the full year (of talks)," Moussa said.
"Then we will have to reconsider the situation because you cannot negotiate while the Israelis are settling the territory," he added.
Asked whether he would run for another mandate as the Arab League chief, Moussa said: "It is not my intention to do so."
He refused to be drawn on his future plans and when asked whether he plans to play a role in Egyptian politics he said: "This remains to be seen."
Moussa had been Egypt's foreign minister for 10 years before becoming chief of the Arab League in 2001 and has been tipped as a possible candidate for president in Egyptian elections due to be held in late 2011.
(Reporting by Marja Novak; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Traitor Gideon Levy packs them in at Amnesty
August 25, 2010
I went to hear Gideon Levy talk at Amnesty in London last night. He’s in the UK to promote his book The Punishment of Gaza and last night he was in conversation with John Snow (Snow presents Channel 4′s Seven O’clock news and seems fond of chairing anti-Israel events).
It was nice to be actually let in unlike my last attempt. This event was co-presented by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the latter organisation being more open to dialogue than some might give credit.
I hope being barred from a public debate on Israel/Palestine because people don’t like what I write won’t become de rigeur, but you never know.
Back to Levy. From what I had read about this tour I was expecting the devil incarnate to walk into the packed auditorium breathing fire from its nostrils. It didn’t happen.
Maybe in my old age I am becoming desensitised to the ubiquitous unsubstantiated accusations of racism and apartheid that are made, like they were last night, against Israel that they don’t anger me anymore.
Maybe I was softened up by Levy’s claim that he is an Israeli patriot: “All I do is care about Israel. I’ve used my journalistic career for a better Israel, not against Israel. I love Gaza but have not been alowed to go there since December 2006. I asked Ehud Barak why Israeli journalists are not allowed in Gaza and he said he didn’t know they weren’t allowed in.”
Levy saw Operation Cast Lead (OCL) not as a war but as a brutal operation against a civilian population.
He thinks OCL was the turning point of world public opinion which is now “less tolerant of Israeli violence and aggression. Look at the flotilla. We now do what we want wherever we want, for example in international waters, with force as the first option. The Israeli general in charge of the flotilla operation has said that next time we will use snipers.”
(Levy obviously hadn’t seen the BBC’s Death in the Med in which Jane Corbin concluded that that the Mavi Marmara’s bid to break the naval blockade wasn’t really about bringing aid to Gaza but it was a political move designed by the Islamist organisation IHH and others to put pressure on Israel and the international community. Corbin had just reported that two thirds of the medicines being transported to the people of Gaza by the flotilla were out of date and useless.)
He paid tribute to the fact that Israel was always the first on the scene to help in international crises like in Mexico, Turkey and Haiti.
“There have been worse occupations in history but not where the occupier felt so good about itself. We are the first occupiers in the world to say that we are the victim and Israelis believe the IDF is the most moral army in the world, ” he said.
He asked: “How can an occupation by a democratic society last for 42 years? How do Israelis live with it?”
He answered: “We were trained to think we are very moral but that Palestinians were not human beings like us. Dehumanisation is the only tool which enables us to maintain the occupation and feel good about ourselves. It is wall-to-wall now. Even the peaceniks don’t feel the Palestinians are human beings”.
He told us how two Israeli dogs being killed during OCL garnered more media coverage than the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. The dogs’ funerals and interviews with the owners were all over the front pages while Palestinian deaths were only mentioned on pages 15 and 16: “In Israel two Israeli dogs are worth more than hundreds of Palestinians,” he concluded.
(Had Levy picked up a British newspaper recently or logged on to the internet he would see that while people are dying in Pakistan from the terrible floods we are obsessed by a woman who dumped a cat in a bin.)
Levy said that a crowd of the size at Amnesty to hear him would never turn out in Tel Aviv and that Haaretz, the newspaper he writes for, is an island with a small readership.
He spoke of the ever growing file labelled “Subscription cancellations due to Gideon Levy”: “I get full freedom to write for Haaretz but Haaretz is losing influence,” he said.
He recalled the 400,000 Israelis who protested after the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacres which, he said, were not even carried out by the Israelis but thought that that size protest would not occur now. He has been described as a “self-hating Jew” and “an enemy of Israel”.
(When Shlomo Sand came to the UK to promote his anti-Zionist polemic, The Invention of the Jewish People, he said it was top of the best-seller list in Israel.
As for Haaretz itself it is read nationally and internationally. It is published in English and Hebrew and is distributed along with the International Herald Tribune and has a daily circulation of 72,000 (100,000 at weekends). The Jerusalem Post’s circulation is 15,000 (40,000 at weekends).)
On the question of boycotting Israel Levy said that although he cannot call for a boycott himself, because he is Israeli, it is a legitimate weapon especially as Israeli uses it against Gaza, Hamas and Iran.
He was asked whether boycotts are racist because they target Jewish Israelis, even those opposed to the settlements. He failed to address this question properly but he did say that boycotters should read the label first and boycott only if a product is from the West Bank.
(Obviously, Levy fails to understand the racism inherent in the boycott Israel movement because first, boycotters don’t look at the label in such a discriminating manner. As long as the label says “Israel”, they will boycott (One member of the audience claimed that the only reason they boycott is because the Palestinians themselves are calling for it). And, second, the boycott includes Israeli academics.)
Levy’s main complaint is that he feels so alone in Israel. He feels the drama is all going on in Israel’s backyard and yet there is no one covering it. He said there is no censorship in Israel, only self-censorship by journalists.
(But even if this were the case there are plenty of foreign journalists in Gaza, including from the BBC. But I can fully understand why Israeli journalists would be so banned; they would be an easy target for kidnapping by Hamas.)
Despite all the above Levy is not actually an anti-Zionist.
He called for the return of Palestinians to a Palestinian state and a limited return of some 500,000 to Israel including an admission of liability from Israel for what happened in 1948 and compensation for the non-returning refugees.
“What happened in 1948 is an historic injustice but it happens in wars. Israel is a fait accomplit so let’s move to a new chapter. The Jews had a right to settle in Palestine but the Palestinian rejection of the partition plan should not have led to the expulsion of 650,000 from their villages,” he said.
Levy claims that no one in Israel cares about the Palestinians and he cites Tel Aviv as the best example of this. But then again he would hear the same complaints from the residents of Sderot who also think that the rest of Israel doesn’t care about the bombs that are regularly fired at them from Gaza.
I had a couple of nice chats afterwards and one with someone in charge of the Northern Section of the TUC who said that a full TUC boycott of Israel is coming.
I asked whether the TUC had ever considered a boycott of Britain or America due to NATO forces occupying Afghanistan.
He said it was impossible to boycott Britain but there is every possibility of a boycott of America being passed. I’d like to see them try!
Keep an eye on the TUC Conference, 13th-16th September.
Richard Millet
Ahava staff carry on under pressure
Imagine your journey into work worrying about what you might find when you arrive or whether your office might be violently stormed with you in it.
This is the daily fate of the Ahava staff who work in the shop on Monmouth Street in London’s Covent Garden.
As we all know by now Ahava lost two days of business when late last year the shop was invaded by activists who locked themselves inside while petrified staff looked on. Then last week the shop front was coated in red paint by a couple of “brave” souls who had covered their faces so as not to be picked out by CCTV.
Ahava after last week's paint attack
Yesterday the usual mob of anti-Israel activists turned up en masse with an array of Palestinian and Communist flags and the usual “Boycott Israel” and “Free Palestine” paraphernalia. They were allowed to position themselves a couple of metres from Ahava’s shop door and hand out anti-Israel leaflets to passers-by.
Sadly, one can forget any solidarity from neighbouring shop-keepers for now; Ahava is being told by some to shut up shop and go online.
By yesterday the red paint had been mostly removed at great expense to Ahava. Remnants could still be seen above the shop.
And if you had ever wondered where all the money comes from to fund both the attacks and legal representation, they hold fundraisers:
On September 11th we are putting on a fundraising party to raise money to fund direct actions in support of Palestine, such as blockades of Ahava or Carmel Agrexco. Come on down, with a banging line up and an amazing space to have a party in (the Ratstar comes with 2 rooms of music, a cinema room and even a roof terrace, oh yes), there has never been a funner way to support a great cause. The day kicks off at 4pm, with workshops on direct action, …Palestine related film screenings and a Palestinian cafe. Music starts at 8pm. The night is free before 8pm, £5 suggested donation afterwards, but pay what you can afford. All money raised will go to pay for actions like this; http://london.indymedia.org/articles/2955
No chance of any of that money making it to the starving or malaria-ridden of Africa then, nor the the flood victims in Pakistan nor even to the Palestinians themselves who the activists claim to care so much about.
Meanwhile, here is Channel 10 of Israel’s interesting video clip about the boycott Israel movement. Look out for insightful comment from Lauren Booth.
Richard Millet
This is the daily fate of the Ahava staff who work in the shop on Monmouth Street in London’s Covent Garden.
As we all know by now Ahava lost two days of business when late last year the shop was invaded by activists who locked themselves inside while petrified staff looked on. Then last week the shop front was coated in red paint by a couple of “brave” souls who had covered their faces so as not to be picked out by CCTV.
Ahava after last week's paint attack
Yesterday the usual mob of anti-Israel activists turned up en masse with an array of Palestinian and Communist flags and the usual “Boycott Israel” and “Free Palestine” paraphernalia. They were allowed to position themselves a couple of metres from Ahava’s shop door and hand out anti-Israel leaflets to passers-by.
Sadly, one can forget any solidarity from neighbouring shop-keepers for now; Ahava is being told by some to shut up shop and go online.
By yesterday the red paint had been mostly removed at great expense to Ahava. Remnants could still be seen above the shop.
And if you had ever wondered where all the money comes from to fund both the attacks and legal representation, they hold fundraisers:
On September 11th we are putting on a fundraising party to raise money to fund direct actions in support of Palestine, such as blockades of Ahava or Carmel Agrexco. Come on down, with a banging line up and an amazing space to have a party in (the Ratstar comes with 2 rooms of music, a cinema room and even a roof terrace, oh yes), there has never been a funner way to support a great cause. The day kicks off at 4pm, with workshops on direct action, …Palestine related film screenings and a Palestinian cafe. Music starts at 8pm. The night is free before 8pm, £5 suggested donation afterwards, but pay what you can afford. All money raised will go to pay for actions like this; http://london.indymedia.org/articles/2955
No chance of any of that money making it to the starving or malaria-ridden of Africa then, nor the the flood victims in Pakistan nor even to the Palestinians themselves who the activists claim to care so much about.
Meanwhile, here is Channel 10 of Israel’s interesting video clip about the boycott Israel movement. Look out for insightful comment from Lauren Booth.
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