donderdag 19 augustus 2010
Johnny Rotten weigert Israël te boycotten
Ik heb weinig met punk, maar Johnny Rotten (bekend van de Sex Pistols) heeft mijn dagje wel goed gemaakt:
"Zolang er geen Arabisch land, geen islamitisch land met een democratie in zicht is, begrijp ik niet dat iemand er een probleem mee heeft hoe zij (de Palestijnen) worden behandeld".
Tenminste een musicus met ballen die lak heeft aan de heersende trend om Israël te verguizen.
Wouter
En: Boycot Israël?
_____________________
Openlijk verzet tegen optredens in Israël
E.J. BRON - 17 AUGUSTUS 2010
Steeds vaker moeten musici zich voor hun concerten in Israël verantwoorden. Openlijke aanvallen van de kant van anti-Israëlische activisten zijn geen uitzondering meer
woensdag 18 augustus 2010
Waarom altijd Israël? Anja Meulenbelt en de focus op Israel
Sympathisanten van Israel wijzen er vaak op dat andere veel ergere conflicten en misdaden veel minder aandacht krijgen. Anja Meulenbelt vindt dit hypocriet, want er is altijd wel een conflict dat erger is dus dan hoef je je nergens meer druk om te maken. Daar gaat het natuurlijk niet om. Het gaat erom dat de focus op Israel en de woede die haar acties oproepen extreme vormen aannemen, en dat kun je goed inzichtelijk maken door ze te vergelijken met andere landen en conflicten. Dat hoeft niet eens zo ver weg te zijn. In buurland Libanon bijvoorbeeld worden Palestijnen gediscimineerd en hebben ze nauwelijks rechten, maar daar hoor je de 'apologeten van de Palestijnen' nooit over. Op mijn IMO blog een uitgebreide repliek op Meulenbelt.
RP
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IMO Blog, 2010
Waarom altijd Israël? Op deze vraag gaat Anja Meulenbelt uitvoerig in in een tweedelig opiniestuk op Joop.nl. Ze reageert op een artikel van Ron en Rosa van der Wieken in Trouw, die meenden dat de eenzijdige focus op Israël een vorm van antisemitisme is, omdat de Joodse staat continu wordt veroordeeld terwijl veel ergere misdaden ongemerkt voorbijgaan. Er wordt dan immers met twee maten gemeten. Volgens Meulenbelt komen 'Israël-apologeten' nu met dit argument omdat zelfs zij niet meer kunnen volhouden dat Israël nooit iets fout doet. Je kunt immers altijd wel op iets wijzen dat erger is dan wat Israël doet, en daarmee zou dus de critici van Israël voorgoed de mond gesnoerd zijn. Zij vergelijkt dit met het jongetje in de zandbak dat zegt 'juf hij doet het ook'.
Ik weet niet wie vroeger beweerden dat Israël nooit wat fout deed, maar ik heb dat nooit gedaan. Ik ken verschillende mensen die Meulenbelt zeker in het pro-Israël kamp zou indelen, maar die op allerlei zaken in Israël kritiek hebben. Ze gebruiken dit argument niet omdat Israël niet op een andere manier te verdedigen is, maar omdat de kritiek vaak zo onredelijk is. Dat wordt vaak pas duidelijk als je die vergelijkt met kritiek op andere landen, met waar we ons bij andere landen wel en niet druk om maken. Daarover later meer.
Israëls bestaansrecht
Meulenbelt beweert dat ze niet tegen Israël is, en ze wil heus de Joden niet allemaal de zee indrijven. Ze zet echter wel degelijk allerlei vraagtekens bij Israëls bestaansrecht. Het had niet op andermans land gesticht mogen worden, en het mag ook geen Joodse staat zijn want dat is racistisch. Bovendien deugt het zionistische karakter van Israël niet. Het moet een multi-etnische democratie worden. Al eerder heeft ze ervoor gepleit dat alle vluchtelingen (en hun miljoenen nakomelingen) naar Israël moeten kunnen terugkeren, waarmee aan de Joodse meerderheid een einde zou komen, iets dat haar geen enkel probleem lijkt, integendeel. De idee dat Israël niet Joods mag zijn is onzinnig. Israël is gesticht door Joden omdat zij een eigen staat wilden, een plek waar ze niet een op zijn best getolereerde minderheid zijn die zich moet aanpassen en altijd het gevaar loopt te worden gediscrimineerd en erger, maar waar ze hun lot in eigen handen kunnen nemen, waar hun taal en tradities en religie dominant zijn. Dat is niet racistisch, het is juist racistisch dit recht van de Joden te ontkennen en hun nationale beweging als racistisch te delegitimeren. Het zionisme is net zo legitiem als ieder ander nationalisme, en de Joodse wens tot zelfbeschikking is net zo legitiem als die van andere volken. Juist het Joodse nationalisme in diskrediet brengen, nadat de Joden tweeduizend jaar zijn vervolgd, is bijzonder kwalijk. In een ideale wereld zouden er wellicht geen natie-staten zijn en zouden wij allen wereldburgers van de wereldstaat zijn waar iedereen altijd wordt gerespecteerd, maar in een wereld van natie-staten is een Joodse staat niet minder legitiem dan welke andere staat ook. Natuurlijk moeten Arabieren er gelijke rechten hebben, zoals dat ook geldt voor minderheden in andere landen, maar naar verhouding doet Israël het wat dat betreft helemaal niet slecht. Er zijn een paar restricties die vooral met de veiligheid te maken hebben, en er is veel wederzijdse animositeit als gevolg van het conflict, maar op bijna alle gebieden zijn Arabieren voor de wet gelijk en ze halen hun gelijk geregeld bij de rechter. In sommige opzichten doet Israël het zelfs beter dan Nederland of andere Europese landen. Zo is het daar doodnormaal dat Arabische vrouwen in hoofddoek of niqaab lopen, dat om vier uur 's nachts wordt opgeroepen tot het gebed en is Arabisch er een officiële taal.
Volgens Meulenbelt is het conflict pas op te lossen als Israël ophoudt Joods te zijn. Daarmee raakt ze inderdaad aan de kern van het conflict: zolang de Arabische wereld, gesteund door een steeds grotere groep 'mensenrechtenactivisten' en politici in Europa, blijft eisen dat Israël ophoudt Joods te zijn, en daarmee dus in feite ophoudt met Israël te zijn, kan het conflict niet worden opgelost. De essentie van een tweestatenoplossing is juist dat beide volken recht hebben op zelfbeschikking, en zoals de Palestijnse staat Arabisch mag zijn mag Israël Joods zijn. Het is overigens vreemd dat Meulenbelt er geen probleem mee lijkt te hebben dat de Arabische buurlanden van Israël allemaal niet alleen een grote Arabische meerderheid hebben, maar de islam er de dominante religie is met vaak aanzienlijke restricties en problemen voor niet-islamitische minderheden. Veel Europese landen zijn christelijk van karakter, en in sommige landen is het christendom de officiële godsdienst. Ook in sommige Europese landen bemoeit het christendom zich met allerlei zaken in het leven, van abortus tot echtscheiding tot je sexuele geaardheid en of homo's mogen trouwen. Of dat een ideale situatie is is een andere vraag, maar de invloed van de Joodse religie in Israël is niet zo uniek als Meulenbelt het doet voorkomen.
Twee maten
Meulenbelt zegt er erg voor te zijn dat ook onrecht elders aangepakt wordt en dat de normen van het internationaal recht op iedereen van toepassing zijn, en dat we daarom niet van Israël moeten goedvinden wat we van andere landen ook niet accepteren. Maar het is juist omgekeerd: we kijken weg wanneer China Tibetanen opsluit of uit hun huizen zet, wanneer Marokko de West Sahara inpikt en koloniseert en er een muur omheen zet, wanneer het leger van Sri Lanka de Tamil Tijgers een kopje kleiner maakt en daarbij tienduizenden burgers omkomen. We keken weg toen de Janjaweed honderdduizenden onschuldige burgers verkrachtte, doodde en hun huizen in brand stak en we keken weg toen in Kongo miljoenen mensen omkwamen bij een van de vreselijkste burgeroorlogen. Of beter gezegd, we keken er van een veilige afstand naar en zeiden tegen elkaar: 't is toch wat, hoe men elkaar daar afmaakt. We accepteren dus in feite juist veel meer van andere landen, of vinden in elk geval dat ze het zelf maar moeten uitzoeken.
Meulenbelt zegt terecht dat we ons niet met alles tegelijk kunnen bezighouden, en dat je je soms op één zaak moet focussen om iets te bereiken, maar het is wel erg opvallend hoeveel mensen zich juist op Israël focussen in verhouding tot de vele veel schrijnendere conflicten. Problematischer is echter de eendimensionale manier waarop ze dat doen, waardoor men olie op het vuur gooit.
Ik weet niet wie vroeger beweerden dat Israël nooit wat fout deed, maar ik heb dat nooit gedaan. Ik ken verschillende mensen die Meulenbelt zeker in het pro-Israël kamp zou indelen, maar die op allerlei zaken in Israël kritiek hebben. Ze gebruiken dit argument niet omdat Israël niet op een andere manier te verdedigen is, maar omdat de kritiek vaak zo onredelijk is. Dat wordt vaak pas duidelijk als je die vergelijkt met kritiek op andere landen, met waar we ons bij andere landen wel en niet druk om maken. Daarover later meer.
Israëls bestaansrecht
Meulenbelt beweert dat ze niet tegen Israël is, en ze wil heus de Joden niet allemaal de zee indrijven. Ze zet echter wel degelijk allerlei vraagtekens bij Israëls bestaansrecht. Het had niet op andermans land gesticht mogen worden, en het mag ook geen Joodse staat zijn want dat is racistisch. Bovendien deugt het zionistische karakter van Israël niet. Het moet een multi-etnische democratie worden. Al eerder heeft ze ervoor gepleit dat alle vluchtelingen (en hun miljoenen nakomelingen) naar Israël moeten kunnen terugkeren, waarmee aan de Joodse meerderheid een einde zou komen, iets dat haar geen enkel probleem lijkt, integendeel. De idee dat Israël niet Joods mag zijn is onzinnig. Israël is gesticht door Joden omdat zij een eigen staat wilden, een plek waar ze niet een op zijn best getolereerde minderheid zijn die zich moet aanpassen en altijd het gevaar loopt te worden gediscrimineerd en erger, maar waar ze hun lot in eigen handen kunnen nemen, waar hun taal en tradities en religie dominant zijn. Dat is niet racistisch, het is juist racistisch dit recht van de Joden te ontkennen en hun nationale beweging als racistisch te delegitimeren. Het zionisme is net zo legitiem als ieder ander nationalisme, en de Joodse wens tot zelfbeschikking is net zo legitiem als die van andere volken. Juist het Joodse nationalisme in diskrediet brengen, nadat de Joden tweeduizend jaar zijn vervolgd, is bijzonder kwalijk. In een ideale wereld zouden er wellicht geen natie-staten zijn en zouden wij allen wereldburgers van de wereldstaat zijn waar iedereen altijd wordt gerespecteerd, maar in een wereld van natie-staten is een Joodse staat niet minder legitiem dan welke andere staat ook. Natuurlijk moeten Arabieren er gelijke rechten hebben, zoals dat ook geldt voor minderheden in andere landen, maar naar verhouding doet Israël het wat dat betreft helemaal niet slecht. Er zijn een paar restricties die vooral met de veiligheid te maken hebben, en er is veel wederzijdse animositeit als gevolg van het conflict, maar op bijna alle gebieden zijn Arabieren voor de wet gelijk en ze halen hun gelijk geregeld bij de rechter. In sommige opzichten doet Israël het zelfs beter dan Nederland of andere Europese landen. Zo is het daar doodnormaal dat Arabische vrouwen in hoofddoek of niqaab lopen, dat om vier uur 's nachts wordt opgeroepen tot het gebed en is Arabisch er een officiële taal.
Volgens Meulenbelt is het conflict pas op te lossen als Israël ophoudt Joods te zijn. Daarmee raakt ze inderdaad aan de kern van het conflict: zolang de Arabische wereld, gesteund door een steeds grotere groep 'mensenrechtenactivisten' en politici in Europa, blijft eisen dat Israël ophoudt Joods te zijn, en daarmee dus in feite ophoudt met Israël te zijn, kan het conflict niet worden opgelost. De essentie van een tweestatenoplossing is juist dat beide volken recht hebben op zelfbeschikking, en zoals de Palestijnse staat Arabisch mag zijn mag Israël Joods zijn. Het is overigens vreemd dat Meulenbelt er geen probleem mee lijkt te hebben dat de Arabische buurlanden van Israël allemaal niet alleen een grote Arabische meerderheid hebben, maar de islam er de dominante religie is met vaak aanzienlijke restricties en problemen voor niet-islamitische minderheden. Veel Europese landen zijn christelijk van karakter, en in sommige landen is het christendom de officiële godsdienst. Ook in sommige Europese landen bemoeit het christendom zich met allerlei zaken in het leven, van abortus tot echtscheiding tot je sexuele geaardheid en of homo's mogen trouwen. Of dat een ideale situatie is is een andere vraag, maar de invloed van de Joodse religie in Israël is niet zo uniek als Meulenbelt het doet voorkomen.
Twee maten
Meulenbelt zegt er erg voor te zijn dat ook onrecht elders aangepakt wordt en dat de normen van het internationaal recht op iedereen van toepassing zijn, en dat we daarom niet van Israël moeten goedvinden wat we van andere landen ook niet accepteren. Maar het is juist omgekeerd: we kijken weg wanneer China Tibetanen opsluit of uit hun huizen zet, wanneer Marokko de West Sahara inpikt en koloniseert en er een muur omheen zet, wanneer het leger van Sri Lanka de Tamil Tijgers een kopje kleiner maakt en daarbij tienduizenden burgers omkomen. We keken weg toen de Janjaweed honderdduizenden onschuldige burgers verkrachtte, doodde en hun huizen in brand stak en we keken weg toen in Kongo miljoenen mensen omkwamen bij een van de vreselijkste burgeroorlogen. Of beter gezegd, we keken er van een veilige afstand naar en zeiden tegen elkaar: 't is toch wat, hoe men elkaar daar afmaakt. We accepteren dus in feite juist veel meer van andere landen, of vinden in elk geval dat ze het zelf maar moeten uitzoeken.
Meulenbelt zegt terecht dat we ons niet met alles tegelijk kunnen bezighouden, en dat je je soms op één zaak moet focussen om iets te bereiken, maar het is wel erg opvallend hoeveel mensen zich juist op Israël focussen in verhouding tot de vele veel schrijnendere conflicten. Problematischer is echter de eendimensionale manier waarop ze dat doen, waardoor men olie op het vuur gooit.
Lees verder op: http://www.zionism-israel.com/blog/archives/00000483.html
"Israel en VS vergiftigden Yasser Arafat" volgens Palestijnen
"Yesterday they crucified Jesus; today they poisoned the father, the Elder [Arafat]."
Uit een opvoering op een cultureel festival georganiseerd door de PLO, de beweging die zogenaamd Israel zou erkennen en bereid zijn er mee te onderhandelen.
Khaled Mismar, member of the PLO's Palestinian National Council:
"[In 2003] Israel, with the support of the new American administration of President Bush, laid oppressive siege to our late symbol, Yasser Arafat, until they got him with poison, since they weren't able to kill him using their tanks, which besieged his home in Ramallah. The details of the story are known to everyone, young and old, among our Palestinian people and throughout the world."
Arafat stierf vermoedelijk aan AIDS, maar dat is natuurlijk een groot taboe in de Palestijnse samenleving. Van alles wat niet goed gaat krijgt Israel de schuld, en het opvallende is dat men daar verbluffend goed mee wegkomt in het Westen.
RP
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PMW Bulletin
Aug. 16, 2010
PA Libel: Israel and the US
poisoned Yasser Arafat
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2805
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
poisoned Yasser Arafat
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2805
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
The Palestinian Authority continues to spread the libel that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat -- with the approval and help of the United States. Palestinian Media Watch has for years documented this recurring libel, which is spread by PA and Fatah leaders, academics and clerics. It is even disseminated through cultural events and media messages for children.
Earlier this summer, in a dramatic performance at a PLO cultural festival, two young Palestinian boys lamented Arafat's death, and compared his death at the hands of the Jews to the death of Jesus:
Boy 1 [addressing Arafat]: "Father, father the Elder [Arafat]. Why did it happen this way? Why did it happen this way? Death chose you, and you did not complete the path."
Boy 2: "Do not ask why it happened this way. Yesterday they crucified Jesus; today they poisoned the father, the Elder [Arafat]."
[PA TV (Fatah), June 4, 2010]
The PA Minister of Culture was present at this performance.
The following accusation that Israel killed Arafat, written by a Fatah member of the PLO's Palestinian National Council, appeared this week in the official PA daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:
Khaled Mismar, member of the PLO's Palestinian National Council:
"[In 2003] Israel, with the support of the new American administration of President Bush, laid oppressive siege to our late symbol, Yasser Arafat, until they got him with poison, since they weren't able to kill him using their tanks, which besieged his home in Ramallah. The details of the story are known to everyone, young and old, among our Palestinian people and throughout the world."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 10, 2010]
Nashat Al-Aqatsh, a lecturer at Bir-Zeit University, said in July while discussing the peace process:
"In the past [Israel claimed] no Palestinian partner existed, and they [Israel] killed the late Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat."
[PA TV (Fatah), July 27, 2010]
Click to see PMW web site with more examples documenting the ongoing PA libel that Israel killed Arafat.
PMW | King George 59 | Jerusalem | Israel
Nieuwe Libanese wet geeft Palestijnen recht om in Libanon te werken
Libanon heeft de omstandigheden van de Palestijnse vluchtelingen wat versoepeld en ze kunnen nu op meer gebieden werken, al blijven een aantal banen nog steeds onbereikbaar. Opvallend is, dat de Libanese discriminatie van Palestijnen zelden de verontwaardiging oproept van apologeten van de Palestijnen. Palestijnen leven er onder beroerde omstandigheden en hebben er geen rechten.
RP
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Report: Lebanon grants refugees work rights
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308810
Published today (updated) 17/08/2010 21:20
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308810
Published today (updated) 17/08/2010 21:20
BEIRUT (Ma'an) -- Lebanon's parliament on Tuesday adopted a law granting full employment rights to the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in the country, a high-ranking official told Agence France-Presse.
"Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund," the official said.
In June, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Syrian Social National Party forwarded a draft law to the Lebanese parliament granting Palestinians in Lebanon access to property ownership, social security benefits, and various professions.
Voting on the draft legislation is due on 17 August, after the process was postponed twice in a bid to achieve consensus.
Approximately 425,000 refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with many living in the country's 12 refugee camps. According to UNRWA, the UN body set up to assist Palestinian refugees, in 2005, officially registered Palestine refugees born in Lebanon were allowed by law to work in the clerical and administrative sectors for the first time.
However, refugees remain unable to work in some professions as doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, or accountants.
Shortly after the bill was proposed, PLO representative to Lebanon Abdallah Abdallah said there was no intent for Palestinians to ask for political rights or access to state social services. "What the Palestinians want is the right to work like any other foreign nationals," he said.
In February, Fatah's secretary-general in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Enayn, publicly confirmed his resignation from his post over a failure of the Palestinian leadership to heed his warnings of increasingly grim circumstances faced by refugees.
======
"Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund," the official said.
In June, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Syrian Social National Party forwarded a draft law to the Lebanese parliament granting Palestinians in Lebanon access to property ownership, social security benefits, and various professions.
Voting on the draft legislation is due on 17 August, after the process was postponed twice in a bid to achieve consensus.
Approximately 425,000 refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with many living in the country's 12 refugee camps. According to UNRWA, the UN body set up to assist Palestinian refugees, in 2005, officially registered Palestine refugees born in Lebanon were allowed by law to work in the clerical and administrative sectors for the first time.
However, refugees remain unable to work in some professions as doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, or accountants.
Shortly after the bill was proposed, PLO representative to Lebanon Abdallah Abdallah said there was no intent for Palestinians to ask for political rights or access to state social services. "What the Palestinians want is the right to work like any other foreign nationals," he said.
In February, Fatah's secretary-general in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Enayn, publicly confirmed his resignation from his post over a failure of the Palestinian leadership to heed his warnings of increasingly grim circumstances faced by refugees.
======
Fatah welcomes new Lebanese law
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308831
Published today (updated) 17/08/2010 21:20
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Fatah said it welcomed the passing of a law in the Lebanese parliament on Tuesday, which granted Palestinian refugees full employment rights a spokesman said.
Party spokesman Ahmad Assaf said the decision was "a step in the right direction" and would lessen the burden on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
The law gives the more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon access to previously prohibited professions in the fields of medicine, law, engineering and finance. Concern over Palestinian influence on both the Lebanese economy and the political sphere both kept refugees isolated from the workforce and in the camps.
"The Palestinian presence in Lebanon is temporary and President Mahmoud Abbas emphasized this when he said we are guests in Lebanon," Assaf added, addressing concerns that the law would destabilize efforts to secure the right of return for Palestinians to their homes and a Palestinian state.
Thanking Lebanese leaders and parties, Assaf said the refugee issue will be concluded once Palestinians are afforded the right of return under UN resolution 194.
Agence France-Presse quoted a high ranking Lebanese official following the passing of the law, saying, "Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund."
Party spokesman Ahmad Assaf said the decision was "a step in the right direction" and would lessen the burden on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
The law gives the more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon access to previously prohibited professions in the fields of medicine, law, engineering and finance. Concern over Palestinian influence on both the Lebanese economy and the political sphere both kept refugees isolated from the workforce and in the camps.
"The Palestinian presence in Lebanon is temporary and President Mahmoud Abbas emphasized this when he said we are guests in Lebanon," Assaf added, addressing concerns that the law would destabilize efforts to secure the right of return for Palestinians to their homes and a Palestinian state.
Thanking Lebanese leaders and parties, Assaf said the refugee issue will be concluded once Palestinians are afforded the right of return under UN resolution 194.
Agence France-Presse quoted a high ranking Lebanese official following the passing of the law, saying, "Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund."
Zweedse bergen met de naam 'Little Hitler' en '3rd Reich' storen sommige klimmers
Nooit geweten dat bergbeklimmers zulke nazi sympathisanten zijn. Het is wel erg toevallig dat verschillende bergtoppen in Zweden dergelijke onsmakelijke namen hebben gekregen, en dat daar blijkbaar niet eerder mensen over hebben geklaagd. Namen die de bergtoppen kregen waren onder andere: "Swastika", "3rd Reich" "Zyklon" "Kristallnacht", "Crematorium" ,"Himmler" en "little Hitler".
De Zweedse vereniging van bergbeklimmers zegt dat ze niet op de hoogte was van de onsmakelijke bergnamen, maar voegde eraan toe dat de namen soms 'inside jokes' zijn van de klimmers.
En inderdaad, een klimmer Mikael Widerberg genaamd, die in 2001 aan een berg de naam "Little Hitler" gaf, vertelde de plaatselijke krant dat de namen als een "interne zaak van de klimmers" moeten worden beschouwd. Hij voegde daaraan toe dat "er nog andere bergen zijn die genoemd zijn naar ergere zaken".
Erg grappig inderdaad. Werkt de schone en zuivere berglucht zo inspirerend of waren die lui wat in de war geraakt door de ijle lucht daarboven? Of zou je, hoog boven de aarde verheven, sneller tot het ideeëngoed van de nazi's worden aangetrokken? Hoe het ook zij, bergen zijn niet het bezit van bergbeklimmers en de namen zouden dat ook niet moeten zijn.
RP
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Zweedse bergen met de naam 'Little Hitler' en '3rd Reich' storen sommige klimmers
Woensdag 18 Augustus 2010 14:50
Stel u het volgende voor: u bent aan het wandelen in de prachtige Zweedse bergen, je bereikt na lang zwoegen een bergtop, en het bord op de top vertelt u dat de naam van de klim die u net achter de rug hebt "Swastika", "3rd Reich" of "Zyklon" is.
Dat is precies wat er de afgelopen jaren aan het gebeuren is in de populaire Jarfalla-bergketen in de buurt van de Zweedse hoofdstad Stockholm, waar verschillende bergen van klimmers nazi-getinte namen hebben gekregen.
Volgens de Zweedse wet kunnen de klimmers die als eerste de top bereiken de naam geven die ze willen. Andere namen die in die regio aan de bergen werden gegeven zijn "Kristallnacht", "Crematorium" en "Himmler".
Maar nu, meer dan een decennium nadat ze werden benoemd, zijn andere klimmers beginnen te klagen. Klimmer Cordelia Hess vertelde aan de Zweedse krant Dagens Nyheter: "Ik vond het erg onprettig om het 'Crematorium' te beklimmen, of om te zeggen dat ik 'nu de 'Kristallnacht' ga doen'."
"Het gebruik van deze namen op klimroutes is om de Holocaust te bagatelliseren en om het respect voor de Holocaust te ondermijnen," zei ze.
De Zweedse vereniging van bergbeklimmers zegt dat ze niet op de hoogte was van de onsmakelijke bergnamen, maar voegde eraan toe dat de namen soms 'inside jokes' zijn van de klimmers.
En inderdaad, een klimmer Mikael Widerberg genaamd, die in 2001 aan een berg de naam "Little Hitler" gaf, vertelde de plaatselijke krant dat de namen als een "interne zaak van de klimmers" moeten worden beschouwd. Hij voegde daaraan toe dat "er nog andere bergen zijn die genoemd zijn naar ergere zaken".
Een paar jaar geleden werd de naam van een berg in de buurt van Karlstad, "Negro", veranderd nadat een zwarte persoon aangaf dat hij zich beledigd voelde. De Israëlische ambassade in Stockholm was op de hoogte van de feiten, maar had geen commentaar op de controverse.
Israel zal atoomprogramma Iran voorlopig niet aanvallen
Van tijd tot tijd verschijnen er berichten in de media dat Israel binnenkort Iran gaat aanvallen. De aanval komt er niet, maar de berichten blijven verschijnen. Midden-Oosten deskundige Barry Rubin legt hieronder tweemaal uit waarom het voorlopig niet zover zal komen.
RP
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Friday, August 13, 2010
By Barry Rubin
There's been a new round of speculation on Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran from getting nuclear weapons. I will repeat my earlier point: This is not about to happen, certainly not in the next year and, in my opinion, better not to happen at all.
Again, Israel will retain its option to attack at a time of its choosing, if and when it feels there is a threat of Iran's actually using nuclear weapons against itself and when its defensive and offensive abilities are at a peak. By the way, the United States is starting to deliver 20 new F-35s, the world's best air superiority fighter plane, after more than five years of discussions. This is another sign that U.S.-Israel relations are going well at present.
For those who want to understand why it's wrong to assume that the issue is simply one of Iran getting nuclear weapons on some given day, see a good analysis by one of the most creative and well-informed arms' control experts.
==================
No, Israel Is Not About to Attack Iran Now, Here's Why
This article was published by PajamasMedia using their title. I want to make it clear that in saying "will" Israel attack Iran, they are giving a headline to an article saying that this is not going to happen in the near future. I'm not saying it will never happen.
By Barry Rubin
By Barry Rubin
How do you know someone has no idea what they're talking about? Answer: They predict that Israel is about to attack Iran.
From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.
First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.
Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions' era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.
Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don't understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that's not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.
In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime's leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime's downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?
This is happening to some extent in Iran today.
Moreover, sanctions are intended to isolate the regime, so that it loses allies and trading partners. This is happening to a lesser extent, because the U.S. government is in effect making a deal with Russia, China, Turkey, and Brazil to break the sanctions in exchange for giving them formal support.
Will sanctions stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Almost certainly, the answer is "no." Yet, from Israel's standpoint, this effort must be given every chance. Only if the Western countries are satisfied that every diplomatic and sanctions'-related effort has been fully tried—and very probably not even then!—would they support military action.
A third factor is a fundamental reality of international affairs: there is no compelling reason for Israel to act now and it has other problems to deal with. Iran's obtaining a deliverable nuclear weapon is at least two, probably three, and perhaps four years off. Why do something now? There's no motive to do so. The idea that something must or will be done immediately is a fiction among those who really don't know much about the situation but perhaps have a thirst for action, a hunger for some decisive event that will easily and neatly solve the whole problem with one blow.
Leaders want to postpone tough decisions where the possibility of a catastrophic mistake as long as possible and one can hardly blame them.
Fourth, even if Israel wanted to attack now—which it doesn't—such an action would not enjoy U.S. support and cooperation. During the current period, U.S.-Israel relations are very shaky, despite the fact that they are all right at this particular moment, though for how long is an open question. The Obama Administration tends to oppose the use of force, deplore unilateralism, dislike taking a strong lead, and seeks to distance itself from Israel more than was true for its predecessors.
If the decision of a lowly local zoning board in Jerusalem to build a few apartment buildings set off a huge storm in bilateral relations, what would an Israeli attack on Iran do?
Don't forget, too, that U.S. troops are in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with periodic hints from the U.S. side that precipitate Israeli action could endanger them. Yet two or three years from now, those soldiers, or almost all of them, will be gone from the region. If that is going to coincide with Iran getting nuclear weapons, all the more reason to wait.
Finally, there are an increasing number of voices in the Israeli political, military, and intelligence establishment arguing that Israel should not wage a preemptive attack on Iran at all for a variety of reasons. When one adds up all these factors, it is rather clear that no such attack is imminent.
From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.
First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.
Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions' era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.
Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don't understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that's not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.
In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime's leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime's downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?
This is happening to some extent in Iran today.
Moreover, sanctions are intended to isolate the regime, so that it loses allies and trading partners. This is happening to a lesser extent, because the U.S. government is in effect making a deal with Russia, China, Turkey, and Brazil to break the sanctions in exchange for giving them formal support.
Will sanctions stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Almost certainly, the answer is "no." Yet, from Israel's standpoint, this effort must be given every chance. Only if the Western countries are satisfied that every diplomatic and sanctions'-related effort has been fully tried—and very probably not even then!—would they support military action.
A third factor is a fundamental reality of international affairs: there is no compelling reason for Israel to act now and it has other problems to deal with. Iran's obtaining a deliverable nuclear weapon is at least two, probably three, and perhaps four years off. Why do something now? There's no motive to do so. The idea that something must or will be done immediately is a fiction among those who really don't know much about the situation but perhaps have a thirst for action, a hunger for some decisive event that will easily and neatly solve the whole problem with one blow.
Leaders want to postpone tough decisions where the possibility of a catastrophic mistake as long as possible and one can hardly blame them.
Fourth, even if Israel wanted to attack now—which it doesn't—such an action would not enjoy U.S. support and cooperation. During the current period, U.S.-Israel relations are very shaky, despite the fact that they are all right at this particular moment, though for how long is an open question. The Obama Administration tends to oppose the use of force, deplore unilateralism, dislike taking a strong lead, and seeks to distance itself from Israel more than was true for its predecessors.
If the decision of a lowly local zoning board in Jerusalem to build a few apartment buildings set off a huge storm in bilateral relations, what would an Israeli attack on Iran do?
Don't forget, too, that U.S. troops are in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with periodic hints from the U.S. side that precipitate Israeli action could endanger them. Yet two or three years from now, those soldiers, or almost all of them, will be gone from the region. If that is going to coincide with Iran getting nuclear weapons, all the more reason to wait.
Finally, there are an increasing number of voices in the Israeli political, military, and intelligence establishment arguing that Israel should not wage a preemptive attack on Iran at all for a variety of reasons. When one adds up all these factors, it is rather clear that no such attack is imminent.
===========
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
dinsdag 17 augustus 2010
Van Agt: Niet praten met PVV, wel met Hamas
Syp Winia is niet de eerste die wijst op het feit dat Dries van Agt helemaal geen problemen heeft om met Hamas te praten (een organisatie die zwaar antisemitisch is en zoveel mogelijk Joden wil doden), maar regeren met de PVV absoluut onaanvaardbaar acht omdat dit een racistische partij zou zijn. Ook ik ben niet voor een regering met gedoogsteun van de PVV, en ik vind dat de VVD achterban opvallend stil is terwijl men zulke grote problemen had met dat vreselijke GroenLinks en het Rode Gevaar van de PvdA.
Maar ik ben dan ook fel tegen praten met Hamas, of van Israel eisen dit te doen. 'Onderhandelen doe je niet met je vrienden maar met je vijanden' luidt het bekende cliché, maar praten doe je ook als je verwacht samen verder te komen, als er een opening is en een bereidheid naar elkaar te luisteren. En die is er niet bij Hamas, dat niet alleen in haar Handvest oproept tot de vernietiging van de Joden en Israel, maar ook geregeld in toespraken en vrijdagdiensten dergelijke taal bezigt. Zij doet er alles aan om onderhandelingen tussen Israel en de PA of andere Arabische staten te torpederen, en heeft ook nu weer tegen directe onderhandelingen gepleit. Hamas voert in de Gaza Strook een dictatoriaal bewind waarbij vrouwen worden onderdrukt en de vrijheid van meningsuiting drastisch ingeperkt. Zelfs pro-Palestijnen als Amira Hass zijn hier zeer kritisch over.
Als de PVV niet anti-islamitisch maar anti-Joods was geweest, vraag ik me af of Van Agt er enig probleem mee zou hebben gehad.
RP
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Weblog Vrouw van de Wereld
Van Agt: Niet praten met PVV, wel met Hamas
dinsdag 17 augustus 2010 10:50
Ik verheug me nu al op de boze oude CDA-coryfee die zich morgen uit de leunstoel hijst om de wereld te vertellen hoe het zit. Want het lijkt wel een gecoördineerde actie tussen sommige kranten en oude politici. Het is leuk als oude mensen een mening hebben. Maar ze moeten niet zo betweterig zijn.
Gisteren was daar Dries van Agt met een waarschuwend betoog in de Volkskrant. Van Agt is een late bekeerling tot de Palestijnse zaak en die zijn altijd het ergst. Handig vond ik wel dat hij het PVV-verkiezingsprogramma nog even bondig wist samen te vatten. Maar als zijn partij met de PVV praat, dan daalt rampspoed op ons neer, dat was wel duidelijk. De zeven plagen van Egypte zouden er niets bij zijn.
Hamas
Van Agt babbelt liever met Hamas. Dat kan namelijk wel. Die hebben in hun handvest staan dat er een einde gemaakt moet worden aan de staat Israel, en ik neem aan dat ze dan ook alle inwoners bedoelen, want anders heb je het nergens over. Moeten we natuurlijk allemaal niet zo letterlijk nemen, zeggen mensen dan sussend. Zal wel. Maar dat is nog even wat anders dan tegen mensen zeggen dat je ze liever niet in je land wilt hebben, al is dat ook niet zo aardig van Wilders. De PVV is de zachtmoedigheid en vriendelijkheid zelve vergeleken met Hamas.
Vorige week was er op het nieuws een itempje over Hamas, die steeds strengere islamitische regels opleggen aan vrouwen. Die moeten zich aan allerlei kledingvoorschriften houden: bedekte armen, bedekt hoofd. Een van die vrouwen werd aan het woord gelaten en ze vond het vreselijk. Volgens de verslaggever deed Hamas juist extra islamitisch om fundamentalisten de wind uit de zeilen te nemen. Nou, ik slaakte een zucht van verlichting, dat klonk echt net zo aannemelijk als het kwartje van Kok dat we nooit meer terugkregen.
Israëlische soldate poseert op foto gevangen Palestijnen, wereld reageert geschokt
Dat de foto's in Israel voor veel ophef zorgen, zegt veel over het land: foto's waarop een glimlachende soldate staat met geblinddoekte Palestijnen worden fel veroordeeld alsof ze de meest gruwelijke misdaden laten zien. Laat me duidelijk zijn: ik vind ze smakeloos en ongepast en kan me voorstellen dat Palestijnen ze als zeer vernederend ervaren. Het is niet leuk om vastgebonden en geblinddoekt te worden, en het is nog minder leuk om zo op de foto te worden gezet met een triomfantelijke vrouwelijke soldaat ervoor. Voor de soldate was het waarschijnlijk gewoon een kiekje van een routine operatie tegen Palestijnen die illegaal de grens met Gaza over waren gekomen, voor anderen laat het zien hoe Israel geniet van de macht. De verklaring van de Palestijnse autoriteit is overigens onzinnig, want het betreft een legerbasis in Israel zelf en heeft dus niks met de bezetting te maken.
Voor echt gruwelijke foto's van waartoe soldaten van een beschaafd land in staat zijn, scroll je even naar onder.
RP
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Israëlische soldate poseert op foto gevangen Palestijnen, wereld reageert geschokt
Dinsdag 17 Augustus 2010 17:43
Foto's die een Israëlische soldate plaatste op Facebook en waarop te zien is hoe ze poseert voor Palestijnse gevangenen veroorzaakt een mediastorm in Israël en daarbuiten.
Let wel, op deze foto's zijn geen mishandelingen of folteringen te zien, enkel een niet al te slimme en tactloze soldate die niet inziet dat poseren voor zulke scènes op zijn minst zeer ongevoelig overkomen, namelijk 'je lacht niet met de miserie van anderen'. Toch reageerde de soldate dat ze zich van geen kwaad bewust was.
Het leger heeft het voorval scherp veroordeeld en belooft juridische stappen te ondernemen.
Bij deze gebeurtenis mogen we niet uit het oog verliezen dat wat vooral van belang is, niet zozeer het gedrag van één soldaat is, maar wel hoe het publiek in Israël, de pers, de politiek en het leger zelf omgaan met de feiten. En daar treffen we een unanieme veroordeling van de feiten aan.
Deze foto's zijn natuurlijk klein bier in vergelijking met wat onze jongens in Somalië hebben uitgericht in 1997 en waarvan foto's in Het Laatste Nieuws werden gepubliceerd. Even het geheugen opfrissen:
"Een Belgische para die op het hoofd van een gesneuvelde Somaliër staat te urineren; een tweede soldaat, die zijn woestijnlaars op het hoofd van een eveneens dode Somaliër zet; én het afmaken door Belgische para's van een Somaliër. Over het laatste voorval verklaarde de woordvoerder van het Belgische leger dat het om een standaardprocedure ging. Lees de rest via deze link.
Even later dook een foto op van Belgische soldaten die een Somalisch jongetje martelde door hem boven een open vuur te houden.
Onderzoeken Gaza Flotilla overshaduwen commissie burgeroorlog Sri Lanka in de media
"Waarom toch altijd Israel?" is een vraag die vriend en vijand bezig houdt. Ik kan begrijpen dat Israel gevoelsmatig dichterbij ligt, maar ik begrijp niet dat mensen blijven zeggen dat Israel met van alles wegkomt dat andere landen niet mogen, terwijl het in feite precies omgekeerd is. Tijdens de Gaza oorlog werd Israel continu van de meest grove schendingen van de mensenrechten beschuldigd, terwijl het Sri Lankese leger een stukje verderop ongehinderd door lastige media en internationale bemoeienis de Tamil Tijgers een kopje kleiner maakte. Daarbij vielen vele duizenden burgerslachtoffers (schattingen lopen van 7.000 tot 30.000) terwijl bij de Gaza oorlog in totaal ca. 1.200 doden vielen aan Palestijnse zijde, waarvan zeker de helft strijders.
Israel is sindsdien ook fel bekritiseerd omdat het niet wilde meewerken aan een internationaal onderzoek naar de zaak, en dat haar eigen onderzoeken niet zouden deugen. Er was tegelijkertijd nauwelijks aandacht voor het onderzoek dat Sri Lanka deed naar de gevechten die zoveel bugers het leven kostten.
RP
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Flotilla inquiries overshadow Sri Lankan civil war commission
13 August 2010
This week has seen considerable coverage of the developments surrounding the multiple investigations into Israel's boarding of the Mavi Marmara, which resulted in nine dead passengers and several wounded Israel Defence Force soldiers. Firstly, several top-ranking Israelis, including the Prime Minister, were called before the Turkel Committee. Secondly, Israel agreed to participate in a UN inquiry, before raising concerns about its soldiers being forced to give evidence.
The amount of coverage that the inquiries into Israel's actions have received are in stark contrast to that given to an ongoing inquiry into how the Sri Lankan military conducted its operations against the Tamil separatists in 2009. That military campaign, which brought to an end a long running civil war, allegedly resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians; the UN estimates that 7,000 were killed, while the International Crisis Group contends that at least 30,000 died.
(Just Journalism analysed the disparity in how the Sri Lankan campaign and Israel's Operation Cast Lead, which occurred during the same time period, were portrayed in the media. To read our special report on the subject, click here. http://www.justjournalism.com/special-reports/download/Israel_and_Sri_Lanka_-_a_media_analysis_of_war_crimes_allegations.pdf)
In the broadsheets, there were 13 articles on the Israeli inquiries, covering the appearances of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defence Minister Barak, and Chief of General Staff Ashkenazi, as well as the ongoing negotiations over the scope of the UN inquiry. The Financial Times published a single article – 'Netanyahu defends attack on aid ship', by Vita Bekker – while The Daily Telegraph published the most, with four.
In contrast, there were only two articles published in the broadsheets on the Sri Lanka inquiry – and one of these only appeared online. The Independent published 'Sri Lanka's civil war inquiry is 'eyewash', say Tamils', by Andrew Buncombe, while The Guardian's 'Sri Lanka civil war commission begins hearing' was an online article lifted from the Associated Press.
On the BBC News website, the Sri Lankan commission was given as much coverage as the developments surrounding Israel's inquiries, with both being covered with two articles each.
This week has seen considerable coverage of the developments surrounding the multiple investigations into Israel's boarding of the Mavi Marmara, which resulted in nine dead passengers and several wounded Israel Defence Force soldiers. Firstly, several top-ranking Israelis, including the Prime Minister, were called before the Turkel Committee. Secondly, Israel agreed to participate in a UN inquiry, before raising concerns about its soldiers being forced to give evidence.
The amount of coverage that the inquiries into Israel's actions have received are in stark contrast to that given to an ongoing inquiry into how the Sri Lankan military conducted its operations against the Tamil separatists in 2009. That military campaign, which brought to an end a long running civil war, allegedly resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians; the UN estimates that 7,000 were killed, while the International Crisis Group contends that at least 30,000 died.
(Just Journalism analysed the disparity in how the Sri Lankan campaign and Israel's Operation Cast Lead, which occurred during the same time period, were portrayed in the media. To read our special report on the subject, click here. http://www.justjournalism.com/special-reports/download/Israel_and_Sri_Lanka_-_a_media_analysis_of_war_crimes_allegations.pdf)
In the broadsheets, there were 13 articles on the Israeli inquiries, covering the appearances of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defence Minister Barak, and Chief of General Staff Ashkenazi, as well as the ongoing negotiations over the scope of the UN inquiry. The Financial Times published a single article – 'Netanyahu defends attack on aid ship', by Vita Bekker – while The Daily Telegraph published the most, with four.
In contrast, there were only two articles published in the broadsheets on the Sri Lanka inquiry – and one of these only appeared online. The Independent published 'Sri Lanka's civil war inquiry is 'eyewash', say Tamils', by Andrew Buncombe, while The Guardian's 'Sri Lanka civil war commission begins hearing' was an online article lifted from the Associated Press.
On the BBC News website, the Sri Lankan commission was given as much coverage as the developments surrounding Israel's inquiries, with both being covered with two articles each.
Kashmir is niet Palestina en Indiërs zijn geen Israëli's...
Kashmir is geen Palestina, en daarom kan India er de mensenrechten met voeten treden zonder dat er reportages over verschijnen op het NOS journaal, artikelen in diverse media India als schurkenstaat afschilderen waarmee Nederland de relaties moet verbreken en woedende demonstranten eisen dat winkels geen producten meer uit India verkopen.
'India maintains a force of several hundred thousand troops and paramilitaries in Kashmir, turning the summer capital, Srinagar, into an armed camp frequently under curfew and always under the gun. The media is labouring under severe restrictions. Torture and human rights violations have been well documented.'
Aldus een artikel in het linkse The Nation, dat vervolgens een vergelijking maakt met Israels behandeling van de Palestijnen. Nogal onterecht, meent Just Journalism, want:
Since 1989, the start of the Muslim separatist rebellion, 78,000 people have died in Kashmir. That's ten times the number of people who have died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967, which includes both Palestinian intifadas and last year's much-reported Gaza war.
(NB: bij dit cijfer heeft men de oorlogen met de Arabische buurlanden niet meegeteld, en het is daarom niet helemaal juist om van doden in het 'Arabisch-Israelische conflict' te spreken.)
Bovendien zijn er liefst 700.000 Indische soldaten in Kashmir terwijl het Israelische leger zich uit de Gazastrook heeft teruggetrokken en in de steden op de Westoever nauwelijks nog aanwezig is. De vergelijking gaat natuurlijk op nog veel meer punten mank, en steeds in het voordeel van Israel. Desondanks heeft India een positief en vredelievend imago, zeker ook onder links georiënteerde mensen, terwijl Israel door veel mensen als de grootste bedreiging van de wereldvrede en een schurkenstaat wordt gezien.
RP
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VIEWPOINT: Kashmir is not Palestine
13 August 2010
Michael Weiss
The Kashmir valley, the Indian-controlled but Muslim-majority territory on India's disputed border with Pakistan, has seen at least 53 people killed in the last two months in violent clashes between security forces and civilian protestors. According to Simon Tisdall writing in yesterday's Guardian ('India's blinkered policy on Kashmir'), the current crisis invites comparison to 'Israel's treatment of Palestinians.'
This latest outbreak of rioting and fighting in Kashmir began on June 11 after a 17-year-old student was shot and killed by police in the summer capital of Srinagar. According to The Guardian's Jason Burke, 'In recent days, thousands of youths have pelted security forces with rocks, burned government offices and attacked railway stations and official vehicles in steadily intensifying violence.' India has imposed a strict curfew on the valley region, which, according to a report in The Spectator, has allowed some people out of their homes for just a single hour each week.
So far 53 people have been killed in the escalated violence, most of them rock-throwing demonstrators or unarmed protestors who have been fired upon by Indian paramilitary troopers.
Tisdall, seemingly aware of these facts, cites Barbara Crossette, a writer for the American left-wing magazine The Nation:
'India maintains a force of several hundred thousand troops and paramilitaries in Kashmir, turning the summer capital, Srinagar, into an armed camp frequently under curfew and always under the gun. The media is labouring under severe restrictions. Torture and human rights violations have been well documented.'
It is after this paragraph that Tisdall observes, 'Comparisons with Israel's treatment of Palestinians were not inappropriate.'
A glib, pass-by analogy such as this leaves the reader unacquainted with the deeply contrastive histories and scales of the Arab-Israeli and Kashmir conflicts. Their largest similarity is their near simultaneous origins in the 1947-1948 period, which saw both the founding of the State of Israel and the British partitioning of the Indian subcontinent. But a little further context would be useful.
Since 1989, the start of the Muslim separatist rebellion, 78,000 people have died in Kashmir. That's ten times the number of people who have died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967, which includes both Palestinian intifadas and last year's much-reported Gaza war.
The Kashmir Valley is today militarily occupied by 700,000 Indian security forces, with more on the way, whereas the IDF's occupational footprint in the West Bank has steadily eroded over the past two years. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank have been reduced by 20 percent in the last year alone, with "manned checkpoints, roadblocks and other barriers [dropping] to 505 from a peak of 626." The IDF is also planning to deconstruct part of the Jerusalem barrier wall that separates the Israeli town of Gilo from the West Bank town of Beit Jala. The cause for the decision, according to Haaretz, is the dramatic absence of Arab-Israeli violence in an area that was formerly a cynosure for it.
Also consider that the UN presence in Kashmir is negligible compared with its omnipresence in Gaza and the West Bank. As of May 31, 2010, the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) employed 44 military observers, supported by 23 international civilian personnel and 48 local civilian staff: 115 people, in other words, to survey a region the size of the United Kingdom. By contrast, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers health, social services and schools for Palestinian in 900 installations in the West Bank and Gaza, employes nearly 30,000 staff for a territory the size of Norfolk and the Isle of Wight put together.
Another problem in comparing Kashmir to Palestine is that Palestine's internal security is largely maintained by Palestinians. There are at present 25,000 members of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, including 2,100 paramilitary troops that have been trained by the U.S. Army. These troops are regularly mobilized by the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to conduct autonomous operations against sectarian militants in the West Bank. (In fact, the bulk of accusations of torture and human rights violations against Palestinians living in the West Bank today are directed against their own security forces.)
Finally, while most foreign journalists are wary of traveling to Kashmir because of not-so-subtle hints from New Delhi that unflattering dispatches might lead to revoked visas, Jerusalem evidently takes a more liberal policy to international scrutiny. Since June 1, Tisdall's colleague, Guardian Middle East correspondent Harriet Sherwood, has published 14 articles from the West Bank and Gaza, where there is indeed a military curfew in place right now - imposed and upheld by the Hamas regime.
maandag 16 augustus 2010
PA roept Palestijnen op Israelische ziekenhuizen te mijden
Dergelijke hypocrisie is binnen de PA heel gewoon, en zie je op velerlei gebied. Zo levert een bedrijf van familie van Saeb Erekat onderdelen voor de afscheidingsbarriere. Als men eraan kan verdienen, werken PA functionarissen graag samen met Israel en verkopen land of huizen aan Joden, terwijl er binnen de PA een wet is die dit verbiedt.
Hat tip: The Muqata
RP
-----------
The PA is announcing a new initiative for PA residents to use Palestinian medical services and hospitals, and not use Israeli health care.
The PA Ma'an radio reports:
The PA Ma'an radio reports:
Minister Fathi Abu Moghli told Ma'an radio that referrals would stop "because our hospitals can cover all medical services qualitatively." Certain patients will still require treatment abroad, he said, but the majority can be treated locally.
"We endeavor to reduce the cases which need referral abroad as long as they can receive adequate treatment locally," the PA minister said, adding that between 2008 and 2009, the number of patients being treated abroad was reduced by 50 percent.
"Referrals for treatment abroad is kind of a culture imposed by the Israeli occupation after 1967 when the Palestinian health system was made dependent on the Israeli system. Even the PA failed to change this culture and officials enhanced it by using their influence to help certain patients get referrals for treatment in Israel," Abu Moghli added.
Last week I was called to a road accident in my capacity as a medic, and I saw Palestinian motorists begging Magen David Adom ambulances to take their severely wounded children to Israeli hospitals, yet the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews said they would take the wounded to a Palestinian hospital in Shechem.
I was at an accident where PA policeman made an illegal U-turn in the middle of a highway, and caused an immediate fatal collision with another Palestinian car, resulting in 3 Palestinian deaths, and the PA policemen were severely wounded. They also begged to be taken to Israeli hospitals, and due to being "PA police", they were even transported to Israel for treatment.
If the PA is so insistent, let them use Palestinian hospitals -- it's not like Palestinian terrorists show any goodwill to Israel for healing cancer stricken Palestinian children. Just a few weeks ago, we learned how only 2 weeks after an Israeli NGO financed cancer treatment at Hadassah Hospital for a Palestinian child, the child's father was involved in planning and executing a terror attack against Israelis, killing an Israeli policeman.
Good Riddance.
I was at an accident where PA policeman made an illegal U-turn in the middle of a highway, and caused an immediate fatal collision with another Palestinian car, resulting in 3 Palestinian deaths, and the PA policemen were severely wounded. They also begged to be taken to Israeli hospitals, and due to being "PA police", they were even transported to Israel for treatment.
If the PA is so insistent, let them use Palestinian hospitals -- it's not like Palestinian terrorists show any goodwill to Israel for healing cancer stricken Palestinian children. Just a few weeks ago, we learned how only 2 weeks after an Israeli NGO financed cancer treatment at Hadassah Hospital for a Palestinian child, the child's father was involved in planning and executing a terror attack against Israelis, killing an Israeli policeman.
Good Riddance.
Hamas is bang voor verlies steun bevolking in Gaza (Amira Hass)
Hamas heeft de afgelopen jaren veel aan steun ingeboet in Gaza, en dat is volgens Amira Hass de belangrijkste reden dat men nu alle politieke activiteiten van anderen verbiedt, en steeds repressiever wordt. Dat is waarschijnlijk, maar ze onderschat de radikale ideologie van Hamas. Hamas is van nature een extremistische organisatie die een vorm van de islam aanhangt waarin alles in het teken staat van de strijd voor Allah en tegen de ongelovigen en geen ruimte is voor andersdenkenden. Er is geen gematigde stroming binnen Hamas, zoals je ook geen gematigde nazi's had of halve fascisten. Natuurlijk zijn er extremere en minder extreme mensen, en verschillen van inzicht over de beste strategie om je doelen te bereiken.
RP
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Haaretz / Aug. 16, 2010
What Hamas is really afraid of
Hamas suppression of any Gaza protest that it sees fit shows that the Islamic movement ruling Gaza is in dire need for some public support.
By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/what-hamas-is-really-afraid-of-1.308264
What Hamas is really afraid of
Hamas suppression of any Gaza protest that it sees fit shows that the Islamic movement ruling Gaza is in dire need for some public support.
By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/what-hamas-is-really-afraid-of-1.308264
"I wish these pictures reached leftists abroad," my friend said to herself Tuesday as she watched Hamas police use rifle butts and clubs to beat her friends - activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Although my friend has never been a fan of the Fatah government in the West Bank, she is outraged by the romanticization of Hamas rule by foreign activists.
Photographs of Tuesday's protest will be hard to come by, as the Hamas police prevented photojournalists from doing their job. At some point, shots were fired into the air to disperse the PFLP protesters in Gaza City, a demonstration Hamas called an illegal gathering. Many protesters were injured and needed medical attention; others were detained for some time.
"We women weren't physically attacked by the police," my friend told me later on the phone. "They only swore at us." The profanity, mostly variations on "whore," was accompanied by words like "Marxist," which the police see as an insult. They don't need to know exactly what it means - it's among dreadful words like atheism, communism and dialectic materialism. In other words, all the terms that don't explain the world as Allah's creation.
Hamas and the PFLP have a lot in common: opposition to the Oslo Accords, glorification of the armed struggle and opposition to direct negotiations with Israel. Many of the PFLP's supporters, especially the younger ones, are also religiously observant. But in terms of social vision and ideological temperament, the gaps seem as wide as they were in the 1980s, when the Muslim Brotherhood aimed most of its attacks at "heretics," especially the Palestinian left, then many times stronger than today.
Senior Hamas officials may watch their language when they talk with representatives of the depleted left, but the real attitude shines through in the conduct of younger activists and people lower in the hierarchy. They don't stand so much on pretense and openly express the spirit of the times.
But it wasn't Marxism that brought some 500 PFLP activists to the western end of Omar al-Mukhtar Boulevard in Gaza City, to Unknown Soldier Square in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council (or what was left of it after Operation Cast Lead ). The demonstrators came out to protest the electricity supply crisis in Gaza. Was this an odd choice for a rally by a veteran, proud political organization? Not in Gaza.
Since the beginning of the year, the residents of the Strip have been suffering from scheduled power cuts that last more than eight hours each day. Between 2006 and 2009, the European Union funded the industrial fuel used at the local power station. In November 2009 it was decided, together with the Ramallah government, that the Palestinian Authority will start paying for the diesel, in addition to the electricity bill it pays to Israel.
Since then, the quantity of fuel entering Gaza has fallen steadily. In the first week of August, for example, only 812,006 liters of diesel fuel - 23 percent of what is needed - entered the Strip. In Ramallah they claim that the company collecting electricity bills in Gaza is not doing its job properly and/or transfers some of the money to Hamas' coffers. Hamas denies this. Ramallah also says Hamas is playing on the people's suffering. The PFLP, through its protest, says it doesn't believe either side, and that the supply of energy has fallen victim of a political rivalry.
According to Palestinian law, demonstrations, public assemblies and political meetings do not need a license from the authorities. The authorities only need to be informed to be able to direct traffic accordingly. On August 5, the PFLP told the Gaza authorities of the protest.
"They said to us there's no need for the protest because the problem has been solved," one activist told Haaretz. "We said this was wrong and that the crisis was still going on. We held discussions with Hamas and the Interior Ministry. They insisted we may not protest. We insisted we may."
"By 'sheer coincidence,' an hour and a half before our protest, Hamas women came out in large numbers to the same place to demonstrate in support of the government on the electricity issue, with loudspeakers. When we arrived, hundreds of police with clubs and rifles were waiting, while the driver of the truck that carried our loudspeakers left the place very quickly, following a request from the police," the activist said.
"He was only hired for that, and he was scared. After some friction with the police, our representative said a few brief sentences about our position. After that, we were dispersed very violently." Some of the younger activists tried to defend themselves by pushing the police away with the plastic chairs left from the pro-Hamas demonstration.
Hamas understood the subtext of the PFLP protest all too well. The PFLP is unwilling to see the Hamas regime as a mere victim, either of Israel or the PA. You took power? Take responsibility as well.
But the shamelessly brutal suppression of the protest shows just how scared the Gaza government is. It has suppressed all activities by Fatah in the Strip, be it public or internal.
Last week, it prevented a protest by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, also based on the electricity crisis. It even banned a celebration by the Khan Yunis refugee committee for students who passed their matriculation exams.
This is because any activity not controlled by Hamas or protesting the Israeli siege is defined as a threat to the movement's rule. If Hamas felt it still had public support, it wouldn't need to suppress any activity that it didn't initiate or finds unflattering.
Photographs of Tuesday's protest will be hard to come by, as the Hamas police prevented photojournalists from doing their job. At some point, shots were fired into the air to disperse the PFLP protesters in Gaza City, a demonstration Hamas called an illegal gathering. Many protesters were injured and needed medical attention; others were detained for some time.
"We women weren't physically attacked by the police," my friend told me later on the phone. "They only swore at us." The profanity, mostly variations on "whore," was accompanied by words like "Marxist," which the police see as an insult. They don't need to know exactly what it means - it's among dreadful words like atheism, communism and dialectic materialism. In other words, all the terms that don't explain the world as Allah's creation.
Hamas and the PFLP have a lot in common: opposition to the Oslo Accords, glorification of the armed struggle and opposition to direct negotiations with Israel. Many of the PFLP's supporters, especially the younger ones, are also religiously observant. But in terms of social vision and ideological temperament, the gaps seem as wide as they were in the 1980s, when the Muslim Brotherhood aimed most of its attacks at "heretics," especially the Palestinian left, then many times stronger than today.
Senior Hamas officials may watch their language when they talk with representatives of the depleted left, but the real attitude shines through in the conduct of younger activists and people lower in the hierarchy. They don't stand so much on pretense and openly express the spirit of the times.
But it wasn't Marxism that brought some 500 PFLP activists to the western end of Omar al-Mukhtar Boulevard in Gaza City, to Unknown Soldier Square in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council (or what was left of it after Operation Cast Lead ). The demonstrators came out to protest the electricity supply crisis in Gaza. Was this an odd choice for a rally by a veteran, proud political organization? Not in Gaza.
Since the beginning of the year, the residents of the Strip have been suffering from scheduled power cuts that last more than eight hours each day. Between 2006 and 2009, the European Union funded the industrial fuel used at the local power station. In November 2009 it was decided, together with the Ramallah government, that the Palestinian Authority will start paying for the diesel, in addition to the electricity bill it pays to Israel.
Since then, the quantity of fuel entering Gaza has fallen steadily. In the first week of August, for example, only 812,006 liters of diesel fuel - 23 percent of what is needed - entered the Strip. In Ramallah they claim that the company collecting electricity bills in Gaza is not doing its job properly and/or transfers some of the money to Hamas' coffers. Hamas denies this. Ramallah also says Hamas is playing on the people's suffering. The PFLP, through its protest, says it doesn't believe either side, and that the supply of energy has fallen victim of a political rivalry.
According to Palestinian law, demonstrations, public assemblies and political meetings do not need a license from the authorities. The authorities only need to be informed to be able to direct traffic accordingly. On August 5, the PFLP told the Gaza authorities of the protest.
"They said to us there's no need for the protest because the problem has been solved," one activist told Haaretz. "We said this was wrong and that the crisis was still going on. We held discussions with Hamas and the Interior Ministry. They insisted we may not protest. We insisted we may."
"By 'sheer coincidence,' an hour and a half before our protest, Hamas women came out in large numbers to the same place to demonstrate in support of the government on the electricity issue, with loudspeakers. When we arrived, hundreds of police with clubs and rifles were waiting, while the driver of the truck that carried our loudspeakers left the place very quickly, following a request from the police," the activist said.
"He was only hired for that, and he was scared. After some friction with the police, our representative said a few brief sentences about our position. After that, we were dispersed very violently." Some of the younger activists tried to defend themselves by pushing the police away with the plastic chairs left from the pro-Hamas demonstration.
Hamas understood the subtext of the PFLP protest all too well. The PFLP is unwilling to see the Hamas regime as a mere victim, either of Israel or the PA. You took power? Take responsibility as well.
But the shamelessly brutal suppression of the protest shows just how scared the Gaza government is. It has suppressed all activities by Fatah in the Strip, be it public or internal.
Last week, it prevented a protest by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, also based on the electricity crisis. It even banned a celebration by the Khan Yunis refugee committee for students who passed their matriculation exams.
This is because any activity not controlled by Hamas or protesting the Israeli siege is defined as a threat to the movement's rule. If Hamas felt it still had public support, it wouldn't need to suppress any activity that it didn't initiate or finds unflattering.
Protest in Tel Aviv tegen uitwijzen kinderen gastarbeiders
Opvallend is de rol van de (ex-)premiersvrouwen hierin. Het laat zien dat de kritiek op deze maatregel niet beperkt is tot links, maar breed wordt gedragen, dit ondanks het feit dat het maar over een beperkte groep gaat. Juist omdat het maar zo'n beperkte groep is begrijp ik totaal niet waarom de verantwoordelijke minister, Eli Yishai, erop staat dat ze worden uitgezet. Overigens heeft eerder de kibboetzbeweging aangeboden de kinderen te huisvesten.
RP
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The Jerusalem Post
Tel Aviv protest: 'Let the kids stay'
By RON FRIEDMAN AND JPOST.COM STAFF
08/14/2010 21:19
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=184747
Hundreds march against deportation of foreign worker's children.
Tel Aviv protest: 'Let the kids stay'
By RON FRIEDMAN AND JPOST.COM STAFF
08/14/2010 21:19
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=184747
Hundreds march against deportation of foreign worker's children.
Hundreds of protesters took part in a demonstration against the government's decision to deport 400 children of foreign workers, in Tel Aviv, on Saturday evening.
The protesters called on the government to reverse its decision to deport the families of children who failed to meet criteria set out by an inter-ministerial decision, claiming the decision was "heartless," and that allowing the children to stay would strengthen Israel's reputation as a humane and moral state.
The protesters carried signs reading "No to the deportation," and "Let the children stay."
On Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Neyanyahu's wife, Sara Netanyahu, sent a letter to Interior Minister Eli Yishai pleading with him to find a solution that would allow the children destined to be deported to remain in the country. Yishai has been at the forefront of the initiative to expel the children and their families, claiming they posed a threat to Israel's Jewish character and that allowing them to stay would set a dangerous precedent.
"Dear Eli, I turn to you as a mother of two young sons and a psychologist in the public service," Netanyahu wrote to Yishai. "From the depth of my heart, I ask of you to exercise your authority... and allow most of the 400 children to stay in Israel."
She added that she had expressed her opinion about the children of foreign workers to her husband on several occasions prior to the government's decision and that her entreaties may have influenced the prime minister's decision to let 800 of the children remain in Israel.
"Israel must find a solution for these children. I would like to believe that my pleas on this matter helped the prime minister's position that 800 out of 1,200 children in question were allowed to stay. I am certain that in this case too, you can find a creative solution for the children of the foreign workers [through] the government's decision and the power you hold as interior minister, in a way which will not harm Israel's national interests as a Jewish state and its policy on immigration," Netanyahu wrote.
Yishai has been adamant in his belief that all of the foreign workers' children should be deported, stating in a Wednesday interview with The Jerusalem Post "Former prime ministers [Ariel] Sharon and [Ehud] Olmert both said a 'bit more and then that's it.' There is no end to it. I wouldn't let any of them stay here, not 800, not even one."
The decision to deport the 400 children that don't meet certain criteria to stay in Israel has been controversial. Some including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have characterized the move as "inhumane and un-Jewish."
According to the latest government decision, in order to meet the criteria to stay, children must be registered in the Israeli school system. They must speak Hebrew. They had to have been either born in Israel, or entered before their 13th birthday. They had to have lived in Israel for at least five consecutive years and the children's parents had to have entered Israel under a legal permit.
Detractors of the decision have pointed at Yishai personally, prompting the interior minister to complain of a "lynch" against him in an interview with Army Radio on Thursday.
Among the protesters in Tel Aviv was another famous spouse. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's wife, Aliza, has been active in the battle to have the children remain for months and has repeatedly called for the government to show compassion and allow all the children to stay in the country.
The protesters called on the government to reverse its decision to deport the families of children who failed to meet criteria set out by an inter-ministerial decision, claiming the decision was "heartless," and that allowing the children to stay would strengthen Israel's reputation as a humane and moral state.
The protesters carried signs reading "No to the deportation," and "Let the children stay."
On Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Neyanyahu's wife, Sara Netanyahu, sent a letter to Interior Minister Eli Yishai pleading with him to find a solution that would allow the children destined to be deported to remain in the country. Yishai has been at the forefront of the initiative to expel the children and their families, claiming they posed a threat to Israel's Jewish character and that allowing them to stay would set a dangerous precedent.
"Dear Eli, I turn to you as a mother of two young sons and a psychologist in the public service," Netanyahu wrote to Yishai. "From the depth of my heart, I ask of you to exercise your authority... and allow most of the 400 children to stay in Israel."
She added that she had expressed her opinion about the children of foreign workers to her husband on several occasions prior to the government's decision and that her entreaties may have influenced the prime minister's decision to let 800 of the children remain in Israel.
"Israel must find a solution for these children. I would like to believe that my pleas on this matter helped the prime minister's position that 800 out of 1,200 children in question were allowed to stay. I am certain that in this case too, you can find a creative solution for the children of the foreign workers [through] the government's decision and the power you hold as interior minister, in a way which will not harm Israel's national interests as a Jewish state and its policy on immigration," Netanyahu wrote.
Yishai has been adamant in his belief that all of the foreign workers' children should be deported, stating in a Wednesday interview with The Jerusalem Post "Former prime ministers [Ariel] Sharon and [Ehud] Olmert both said a 'bit more and then that's it.' There is no end to it. I wouldn't let any of them stay here, not 800, not even one."
The decision to deport the 400 children that don't meet certain criteria to stay in Israel has been controversial. Some including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have characterized the move as "inhumane and un-Jewish."
According to the latest government decision, in order to meet the criteria to stay, children must be registered in the Israeli school system. They must speak Hebrew. They had to have been either born in Israel, or entered before their 13th birthday. They had to have lived in Israel for at least five consecutive years and the children's parents had to have entered Israel under a legal permit.
Detractors of the decision have pointed at Yishai personally, prompting the interior minister to complain of a "lynch" against him in an interview with Army Radio on Thursday.
Among the protesters in Tel Aviv was another famous spouse. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's wife, Aliza, has been active in the battle to have the children remain for months and has repeatedly called for the government to show compassion and allow all the children to stay in the country.
Moslimraad Jeruzalem wilde omstreden islamitische begraafplaats al in 1945 opruimen
Israel heeft de honderden nepgraven verwijderd die door Arabieren in een park in Jeruzalem waren aangebracht.
Medewerkers van de gemeente noemen het een van de grootste misleidingen in recente jaren.
De islamitische begraafplaats aan de rand waarvan de graven waren aangebracht, is overigens niet meer in gebruik sinds 1927.
Earlier this year, however, The Jerusalem Post learned that the Supreme Muslim Council of British Mandate Palestine had planned to build a large commercial center directly on top of the cemetery in 1945.
A November 22, 1945 article from The Palestine Post (the pre-state name of The Jerusalem Post), forwarded to the Wiesenthal Center in February, reported the council's plans to build "a six-storeyed building to house the Supreme Moslem Council and other offices, a four-storeyed hotel, a bank and other buildings suitable for it, a college, a club and a factory" directly over the cemetery.
The 1945 article also describes plans by the council to transfer remains buried in the cemetery to a separate, "walled reserve" and cites rulings from prominent Muslim clerics at the time allowing for the building plans to go ahead.
A November 22, 1945 article from The Palestine Post (the pre-state name of The Jerusalem Post), forwarded to the Wiesenthal Center in February, reported the council's plans to build "a six-storeyed building to house the Supreme Moslem Council and other offices, a four-storeyed hotel, a bank and other buildings suitable for it, a college, a club and a factory" directly over the cemetery.
The 1945 article also describes plans by the council to transfer remains buried in the cemetery to a separate, "walled reserve" and cites rulings from prominent Muslim clerics at the time allowing for the building plans to go ahead.
RP
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Fake graves cleared from J'lem cemetery
By ABE SELIG
08/15/2010 01:21
"Islamic officials" blamed for attempting to "illegally seize state land."
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=184762
In what city officials are calling "one of the largest acts of deception in recent years," Jerusalem municipal employees last week cleared away some 300 "fictitious tombstones" from a historic Muslim cemetery located in the heart of the capital. The cemetery abuts the planned site of a future "Museum of Tolerance."
On Thursday, city officials confirmed that the fraudulent markers had been cleared from the site, and pointed blame at "Islamic officials" who they said had sanctioned the placement of these markers in an attempt to "illegally seize state lands."
"Over the last month, Islamic officials have acted fraudulently and erected new, fictitious tombstones inside the ancient Muslim cemetery at Mamilla," read an official statement released by the Jerusalem Municipality on Thursday night.
"These officials exploited permits they had received from the city's sanitation department for the cleaning and renovation of existing graves, and instead [used the permits to] fraudulently erect fictitious tombstones in the cemetery, which is owned by the Israel Lands Administration," the statement said.
The municipality statement also stressed that "this is an ancient Muslim cemetery; however, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, it has not been used for burial since 1927."
The statement added that upon discovering the false tombstones at the site, the municipality filed a complaint with police and halted the work immediately.
"During a court hearing [last Monday], a Jerusalem District Court judge rejected an injunction that had been filed in the case and authorized the municipality to begin removing the fictitious headstones," the municipality's statement continued.
City officials added that the extent of the fraud may not yet be completely known, and that work at the site to identify additional false markers was still underway.
"So far," the municipality statement went on, "about 300 fictitious tombstones have been removed, with each new location being identified and cleared only after review and approval from an IAA expert."
The municipality statement also alluded to the "simple" method used in erecting the tombstones, in which workers placed stone frames between 70 and 120 centimeters in size over the "tombs," or used authentic, older pieces of stone they found at the site.
City officials added that the work was often done hastily, and that "under the fictitious tombstones, plastic bottles, cigarette butts and sewage has been found.
"It is important to note that this is one of the greatest acts of deception in recent years, with one specific goal – the illegal seizure of state land," the municipality statement added.
"The Jerusalem Municipality will not allow extremist elements to illegally change the status quo, and will continue to enforce law in order to prevent any attempt to illegally take over public land."
The city's account has reportedly been refuted by the Islamic Movement, which last week accused the municipality of razing ancient tombs inside the cemetery.
The cemetery itself is no stranger to controversy; it abuts the planned site of a future "Museum of Tolerance" being constructed by the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The center has long fought against opponents of its plans to build at the site, expressly by Palestinian groups who have petitioned against the museum's construction. The appeals, which have reached the United Nations, argue that the construction would disturb centuries-old graves and desecrate the cemetery.
Palestinian and Israeli advocacy groups filed a petition against the planned construction in 2004 and have been contesting it ever since.
The Supreme Court considered the legal arguments for nearly four years, finally giving the go-ahead in 2009 to the Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal Center.
Earlier this year, however, The Jerusalem Post learned that the Supreme Muslim Council of British Mandate Palestine had planned to build a large commercial center directly on top of the cemetery in 1945.
A November 22, 1945 article from The Palestine Post (the pre-state name of The Jerusalem Post), forwarded to the Wiesenthal Center in February, reported the council's plans to build "a six-storeyed building to house the Supreme Moslem Council and other offices, a four-storeyed hotel, a bank and other buildings suitable for it, a college, a club and a factory" directly over the cemetery.
The 1945 article also describes plans by the council to transfer remains buried in the cemetery to a separate, "walled reserve" and cites rulings from prominent Muslim clerics at the time allowing for the building plans to go ahead.
Libanon overweegt meer rechten voor Palestijnse vluchtelingen
Na meer dan 60 jaar wordt overwogen de Palestijnen in Libanon meer rechten te geven. Zij zitten opgesloten in vluchtelingenkampen en leven onder erbarmelijke omstandigheden. Lokale krijgsheren maken er de dienst uit; de Libanese politie komt er niet. Palestijnen mogen alleen simpel en slecht betaald werk verrichten.
The refugee camps - Ein el-Hilweh in particular - are notorious for their lawlessness. Lebanese troops patrol their perimeters but have no jurisdiction inside, part of an informal agreement with the PLO since the early 1970s. Factions of Palestinian fighters police the camps, but clashes and assassinations are common.
The Palestinian leadership does not want refugees to gain citizenship, fearing it could deny them their right to ever return home. But it does support giving them civil rights.
The Palestinian leadership does not want refugees to gain citizenship, fearing it could deny them their right to ever return home. But it does support giving them civil rights.
De voorgestelde wet zal het waarschijnlijk niet halen, maar mogelijk krijgen de Palestijnen wel iets meer mogelijkheden om te werken. De discriminatie en behandeling van de Palestijnen door Libanon is vele malen erger dan die van de Arabieren in Israel, maar je zal er Anja Meulenbelt of Dries van Agt niet over horen. Dat is niet slechts selectieve verontwaardiging, maar regelrechte hypocrisie.
RP
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Lebanon Debates Giving Palestinians Rights
Asharq Al-Awsat 12/08/2010
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=21933
Asharq Al-Awsat 12/08/2010
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=21933
EIN EL-HILWEH REFUGEE CAMP, Lebanon - Mohammed al-Amin spends his days doing little more than playing billiards and smoking cigarettes in this sprawling Palestinian refugee camp, where gunmen roam narrow alleyways dotted with tin-roofed, cement-block homes.
The 25-year-old studied dental lab technology but works at a small, grubby coffee shop in the camp, making $100 a month. He dreams of working with a respected doctor in Lebanese society and being welcomed like any other foreigner, without being looked down on.
"Sometimes I feel like a pressurized bottle that's about to explode," said al-Amin, who was born in Ein el-Hilweh years after his family fled what is now Israel. "Why should three quarters of the Palestinian people here be selling coffee on the street?"
The approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, many of them born here, are barred by law from any but the most menial professions and are denied many basic rights.
Now parliament is debating a new law that would allow Palestinians to work in any profession and own property, as well as give them social security benefits. The bill, due for a vote on Aug. 17, is the most serious effort yet by Lebanon to transform its policies toward the refugees.
But the proposal faces stiff resistance, because it has implications beyond expanding the refugees' civil rights.
Lebanon's population of 4 million is divided between 18 sects, including Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Druse, and every community is highly sensitive to anything that could tip the balance of power in a country with a grim history of sectarian strife.
Christians and Shiites are particularly worried about any possible permanent settling of the refugees, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
So Palestinians in Ein el-Hilweh are deeply skeptical there will be any change.
"They are not fooling us," said a woman pushing her handicapped mother on a wheelchair to a nearby clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Her mother, 80-year-old Jamileh Salameh, lost her right leg in an Israeli air raid on Ein el-Hilweh in 1987.
"Nobody cares about us, they will talk and talk but nothing will happen," she said.
The Palestinians in Lebanon are isolated in their camps to a higher degree than in any other Arab country. Some 4.7 million Palestinian refugees - who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 and 1967 Israeli-Arab wars - and their descendants are scattered across the Middle East, in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, according to U.N. figures.
Their fate is one of the most emotionally charged issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Palestinian negotiators have demanded at least partial repatriation, but Israel has refused, saying an influx of refugees would dilute its Jewish majority and threaten the existence of the state.
Unlike in neighboring Arab countries like Syria and Jordan where Palestinians enjoy more rights, the refugees in Lebanon live mostly on U.N. agencies' handouts and payments from the rival Palestinian factions. Those who do work are either employed by UNRWA or as laborers at menial jobs such as construction.
Beyond the legal restrictions on them, they also face deep prejudice from many Lebanese.
The bitterness dates back to 1970, when the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat moved his base here after being expelled from Jordan in a bloody crackdown because his forces tried to form a government to rival Jordan's. Many Lebanese have not forgiven Arafat's fighters for attacking Israel repeatedly from southern Lebanon, giving Israel a pretext to attack villages and twice invade.
The refugee camps - Ein el-Hilweh in particular - are notorious for their lawlessness. Lebanese troops patrol their perimeters but have no jurisdiction inside, part of an informal agreement with the PLO since the early 1970s. Factions of Palestinian fighters police the camps, but clashes and assassinations are common.
The Palestinian leadership does not want refugees to gain citizenship, fearing it could deny them their right to ever return home. But it does support giving them civil rights.
Druse leader Walid Jumblatt proposed the rights bill in June, and it has triggered a heated debate. Some lawmakers insisted Palestinians should not be granted any "privileges" as long as they do not answer to the state's authority. Others argued that letting Palestinians work and receive social security would strain the economy.
"They (refugees) are not entitled to any rights according to Lebanese laws - only some facilities that we can give them," said Christian leader Michel
Aoun.
Lawmaker Sami Gemayel of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party accused U.N. agencies of trying to pawn off responsibility for the Palestinians onto Lebanon. If that happens, he warned, "we will move step by step toward naturalization" of Palestinians.
Parliament has split largely on sectarian lines over the bill, with Christians opposed and Muslims supporting. The result may be a compromise that grants broader work rights but keeps other restrictions like the ban on owning property.
Fathi Abu al-Ardat, a senior official with the main Fatah faction of the PLO in Lebanon, warns that disillusionment and frustration push young Palestinians toward radicalism.
"Fanaticism and extremism thrive on misery and poverty," he said. "We should let them live a free, dignified life with the opportunity to work and move freely."
Al-Amin, speaking in the coffee shop where he works, agrees.
"We have education and talents," he said. "Given the chance, we can contribute a lot to Lebanese society."
The 25-year-old studied dental lab technology but works at a small, grubby coffee shop in the camp, making $100 a month. He dreams of working with a respected doctor in Lebanese society and being welcomed like any other foreigner, without being looked down on.
"Sometimes I feel like a pressurized bottle that's about to explode," said al-Amin, who was born in Ein el-Hilweh years after his family fled what is now Israel. "Why should three quarters of the Palestinian people here be selling coffee on the street?"
The approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, many of them born here, are barred by law from any but the most menial professions and are denied many basic rights.
Now parliament is debating a new law that would allow Palestinians to work in any profession and own property, as well as give them social security benefits. The bill, due for a vote on Aug. 17, is the most serious effort yet by Lebanon to transform its policies toward the refugees.
But the proposal faces stiff resistance, because it has implications beyond expanding the refugees' civil rights.
Lebanon's population of 4 million is divided between 18 sects, including Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Druse, and every community is highly sensitive to anything that could tip the balance of power in a country with a grim history of sectarian strife.
Christians and Shiites are particularly worried about any possible permanent settling of the refugees, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
So Palestinians in Ein el-Hilweh are deeply skeptical there will be any change.
"They are not fooling us," said a woman pushing her handicapped mother on a wheelchair to a nearby clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Her mother, 80-year-old Jamileh Salameh, lost her right leg in an Israeli air raid on Ein el-Hilweh in 1987.
"Nobody cares about us, they will talk and talk but nothing will happen," she said.
The Palestinians in Lebanon are isolated in their camps to a higher degree than in any other Arab country. Some 4.7 million Palestinian refugees - who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 and 1967 Israeli-Arab wars - and their descendants are scattered across the Middle East, in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, according to U.N. figures.
Their fate is one of the most emotionally charged issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Palestinian negotiators have demanded at least partial repatriation, but Israel has refused, saying an influx of refugees would dilute its Jewish majority and threaten the existence of the state.
Unlike in neighboring Arab countries like Syria and Jordan where Palestinians enjoy more rights, the refugees in Lebanon live mostly on U.N. agencies' handouts and payments from the rival Palestinian factions. Those who do work are either employed by UNRWA or as laborers at menial jobs such as construction.
Beyond the legal restrictions on them, they also face deep prejudice from many Lebanese.
The bitterness dates back to 1970, when the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat moved his base here after being expelled from Jordan in a bloody crackdown because his forces tried to form a government to rival Jordan's. Many Lebanese have not forgiven Arafat's fighters for attacking Israel repeatedly from southern Lebanon, giving Israel a pretext to attack villages and twice invade.
The refugee camps - Ein el-Hilweh in particular - are notorious for their lawlessness. Lebanese troops patrol their perimeters but have no jurisdiction inside, part of an informal agreement with the PLO since the early 1970s. Factions of Palestinian fighters police the camps, but clashes and assassinations are common.
The Palestinian leadership does not want refugees to gain citizenship, fearing it could deny them their right to ever return home. But it does support giving them civil rights.
Druse leader Walid Jumblatt proposed the rights bill in June, and it has triggered a heated debate. Some lawmakers insisted Palestinians should not be granted any "privileges" as long as they do not answer to the state's authority. Others argued that letting Palestinians work and receive social security would strain the economy.
"They (refugees) are not entitled to any rights according to Lebanese laws - only some facilities that we can give them," said Christian leader Michel
Aoun.
Lawmaker Sami Gemayel of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party accused U.N. agencies of trying to pawn off responsibility for the Palestinians onto Lebanon. If that happens, he warned, "we will move step by step toward naturalization" of Palestinians.
Parliament has split largely on sectarian lines over the bill, with Christians opposed and Muslims supporting. The result may be a compromise that grants broader work rights but keeps other restrictions like the ban on owning property.
Fathi Abu al-Ardat, a senior official with the main Fatah faction of the PLO in Lebanon, warns that disillusionment and frustration push young Palestinians toward radicalism.
"Fanaticism and extremism thrive on misery and poverty," he said. "We should let them live a free, dignified life with the opportunity to work and move freely."
Al-Amin, speaking in the coffee shop where he works, agrees.
"We have education and talents," he said. "Given the chance, we can contribute a lot to Lebanese society."
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