zaterdag 2 maart 2013

Eerste Miss Israel uit Ethiopië gekozen

 

Apartheidsstaat Israel kiest een Ethiopische vrouw als Miss Israel, rara hoe kan dat? Het is vast een slinkse truuk om hun racistische praktijken wit te wassen: we kiezen een zwarte vrouw, dan kunnen ze ons niet meer van racisme beschuldigen, maar ondertussen....

In werkelijkheid is er in Israel discriminatie zoals overal, waarbij bedacht moet worden dat er in Israel mensen uit heel veel landen en culturen in een klein en kwetsbaar land samenleven. Iedereen is echter gelijk voor de wet, mag stemmen, studeren, in het leger dienen, naar de rechter stappen. Blank en zwart, moslim en Jood, ze recreëren aan dezelfde stranden, worden in dezelfde ziekenhuizen behandeld, eten in dezelfde restaurants en studeren aan dezelfde universiteiten.

 

RP

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Israel gets first Ethiopian-born beauty queen

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=304889

By JPOST.COM STAFF

02/28/2013 14:40

21-year-old model Yityish Aynaw, a former IDF officer, made aliyah some 10 years ago.

Iatayes "Titi" Aeinao, 21, from Netanyahu wins Miss Israel 2013.

Photo: photo from channel 2 marc israel sellem

 

Yityish Aynaw, a former Israeli army officer, has become the first Ethiopian-born Israeli to win the Miss Israel pageant.

A panel of judges awarded the title to Aynaw, a 21-year-old model who came to Israel about a decade ago, at the International Convention Center Haifa on Wednesday.

"It's important that a member of the Ethiopian community wins the competition for the first time," she was quoted by Israeli media as telling the judges in response to a question. "There are many different communities of many different colors in Israel, and it's important to show that to the world." Aynaw came to Israel with her family when she was 12. Acclimating to Israel was difficult at first, Aynaw said, but she picked up the language quickly with the help of a friend.

She has been working as a saleswoman at a clothing store since her army discharge.

During the competition, Aynaw cited the slain American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. as one of her heroes.

"He fought for justice and equality, and that's one of the reasons I'm here: I want to show that my community has many beautiful qualities that aren't always represented in the media," she said.

 

 

Islamitische universiteiten: zelfmoordaanslagen zijn de meest verheven vorm van Jihad

 

Ook in het christendom worden martelaren vereerd, maar dat zijn doorgaans mensen die vermoord werden omdat ze weigerden ontrouw te worden aan hun geloof.

 

Wouter

_________________

 

 

Islamitische universiteiten: zelfmoordaanslagen zijn de meest verheven vorm van Jihad

Abd Al-Salam, directeur van de Bond van Islamitische Universiteiten, uitgezonden op Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas, Gaza) op 21 januari 2013.

Ja’far Abd Al-Salam:

“De geest van verzet wordt gevoed door de ideologie van de islam. ‘Allah koopt de levens en bezittingen van de gelovigen, in ruil voor het paradijs.’
Voor een moslim is het leven zinloos, tenzij het wordt weggegeven en besteed aan de zaak van Allah. Deze cultuur wordt aangemoedigd door de islam en door patriottisme.

[...]

Alleen groot lijden maakt een man groot. De immense pijn van het martelaarschap leidt tot de enorme beloning van het Paradijs. Mijn broeder, deze cultuur bestaat niet in het Westen, omdat westerlingen veel waarde hechten aan het menselijk leven.”

Interviewer: “Zij richten zich op materiele zaken ten koste van het spirituele.”

Ja’far Abd Al-Salam: “Misschien heeft u gezien dat wat Joden, of zionisten, vooral bang maakt is te worden gedood. Wij hebben geen last van die angst.

[...]

Het staat vast dat de islam [zelfmoordaanslagen] ziet als offer en als de meest verheven vorm van Jihad.

 

Erdogan noemt Zionisme "misdaad tegen de mensheid"

 

Erdogan heeft zich met zijn idiote racistische opmerkingen over het zionisme natuurlijk volkomen gediskwalificeerd. Turkije is de laatste jaren steeds verder afgezakt richting een islamitisch en intolerant land waar minderheden onder druk staan. Turkije is daarbij behoorlijk hypociet: terwijl het zelf keihard optreedt tegen Koerdisch geweld steunt het terrorisme tegen Israel. Joden hebben het in Turkije steeds moeilijker en worden beschuldigd van dubbele loyaliteit. In tegenstelling tot Israel mag je in Turkije niks onaardigs zeggen over het land of de geschiedenis kritisch tegen het licht houden. In tegenstelling tot Israel hebben niet-moslims geen gelijke rechten en moet je als journalist of mensenrechtenactivist een beetje op je woorden letten. Antisemitisme is er ondertussen springlevend, Mein Kampf wordt goed verkocht en op TV worden antisemitische films uitgezonden.

 

Zie ook: De antisemitische geschiedenis van Erdogan

 

RP

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Erdogan calls Zionism a "crime against humanity"

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.nl/2013/02/erdogan-calls-zionism-crime-against.html

 

From Hurriyet Daily News:

 

Islamophobia must be recognized as a crime against humanity in the same fashion that Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism should be, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday.

Speaking at the “Fifth Alliance of Civilizations Forum” in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, the prime minister underlined the rising trend of fascism across the Europe. “We are facing a world in which racist attacks have gained momentum, terrorism has claimed more lives, and religions and sects treat each other with less understanding,” Erdoğan said.

Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity,” Erdoğan said.

 

UN Watch slammed the comparison at the UN-sponsored conference, and notes the irony that Erdogan's statement itself is anti-semitic:

 

"We remind secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that his predecessor Kofi Annan recognized that the UN’s 1975 Zionism-is-racism resolution was an expression of anti-Semitism, and he welcomed its repeal." [UN Watch said.]

UN Watch urged all members of the Alliance’s High Level Group, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “to denounce remarks that fundamentally contradict the very purpose of a forum supposedly dedicated to mutual tolerance.”

“Erdogan’s misuse of this global podium to incite hatred, and his resort to Ahmandinejad-style pronouncements appealing to the lowest common denominator in the Muslim world, will only strengthen the belief that his government is hewing to a confrontational stance, and fundamentally unwilling to end its four-year-old feud with Israel.”

 

Erdogan is saying that Jewish national self-determination is a "crime against humanity," which is by any yardstick an anti-semitic statement.

 Will NATO or the UN condemn this vile expression of hate given at a UN-sponsored conference?

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

 

 

Beware Turkish Hypocrisy

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/25/beware-turkish-hypocrisy/

FEBRUARY 25, 2013 3:39 AM 

Author: Noah Beck

 

Recent Turkish pressure on France and Germany regarding accession to the European Union heighten the need to question Turkey’s strategic intentions and political identity. Is Turkey a moderate, pro-Western democracy? Or is it run by Islamists embracing policies and regimes hostile to the West?

Turkey wants to be treated as a member of the West, calls itself “European,” and expects EU membership alongside its NATO credentials. But Turkey has dissented on key policy issues like Iran sanctions, antagonized the only Middle East country with Western values (Israel), and – until the Arab Spring ruined relations with Syria – courted many regimes dangerously opposed to the West.

The Syrian war has undermined Turkey’s “no-problems-with-neighbors” strategy and exposed its bluster. In August 2011, Turkey threatened military action against Syria but only if other nations joined it. In June 2012, Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean. The Turkish response: consultations with NATO followed by much sound and fury. So when Israeli warplanes allegedly attacked Syrian military targets earlier this month, one would have expected Turkey to praise tiny Israel for taking risks to address a regional threat that the much bigger Turkey has found too daunting to confront alone. Instead, according to the Turkish daily  Hurriyet, Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu urged Syria to attack Israel, suggested that Assad’s inaction was due to “a secret agreement” with Israel, and vowed that Turkey would not sit still in the face of an Israeli attack on any Muslim country. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Not to be outdone by his foreign minister, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Israeli airstrike in Syria “state terrorism.” Does Erdogan call the countless Turkish airstrikes into Iraq “state terrorism?” What about airstrikes by the international force that Turkey would presumably join if the West ever mustered the courage to intervene in Syria? Any sane observer must wonder if Erdogan and Davutoglu know how absurdly inconsistent they sound or if they actually believe their own propagandist drivel.

A sober look at Turkey’s past and present reveals a darker side that the EU is trying to overlook – presumably for the economic benefits of Turkish EU membership and the hope that such membership will reform Turkey. The past: the Ottoman Turks slaughtered approximately 1-1.5 million people in the Armenian Genocide almost a century ago. Rather than apologize and make reparations à la Germany, Turkey has whitewashed history and used Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code prohibiting “insulting Turkishness” to silence those brave enough to speak out about the issue – like journalist Hrant Dink (who was assassinated in 2007 for doing just that).

Indeed, today’s Turkish democracy falls short of EU standards. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey is the “the world’s leading jailer” of reporters. Dissidents are jailed under vague anti-terror laws, and human rights organizations have documented many other abuses (often relating to the Kurdish conflict), including extrajudicial killings, “disappearances,” torture, and restrictions on free speech.

Turkey’s war with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) completely discredits Turkish denunciations of Israeli conduct towards Palestinian terrorist organizations. According to figures released by the Turkish military and reported in the Hurriet, from 1984 to 2008, the conflict has killed about 32,000 PKK members. That 24-year total dwarfs the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s 65-year struggle with terrorism. Thus, when Erdogan debased the Davos World Economic Forum to score cheap populist points by excoriating President Shimon Peres for Israel’s 2009 war on the Gazan terrorists attacking Israeli civilians, he obviously forgot his own country’s record.

Erdogan’s constant condemnation of Israel’s presence in the West Bank would suggest that Turkey profoundly respects the territorial integrity of its neighbors. Yet Turkey has illegally occupied Cyprus since 1974 – an occupation recognized by no country, compelled by no significant security concerns, and, according to the European Commission of Human Rights, rife with human rights abuses.

Turkey has also tried to block Israeli participation in NATO exercises, even though NATO benefits substantially from IDF expertise (so much that NATO may have finally secured Israel’s 2013 participation in exchange for granting Turkey’s request for Patriot missile defense systems).

And Turkey recently resumed the trial in absentia of former Israeli military commanders for the 2010 events on the Mavi Marmara. If Turkey’s sailors boarded an Israeli ship carrying supplies for Kurds and violating a Turkish naval blockade, and the Israeli passengers lethally attacked those sailors, how would the Turks have reacted? Rather than acknowledge both sides of the story in that unfortunate incident, Turkey has used it to deepen its diplomatic rift with Israel.

The irony is that – until Erdogan’s premiership – Israel and Turkey were extremely close allies. That Erdogan ruined the relationship is hardly surprising: as mayor of Istanbul in June 1997, he said, “The Jews have begun to crush the Muslims of Palestine, in the name of Zionism… Today, the image of the Jews is no different from that of the Nazis.” Birikim, a Turkish socialist culture magazine, reported this quote by Erdogan, which no Western newspaper covered.

The unfortunate reality may be that Turkey can pivot back towards the West only after the Islamists currently running the country are replaced by more moderate secularists (like Turkey’s pre-Erdogan leaders). Until then, the EU should continue to ask about Turkey’s troubling past and present.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, a naval thriller about the Iranian nuclear threat and current geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

 

 

vrijdag 1 maart 2013

Israelisch-Palestijns schoolboekenonderzoek: goede aanzet met grote fouten

 

Een kritische evaluatie van het recente schoolboekenonderzoek, waarover ik uitgebreid heb geblogd. De schrijver was zelf betrokken bij het onderzoek, maar weigerde het zijn goedkeuring te geven.

Contrary to most press reports, the hard data in the study in fact showed substantial differences between Palestinian and Israeli state textbooks. 84% of the excerpts from Palestinian texts were found to present negative characterizations of the other, compared to 49% in Israeli state texts; the corresponding scores for “positive” characterizations were 1% and 11%. Similar scores were recorded for descriptions of the actions of the other. Negative images of Israelis were far higher in Palestinian texts than were negative images of Palestinians in Israeli texts. (For photos, 66% vs. 6%, for illustrations, 43% vs. 17%.)

 

But the most striking contrasts had to do with Palestinian delegitimization: ignoring the existence of the other. 97% of Palestinian maps omitted Israeli cities, sites or Jewish holy places or sites as compared to 12% of Israeli maps that did not list Muslim sites or holy places.

Dat laatste had ik niet gevonden, en het is hier enigszins misleidend weergegeven, want de overgrote meerderheid van de Israelische kaarten hadden evenmin als de Palestijnse grenzen. Beide gaven in meerderheid het hele gebied als een geheel aan, zonder de term ‘Israel’ danwel ‘Palestijnse gebieden’ te gebruiken. Het verschil dat hij opmerkt is echter evenzeer relevant, zeker omdat het conflict voor velen nauw met religie en heilige plaatsen samenhangt.

 

RP

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The textbook study: flawed and wrong

Elihu D. Richter

 

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-textbook-study-flawed-and-wrong/

 

Tell me what a school system is teaching its children and I will tell you whether there will be peace or war in another five to 10 years.

Less than a month ago, there were numerous press reports on the results of a high level joint US-Israeli-Palestinian study, Victims of their Own Narratives. The impression conveyed in these reports was that the study’s findings presented a roughly symmetric assessment on the prevalence, intensity and severity of incitement in Palestinian and Israeli textbooks. This impression is wrong.

The project was carried out by a team headed by Professor Bruce Wexler, a psychiatrist form Yale, and professors Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University and Sami Adwan of Bethlehem University, funded by the US State Department, and overseen by the “Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land.” The Council includes Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and Muslim and Christian clergymen. I was one of some 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Panel. I and three other Israeli members of the Scientific Advisory Panel withheld our own endorsements of the final report.

 

As an epidemiologist in the business of prediction and prevention, I was and remain intrigued by the attempts to measure incitement, which leads to conflict, and its opposite, education for respect for life and dignity of the other. What was good about the study was that it established the principle and feasibility of monitoring. It made a sincere effort to define and measure what I call Word Pollution the way we measure Air Pollution. There was a study design, protocol, definitions of incitement, and a well-thought-out statistical sampling procedure.

 

In the West monitoring air pollution and its effects led to major reductions in both. Can the same happen if we monitor “word pollution” and its effects on attitudes and behaviors which lead to hate, hostility, conflict and violence? I have proposed a Region-Wide Surveillance Network in the entire Mideast, based on the precedent established by the study.

 

But the study had major limitations. It ignored the insights of several previous hands-on studies, some strong, some weak. It was narrowly confined to textual excerpts alone, and did not include homework assignments, guidebooks for teachers, and the larger educational environment of children. It therefore did not capture much of the explicitly horrendous incitement in the public square, summer camps, children’s TV programs, and print media. The study did not look at Hamas run schools.

 

Contrary to most press reports, the hard data in the study in fact showed substantial differences between Palestinian and Israeli state textbooks. 84% of the excerpts from Palestinian texts were found to present negative characterizations of the other, compared to 49% in Israeli state texts; the corresponding scores for “positive” characterizations were 1% and 11%. Similar scores were recorded for descriptions of the actions of the other. Negative images of Israelis were far higher in Palestinian texts than were negative images of

Palestinians in Israeli texts. (For photos, 66% vs. 6%, for illustrations, 43% vs. 17%.)

 

But the most striking contrasts had to do with Palestinian delegitimization: ignoring the existence of the other. 97% of Palestinian maps omitted Israeli cities, sites or Jewish holy places or sites as compared to 12% of Israeli maps that did not list Muslim sites or holy places.

 

The major errors of omission and commission serve to obfuscate some of the most important differences. These errors seem to be driven by an effort to arrive at a politically correct impression of symmetry, in keeping with modern ideas in conflict resolution which emphasizes minimizing differences and maximizing similarities, even at the expense of truth.

 

The advantage of this approach is that it looks forward. The problem with it is that it can result in sliding down the slippery slope to moral equivalence. Professor Bar-Tal, a recognized authority in conflict resolution, wrote that he himself took a “holistic” approach (an academic way of saying that the study was driven by a preconceived notion), which appears to have distorted the assessment of the facts in the source material concerning education for peace and incitement.

 

This distortion resulted in understating major and fundamental differences between Israeli and Palestinan texts and missing important targets for preventive intervention. In my opinion, there was a non-critical approach to the use of national narratives to tell stories, motifs, and themes which promote emulation of role models for terror, therefore undermining respect for life and human dignity of the other as universal values. “It’s my narrative, therefore it’s OK” may be politically correct but is it education for respect for life and human dignity?

 

At Bar-Tal’s initiative, the study used the term delegitimize to lump together statements which dehumanize, demonize, defame and delegitimize – a term which conventionally means denying or ignoring the existence of the other.

The definitions preclude capturing examples of the far more severe types of hate language and incitement. Using this term, the study could have defined down the dehumanizing and demonizing venom of Mein Kampf as mere delegitimization.

Dr Ruth Firer, for many years at Hebrew University’s Truman Center, who over the years has published research on textbook analysis, and Dr Arnon Gross, a member of the Scientific Panel are both world authorities on textbooks. Both said that the study failed to capture many nuances picked up by hands-on inspection of texts.

 

Firer wrote that rigid comparisons cannot be symmetric, as she sees Israeli-Palestinian relationship in terms of occupier-occupied, but that this relationship has to be guided by the principle that respect and the right to live take priority over all.

Gross noted that “highly demonizing pieces were not included, under the pretext that they were not explicit enough. Thus, a piece saying ‘Your enemies killed your children, split open your women’s bellies…’ was rejected because it did not mention Jews or Israelis and was actually written in the early 20th century.”

 

Firer, Gross and I noted that the study says nothing about Palestinian texts ignoring or misrepresenting the Holocaust. They do not address the role of the Grand Mufti, who lived in Hitler’s bunker in the latter years of the war and was an accomplice of Eichman. A proposed antidote would have been to use the first and only textbook in Arabic on the Holocaust, written by Professor Mohammed Dajani of Al Quds University, himself a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel.

Another problem with the study is that it scored historical facts which are painful truths as negative depictions of the other. For example, Israeli excerpts describing the horrors of the Munich massacre are defined as conveying a negative message.

 

According to Gross:

 

Whoever reads the quotations…taken from the schoolbooks easily finds that Israeli schoolbooks…include revealing texts of open advocacy of peaceful resolution of the conflict…and are totally devoid of calls for solving it violently. Alongside their treatment of the Palestinians as enemies, they provide texts that portray the individual Palestinian as an ordinary, sometimes noble, human being with whom friendly relations could develop.

The Palestinian quotations, on the other hand, show none of these traits. They … contain neither an explicit call for peace with Israel nor a vision of a peaceful future alongside it; they speak of a struggle for liberation without specifically restricting that struggle to the areas of the West Bank and Gaza alone; that struggle is enhanced by the use of the traditional Islamic values of Jihad, martyrdom and Ribat; they recognize as legitimate neither Israel’s existence, nor the presence of its Jewish citizens in the country, nor the presence of Jewish holy places there;

 

In short, the study mismeasured or missed much incitement.

So when President Obama comes here to listen, the message to him is that those extolling Wafa Idris from the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and others who killed ensure intergenerational perpetration of conflict, hate, terror and war.

 

Perhaps the last word should be left to Ruth Firer, who herself has a long record of work in joint Israeli-Palestinian cooperation: “The power of one negative word is stronger than few positive words – therefore the statistics can’t ignore it.”

In short, because Incitement Kills there should be Zero Tolerance for Incitement.

 

 

Gaza-rapport Human Rights Watch onbetrouwbaar en voorbarig (IPI)

 
 

Door Tjalling.

Human Rights Watch stelt in een rapport over de gevechtshandelingen van vorig jaar in Gaza vast:

Tenminste 18 Israëlische luchtaanvallen tijdens de gevechten in Gaza in november 2012 waren schijnbaar in strijd met het oorlogsrecht. Deze luchtaanvallen doden minstens 43 Palestijnse burgers, inclusief 12 kinderen.

Dat rapport werd gepresenteerd op afgelopen 12 februari. De beweringen daarin zijn ongegrond , maar voor onder meer de Telegraaf, de Stentor, diverse regionale media, en helaas deze keer ook het Reformatorisch Dagblad was dat geen enkele belemmering om de bevindingen van dit ook nog eens voorbarige rapport kritiekloos over te nemen.

Volgens het HRW rapport zouden de 18 aanvallen in strijd met het internationaal oorlogsrecht zijn, omdat er bij 14 aanvallen met vliegtuigen of drones in het geraakte gebied geen militair doel was, en bij 4 andere aanvallen met bemande of onbemande toestellen zou Israël zich niet voldoende hebben ingespannen om een onderscheid te maken tussen militaire en burgerdoelen.

Het onderzoek van HRW is echter alleen gebaseerd op interviews met omwonenden en plaatselijke autoriteiten in Gaza. Israël is in het onderzoek niet gehoord. Bovendien is het de vraag of HRW wel in staat is om vast te kunnen stellen wanneer militaire aanvallen in strijd zijn met het internationale oorlogsrecht. NGO-monitor houdt de berichtgeving van de zogeheten Niet-Gouvernementele Organisaties, waartoe ook HRW behoort, scherp in de gaten. Op 13 februari meldt zij dat HRW niet over de militaire deskundigheid beschikt om tot een goed gegronde vaststelling te kunnen komen. Ook heeft HRW niet dezelfde bevoegdheid tot onderzoek als VN fact-finding missions die hebben.

Het is dus de vraag of HRW wel voldoende kennis en capaciteit in huis heeft om na te kunnen gaan of militaire acties werkelijk in strijd zijn met het internationaal oorlogsrecht. Een onderzoek zoals dat naar de gevechtshandelingen in de Gazastrook vereist nu eenmaal gedegen militaire deskundigheid waar hoge Israëlische legerfunctionarissen wel over beschikken, alsmede kennis van de inlichtingen waarover Israël beschikte. Zonder deze is het moeilijk om achteraf te kunnen bepalen welke doelen legitiem en proportioneel waren om aan te vallen. Het is bekend dat het leger, op basis van inlichtingen, lijsten heeft van doelen om in de Gazastrook aan te vallen in oorlogstijd. Als de Israëlische inlichtingen soms onvolledig of foutief waren (het gaat hier om 18 van de volgens Israël 1.500 doelwitten) maakt dat deze aanvallen nog geen schendingen van het oorlogsrecht; daarvoor is opzet vereist. Israël heeft geen belang bij het lukraak doodschieten van onschuldige Palestijnen, want het weet dat een fout, zoals een bombardement van een huis vol met vrouwen en kinderen in plaats van vol met explosieven, haar op zware internationale veroordelingen komt te staan. Dit nog naast de humanitaire beweegredenen dit te willen voorkomen. Het is ook bekend dat Israel geregeld van aanvallen afziet als het risico op burgerdoden te groot is. Desondanks gaat er wel eens wat mis, soms met tragische gevolgen. Het Israëlische leger onderzoekt deze zaken vaak zelf, en soms worden militairen gestraft.

HRW wist tijdens haar onderzoek dat er ook een Israëlisch onderzoek liep naar wat zich afgelopen november in en rondom Gaza heeft afgespeeld. Men vond het echter niet de moeite waard om de resultaten daarvan af te wachten en mee te nemen in het eigen onderzoek. Likoed Nederland meldt op haar site dat HRW alvast met haar eigen rapport kwam omdat men van mening was dat het Israëlische onderzoek niet zou worden gedaan door gespecialiseerde militaire politie mensen. Dat laatste is onjuist, het onderzoek wordt wel uitgevoerd door internationaal erkende specialisten en de resultaten daarvan worden op korte termijn verwacht.

Het rapport van HRW is dus ongegrond, voorbarig en zonder Israëlisch weerwoord ook onvolledig. Het is triest dat veel Nederlandse media wel de bevindingen van het HRW-rapport hebben overgenomen, zonder enige kritische kanttekening of voorbehoud te plaatsen. Dat had wel gemoeten, want wat HRW heeft gepresenteerd als rapport verdient zelfs niet eens de naam van onderzoek.


Bronnen:

 

Rellen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever en de Palestijnse gevangenen (IMO)

 
Prisonersprotest
 

IMO Blog

Afgelopen zondag is een Palestijnse gevangene gestorven in een Israelische cel. Volgens de Palestijnen is hij doodgemarteld, volgens Israel stierf hij aan hartfalen en probeerde men hem nog te reanimeren. Er is een onderzoek naar de zaak ingesteld. In solidariteit hebben 4.500 Palestijnse gevangenen hun eten maandag geweigerd, en bij rellen op verschillende plaatsen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever zijn zeker zes Palestijnen gewond geraakt. De rellen begonnen vorige week al nadat de lichamelijke conditie van vier Palestijnse hongerstakers snel verslechterde.

Hongerstakingen zijn een beproefd middel van Palestijnse gevangenen, waarmee zij de Israelische autoriteiten succesvol onder druk weten te zetten. Vorig jaar heeft Israel onder druk van een hongerstaking een gevangene eerder vrijgelaten en een aantal zaken versoepeld. In Syrië of Iran zijn voor zover ik weet nooit hongerstakingen, en als ze er al zijn zal het de autoriteiten niets kunnen schelen wat er met de gevangenen gebeurt, en kunnen zij rustig wegkwijnen in hun cellen. Je hoeft overigens niet zover te reizen om verwaarloosde gevangenen waarvoor niemand aandacht heeft, te vinden. In Israel is het een krachtig middel, dat zorgt voor veel internationale aandacht en solidariteit van linkse activisten uit Israel en elders. Maar hoe uitzonderlijk is het eigenlijk dat een gevangene in zijn cel sterft?

Elder of Ziyon schrijft ironisch:

According to the ICHR, five Palestinian Arabs died in custody in 2011 – but it was Hamas custody, so no one cares.
At least two more died in jail in 2012, but that was in PA jails – so no one cares.

Hij haalt het Palestijnse Ma'an Nieuws aan, die o.a. Amnesty International citeert:

"Detainees were tortured and otherwise ill-treated, particularly by Preventive Security and the General Intelligence Service in the West Bank, and by Internal Security in Gaza, all of which were able to abuse detainees with impunity."

Alleged methods included beatings, suspension by the wrists or ankles, and enforced standing or sitting in painful positions for long periods, according to the Independent Commission for Human Rights.

The commission recorded 1,000 complaints of arbitrary arrests in the West Bank and more than 700 in Gaza. It said many of the PA's arrests occurred when President Mahmoud Abbas visited the UN in September.

Ik heb eerder over de marteling van Palestijnen in Palestijnse gevangenissen gelezen. Niet bij Stop de Bezetting, niet bij Anja Meulenbelt of Dries van Agt, of een van de andere bronnen die moord en brand schreeuwen wanneer Israel een Palestijn iets heeft aangedaan. Nee, dat lees je in de Jerusalem Post of op Gatestone Institute, in artikelen van Khaled Abu Toameh. Die artikelen worden vervolgens gedeeld op pro-Israel blogs en groepen. Ook over de ellende van de Palestijnse vluchtelingen in Syrië lees je meer bij Likoed Nederland en Elder of Ziyon dan op zogenaamde pro-Palestijnse sites. Het is een ietwat vreemde situatie, maar alles went. Pro-Palestijnse groepen melden het alleen wanneer een Palestijn door Israels toedoen wat is overkomen, of wanneer de Palestijnen Israel beschuldigen en woedend zijn. Pro-Israel groepen melden al het andere Palestijnse leed. Het NOS journaal en andere media volgen doorgaans de agenda en werkwijze van de pro-Palestijnen: ze besteden veel aandacht aan ieder incident waar Israel (mogelijk) bij betrokken is, en de VN veroordeelt Israelisch geweld en andere activiteiten regelmatig. Palestijns geweld of Arabisch geweld tegen Palestijnen wordt doorgaans genegeerd.

Over de redenen daarvan wordt vaak gespeculeerd, en dat gaat van antisemitisme tot een overdreven kritische houding tegenover Westerse landen, wat is ingegeven door ongemak en schuldgevoelens over ons eigen koloniale verleden. Maar ook dat verklaart dit raadselachtige gebeuren maar ten dele, als we de volgende cijfers van – alweer – Elder of Ziyon over gevangenen in Groot-Brittannië mogen geloven:

A total of 333 people have died in or following police custody over the past 11 years, but no officer has ever been successfully prosecuted, according to a watchdog's report.

1,433 people in England and Wales have died either in police custody or following other police contact since 1990, according to data compiled by Inquest, a charity specialising in the investigation of contentious deaths.

950 deaths took place in custody, 317 following a police pursuit, 112 were the result of a road traffic incident involving a police vehicle and 54 were police shootings.

De cijfers komen van The Guardian, dus dat geeft enigzins te denken, maar al gaat het maar om een klein deel van deze aantallen, dan is het toch vreemd dat we daarover zo zelden horen? Engeland is een belangrijk EU lid en min of meer buurland van Nederland, Westerser kan bijna niet, dus daar zou je wat aandacht van onze media voor verwachten. Overigens heb ik ook niet gehoord dat er grootschalige rellen zijn uitgebroken of hongerstakingen vanwege deze misstanden, en de VN heeft zich er ook nooit om bekommerd.

Okay, zul je wellicht zeggen, maar dat is dan ook een binnenlandse aangelegenheid. Wanneer een Palestijn in een Israelische gevangenis overlijdt, geld dat als een internationale zaak waar de VN Veiligheidsraad in spoedzitting voor bij elkaar moet komen. Met hetzelfde argument boeit het niet wanneer de PA haar gevangenen laat verkommeren of Palestijnen in Syrië wegrotten – het zijn immers Syrische Palestijnen, en Syrië en Palestina zijn niet met elkaar in conflict, dus het doet er niet toe. Dat mag zo zijn, wanneer Palestijnse vluchtelingen uit Syrië naar Jordanië vluchten en daar worden geweigerd is dat wel een internationale aangelegenheid, en ook daar horen we weinig over. Bovendien is nieuws dat Israel in een kwaad daglicht stelt haast per definitie relevant nieuws als je de media mag geloven, ook als het om binnenlandse aangelegenheden gaat, zoals ultra orthodoxen die een meisje aanvallen of een vrouw die in Israel bevalt, wat volgens haar met teveel controles en zorg gepaard ging (Ze baarde een gezonde baby).

Terug naar de rellen op de Westoever. Geen enkele Palestijn zal het Israelische onderzoek, wat er ook uit komt, serieus nemen, en de indruk lijkt dat men vooral een aanleiding zocht om te rellen. Volgens Israel heeft de PA min of meer opgeroepen tot het geweld, en er wordt al een tijdje gespeculeerd over een derde intifada, zowel door Palestijnen als door Israel. Dit klinkt nogal voorbarig, maar de situatie is al een tijdje gespannen. Inmiddels heeft Israel met twee Palestijnse hongerstakers een deal gesloten; zij komen vervroegd vrij in mei. Twee andere hongerstakers, die vrijkwamen in de Shalit deal maar werden opgepakt omdat zij zich niet aan de voorwaarden hielden, zijn nog in hongerstaking. Ze zijn in een Israelisch ziekenhuis opgenomen en over hun vrijlating wordt nog onderhandeld. Een van hen, Al Swarawna, zat vast voor zijn betrokkenheid bij een aanslag in Beersheva in 2002 en werd in januari 2012 opnieuw gearresteerd omdat hij zich bij een Hamas cel op de Westoever had aangesloten die zich met terrorisme bezig hield. De media weigeren er iets over te vermelden, maar ook de andere, Samer Al-Issawi zat vast voor serieuze zaken:

It is important to point out the grave terrorism offences of which Al-Issawi was convicted, including firing a gun at a civilian vehicle in October 2001, indiscriminately firing an AK47 assault rifle at civilian buses, and manufacturing and distributing pipe bombs used in attacks on Israeli civilians.

Voor de Palestijnen zijn dit helden, en stijg je bovendien in status naarmate je meer aanslagen hebt gepleegd. Israel staat echter in haar recht om dergelijke terroristen op te pakken nadat zij zich wederom met terroristische activiteiten bezighielden en/of de voorwaarden van hun vrijlating schonden. Dat deze mensen nu via de druk van een hongerstaking, Palestijnse rellen en de veel internationale media aandacht toch weer vrij dreigen te komen is daarom geen goede zaak. Een krachtig middel van politieke gevangenen in dictaturen wordt nu misbruikt door misdadigers, en de internationale gemeenschap speelt het Palestijnse spelletje graag mee. President Abbas heeft onlangs opnieuw het vrijlaten van een groot aantal Palestijnse gevangenen als voorwaarde gesteld voor vredesonderhandelingen. Juist deze eis laat zien dat de Palestijnen niet klaar zijn voor vrede en een eigen staat.

Ratna Pelle

 

Rapport over Palestijnse en Israelische schoolboeken ziet kernpunten over het hoofd

 

Zie ook: De Israelisch-Palestijnse schoolboekenstrijd en Voorbeelden uit Israelisch-Palestijns schoolboekenonderzoek. 

 

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Report on Palestinian & Israeli Textbooks Overlooks Core Issue

 

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/report-palestinian-israeli-textbooks-overlooks-core-issue

The recent study of Palestinian and Israeli textbooks, prepared under the auspices of the Jerusalem-based Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land and issued today, is already generating much controversy, particularly relating to a false equivalency in comparing how Israeli and Palestinian school books portray the other and themes related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.


It is clear that however well-meaning the sponsors and researchers of the textbook study may have been, the lack of sufficient historical, social and geopolitical context distort the findings and render this study counterproductive. 

 

The report, titled “Victims of our own Narratives?” and funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of State, presents a dangerous premise -- that both sides have problems in not accepting the other and, in order to enhance the chances for peace, both sides have to do more to change their textbooks.

 

When the Oslo Accords were signed, based on the concept of Palestinian acceptance of Israel and Israeli territorial concessions to the Palestinians, the challenge for Israel was how to establish ways to concretize the Palestinian commitment to peace.  

 

On the Israeli side, its concessions were concrete and irreversible. Peace by the Palestinians seemed intangible and reversible.

 

This is where the concept was introduced about monitoring to ensure that the Palestinians no longer taught their young to hate Israel and to delegitimize the Jewish state. If this did not happen, then it was hard to take seriously Palestinian statements on peace.

 

It is in light of this historical context that the new study of Palestinian and Israeli textbooks, released on February 6, is so disturbing. No one suggests that Israel does not have to do more to appreciate the Palestinian narrative. But by bundling the two issues, the study diminishes, almost to the point of overlooking, the centrality of this issue to Israel.  Just as territory and a Palestinian state are core issues for the Palestinians, how Palestinians speak and teach about Israel in the media and in schools is a core issue for Israel. This is so because from the Israeli side, the reason the conflict has raged on for so long is directly connected to the way Israel is thought of by Palestinians, young and old.

 

By linking the textbooks of both sides in an artificial investigation, distortions and misperceptions are inevitable.

 

To name a few:

 

·         The revelation that textbooks in the Israeli state secular school system, by far Israel’s largest, are many times better than Palestinian textbooks gets lost in the effort to say there are problems on both sides;

·         Too often what is described as negative in Israeli texts is really just the observation of reality, for example that Israeli texts described the Palestinians as simply wanting to destroy Israel between 1948 and 1967;

·         The unwillingness to accept that when Palestinians texts reject or ignore Israel’s existence that that is not dehumanization.

 

This study fits into a pattern of so much international intervention regarding the conflict: it seeks to put Palestinians in a better light -- here by juxtaposing it with Israel where it should not be done-- and by doing so discourages the Palestinians from taking the necessary positive steps toward Israel to make peace a reality.

 

In other words, one more counterproductive exercise.

 

donderdag 28 februari 2013

Geen bewijs voor gewelddadige dood Jaradat in Israelische gevangenis

 

Het was te verwachten, maar het zal uiteraard geen enkele indruk maken op de Palestijnen want hun mening stond al van tevoren vast. De rellen zullen dus wel gewoon doorgaan, en de internationale kritiek op Israel ook. 

 

Zie ook: Rellen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever en de Palestijnse gevangenen

 

RP

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Autopsy report: No evidence Jaradat was victim of violence

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=304907

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

02/28/2013 17:18

Health Ministry's intermediate report finds Jaradat was not poisoned or suffered physical violence; fractures and hemorrhages are result of resuscitation attempt; forensic institute still investigating cause of death.

Palestinians carry body of Arafat Jaradat during his funeral in the village of Se'eer, Feb 25, 2013 Photo: Ammar Awad/Reuters

The intermediate autopsy report on Arafat Jaradat, the Palestinian inmate who was found dead in his Megiddo Prison cell last week, said there was "no evidence" of poisoning or any evidence of physical violence against the 30-year-old gas station employee.

The Health Ministry said that the examination was performed by senior L. Greenberg Forensic Institute pathologist Prof. Yehuda Hiss, while Prof. Arnon Afek, head of the ministry’s medical branch, Palestinian pathologist Dr. Sabar Alul and Prof. Iris Barshack, head of the pathology institute at Sheba Medical Center.

According to the report, the fractures in the ribs and hemorrhages on the skin were typical of the condition in people who undergo intensive resuscitation in an attempt to save their lives. The resuscitation was performed for 50 minutes by prison physicians and Magen David Adom paramedics.

The ministry concluded that the forensic institute will continue to conduct tests to identify the cause of Jaradat’s death.

In addition to the Health Ministry's investigation, the police were investigating the death and a judge has ordered an inquest, as is the case in all instances of prison deaths.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for an international inquiry into Jaradat's death, saying Jaradat was "assassinated" and accusing the Shin Bet of torturing the Palestinian detainee during interrogation.

Israeli officials dismissed the Palestinian Authority's demand for an international inquiry as a “predictable” maneuver and part of a larger strategy to bring the international community into the conflict whenever possible.

On Monday, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that Israel would be happy to have an international professional look at how it was investigating the incident. The officials also noted that UN Undersecretary- General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman called for an “independent and transparent” investigation, but said nothing about an international inquiry.

Jaradat's death sparked violent protests in the West Bank. Two soldiers and 11 Palestinians were injured in riots that started after Jaradat's funeral.

Herb Keinon, Khaled Abu Toameh and JPost.com staff contributed to this report.

 

woensdag 27 februari 2013

Gaza exporteert terroristen naar Syrië

 

The Gaza Strip is swarming with radical Islamist groups whose goal is to destroy Israel and the US. Most of these groups emerged after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and the Hamas takeover of the coastal region two years later.

The Hamas government, which feels threatened by these groups, has failed to stop them from exporting terrorists to neighboring countries. The Egyptian authorities have also been unsuccessful in preventing Palestinian jihadis from entering Sinai, which has become a major base for Muslim terrorists.

Toameh schetst een zeer somber beeld van beroepsjihadisten die van het ene naar het andere conflict gaan. Na het staakt het vuren in de Gazastrook hebben ze niks te doen en verleggen ze hun werkterrein naar Syrië. Sinds Israel weg is uit Gaza zouden daar steeds meer radikale splinter groeperingen ontstaan, die vervolgens weer uitwaaieren naar de Sinai en andere landen. Wat ik niet snap is waarom Hamas niet meer tegen deze groepen doet. Tot nu toe hebben ze meen ik wel actie genomen tegen dergelijke groeperingen? Hamas heeft genoeg macht in de Gazastrook om andere organisaties eronder te houden. 

 

RP

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Palestinians Exporting Terrorists to Syria
Where Next?

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3604/palestinian-terrorists-syria

by Khaled Abu Toameh
February 27, 2013 at 5:00 am

The Palestinians who are heading to Syria have been told their next station will be Jordan, then Israel, where, with their friends in Jabhat al-Nusra, they hope to create an pan-Islamic state ruled by Sharia laws.

The Gaza Strip has begun exporting terrorists to other countries. If the terrorists are not stopped, they will start showing up in European capitals and probably cities in the United States.

In contrast to claims by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaderships to the effect that the Palestinians are not taking sides in the conflict, Palestinians are involved in the fighting in Syria.

The Palestinians who are heading to Syria have been told their ultimate mission is to liberate Palestine "from the river to the sea." Once they get rid of Assad, they are told, they will move to their next station -- Jordan. From there, their jihad will take them to Israel, where they and their friends in Jabhat al-Nusra [The Support Front] hope to create a pan-Islamic state ruled by Sharia laws.

According to Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip, in the past few weeks alone, dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip headed to Syria through Turkey to join various radical organizations engaged in the fighting against the army of Bashar al-Assad.

Many of these Palestinians have fallen in love with Jabhat al-Nusra, a group recently designated a terrorist organization by the US and, according to reports in the Arab media, believed to be responsible for some of the massacres against Syrian civilians.

The organization consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of Muslim fundamentalists from several Arab and Islamic countries. Its declared goal is to topple the Assad regime and create an Islamic state.

The Palestinian men who are heading to Syria belong to Salafi and other radical Islamist groups that have been operating in the Gaza Strip over the past few years. Some are also former Hamas members who broke away from the Islamist movement under the pretext that it was too 'moderate.'

Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, the leader of one of the Salafi groups in the Gaza Strip, revealed that in recent weeks at least two Palestinians were killed in the fighting in Syria: Mohamed Kunaita, 32, and Nidal al-Eshi, 23.

More than 1,000 Palestinians, most of them from the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, have been killed in the past few months during the fighting between the rebels and Assad's army.

The camp has been under daily attacks by the Syrian army ever since terrorists belonging to Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist groups found shelter among the Palestinian residents.

The Gaza Strip is swarming with radical Islamist groups whose goal is to destroy Israel and the US. Most of these groups emerged after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and the Hamas takeover of the coastal region two years later.

The Hamas government, which feels threatened by these groups, has failed to stop them from exporting terrorists to neighboring countries. The Egyptian authorities have also been unsuccessful in preventing Palestinian jihadis from entering Sinai, which has become a major base for Muslim terrorists.

The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which was reached after Operations Pillars of Defense three months ago, has left members of various terror groups unemployed.

Now that the jihadis in the Gaza Strip have nothing to do, such as fire rockets at Israel, they have started searching for other places to carry out their terror attacks. They have found no better place than Syria to start sending their men to join some of the radical Islamist organizations fighting against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The US and Western countries would do well to pay serious attention; Syria is not where this trend will stop.