vrijdag 22 juli 2011

In het nieuwe Egypte blijven oude complottheorieën populair

 

Israel is nog steeds een makkelijke zondebok voor het Egyptische regime, media en burgers.

Een dodelijke bacterie in Egyptische groente? Israel zit erachter. Dodelijke kwallen op het Egyptische strand? Gevaarlijke haaien voor de kust? Israel zit erachter. Geweld tegen Kopten? Economische tegenspoed? Ook zonder Mubarak en met een vrijere pers, is het nog steeds aantrekkelijker om de problemen van het land te wijten aan een Joodse/Israelische en/of Westerse samenzwering dan aan eigen tekortkomingen. Het is al decennialang de gewoonte, evenals in veel Arabische landen.

 

Wouter

_____________

 

In new Egypt, old conspiracies live on

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=230235

  
 


Ministers, media can’t shake off habit of blaming Israel, US for country's woes; conspiratorial thinking "deeply ingrained".

When a European laboratory announced two weeks ago that an infected shipment of Egyptian fenugreek seeds was the source of an E. coli epidemic that killed 48 Germans and a Swede, the Egyptian agriculture minister didn’t apologize, nor did he call for an investigation into the matter.

The problem had nothing to do with Egypt, the minister, Ayman Abu-Hadid, told Egyptian press.

"Israel is waging a commercial war against Egyptian exports," he explained, and  with that the case was closed.

Abu-Hadid isn’t the only minister in Egypt's post-revolutionary government to blame Israel for his country's woes. In June, Deputy Prime Minister Yehia El-Gamal told the Lebanese news site Al-Nashra that Israel was inciting sectarian strife between Muslims and Christians in the country.

“Israel understands that a strong Egypt is a danger for them and they want to make Egypt weak,” El-Gamal said. "Nothing breaks or weakens Egypt more than sectarian tension or clashes between Muslims and Christians.”

Conspiracy theories – with Israel fingered as the power behind the scenes – were common currency in the years Husni Mubarak ruled Egypt. Many Egyptians expected that with the transition to a more open, accountable and democratic society, the politicians and press would no longer need to point to cabals to explain away problems.

Egypt’s press today is freer than any time in the last half century, but the government remains in the hands of the Mubarak-era army leadership, and the cabinet, even after this week’s reshuffle, is made up of veteran politicians. And, even though Egypt and Israel are formally at peace, many Egyptians remain hostile to the Jewish state. Travel, commercial ties and cultural links are minimal.

"Conspiracy theories are part of the texture of our culture," Hani Henry, a psychology professor at the American University in Cairo, told The Media Line. "Even if we have a democratic government, the problem will not go away." 

He says blaming Israel for Egypt’s problems could be both a cynical attempt by politicians to distract the public or an honest belief that Israel is constantly conniving against Egypt. In either case however, conspiratorial thinking was deeply ingrained in Egyptian thinking.

The Egyptian government, nominated and directed by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), is struggling with soaring unemployment, a sharp decline in tourism and inflation of nearly 12%. Given these troubles, it is much easier to blame an outside enemy than take responsibility and face public rage, experts say.    

The arrest in mid-June of Ilan Grapel, a 27-year-old American-Israeli law student, on charges of spying for Israel and stirring social unrest in Egypt was viewed by many Egyptians as a government ploy to deflect public attention from its shortcomings. Grapel traveled to Egypt as part of his work for a charity helping African refugees. His family, as well as the Israeli government, deny he was involved in espionage.

"Those scoundrels want to occupy the people with the spy so that they don’t talk about Mubarak and the gas [exports to Israel] …Come on, it’s the same old regime, nothing has changed," one Facebook commentator wrote.

When protesters and police clashed at Cairo’s Tahrir Square at the end of June, leaving 1,000 injured, SCAF announced that it was all part of an “organized plan” to destabilizeEgypt.

“Here we come to the question that blew off the lid of Pandora’s Box: Who sent the thugs? And all kinds of answers start popping up, and with each answer an entire world of sneaky intrigues and mischievous plots reveals itself to an audience yearning for an action-packed story that absolves them from blame and holds some invincible power accountable for their misery,” wrote Sonia Farid, who teaches English literature at Cairo University, on the Al-Arabiya television website.

Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a Cairo human rights organization, says that decades of Western failure to address the Palestinian issue has caused Egyptians to become bitter and suspicious of the West. However, he added, that doesn’t exempt them from examining their own mistakes.

"I don't like hearing about conspiracy theories," Ibrahim told The Media Line. "Even if we assume there was external intervention, someone from the inside must have contributed."
While he understood why simple Egyptians would blame the Israelis for the E. coli epidemic, Ibrahim says that such statements from an educated government official are unacceptable. 
"The government is placating the sentiments of the masses," Ibrahim said. "Rather than leading the way and enlightening the people, they are feeding their fears."

Conspiracy theories have been a part of Egypt's political discourse since the days of populist President Gamal Abdul Nasser, who toppled the Egyptian monarchy almost 60 years ago and was the first in a line of dictators that ended with Mubarak.

"There always has to be a foreign threat," Henry said. "In Nasser's day, imperialism was the bogeyman. Today imperialism has been replaced with Israel. It's a way of uniting a fragmented society."

In the years before Mubarak was ousted last February, international conspiracies led by Jews or by Israel were regularly employed by government officials and echoed in the media. 

When Culture Minister Farouq Husni lost his bid for head of the United Nations Agency for Culture and Education (UNESCO) in 2009, he blamed a Jewish plot "cooked up in New York" for his failure. Some outrageous theories have become the laughing-stock of Western media. In December 2010, for instance, the governor of South Sinai blamed the Israeli Mossad spy agency for a spate of shark attacks in the resort town of Sharm Al-Sheikh.

In the early days of unrest in Egypt, an anonymous figure, cited as a former journalist, went on the pro-Mubarak Al-Mehwar television station to accuse Israel of backing the demonstrators in a bid to throw Egypt into disarray. She claimed to have been trained by Jews in the US to destabilize the government. 

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent anti-Semitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination, is only one example of many books espousing Jewish and Israeli conspiracies to be found in bookstalls on Cairo's streets.

Experts detect subtle changes in the way conspiracy theories are used and perpetuated. Although Israel and often the US continued to be blamed for the country’s problems, Egyptians are more preoccupied these days with internal politics, Marina Ottaway, an expert on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think-tank, told The Media Line.

"Old habits die hard," she said, referring to the use of conspiracies even today. "However, neither Israel nor the United States figures prominently in what is happening in Egypt. They are not motivating the actions of the participants."

Another change from the Mubarak-era conspiracies is that Egypt’s press is far less beholden to the government. SCAF has attempted to forge direct contact with Egyptians through Facebook. With 1.2 million "fans," SCAF's Facebook page features official statements commending the courage of the protesters and offering public opinion pollson issues of policy.  

Henry of AUC says the conspiracy theories are being generated by Egypt's sensationalistic media, not because the government necessarily favors them.  "They [the media] want to score a few points with society," he said. "There are no ethics whatsoever about what is said."

 

Grote shopping mall in Gazastrook opent de deuren

Al Andalusia Mall houses branded clothes, cosmetics, office supplies, toys, shoes and appliances, etc.

 

Alweer een nieuw luxe winkelcentrum? Met alweer een zwembad erbij?

Dit moet hetzelfde winkelcentrum zijn waarover ook in mei werd bericht.

Blijkbaar is er wel vraag naar, en zijn er investeerders die de Gazastrook lucratief vinden. En blijkbaar vindt Hamas het allemaal goed.

 

RP

---------

 

 

Biggest mall in Gaza Strip opens its doors

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/biggest-mall-in-gaza-strip-opens-its-doors-1.840744

Inaugural celebrations of the Al Andalusia Mall were as big as the mall itself

·        By Nasser Najjar, Correspondent

·        Published: 18:21 July 20, 2011

 

Gaza: The biggest mall in the Gaza Strip opened its doors on Tuesday with several hundreds of residents thronging the complex.

The inaugural celebrations of the Al Andalusia Mall were as big as the mall itself, which houses branded clothes, cosmetics, office supplies, toys, shoes and appliances, etc.

Despite the reasonable prices, not many were interested in buying goods due to the financial crisis facing the impoverished strip. Most residents are poor and added to that the government staff were paid only half their June salary due to financial crisis.

The residents were more excited over the size of the mall and the escalators rather than shopping.

Mahmoud Ebed, a governmental employee, said: "I was curious to see the mall but I will not buy anything from here today."

"The prices are reasonable but I still didn’t receive the other half of my June salary," Mahmoud added.

Many residents still prefer to go to the public market.

Wael Al Whedi, an engineer working in a non-governmental organisation, was one of the few who actually made a purchase on the opening day.

Al Whedi said: "In general, the prices are reasonable for the middle class but most of the people in Gaza still don’t have the culture of buying from a mall."

Dr Alaa Al Deen Al Rafati, economy minister in Gaza government, said: "Projects like this are important for the economy as Gaza is not an industrial economy."

Ihab Al Isawia, a mall investor, said: "The mall is built on a 3,000-square meter land and has 14 departments providing goods and services."

The mall even has a swimming pool and a small cinema theatre.

 

 

donderdag 21 juli 2011

Interview met Yossi Alpher van BitterLemons

 

Op BitterLemons.net worden meningen van Israelische en Palestijnse zijde over het conflict naast elkaar gezet, om de lezer te helpen een eigen mening te vormen en vooral ook de mening van de 'tegenpartij' tot zich te nemen. Daarbij valt vaak op dat Israeli's ook kritisch naar hun eigen geschiedenis en handelen kijken en zich een deel in de Palestijnse positie kunnen inleven, terwijl het omgekeerde nauwelijks voorkomt. Zoals de interviewer stelt en Yossi Alpher beaamt:

 

One criticism of attempts to foster dialogue and understanding between the two sides is that Israelis seem more likely to accept elements of the Palestinian narrative than the other way around. For example, it's not unusual to hear Israelis describing settlements as the biggest obstacle to peace or arguing that acts of ethnic cleansing occurred during Israel's formation. Almost unheard of are Palestinians affirming the historical Jewish connection to the region or acknowledging Israeli fears of conceding more territory after Hamas took over Gaza.

 

Ami Isseroff had die ervaring ook in de dialooggroepen waar hij bij had gezeten: Joden en Arabieren konden het best eens worden over dat de Israeli's de schurken waren en de Arabieren de slachtoffers, en het allemaal aan 'de bezetting' lag, maar niet over dat de Joden ook een plek moesten hebben in het Midden-Oosten, en de Arabieren hun eigen kuil hadden gegraven door elk Joods zelfbeschikkingsrecht af te wijzen en Israel de oorlog te verklaren.

 

Wouter

______________

 

Just Journalism Interview: Yossi Alpher of bitterlemons

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/just-journalism-interview-yossi-alpher-of-bitterlemons/

 

Thurs. 21 Jun. 2011 @ 14.40 �

Yossi Alpher is the Israeli co-editor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. The bitterlemons publications reflect a joint Palestinian-Israeli effort to promote a civilized exchange of views about the Israel-Arab conflict and additional Middle East issues among a broad spectrum of participants.

Alpher served as director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, as director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem and as a senior official in the Mossad. In July 2000 he served as special adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Just Journalism Media Analyst Chris Dyszy�ski recently interviewed Alpher about bitterlemons, the competing narratives in the conflict, and his belief that the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of statehood could be 'leveraged into a win-win situation for Israelis, Palestinians and the world.'

Chris Dyszy�ski: You're the Israeli co-editor of bitterlemons, which seeks to 'promote a civilized exchange of views about the Israel-Arab conflict'. What was the thinking behind its creation, and how did you and Ghassan Khatib (the Palestinian co-editor) end up working together on it?

 

Yossi Alpher: The bitterlemons concept emerged in my thinking in the year 2000 from years of research on a solution to the conflict and informal, 'track II' meetings with Palestinians and other Arabs. An on-line dialogue that enables anyone to 'listen in' to the Israeli-Palestinian exchange of views seemed like the next natural step. Of course, it was impossible before the internet. Ghassan and I knew one another from years of track II contacts. We always disagreed with one another, but with mutual respect. We decided to incorporate that idea in bitterlemons.

 

CD: Although the emphasis is on promoting dialogue, you're happy to include commentary from quite polarising figures. Recent examples include Jamal Juma, who is a prominent supporter of the Boycotts Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign against Israel, and Gerald Steinberg, the bête noir of left-wing Israeli NGOs. What are your 'red lines' in terms of opinions and figures that you would not publish?

 

YA: Our main red line is 'no pigs and monkeys', i.e., rejecting racist, ethnic and personal slurs, calls for genocide, etc. Over the past ten years I recall a few occasions where we had to invoke this red line, including an instance where a Palestinian quite literally said Jews were descended from pigs and monkeys and another instance where an Israeli said the same about Palestinians. But virtually no topic is or should be taboo for a serious dialogue, and we strive in each edition to present a broad spectrum of views, Israeli and Palestinian. Incidentally, in bitterlemons-international we do the same thing regarding more generalized Middle East issues.

 

CD: One criticism of attempts to foster dialogue and understanding between the two sides is that Israelis seem more likely to accept elements of the Palestinian narrative than the other way around. For example, it's not unusual to hear Israelis describing settlements as the biggest obstacle to peace or arguing that acts of ethnic cleansing occurred during Israel's formation. Almost unheard of are Palestinians affirming the historical Jewish connection to the region or acknowledging Israeli fears of conceding more territory after Hamas took over Gaza. What are your thoughts on this?

 

YA: I tend to agree with your observation. But it's a subjective observation. A Palestinian would probably see this issue quite differently. Let's recall that Israel has a more veteran and developed civil society and academia than Palestine, and that Palestinians are, quite understandably, thoroughly preoccupied with their national situation whereas Israel's preoccupations are much wider. It often seems to me that the Palestinian national dialogue on these issues is where Israel was in the early 1950s, when our media exercised a considerable degree of self-censorship on issues like ethnic cleansing and the existence of a Palestinian people. But Palestine also belongs to the Arab world, which tends to take just as narrow an approach to Israel's historic roots in the region. This may not change for a long time. I don't like this, but it's the reality we live in, and Palestinian exposure to Israeli and pro-Israeli views through bitterlemons certainly can't hurt.

 

CD: Speaking of exposure to differing views, do you know the geographic break-down of your subscribers? Can you gauge how many Israeli and Palestinian readers you have, relative to one another, or how popular bitterlemons is in, say, Gaza compared to the West Bank?

 

YA: By design, we do not. In order to encourage readers from even the most sensitive countries, we do not ask our readers for any identifying data such as name and country of origin. Also, we have three categories of readers: email subscribers, website visitors, and a huge number of 'secondary subscribers' who receive our material from the 'lists' of subscribers and read our articles reproduced on other websites and the print press. Just by way of example, when the Daily Star in Beirut reproduces an article of ours, which it frequently does, this opens up an additional readership potential of tens of thousands throughout the Arab world.

Nor do we operate, again by design, a chat, talkback or forum function, which from our experience tend to deteriorate quickly to a very low level. We offer our readers a more elitist approach: a short, readable set of opinion articles on a relevant topic, no questions asked.

 

CD: You recently co-authored 'Buying Into Palestinian Statehood', an opinion piece for the New York Times that represents quite an unusual approach to the unilateral Palestinian bid for UN recognition in September. What's the basic thrust of your argument?

 

YA: First, that neither PM Binyamin Netanyahu nor PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is interested in negotiating. Neither is able to make the far-reaching ideological and political concessions necessary to sustain serious new peace talks. But Abbas' appeal to the UN is not necessarily a bad thing, because it reflects a readiness on his part to make a huge concession at the UN that he won't, or politically can't, make in negotiations. There, 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed' and the more easily discussed territorial and security issues are held hostage to the 'existential' issues of recognizing the right of return and who 'owns' the Temple Mount. At the UN, Abbas is prepared to accept a determination regarding statehood, territory and a capital in Jerusalem without immediate reference to the rest.

 

Israel and/or its supporters should seize upon this new reality and leverage the Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN into a 'win-win' resolution that awards the Palestinians a state within the 1967 lines with its capital in East Jerusalem, but balances this with advantages for Israel: recognition as a Jewish state (recalling UNGAR 181 of 1947 that created Israel precisely as a Jewish state); recognition (for the first time) of Israel's capital in Jerusalem; a call for negotiated land swaps; extensive security provisions; insistence that all outstanding issues hereinafter be negotiated; recognition that, until Hamas accepts Quartet conditions, Gaza will not be treated as part of a Palestinian state; a demand that the Arab states reward Israel for the creation of a Palestinian state with aspects of normalization as called for by the Arab Peace Initiative; etc.

All in all, when Abbas sits down at the negotiating table as president of the state of Palestine rather than (as under Oslo) chairman of the PLO with its huge refugee constituency, the conflict will be much more manageable, even if a genuine 'end of claims' remains elusive.

 

CD: 'Buying into Palestinian Statehood' was the subject of a recent bitterlemons round-up, and one of the criticisms made by Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian co-editor, was that your description of 'two states for two people' might be a reference to the Jewish people, rather than just the Israeli people. If even a Palestinian involved in a project like bitterlemons is uncomfortable with the idea of Israel as the representation of Jewish self-determination, is there any hope for the competing narratives of the two sides to ever be bridged? And if issues such as borders and refugees are resolved, does it really matter if Israelis and Palestinians never see eye to eye in terms of their historical accounts of the conflict?

 

YA: Frankly, I doubt that the coming decades will see a resolution of the two final status issues�the right of return and the Temple Mount.  The consensus Israeli position requires that in order to end the conflict completely, Palestinians recognize, in some shape or form, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its native homeland. The Palestinian position (and that of many other Arabs) is that the State of Israel was 'born in sin' and must acknowledge that it is a foreign colonialist implant by recognizing the right of return (i.e., in 1948, Palestinians were right and Israel was wrong) and awarding total and exclusive Palestinian/Islamic sovereignty over the Temple Mount (because, in the words of Arafat and Abbas, 'there never was a temple there'). Israel and state neighbours like Egypt and Jordan could ignore these issues in making peace. Israel and the Palestinians cannot ignore them if they want to reconcile their narratives about what happened in 1948 and reach an end-of-claims agreement.

 

I believe that the Palestinian UN initiative implicitly recognizes this impasse and signals a desire to normalize relations to the greatest extent possible without resolving these issues. Reasonable Israelis and their supporters who desperately want to maintain Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and know that this requires ending the occupation and creating a Palestinian state, should seize upon the Palestinian initiative and leverage it.

But whatever happens at the UN in September, we must begin to come to terms with the key flaw of Oslo: its demand that final status solve all the issues. Some appear to be unsolvable, at least for now.

 

Yossi Alpher is the Israeli co-editor of the bitterlemons family of publications. The subscriber list can be joined on their website.

 

Palestijnen geen voorstander van 'tweestatenoplossing'

 

Op Elsevier wel aandacht voor de enquete waaruit blijkt dat een ruime meerderheid van de Palestijnen een tweestatenoplossing niet ziet zitten, en achter de hadith over het doden van Joden staat.

 

RP

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Palestijnen geen voorstander van 'tweestatenoplossing'

http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Nieuws/Buitenland/306359/Palestijnen-geen-voorstander-van-tweestatenoplossing.htm

maandag 18 juli 2011 17:52

Palestijnen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever en in Gaza zijn niet bereid tot het sluiten van compromissen met Israël. Een overgrote meerderheid verwerpt een tweestatenoplossing en vindt dat de Palestijnse leiders moeten streven naar één Palestijnse staat, zonder Israël.

Witte Huis en Pentagon 
De resultaten van het onderzoek zijn inmiddels gepresenteerd aan vooraanstaande Israëlische politici. Volgende week presenteren de onderzoekers de uitkomsten in het Witte Huis en het Pentagon, meldt The Jerusalem Post.

Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van de Amerikaanse opiniepeiler Stanley Greenberg, voormalig adviseur van onder anderen Democraten Bill Clinton en Al Gore.

Uit de peiling onder ruim duizend Palestijnse volwassenen blijkt dat 34 procent akkoord gaat met een Palestijnse staat naast de huidige staat Israël. 61 procent verwerpt dit idee.

Liedjes
Twee op de drie Palestijnen (66 procent) kunnen leven met een ‘tweestatenoplossing’, zolang dit maar de eerste stap is naar het omvormen van het gehele gebied tot één Palestijnse staat.

Verder komt naar voren dat bijna alle Palestijnen (92 procent) vinden dat Jeruzalem de ongedeelde hoofdstad moet worden van 'Palestina'. 62 procent steunt het kidnappen en gevangen houden van Israëlische militairen en 53 procent vindt dat kinderen anti-Joodse liedjes moeten leren.

Geweld
Het vredesproces met Israël interesseert de meeste Palestijnen nauwelijks. Twee procent van de bevolking vindt dat het vredesproces een topprioriteit moet zijn van president Mahmoud Abbas. Voor ruim acht op de tien heeft het creëren van banen voorrang.

Een meerderheid van de Palestijnen wijst het afschieten van raketten op Israël af. Twee derde geeft de voorkeur aan praten boven gewelddadig verzet. Gematigden zijn vooral te vinden op de Westelijke Jordaanoever. In Gaza steunt de meerderheid van de bevolking wel gewelddadige acties tegen de Joodse staat.

 

woensdag 20 juli 2011

Free Gaza flotilla deelneemsters demonstreren in Syrië

 

He he, dat werd tijd. In Syrië zijn inmiddels meer dan 1500 mensen gedood en velen worden zomaar opgepakt en vastgehouden en gemarteld zolang het de machthebbers blieft. Tienduizenden zijn het land inmiddels ontvlucht. Zij kunnen dus wel een steuntje in de rug en een hart onder de riem gebruiken. Oeps, de vrouwen uit Libanon, die eerder van plan waren naar Gaza te varen, kwamen niet om de demonstranten die strijden voor menswaardigheid, vrijheid en een betere toekomst te steunen, maar om het wrede reactionaire dictatoriale regime van Assad te steunen. Hoe valt dat te rijmen met de idealen van de flotillista’s voor een betere wereld?

 

RP

----------

 

Finally, a flotilla to support Syria. (Assad's Syria, that is.)

 

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/07/finally-flotilla-to-support-syria.html

 

 

From YNet:

 

Some 400 Lebanese women arrived in Syria Sunday to show solidarity with the protesters – the pro-government protesters, that is. The women did not come to to side with the activists calling for reform and democracy, but rather to support Bashar Assad's regime.

The women, who intended to set sail from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip aboard the Miriam ship in June 2010 but were eventually barred from doing so, chose a more easily accessible destination this time – Damascus. They travelled overland to stand with Assad against "the schemes being plotted against him."

At 7 am, the women boarded eight buses and set out from Beirut's Gallery Hotel towards the Beqaa Valley.

Samar Al-Hajj, a spokeswoman for the group, expressed contentment with the initiative's progress.

"The Lebanese and Syrian security forces have facilitated the convoy's passage at the border, and congratulated it," she said in an interview with the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar television station. "Upon arriving on Syrian land, they welcomed us in a moving manner.
We, Miriam's women, cry only on happy occasions, and we did shed tears of happiness.

"We came to Syria to tell the truth, because it is the land of truth and resistance," Al-Hajj said. "We came to stop the attempts to isolate Syria, and to remove the barriers of fear inseminated by those worried about the people and the regime's strength."

 

Certainly we will be seeing statements from the Free Gaza movement, USTOGAZA and Viva Palestina distancing themselves from these pro-Palestinian Arab, pro-Syrian regime activists. After all, as they never tire of telling us, they are purely interested in non-violence, and democracy, and equal rights, and international law, and having some of their own supporting a despotic, brutal regime would be way too hypocritical for them to even be able to live with themselves.

(h/t Kramerica)

 

Media negeren slechte uitslag Palestijnse enquete

 

In de Amerikaanse en Britse (zie artikel Just Journalism onder Elder of Ziyon) media was weinig tot niks te vinden over de enquete onder Palestijnen van afgelopen zaterdag, waaruit blijkt dat een ruime meerderheid de tweestatenoplossing afwijst en lieft 92% is tegen deling van Jeruzalem en eist de hele stad, inclusief het Israelische westen, voor de Palestijnen op. Ook een ruime meerderheid staat achter de hadith over het doden van Joden die ook in het handvest van Hamas staat.

Ook in de Nederlandse media werd de enquete genegeerd, behalve in Elsevier.

 

RP

-------

 

Scandal: Media hides damning poll that proves PalArab intransigence

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/07/scandal-media-hides-damning-poll-that.html

 

As I predicted, the mainstream media has all but ignored the poll that the Jerusalem Post reported on last week that shows that most Palestinian Arabs want to destroy Israel - using the "two state solution" as a first stage towards that goal. The poll also denies Jewish history and shows that 92% are against even sharing Jerusalem as the capital of two states.

The intransigence is hard to miss in this survey - but the few times that the non-Zionist media mentions the poll, it downplayed or ignored the major results altogether.

Ha'aretz, while it mentioned the results briefly, buried the poll in the end of a story about how the Palestinian Arabs do not want a new intifada.

The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood, also at the very end of a longer article,
purposefully ignored the parts of the poll that show that everything she reports is wrong, and instead reported it this way:

 

A recent opinion survey carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by the respected US pollster Stanley Greenberg found that at the top of the priority list for Palestinians were jobs, healthcare, water shortages and education. Mass protests against Israel, and even pursuing peace negotiations, came way down. Asked to choose, two-thirds favoured diplomatic engagement with Israel over violence.


Time magazine's Karl Vick, in a blog entry, mentioned one of the unpalatable results but did all he could to minimize it:

 

But by the same 2 to 1 margin they also oppose the two-state solution that's been the stated goal of negotiations. Most prefer ending up with a single state, in which Palestinians presumably would outnumber Jewish Israelis. The poll numbers shift some (to 44 percent positive) when the question becomes whether they "will accept a two-state solution."

 

Which is of course still a majority against a two state solution. But that is not his focus:

 

The most striking finding, though, was Palestinians' focus on daily life. Job creation was cited by 83 percent of West Bank residents asked what Abbas should make his top two priorities, followed (at 36 percent) by expansion of health care services and ending chronic water shortages.

 

AFP also reported on the poll, although practically no news outlets reproduced their article. Their version is equally guilty of hiding the truth, however, completely ignoring the parts about destroying Israel and highlighting the economic issues.

Outside of right-wing and explicitly Zionist news media (Commentary, a New York Post blog, Hot Air) these were the only mentions of this survey I could find.

The mentions by Time and The Guardian show that the mainstream media is quite aware that the poll exists and what it says. They read the  Jerusalem Post. But it proves that years of their lazy assumptions, their self-righteous op-eds, and their insufferable smugness at pretending to be Middle East experts are all completely wrong - and they cannot abide reporting any facts that contradict their cherished beliefs.

This is more than media bias. This is a scandal.

The Israel Project should release the raw poll results tomorrow, from what I hear. It will be most interesting to see how the media reacts to, or ignores, the full findings.

(h/t Kramerica, CAMERA)

 

 

Poll findings of Palestinian rejectionism unreported

just journalism

Mon. 18 Jul. 2011 @ 11.35 –

 

Poll finding that majority of Palestinians reject two states for two peoples while endorsing religious extremism ignored by British media; Guardian report omits these details, while Independent focuses on Jewish rejectionism instead.

 

On Friday, Just Journalism covered a major new poll on Palestinian attitudes in the West Bank and Gaza. The poll, conducted by face-to-face interviews in Arabic with over a thousand participants, produced several worrying results. As The Jerusalem Post reported, this included a significant majority who reject Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, and agree that the creation of a Palestinian state should be the first step to absorbing the Israeli one:

 

‘Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

 

‘Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

 

‘Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.’

 

The only coverage that the poll received in the British media omitted any of the contentious findings. Harriet Sherwood’s ‘Palestine: the flags are already waving but will a declaration of statehood help?’, published in The Observer, concentrates on the build-up to the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of statehood in September. Discussing the possibility of a widespread outbreak of violence if the Palestinian bid is thwarted, Sherwood cites the poll as proof that Palestinians are uninterested in threatening Israel:

 

‘A recent opinion survey carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by the respected US pollster Stanley Greenberg found that at the top of the priority list for Palestinians were jobs, healthcare, water shortages and education. Mass protests against Israel, and even pursuing peace negotiations, came way down. Asked to choose, two-thirds favoured diplomatic engagement with Israel over violence.’

 

Given that the entire article focuses on the Palestinian campaign for statehood, it seems noteworthy that there is no mention of the poll’s findings that the majority of Palestinians see a state as the first stage to removing Israel, which they view as illegitimate.

 

Sherwood’s characterisation of the poll as evidence of Palestinian disinterest in violence is also only partially accurate, given that it found that 73 per cent agreed with a quote from the Hamas charter that calls for the killing of Jews. The relevant section of the charter states:

 

‘The Prophet, Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him, says: “The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.”’

 

In addition to the selective reporting in The Guardian, The Independent’s Catrina Stewart chose instead to report on Israeli extremism and rejectionism. In ‘Jewish settlers are terrorising Palestinians, says Israeli general’, published 18 July, Stewart describes how a senior Israeli army commander has denounced ‘Jewish terror’ emanating from a specific settlement in the West Bank.

 

Focusing on the issue of violence perpetrated by settlers, Stewart also mentions that many settlers reject a Palestinian state on religious grounds:

 

‘Human rights groups suggest that the more radical settlers, many of whom oppose a two-state solution on the premise that the whole of Israel is bequeathed to them by God, are agitating against Palestinian moves to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations in September.’

 

Despite devoting an article to Israelis who reject two states for two people on religious grounds, Stewart did not cover the poll findings that suggest similarly rejectionist views are far more widespread on the Palestinian side.

 

 

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/poll-findings-of-palestinian-rejectionism-unreported/

 

 

dinsdag 19 juli 2011

De nep-citaten van zionisten in het valse Homeland van Georg Sluizer

 

Zondag zond de VPRO, je weet wel, de kwaliteitsomroep, de film Homeland uit van Georg Sluizer. De film is doorspekt met zogenaamde citaten van Ben Goerion, Sharon, Meir en anderen, die echter bijna allemaal vals zijn. Ik vind deze film werkelijk te vergelijken met nazi-propagandafilms zoals Der Ewige Jude. Zo beweert Sluizer dat ben Goerion in 1948 heeft gezegd dat:

 

We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.

 

Dit is echter fake blijkens een artikel op CAMERA; hetzelfde nep-citaat is ook anderen in de mond gelegd:

 

Commissioner Israel Koenig NEVER WROTE this

Source given: Supposedly cited in Lustick, Ian, Arabs in the Jewish State, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1980.

Koenig didn't say it, and Lustick never wrote that he said it. This same fabricated Zionist quote is also attributed to David Ben Gurion in 1948.

More Information on fake Zionist quotes II

 

Op antizionistische en antisemitische websites kom je vaak tientallen, zo niet honderden van dergelijke citaten tegen, de ene nog absurder dan de andere. Israelische en zionististische leiders lijken er erger in dan nazi’s. Vreemd alleen dat zij zulke dingen nooit gewoon in het openbaar zeggen, opgetekend door normale media (die ook niet bepaald pro-Israel zijn) en bediscussieerd in Israelische media. Van tientallen citaten is immers bewezen, door onder meer artikelen van Ami Isseroff en op Camera, dat zij vals zijn. Er zijn ongetwijfeld nog veel citaten in omloop waarvan dat nog niet bewezen is. Een leugen is nou eenmaal sneller opgeschreven dan weerlegd. De bewijslast ligt dan ook bij de mensen die deze citaten op hun website zetten of in hun film verwerken, maar Sluizer weigert zijn bronnen prijs te geven. Harry Boostheim schrijft daarover:

 

Ondertussen blijft Sluizer volhouden dat hij het allemaal zwart op wit heeft maar weigert iets te overleggen. Net als de meest groezelige quotes die hij Golda Meir en Ben Goerion in de mond legt over vergassen en uitroeien, waar niemand nog ooit van heeft gehoord behalve Sluizer dan die volgens eigen zeggen zijn bronnen niet gaat prijsgeven.

 

Het is, kortom, schandalig dat de VPRO en het Nederlandse Fonds voor de Film, dat Sluizer 100.000 Euro gaf voor het maken van de film, aan dergelijke leugens en haatzaaierij meewerken. Op de website van Holland.doc staat bovendien een wel erg kritiekloos interview met Sluizer bij de aankondiging van de film. Wie wil kan bij deze organisaties zijn beklag doen.

 

Hieronder een gedeelte van een artikel van Ami Isseroff over valse citaten en hoe ze te herkennen, met natuurlijk een aantal voorbeelden.

 

RP

----------

 

also see Zionist Quotes   Anti-Zionist Quotes

People put great store in quotes and purported quotes, but these are often faked.

Fake Zionist Quotes

Scattered around the Web are numerous pages of "Zionist Quotes" that show Zionism as an evil, racist conspiracy. Many of the quotes are forgeries, hoaxes and inventions. The quotes were fabricated to discredit Israel, Zionism or Jews.  not to inform or enlighten anyone.  The intent of the doctored quotes may be to  "prove" that "Zionism is Racism." and that 'Zionists' planned the transfer of Arabs from Palestine from the start and to demonize Israeli, Zionists and Jews.

How Fake Quotes are Made

Fake quotes are manufactured in a number of ways:

Presenting fiction as fact - A satirical and fictional "interview" with an Israeli general was presented as a real interview of Ariel Sharon supposedly don by Amos Oz.

Confabulation - According to Benny Morris, Ben Gurion wrote to his son that "we must expel the Arabs." These words could not be found in the Hebrew text of his letters, but apparently in an English version.

Quoting out of context - A portion of a speech or letter meant ironically or with an obviously innocent intent is quoted as standalone prose. For example, before the establishment of the state of Israel, David Ben Gurion gave a speech noting that Arabs would be nearly a majority in the new state unless the Zionists acted. Ben Gurion explained envisioned massive Jewish immigration. That part of his remarks is omitted so that the unsuspecting reader thinks that Ben Gurion was proposing "ethnic cleansing."

Omitting key phrases - For example the phrase "We bought the lands from the Arabs" was omitted from a Moshe Dayan quote to make it seem like he admitted that Zionists had stolen all the land.

How to Spot Fake Quotes

Sometimes fake quotes can be spotted because the language is particularly obnoxious, or because what are supposedly Hebrew names or place names have been distorted by someone who does not know the language. An Israeli statesman would not be likely to use racist or violent language in public and no Israeli would have a name like "Ouze." "Quotes" of that type were concocted for a credulous Arab-speaking audience ad translated,

Crude hoaxes can sometimes be because they refer to persons who do not exist. There are no such people as General Ouze Merham or spokesperson Tziporah Menache.

Quotes that are given without an original source citation or with many ellipses are suspicious.

How to Deal with Fake Zionist Quotes

It is not possible to find the origins of every fake quote and hoax and should not be necessary. The burden of proof should be on those who propose the material, since new hoaxes can be fabricated much faster than they are refuted, but it is not so. It is ver time consuming and difficult to prove convincingly that a quote is a hoax.

Some real quotes may be quite obnoxious. You cannot be made to be responsible for every unfortunate utterance of every politician and should not try to defend every utterance.

Always demand to see the original document and quote, not somebody's citation of the quote, part of the document or an inexact translation.

Search the Web with a phrase from the quote to see if someone has already debunked it or if it can be found in the original context. If the quote appears at known hate sites such as rense.com, jewwatch, zundelsite, stormfront, aryannation88, sodahead, electronic inifadah, miftah, or godlike productions, it is probably fake, especially if it cannot be found at respectable and balanced Web sites or other authoritative sources.   Google translations are often good enough to verify quotes in languages you do not know.

The printed word, especially in an academic book, or article, has an awesome authority. The invented quote, with it non-existent journal citation, will be often be copied out of the purest motives and in total innocence.

Sample Fake Zionist Quotes

Not every fake quotation can be debunked. I present only a somewhat arbitrary sample of what appears to be the most popular hoaxes. Just because you cannot find a"Zionist quote" here does not mean it is legitimate.


Fake 'Zionist' - Tziporah Menache

 

 

This quote is egregious because even the Nazis admit it is a fake. You can look for it at the Stormfront Web site, where it is also debunked.  

There was was evidently no such person as "Tziporah Menache" in the role of Israeli spokesperson. She was not a spokesperson in 2009.

"You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can't criticize Israel." Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache 2009

The fabrication first appeared supposedly in a Pakistani Web site, but cannot be found there. It was de-bunked not by Zionists, but by anti-Semitic and anti Israel Web sites, apparently because the Web page contained a virus.

At abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread433959/pg1 we find:

After much careful research from many members of the ATS community it has been concluded without a doubt that this thread is a hoax. The quote itself came from a single source which has been shown to be fictional. Furthermore, careful research has shown that the only mention of the spokeswoman's name, ever, is in articles relating to this supposed statement. In short, we are not even able to establish if the woman exists at all.

At rense.com/general85/quote.htm paranoid racist Dick Eastman writes:

Subject: It's a disinformation-bated trap Fw: Israeli Tzipora Menache: "We control the stupid Americans"
 

"You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us?..." --fake person "Tzipora Manache" -- the quote sends people looking for Israel into a search where they find a virus download.
 

This is scripted stuff -- scripted for the effect it would have on us. The goal is to get people googling for Tzipora -- where they will find a link that will download a virus. The fake quote is like the a doll attached as bait to the trigger of a landmine -- those investigating the influence of Israel will attempt to hunt down Tzipora Manache and will fall into the trap.
 

It should not be necessary to explain that the fortunecity address probably gut the virus by coincidence, and not as the result of a sinister Jew-Zionist conspiracy.

Even the anti-semites are ashamed of this crude fabrication. Nonetheless, the hoax quote is presented as real at a large number of Web sites including  radioislam.org/eng/We-Control-Stupid-Americans.htm; wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/10635; heidilore.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/israeli-spokesman-says-we-control-stupid-americans/. 

Further reading: http://www.zionism-israel.com/fake_zionist_quotes.htm