zaterdag 13 september 2014

Getuigenissen van Israelische soldaten uit de Gaza oorlog

 
Hieronder een aantal ooggetuigen verslagen van Israelische soldaten tijdens de recente Gaza oorlog. Ze vertellen allemaal hetzelfde: hoeveel aanvallen worden afgelast omdat er burgers in de buurt zijn, de dilemma’s omdat ze zelf werden beschoten maar terugschieten kan betekenen dat onschuldige kinderen worden getroffen. Hoe ze werden beschoten vanuit scholen en ziekenhuizen. Het zijn verhalen die je vreemd in de oren zullen klinken als je alleen de beelden van het NOS journaal en andere mainstream media hebt gezien, waar vaak wordt gesuggereerd dat Israel lukraak schoot op alles wat los en vast zat. Niet alle soldaten zijn natuurlijk zo zuiver als in de verhalen hieronder, maar dit is op zijn minst ook een kant die het verdient gehoord te worden. Veel soldaten probeerden oprecht om Palestijnse burgers te ontzien, soms met fatale gevolgen voor henzelf of hun maten.
 
.... And you know that this rocket launcher is your target but you can’t attack because you have to wait for clearance to make sure that there are no civilians in the area where the rocket is being launched.
Only once you know your target is clear, and there are no civilians nearby, then that is the time to strike.
I saw several occasions where people ran to the roof of a building that was warned of a strike, or people staying in the house, and that’s the biggest of all the dilemmas we’re facing.
It’s not a question of when something like that happened. Every strike mission I went on had those dilemmas. I can’t recall one strike that I didn’t encounter those exact dilemmas.
Many times as a pilot you’re very close to releasing a bomb, and sometimes five seconds or three seconds to launch, you abort the mission because there are civilians in the vicinity and you’re not willing to take those risks.
Sometimes the civilians aren’t exactly in the target but they’re close enough that you feel that if you attack the target they could get hurt. So sometimes you come back for landing with all your bombs, because you’re waiting two hours and still the target wasn’t clear.
About 20 to 30 percent of the targets I was assigned to were aborted for that reason.
 
Er was een speciale eenheid die erop moest toezien dat een doelwit geraakt kon worden zonder dat er burgers omkwamen.
 
A large percentage of what we’ve been doing is accompanying attacks. So if we’re talking about aerial strikes in the Gaza Strip, any bomb dropped in Gaza had some form of visual intelligence letting them know if we can see any people walking around the area. So if we were about to attack some place which might be near civilian infrastructure—which is most of what we were forced to do since Hamas places themselves within the civilian population—we had cameras in the area to make sure we could minimize civilian causalities as much as possible.
 
So if you’re sent out on a flight to find civilians and make sure attacks aren’t taking place where civilians are, whenever you succeed, you have a feeling of success. I never think, “Well, what are we enabling them to do?” It’s usually only once we’ve landed that we hear attacks have been launched into Israel, and then you look at yourself and say, “Look at how many opportunities have been missed to stop these attacks.” But to protect one innocent life is not worth losing another innocent life. Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians are innocent.
 
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How Hamas Destroys Its People, as Seen Through the Eyes of IDF Soldiers

http://www.thetower.org/article/how-hamas-destroys-its-people-as-seen-through-the-eyes-of-idf-soldiers/

Yardena Schwartz

Freelance journalist and Emmy-nominated producer

Since the beginning of the Gaza War, Israelis have insisted that Hamas uses its own civilians as “human shields.” Hamas denies it, and certain international voices take their side. Now some of those who saw it with their own eyes are speaking out.

It’s been nearly two months since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, and while it seems the hostilities are tentatively over, what has become clear is that despite claims of victory, the civilians of Gaza have paid the heaviest price. What has also become clear is that no matter how many times Israeli officials blame the high civilian death toll on Hamas, that claim continues to fall on deaf ears.
 
Coming from politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett, the words “human shield” sound more like an Israeli public relations slogan than a tragic truth of guerilla warfare. The world has heard the claim that Hamas hides behind its civilians so many times that today the accusation holds very little weight.
 
Perhaps it’s hard to believe that Hamas, a group claiming to fight for Palestinian freedom, would use Palestinian civilians to protect themselves. Or perhaps it’s simply difficult to imagine that any human being would deliberately put innocent people in danger for the sake of winning a media war. Or perhaps it’s merely a lack of evidence, an absence of stories that tell people what the words “human shield” really mean.
 
Only in the past few weeks have reports began to emerge from journalists who have left the Gaza Strip and now feel safe enough to report on Hamas’s tactic of launching rockets from hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure.
 
According to a new report published by the IDF, Hamas launched more than 1,600 rockets from civilian sites.
Yet we still haven’t really heard any substantive, first-hand, on-the-ground stories of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as tools of war. Spoken of even less are the Israeli military’s efforts to limit civilian casualties.
 
Notably, the people we haven’t heard from throughout this information war are the soldiers themselves, the young men who were on the ground in Gaza, fighting the actual war. They, better than anyone else, can speak of their experience fighting against Hamas and the unconventional warfare they faced.
 
Below is a collection of personal stories gathered from soldiers who saw with their own eyes Palestinian civilians being used as strategic elements of Hamas’ fight against Israel. In some cases, only first names have been used in order to protect identities, as some were still in the midst of the operation when interviewed.
 
While they all served in different units, and fought different battles, some from the sky and some from the ground, all of them spoke of their painstaking efforts to protect the lives of Palestinian civilians at the risk of their own lives. Each soldier interviewed for this story had his own personal account, sometimes several accounts, of trying to avoid civilian casualties in the face of Hamas efforts to exploit them. And all of the soldiers shared the same frustration that despite all of their painstaking efforts, the world continues to view Israel’s war in Gaza as a war against humanity, when in their eyes, it is very much a war against a terrorist organization that has taken its own people hostage.
 
Sgt. Jonny S. is a tall, gentle, soft-spoken 24-year-old originally from Maryland. After graduating from the University of Maryland in 2011, he moved to Israel, and began serving in the Givati Brigade in 2013. Jonny had just finished his yearlong training course weeks before being sent into Gaza in July. He returned from Gaza on August 4, days after one of the most difficult days of the war for Israel, and for him personally. Jonny was interviewed on August 12 at the Benji Home for Lone Soldiers in Raanana, where he stays during breaks from the army.
 
In the beginning we were in neighborhoods in Southern Gaza that had all been evacuated a week before. A lot of the houses we searched were booby trapped with explosives. A lot of houses you would go in and find an Israeli soldier uniform, along with Hamas uniforms.
You’d go into the house—just a normal house—and see pictures of a family, a wardrobe in a couple’s room, a children’s room. You’d see children’s toys in one room, and in the next room you’d find an AK-47. So there were no lines between who’s a civilian and who’s a terrorist.
 
We also found a number of tunnel entrances in the area, in the middle of a neighborhood. I don’t even think everyone in the neighborhood knows there’s a tunnel in their neighborhood. The entrance would be in a building, covered by a sofa or a closet. It would just be in a house, someone’s kitchen—a tunnel that led into Israel.
The whole time we barely saw any terrorists. They stayed deeper in the cities where it’s denser, and where the civilians hadn’t been evacuated.
 
There was one point when there was a 24-hour humanitarian ceasefire and during that time civilians came back to their neighborhoods. So at one point we were in a house of a known Hamas affiliate and the owners actually came back to the house. It was eight of them—a dad and seven boys. They weren’t all his children. Some were his nephews. But one of his sons was a Hamas affiliate. He was in his early twenties.
 
When they came back to the house we talked to them and the man said “I don’t know what all my sons are up to. I didn’t know he was affiliated with Hamas.” And I remember him saying, “When I left my house, I locked the doors because I knew that after people left their houses Hamas would go in and booby trap them. So I did that on purpose, so my house wouldn’t be a trap that would explode.”
And his house had stayed locked.
 
The father was actually really nice. He used to work in Israel before the border became contentious. He had a beautiful, gorgeous house, with three stories and lots of rooms. And he said, “The way I was able to pay for this house was because of the years I worked in Israel.”
He said Hamas has ruined their lives here, and that it was great having a good relationship with Israel because it helped him economically. He said that since Hamas came into power, he’d lost the ability to work in Israel, and was just living off of what he had made in Israel.
 
I remember he was joking with my company commander, saying that the best hummus is in Israel, in Petach Tikva. And then he recommended a shakshouka place. It was really funny to hear their conversation. And this was right after we arrested his son. He was a really friendly, nice guy. I think unfortunately he was stuck in the middle of the conflict.
This was before the big event that happened in Rafah…
 
Another time during a ceasefire we were in a house and a 16-year-old boy came into the neighborhood that was supposed to be fully evacuated. So my company commander went out to talk to him, because you know, you don’t know who’s a Hamas affiliate and who’s not. So he talked to him and said, “We know there’s a tunnel in the area, do you know where it is?” And the boy was clearly innocent. You could tell right away. He said “no, we don’t have food, so I just came to the neighborhood to try to find food for my family.”
 
We had like 30 people in the house and we were supposed to have food rations for 24 hours. So the company commander sent his radio control operator upstairs to gather all of our food for the next 24 hours. It was like olives, tuna, beans, nothing that delicious, you know, corn and stuff. And he put it all in a big box. On his way out, I was on guard duty with a guy named Hadar. We had just opened up a pack of gummy worms we had gotten as a donation from Israel, and we put that in there as well.
 
And it was nice, the company commander sent the boy off with the cardboard box. It was nice. We didn’t have food for the next 12 hours; we just had some bread, but he told us were going to get new rations in 12 hours and you don’t know when this kid is going to get food again.
I really respect him for that. He had a really good heart. This is the same commander who had the conversation with the father about shakshouka. His name was Benaya Sarel.
 
It was an hour after the ceasefire, and I think they purposely put a man that looked like a civilian, just a normal man, to kind of entice us to come out to go talk to him, and then waiting down below were a bunch of explosives and a suicide bomber.
On Friday morning [August 1] we went outside and there was a man who was watching from a window. We didn’t know at the time that he was with Hamas. He was about a 40-year-old guy, wearing a blue t-shirt. He didn’t have a gun on him, or not that we saw at least. He had his hands over a windowsill, looking out from the window of a 2-story building. It was an hour after the ceasefire had taken effect. It had gone into effect at 8 AM that morning and it was a little after 9 AM.
So it was the company commander that I keep talking about, Benaya Sarel, Hadar Goldin, and Liel Gidoni, the radio operator who went upstairs to get the food for the kid the other day. It was six of us: those three, me and two others.
 
So we see this guy who looks like a civilian, with his hands leaning on the windowsill. He wasn’t supposed to be there. This area was supposed to be evacuated. Benaya said he wanted to go talk to him, to see if he could get any information from him. So those three went in one direction to talk to him, and I went the other way with the other two guys.
Benaya didn’t feel any imminent danger, or else he wouldn’t have done that. He just didn’t want the guy to run away and get scared. So the three of them walked towards him, and from my point I heard shots ring out and an explosion. And this was supposed to be during a ceasefire.
 
By the time we got there, it had ended. What had happened was that a suicide bomber had come out of a tunnel on the first level of the building where that man was, and had killed all three of them. And I guess the man up above and whoever else was in there, I think it was a few of them, they had dragged Hadar’s body down the tunnel that was on the first floor.
I think the whole thing was a trap. It was an hour after the ceasefire, and I think they purposely put a man that looked like a civilian, just a normal man, to kind of entice us to come out to go talk to him, and then waiting down below were a bunch of explosives and a suicide bomber.
 
When we heard the shots, we ran back to get to them but it had already ended. When we got there, we saw two dead bodies: Benaya and Liel. They had died immediately from the explosives and the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber was dressed in an Israeli uniform.
And that ended up being the tunnel we were looking for all along.
 
Our assistant company commander went into the tunnel after to get Hadar’s body back, not knowing if Hadar was alive or not. And from what he said, it was a very elaborate tunnel. He said you could stand two people, and he’s taller than me, about a meter and 80 or 85 [centimeters—approximately six feet]. He said you could stand tall; you didn’t need to crouch at all. And there was room for two people to walk side by side. And he said there were twists and turns and everything. There was a ridiculous amount of weapons there; it was like a weapons storage center. There were bags of ready-made kits with a gun in there, a vest, and gun magazines. So the terrorists could just grab it and just go out and make an attack.
 
So he went down there and he said he saw that they had dragged Hadar’s body. He saw a trail of blood and just kind of followed it for a while. He realized that it went on for a long time so he came back out.
 
Benaya used to say that the worst kind of event is when you can’t fight back, when you can’t react. That’s exactly what that was. The worst part was that we got there and there was nothing for us to do. All we could do was put them on stretchers and send them back to Israel.
 
Benaya was an amazing commander. People really respected him. There wasn’t a person that didn’t look up to him. But there’s no commander in the army who would have shot that guy in the window who didn’t have a gun on him. When I first saw him, I was looking through the zoom on my gun and my red dot was on him but I wasn’t going to shoot him, because he didn’t have a gun. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be there. I think that’s just part of the IDF’s moral compass. That’s not the way we fight.
 
During guard duty I would sit with Hadar and he would tell me that he’s engaged, getting married in 2 months. He said he wanted to be a doctor after the army. I remember we were sitting on guard duty and he drew a picture of me, it was a goofy picture of a soldier. It was funny. He was just a nice guy.
[Benaya Sarel was also engaged, and his wedding was scheduled to take place on August 21.]
 
 
 

vrijdag 12 september 2014

Nieuws van de week uit Palestina (IPI)

 

 

http://www.israel-palestina.info/actueel/2014/09/11/nieuws-van-de-week-uit-palestina/  

Ratna Pelle

Vorige week werden we verrast door een bericht dat Egypte een stuk land in de Sinaï aanbood aan de Palestijnen om de Palestijnse vluchtelingen te huisvesten. President Abbas zou door een Egyptische functionaris benaderd zijn hierover. Uiteraard wees Abbas het voorstel vriendelijk van de hand, want hij vond dat het vluchtelingenprobleem niet ten koste van Egypte mocht worden opgelost. Welk een altruïsme. Later ontkenden zowel Egypte als Abbas dat het voorstel überhaupt is gedaan. De Jerusalem Post neemt het plan echter nog serieus, en meent zelfs dat de Palestijnse staat hier gesticht zou worden en de Palestijnen op de Westbank slechts autonomie zouden krijgen. Deze staat zou onder controle van de PA komen en gemilitariseerd zijn. Niet heel verassend ziet men wel wat in dat plan en noemt het zelf een ‘game changer’. Ook het CIDI neemt het plan serieus, al zegt men dat de berichten erover verwarrend zijn.

Het is overigens geen origineel plan. In 2004 stelde een groep Israelische wetenschappers onder leiding van het voormalig hoofd van de Nationale Veiligheidsraad Giora Eiland ook al iets dergelijks voor. Dit idee werd toen door Egypte verworpen. Het is bekend dat Egypte de laatste jaren op problemen in de Sinaï stuit vanwege radikale Bedoeïenen en Salafisten die niet alleen smokkelen met de Gazastrook maar ook aanslagen in de Sinaï zelf plegen, dus wellicht dat men daarom niet maalt om een beetje woestijnzand in de Sinaï meer of minder. Anderzijds is het redelijk ongebruikelijk dat landen grondgebied afstaan zonder daar iets voor terug te willen, en het is al helemaal onwaarschijnlijk dat Egypte een staat op de Westbank hiermee zou willen vervangen. Sisi heeft een hekel aan Hamas maar is geen zionist.

Abbas is nog steeds boos op Hamas, en beschuldigt Hamas ervan dat het zo’n 150 Gazanen doodde onder het mom van collaboratie. Een deel van die ‘collaborateurs’ waren mogelijk Fatah leden waar Hamas zo mee af kon rekenen. Ook werden Fatah leden gedwongen in gevaarlijke wijken te blijven waardoor zij dienden als menselijk schild. Abbas heeft gedreigd de eenheidsregering met Hamas op te zeggen als Hamas niet bereid is de macht te delen in de Gazastrook en Fatah troepen de grensbewaking mogen overnemen, wat voorwaarde is voor Israel en Egypte om de grenzen te openen.

Nou dreigt Abbas wel vaker. Zo dreigde hij vorige week om naar het Internationaal Strafhof te stappen en zelfs de PA te ontbinden wanneer Israel zich niet binnen drie jaar terugtrekt uit de Westoever. Zijn plan voorziet verder in onderhandelingen van negen maanden, waarbij de eerste drie maanden uitsluitend over de grenzen wordt gepraat, en een bouwstop gedurende die eerste drie maanden. En oh ja, natuurlijk moet Israel weer Palestijnse gevangenen vrijlaten. Abbas heeft wel vaker gedreigd met het strafhof en ook ontbinding van de PA, dus of het veel indruk heeft gemaakt in Israel is te betwijfelen. Het is ook jammer dat hij zelf bij de laatste onderhandelingsronde wegliep om wederom met van alles te dreigen.

Ondertussen blijken steeds meer van de volgens de VN omgekomen onschuldige burgers in Gaza toch niet geheel onschuldig te zijn. Door het Palestijnse PCHR als onschuldig genoteerd, blijken er op internet foto’s van ze te circuleren in vol militair ornaat. Lastig soms, dat internet. Hoewel, de journalisten die bij westerse kranten werken zijn niet zo doortastend als Elder of Ziyon en nemen de cijfers van de VN (die haar cijfers weer van o.a. het PCHR betrekt) grif over. De ombudsman van de NRC bestond het, na weken oorlog in Gaza en talloze blogs en zelfs artikelen in vooraanstaande kranten over de kwestie, te schrijven dat hij wel ‘meer wou lezen’ over het ‘rekenwerk’ van enkele kranten, waaruit zou blijken dat er in Gaza ‘opvallend veel jonge mannen waren gedood door Israel. Daarmee zou hij kunnen ’wegen hoe buitenproportioneel het geweld nu werkelijk was’. De NRC redactie ontbeerde zelfs die nieuwsgierigheid.

Uit een enquête onder Palestijnen blijkt tenslotte dat de steun voor Hamas door de recente Gaza oorlog enorm is gestegen. Een grote meerderheid steunt het afschieten van raketten ook wanneer daarbij Israelische burgers omkomen. De helft van de ondervraagden vindt het bovendien gerechtvaardigd dat raketten vanuit dichtbevolkt gebied worden afgeschoten. Daarnaast staat een kleine meerderheid achter het doden van de drie Israelische tieners, wat de opmaat vormde voor deze oorlog, en steunt 60% een nieuwe intifada zolang er geen ‘levensvatbare’ onderhandelingen zijn. Deze uitkomsten zijn enigszins bevreemdend, daar je zou verwachten dat men in Gaza even genoeg heeft van oorlog en geweld, en blij is als men zijn huizen weer kan herbouwen. Men gelooft echter heilig dat de overwinning nabij is en in een volgend conflict de zionisten dan toch heus verslagen kunnen worden, precies zoals de propaganda van Hamas en Fatah ze vertelt. Het adagium lijkt als vanouds: geen vrede, geen concessies en vooral geen zwakte tonen. Door het subsidiëren van UNRWA scholen en de ‘salarissen’ van Palestijnse gevangenen werkt het Westen hieraan (onbedoeld) mee.

Hamas en Islamitische Jihad zijn ondertussen alweer druk in de weer om nieuwe tunnels te graven. Een verslaggever van Al Jazeera mocht mee een tunnel in die wordt gegraven door de IJ.

“We are getting these tunnels ready for the next battle, in order to launch attacks and fire mortars and artillery. These tunnels will also have other uses, which we will not disclose,” said a masked militant. The report aired on September 4.

Wordt ongetwijfeld vervolgd.

 

donderdag 11 september 2014

Arab Idols onder vuur door tonen Israel op landkaart

 

De Palestijnse zaak wordt door Arab Idol hoog in het vaandel gevoerd. Israel is dan ook een groot taboe, zoals gebruikelijk in de Arabische wereld. Toch zijn er in Egypte (dat Israel formeel erkent en er een vredesverdrag mee heeft) blijkbaar landkaarten in gebruik die Israel wel weergeven.

 

Wouter

______________

 

"Technischer Fehler": Arabische TV-Show zeigt Israel auf der Karte

http://derstandard.at/2000005409932/Technischer-Fehler-Arabische-TV-Show-zeigt-Israel-auf-der-Karte

 

10. September 2014, 14:39

 

Empörung in arabischer Welt - Verantwortlicher Saudi-Sender MBC muss sich entschuldigen

 

Riad - Die Castingshow "Arab Idols" sorgt im Nahen Osten für politischen Unmut. Nachdem in der Samstagsausgabe der TV-Sendung eine Landkarte zu sehen war, auf welcher der Staat Israel eingetragen war, musste sich nun der verantwortliche saudische Fernsehsender MBC entschuldigen.

 

Die Einblendung Israels sei aufgrund eines "technischen Fehlers" geschehen, sagte ein MBC-Sprecher der Onlineausgabe der saudischen Zeitung "Al-Watan" am Mittwoch. Aufzeichnungen der Sendung seien korrigiert worden.

 

Kampagne gegen den Sender

 

"Arab Idol" sucht - wie "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" - nach Musiktalenten. Die Show deckt den gesamten arabischen Raum ab. In der Samstagfolge wurde zunächst im ägyptischen Kairo, danach in Kuwait gecastet. Eine Illustration zeigte den Flug der Jury vom einen zum anderen Ort - und blendete Israel in der Flugroute ein. Für gewöhnlich wird das Land auf arabischen Karten nicht aufgeführt. Stattdessen steht "Palästina" über dem Landstrich.

 

Kritiker starteten im Internet daraufhin eine Kampagne gegen den Sender MBC. Sie sahen die Israel-Einblendung als "Schande für alle Araber" und forderten den Boykott der Castingshow. (APA, 10.09.2014)

 

Hamas schoot Fatah leden neer tijdens Gaza oorlog

 

In een eerder commentaar hierover vertaalden we curfew met avondklok; in dit geval was huisarrest een betere vertaling geweest, want honderden Fatah leden mochten van Hamas gedurende de hele Gaza oorlog hun huis niet verlaten. Volgens Abbas zijn 120 Fatah leden doodgeschoten door Hamas omdat ze dit toch deden.

 

Wouter

_____________

 

More details on Hamas' shooting Fatah members during the war

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.nl/2014/09/more-details-on-hamas-shooting-fatah.html

 

 

From AFP:

 

Leaving home for the first time in weeks, Abu Jihad was hit by a hail of bullets. His crime? Breaking the house arrest order imposed on him by Hamas.

Abu Jihad is a 27-year-old member of Fatah, the Palestinian nationalist movement headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, whose power base is in the West Bank.

But he lives in the Gaza Strip, which is under the de facto control of Hamas, Fatah’s Islamist rival.

After nine bullets raked his leg, Abu Jihad was transferred for medical treatment to the West Bank and it was from his hospital bed there that he told his story, using a pseudonym to conceal his identity.

“Never in my life did I think I would be attacked by Hamas or by any other Palestinian group,” he said. “I never thought I would be attacked just because I belong to Fatah.”

Back in Gaza, which Hamas began running in 2007 after ousting its Fatah rivals, he and others would never have dared to speak out.

From people on the streets to senior officials, no one allied with Fatah will agree to speak on the record, fearing the consequences after 300 of their number were placed under house arrest by Hamas.

Dozens who failed to respect the order were shot and wounded, among them Abu Jihad.

Such is the fear that many Fatah members have even sought to protect themselves by signing up to become members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas’s smaller, armed rival.

“To avoid being attacked by Hamas, a large number of party members have joined Islamic Jihad,” said a man calling himself Abu Iyyad, explaining that Hamas would never attack an Islamic Jihad member.

On the second day of the 50-day war with Israel, July 9, four armed men dressed in black, their faces masked, turned up at Ibrahim’s house. “My 12-year-old daughter was terrified. She wet herself because she was so panicked when the fighters came in,” he recalled, visibly upset.

Refusing to identify themselves, the men handed over a paper bearing the official emblem of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, on which was written: “For your own security, you are asked not to leave your home for the duration of the war.”

There was no other allegation or explanation. “Our only crime is belonging to Fatah,” he snapped.

Abu Ahmed, 23, also believes he was targeted because of his membership of Fatah.

He was shot 19 times in the legs.

“They held me up against a wall, started shooting and shouted: ‘This is our present to Fatah,’” he told AFP from his hospital bed in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

...But the threats have gone beyond individuals, creating a culture of fear which has affected entire families living in the Gaza Strip.

“In our society, where reputation counts for everything, entire families are now living in fear,” said a senior Fatah official in Gaza who also refused to use his real name.

“ Hamas is undermining the dignity and the patriotism of our activists, some of whom were involved in the fighting, and lost family members in the war,” he said, clearly furious.

Questioned by AFP, Hamas insisted the house arrest orders had “no political significance,” saying they were legal procedures aimed at certain people, “some of whom happened to belong to Fatah.”

 

 

AFP doesn't mention that by putting hundreds of its political rivals under "house arrest" during a war, Hamas was also forcing them to be human shields.

Do you think any of this will be mentioned in the UNHRC "fact finding" mission report?

 

Jeruzalem Light Rail gaat gebukt onder stenengooiers in Arabische wijken

 

De Light Rail (sneltram) door Jeruzalem kreeg bij de aanleg een paar jaren geleden wat media-aandacht in Nederland, omdat enkele actiegroepen hier actie voerden tegen de betrokkenheid van Veolia erbij; omdat het traject ook door Oost-Jeruzalem loopt zou het bijdragen aan de bezetting en illegaal zijn.

 

De ramen zijn kogelbestendig, maar de trams lopen veelvuldig schade op van stenengooiende Arabische jongens, ondanks dat de sneltram ook Arabische wijken bedient, waardoor veel meer moslims het Joodse centrum zijn gaan bezoeken.

 

Wouter

____________

 

Arab Rock Terror Limits Jerusalem Light Rail

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184817#.VA27Lfl_tIF

A mere 16 out of 23 trains remain operational due to repeated rock attacks, leading to lessened frequency of transport for the capital.

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By Yedidya Ben-Or, Ari Yashar

First Publish: 9/7/2014, 9:05 AM

 

Ruined light rail station: 'death to the Jews'

Flash 90

The constant terrorism of rock throwing in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem is becoming an increasing threat, not only for Jews who happen to pass near such neighborhoods but for residents of all parts of the capital city.

CityPass, the company operating Jerusalem's light rail system, announced Sunday morning that "due to continued and repeated rock throwing that inflicts damage to the trains, this morning we only have 16 operable trains out of a total of 23."

"What that means is that fewer than needed trains are active on the line, and the frequency (of trains) throughout the line will be harmed," added CityPass, noting on the long-term effects of the rock terror that has decommissioned nearly half of the trains.

CityPass has been complaining for a while that their train cars have been turned into a target for Arab terrorism, a fact which prevents smooth transportation service to residents of the capital.

The rock terror, which has often targeted Jewish children, has prevented residents of the northern neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev from using the light rail for several weeks, given that the rail passes from there through Beit Hanina and Shuafat, areas of heavy rock attacks.

In early July as Arab riots flared in Jerusalem over the death of an Arab teen, who was killed by a mentally ill man after the murder of three Jewish teens by Hamas terrorists on June 12, violent Arab rioters destroyed three light rail stations, inflicting enormous financial damage to the system.

The light rail was restarted for service in the area later in July, skipping stops in the Beit Hanina and Shuafat areas, but as noted residents of Pisgat Ze'ev remain unable to take the trains due to attacks on them in the area.

After a young father was critically wounded by a rock attack in Judea while driving with his wife and baby daughter last month, Har Hevron Regional Council head Yohai Dimri told Arutz Sheva "this isn't the first time that it's been proven rocks are just as dangerous as gunfire or a rocket."

 

Doden in Arabisch-Israelisch conflict op plaats 49

 

Hier kun je zien hoe Israel scoort ten opzichte van andere conflictgebieden. Het stond in 2007 op nummer 49, tussen Nicaragua en Noord-Vietnam (de Vietnam oorlog staat op 8 met 800.000 doden), gevolgd door Tadjikistan en Guinea. Er zijn in totaal 67 landen/conflictgebieden waar sinds 1950 minimaal 10.000 doden vielen. Van velen hebben we nog nooit gehoord, of een vaag gevoel dat het er ooit weleens onrustig is geweest.

 

0,3% van de moslims die sinds 1948 zijn gedood in het Midden-Oosten is door Israel gedood.

 

RP

-------------

 

 

The question is why some people obsessionaly concentrate on Israel only?

 

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 

Arab-Israeli Fatalities Rank 49th

 

By: Gunnar Heinsohn and Daniel Pipes 
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=28394

FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, October 08, 2007


The Arab-Israeli conflict is often said, not just by extremists, to be the world's most dangerous conflict – and, accordingly, Israel is judged the world's most belligerent country.

For example, British prime minister Tony Blair told the U.S. Congress in July 2003 that "Terrorism will not be defeated without peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is able to confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people the case for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel." This viewpoint leads many Europeans, among others, to see Israel as the most menacing country on earth.

But is this true? It flies in the face of the well-known pattern that liberal democracies do not aggress; plus, it assumes, wrongly, that the Arab-Israeli conflict is among the most costly in terms of lives lost.

To place the Arab-Israeli fatalities in their proper context, one of the two co-authors, Gunnar Heinsohn, has compiled statistics to rank conflicts since 1950 by the number of human deaths incurred. Note how far down the list is the entry in bold type.

Conflicts since 1950 with over 10,000 Fatalities*

1 40,000,000 Red China, 1949-76 (outright killing, manmade famine, Gulag)

2 10,000,000 Soviet Bloc: late Stalinism, 1950-53; post-Stalinism, to 1987 (mostly Gulag)

3 4,000,000 Ethiopia, 1962-92: Communists, artificial hunger, genocides

4 3,800,000 Zaire (Congo-Kinshasa): 1967-68; 1977-78; 1992-95; 1998-present

5 2,800,000 Korean war, 1950-53

6 1,900,000 Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006 (civil wars, genocides)

7 1,870,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91

8 1,800,000 Vietnam War, 1954-75

9 1,800,000 Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001

10 1,250,000 West Pakistan massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh 1971)

11 1,100,000 Nigeria, 1966-79 (Biafra); 1993-present

12 1,100,000 Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000) + after retreat of Portugal 1976-92

13 1,000,000 Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88

14 900,000 Rwanda genocide, 1994

15 875,000 Algeria: against France 1954-62 (675,000); between Islamists and the government 1991-2006 (200,000)

16 850,000 Uganda, 1971-79; 1981-85; 1994-present

17 650,000 Indonesia: Marxists 1965-66 (450,000); East Timor, Papua, Aceh etc, 1969-present (200,000)

18 580,000 Angola: war against Portugal 1961-72 (80,000); after Portugal's retreat (1972-2002)

19 500,000 Brazil against its Indians, up to 1999

20 430,000 Vietnam, after the war ended in 1975 (own people; boat refugees)

21 400,000 Indochina: against France, 1945-54

22 400,000 Burundi, 1959-present (Tutsi/Hutu)

23 400,000 Somalia, 1991-present

24 400,000 North Korea up to 2006 (own people)

25 300,000 Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, 1980s-1990s

26 300,000 Iraq, 1970-2003 (Saddam against minorities)

27 240,000 Columbia, 1946-58; 1964-present

28 200,000 Yugoslavia, Tito regime, 1944-80

29 200,000 Guatemala, 1960-96

30 190,000 Laos, 1975-90

31 175,000 Serbia against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, 1991-1999

32 150,000 Romania, 1949-99 (own people)

33 150,000 Liberia, 1989-97

34 140,000 Russia against Chechnya, 1994-present

35 150,000 Lebanon civil war, 1975-90

36 140,000 Kuwait War, 1990-91

37 130,000 Philippines: 1946-54 (10,000); 1972-present (120,000)

38 130,000 Burma/Myanmar, 1948-present

39 100,000 North Yemen, 1962-70

40 100,000 Sierra Leone, 1991-present

41 100,000 Albania, 1945-91 (own people)

42 80,000 Iran, 1978-79 (revolution)

43 75,000 Iraq, 2003-present (domestic)

44 75,000 El Salvador, 1975-92

45 70,000 Eritrea against Ethiopia, 1998-2000

46 68,000 Sri Lanka, 1997-present

47 60,000 Zimbabwe, 1966-79; 1980-present

48 60,000 Nicaragua, 1972-91 (Marxists/natives etc,)

49 51,000 Arab-Israeli conflict 1950-present

50 50,000 North Vietnam, 1954-75 (own people)

51 50,000 Tajikistan, 1992-96 (secularists against Islamists)

52 50,000 Equatorial Guinea, 1969-79

53 50,000 Peru, 1980-2000

54 50,000 Guinea, 1958-84

55 40,000 Chad, 1982-90

56 30,000 Bulgaria, 1948-89 (own people)

57 30,000 Rhodesia, 1972-79

58 30,000 Argentina, 1976-83 (own people)

59 27,000 Hungary, 1948-89 (own people)

60 26,000 Kashmir independence, 1989-present

61 25,000 Jordan government vs. Palestinians, 1970-71 (Black September)

62 22,000 Poland, 1948-89 (own people)

63 20,000 Syria, 1982 (against Islamists in Hama)

64 20,000 Chinese-Vietnamese war, 1979

65 19,000 Morocco: war against France, 1953-56 (3,000) and in Western Sahara, 1975-present (16,000)

66 18,000 Congo Republic, 1997-99

67 10,000 South Yemen, 1986 (civil war)

*All figures rounded. Sources: Brzezinski, Z., Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, 1993; Courtois, S., Le Livre Noir du Communism, 1997; Heinsohn, G., Lexikon der Völkermorde, 1999, 2nd ed.; Heinsohn, G., Söhne und Weltmacht, 2006, 8th ed.; Rummel. R., Death by Government, 1994; Small, M. and Singer, J.D., Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816-1980, 1982; White, M., "Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century," 2003.

This grisly inventory finds the total number of deaths in conflicts since 1950 numbering about 85,000,000. Of that sum, the deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1950 include 32,000 deaths due to Arab state attacks and 19,000 due to Palestinian attacks, or 51,000 in all. Arabs make up roughly 35,000 of these dead and Jewish Israelis make up 16,000.

These figures mean that deaths Arab-Israeli fighting since 1950 amount to just 0.06 percent of the total number of deaths in all conflicts in that period. More graphically, only 1 out of about 1,700 persons killed in conflicts since 1950 has died due to Arab-Israeli fighting.

(Adding the 11,000 killed in the Israeli war of independence, 1947-49, made up of 5,000 Arabs and 6,000 Israeli Jews, does not significantly alter these figures.)

In a different perspective, some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, or 0.3 percent, died during the sixty years of fighting Israel, or just 1 out of every 315 Muslim fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.

Comments: (1) Despite the relative non-lethality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its renown, notoriety, complexity, and diplomatic centrality will probably give it continued out-sized importance in the global imagination. And Israel's reputation will continue to pay the price. (2) Still, it helps to point out the 1-in-1,700 statistic as a corrective, in the hope that one day, this reality will register, permitting the Arab-Israeli conflict to subside to its rightful, lesser place in world politics. 

Professor Heinsohn is director of the Raphael-Lemkin-Institut für Xenophobie- und Genozidforschung at the University of Bremen. Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum.

 

woensdag 10 september 2014

Appa en de zionistische ideologie (IPI)

 

 

http://www.israel-palestina.info/actueel/2014/09/10/appa-en-de-zionistische-ideologie/  

Open brief, reactie op: Kritiek niet gericht tegen alle joden, ED 5 september 2014

Beste Rachid El Ghazaoui (Appa),

Ik haalde in mijn opiniestuk in het ED Geert Wilders erbij om duidelijk te maken dat ik alle vormen van haatzaaierij en opruiing kwalijk vind, of het nou tegen Marokkanen of het overgrote deel van de Joden is gericht. Dat je daar moeite mee hebt kan ik goed begrijpen, maar dat doet aan de overeenkomsten niets af. Je generaliseert, net als Wilders. Zo zijn er linkse zionisten die al hun leven lang tegen de bezetting strijden (maar ook de Arabische weigering Israël te erkennen hekelen), en er zijn de ultrarechtse kolonisten die alle Arabieren het land uit willen hebben. Jullie schetsen beiden een vijandbeeld dat geen ruimte laat voor nuance, en noemen iedereen laf die zich niet krachtig uitspreekt tegen wat in jullie ogen het kwaad belichaamt.

Je schrijft dat je slechts strijdt tegen de ‘zionistische ideologie’ en de acties van de Israëlische regering, maar je zei op de Dam ‘fuck de Talmoed’ en ‘fuck de zionisten’. Je schetst een beeld van een oppermachtige sinistere zionistische lobby die de wereldpolitiek en media beheerst. Sorry, maar dat heb je niet zelf verzonnen. Het is een oud en bekend antisemitisch thema. Het komt zo uit de Protocollen van de Wijzen van Zion, waar weer gretig gebruik van is gemaakt door de islamisten van Hamas.

Je scheiding van Joden en zionisten is grotendeels kunstmatig, want bijna alle Joden steunen Israëls bestaansrecht en zijn dus ook zionist. Het zionisme is de nationale bevrijdingsbeweging van de Joden. Het ziet de Joden als volk, met nationale aspiraties en rechten. Zionisten hebben soms kritiek op de Israëlische regering, maar zijn ook trots op het leger zonder welk Israël geen dag zou overleven in het Midden-Oosten. Dit leger maakt fouten, maar pleegt geen ‘genocide op de Palestijnen’. Dat is, als je naar de cijfers van het aantal Palestijnse doden in de afgelopen jaren kijkt, echt onzin.

Overigens hebben de Arabische staten wanneer dat zo uitkwam met gemak meer Palestijnen gedood dan Israël in de recente Gaza oorlog, maar daar hoor ik jou en anderen nooit over. Ik hoor jullie ook nooit over de vele doden (ook Palestijnen) in Syrië. Daar waar de echte massaslachtingen  plaatsvinden hou je je mond. Wanneer Israël echter na zelf te zijn aangevallen in een oorlog 2000 Palestijnen doodt (waarvan ca. de helft strijders, zo blijkt o.a. uit de statistieken van de aantallen omgekomen Palestijnen naar leeftijd en geslacht) maak jij de zionisten uit voor moderne Hitlers. Dan ben je behoorlijk hypocriet bezig.

Jij maakt onderscheid tussen goede en slechte Joden. De goede Jood verzet zich samen met de Palestijnen en hun sympathisanten tegen Israël. En omdat je wel met de ‘goede Joden’ wil samenwerken, kan onmogelijk van antisemitisme sprake zijn. Dat is zoiets als het racisme van de slavernij ontkennen omdat er ook slavenhandel werd bedreven door zwarten.

In jouw ogen is heel Israël misdadig en zou niet mogen bestaan. Sterker nog, je roept mensen op om Israël te bestrijden. Het gaat jou en vele anderen in de pro-Palestina beweging, allang niet meer om de bezetting van de Westbank of bepaalde legeroperaties. Israël is echter essentieel voor het overleven van de Joden als volk en ook het voortbestaan van religieuze en culturele tradities. Bovendien hebben Joden die worden bedreigd nu een plaats waar ze altijd terecht kunnen. Daarom zal men Israël niet meer opgeven, en de oproepen van jou en vele anderen om Israël met alle middelen te bestrijden voeden de vijandschap en het conflict.

Je beschuldigt mij van karaktermoord en een persoonlijke aanval gebaseerd op suggesties en aannames. Zelf maak je echter Esther Voet uit voor ‘een smerig mens, een akelige heks’ en noem je antisemitisme ‘de grootste troefkaart van deze smerige achterbakse laffe en hypocriete zionistische lobby met het CIDI voorop’. Als dat geen persoonlijke aanvallen zijn, gebaseerd op baarlijke nonsens. Nu zeg je opeens dat je incidenten tegen Joden veroordeelt, om daar direct aan toe te voegen dat ze in het niet vallen bij de massale moslimhaat.

Ik waag dat te betwijfelen. Zo zie ik, en daar ben ik blij om, moslima’s met hoofddoek achter kassa’s, in bussen, op straat, overal. Ik heb niet de indruk dat ze bang zijn dat hun hoofddoek eraf wordt gerukt of dat ze in het gezicht worden gespuugd, al zullen dergelijke misselijk makende zaken zeker voorkomen. De meeste Joden durven niet meer met een keppel op over straat, doen hun kettinkje met Davidster af en halen hun Mezuza weg. Zeker in plaatsen als Amsterdam waar veel mensen van Marokkaanse komaf wonen, en recent ook in de Schilderswijk in Den Haag. Als je een vent bent dan roep je jouw achterban op om Joden te respecteren, los van de vraag of ze voor of tegen Israël zijn (of hoeven wij ook alleen die Marokkanen te respecteren die tegen de bezetting van de West Sahara zijn, en Turken die de Armeense genocide erkennen en de strijd van de Koerden steunen?), en noem je Esther Voet voortaan bij haar normale achternaam.

Je maakt je kwaad over selectief citeren door mij, maar ik citeerde slechts enkele van de vele opruiende uitspraken uit een serie speeches die behalve veel gescheld ook een vertekend wereldbeeld vol complotten laten zien, dat in de Arabische wereld helaas gemeengoed is.

Ratna Pelle

PS: Lees ook

·         Complotten van ‘zionisten’ en Joden

·         Woede en haat op Gaza demonstratie