Achter de schermen bij VN vaak begrip voor Israel

 

There is also a general behind-the-scenes consensus among representatives regarding one of the toughest core issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Palestinian right of return. Weissbrod says that in nearly every meeting, representatives have come to fully understand the Israeli refusal to agree to the right of return, yet when they speak publicly they “immediately choke up."

He believes that the reason for this stems from the international perception of Israel as the stronger side in the conflict, making it easier to publicly make demands of it. Several ambassadors have told Weissbrod in private that they feel “uncomfortable” with making demands of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and that because Israel is stronger, it must “be nice toward the weak."

Dit is enerzijds goed nieuws, en het is bemoedigend dat men het er feitelijk over eens is dat de miljoenen nakomelingen van de vluchtelingen niet naar Israel kunnen emigreren, maar het is natuurlijk ook erg frusterend dat dit nooit eens openlijk wordt gezegd. Juist openlijke kritiek aan de Palestijnen zou zeer heilzaam kunnen zijn, en juist de notie dat Israel de sterkere is en je er dus meer eisen aan kunt stellen, bevestigt de Palestijnen in hun slachtofferrol.

 

RP

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Senior Israeli diplomat: UN often sympathetic to Israel, but only behind the scenes

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/senior-israeli-diplomat-un-often-sympathetic-to-israel-but-only-behind-the-scenes-1.375627

Amir Weissbrod, top adviser to the Israeli delegation in the UN, says that most Security Council members privately understand Israel's positions vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority.

By Shlomo Shamir

 

Contrary to popular belief, discussions and negotiations taking place behind-the-scenes in the UN Security Council are often sympathetic to Israeli positions on critical issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Amir Weissbrod, a senior Israeli diplomat and top adviser to the Israeli delegation in the UN.

According to Weissbrod, backdoor meetings between ambassadors and foreign diplomats are generally understanding of Israeli justifications of its policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority.

However, statements of understanding for Israel’s position usually take place ”behind closed doors” and are never outwardly expressed in speeches to the Security Council or to the media.

“They are not willing to state publicly what they readily will say in a private meeting with Israeli representatives, which is often infuriating," said Weissbrod.

According to Weissbrod, only the United States, Canada, and several other countries have shown sympathy toward Israeli positions both publicly and privately.

Moreover, Weissbrod says that through tough diplomacy, Israel was capable of changing countries’ perspectives as well as their public stances. The flotilla episode, for instance, presented Israel with an opportunity to bring a fundamental change in the international response to what it sees as a provocation. In the end, 11 of 15 members of the Security Council spoke out publicly against the flotilla.

Moreover, the dramatic events of the Arab Spring have caused many to rethink the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the mainsource of instability in the Middle East. However, because Security Council members are still unsure of what will happen in the region, they are determined to create an inextricable link between the uprisings in Arab countries and the conflict, and to push for a resolution as soon as possible.

There is also a general behind-the-scenes consensus among representatives regarding one of the toughest core issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Palestinian right of return. Weissbrod says that in nearly every meeting, representatives have come to fully understand the Israeli refusal to agree to the right of return, yet when they speak publicly they “immediately choke up."

He believes that the reason for this stems from the international perception of Israel as the stronger side in the conflict, making it easier to publicly make demands of it. Several ambassadors have told Weissbrod in private that they feel “uncomfortable” with making demands of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and that because Israel is stronger, it must “be nice toward the weak."

 

Hezbollah bedreigt Libanese buikdanseres die met Israelische band optrad

 

Op een festival in Frankrijk traden een Israelische metalband en een Libanese buikdanseres samen op. Resultaat: de Libanese danseres kan niet meer terug naar Libanon vanwege doodsbedreigingen afkomstig van Hezbollah.

 

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war and it is illegal under Lebanese law for any citizen to have public interactions with an Israeli. Media outlets around the world carried the image of Fakhri and Fahri brandishing their national flags, prompting a seething Hezbollah to declare Fakhri a traitor and issue a death warrant for her. The dancer has since been hiding out in France, fearing for her life if she returns to her homeland.

In Israel zijn zulke wetten er niet, wel is het voor knessetleden verboden om naar landen te reizen waarmee Israel officieel in oorlog is en enkele Arabisch-Israelische parlementsleden zijn daarvoor vervolgd. Dat riep vervolgens weer de verontwaardiging op van antizionisten, die dat een ongeoorloofde inperking van hun vrijheden vond. Maar ik geloof niet dat iemand zich over de Libanese buikdanseres zorgen maakt. En veel mensen blijven roepen dat organisaties als Hezbollah, Hamas en de Moslim Broederschap pragmatisch zijn geworden en dat het allemaal reuze meevalt en we ons vooral niet teveel zorgen moeten maken dat zij aan de macht komen.

 

RP

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Hezbollah threatens belly dancer for appearing with Israelis

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/07/hezbollah-threatens-belly-dancer-for.html

 

From Israel HaYom:

 

A Lebanese belly dancer is facing death threats and cannot return to her homeland after embracing an Israeli musician at an international festival in France.

 

On June 19, Israeli heavy metal band Orphaned Land performed alongside Lebanese belly dancer Johanna Fakhri at the Hellfest music festival in the western French town of Clisson. At the end of their performance, the Lebanese dancer held up her country’s flag while Orphaned Land's singer, Kobi Fahri, held up an Israeli flag. The two then hugged and clasped each other's hands.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war and it is illegal under Lebanese law for any citizen to have public interactions with an Israeli. Media outlets around the world carried the image of Fakhri and Fahri brandishing their national flags, prompting a seething Hezbollah to declare Fakhri a traitor and issue a death warrant for her. The dancer has since been hiding out in France, fearing for her life if she returns to her homeland.

The threats against Fakhri have now spread from Lebanon. Last week, the French Muslim party PMF, which is closely tied to Hezbollah, carried a quote from Hezbollah on its website, declaring Fakhri “a traitor who collaborates with the Zionist enemy.”

In response, Fakhri released a statement calling her appearance with Fahri an act of peace.

 

Here's the performance on YouTube.

That is not the limit of anti-Israel nuttiness, however. Dr. Azzaf Eshrat, an MD writing in the crazy-left Salem News, says that this entire show was orchestrated by the Israeli government in order to distract attention from the flotilla! (He also claims that Orphaned Land stole their song from an Egyptian pop song. And that there is no archaeological evidence that Jews ever lived in Israel.)

Which just goes to show that upper class Egyptians are not necessarily more sane than crazed Hezbollah terrorists.

 

 

In Syrië al 1.634 doden en 2.918 vermisten; 12.617 in gevangenis

 

Dit is de stand van donderdag. Het aantal doden en vermisten blijft stijgen. Ondertussen worden ook critici van het regime in het buitenland bedreigd. Het Syrische regime is wreed en meedogenloos tegenover haar eigen burgers, maar dit roept onder mensenrechtenactivisten bij lange na niet de verontwaardiging op die veel minder erge Israelische wandaden oproepen. Ook de media zijn maar matig geinteresseerd.

 

RP

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Syrian stats: 1,634 dead, 12,617 in jail, 2,918 missing

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/07/syrian-stats-1634-dead-12617-in-jail.html

From AFP/NOW Lebanon:

Almost 3,000 people have gone missing in Syria since the start of anti-regime protests more than four months ago, the Avaaz non-governmental organization said in a statement on Thursday.

"Avaaz has today revealed the identities of 2,918 Syrians who have been arrested by Syrian security forces and whose whereabouts are now unknown," the organization said in statement received by AFP in Nicosia.

It said it was launching a campaign Thursday "to call for the release of the nearly 3,000 Syrians who have been forcibly 'disappeared' since the peaceful uprising began on March 15th of this year."

"The in-depth survey conducted by Avaaz estimates that one person is disappearing every hour.”

"In the past week alone there have been more than 1,000 arrests and the number of enforced disappearances has been rapidly rising on a daily basis, as the regime steps up its efforts to repress dissent in the build-up to Ramadan," the statement said.

According to the organization’s executive director, Ricken Patel, "hour by hour, peaceful protesters are plucked from crowds by Syria's infamously brutal security forces, never to be seen again."

Avaaz said 1,634 people have died in the crackdown, 26,000 have been arrested, of whom 12,617 are still in detention.

 

Others put the death toll at closer to 2,000.

Things might get more heated during Ramadan, which starts next week. From Bloomberg:

 

Activists, analysts and Syrian refugees say the uprising is set to intensify during the Muslim holy month. Opposition groups plan to shift from weekly rallies to nightly ones, held after the tarawih, an additional nighttime prayer recited during Ramadan, said Bashar Afandi and Mohammed al-Klesse, who fled Assad’s crackdown on northern Syria and are staying in Turkish camps.

“The mosques will play a pivotal role and every night, when people gather to pray, will resemble what we have seen after every Friday prayers,” said Mahmoud Merhi, of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. A surge in arrests in the past two weeks is probably aimed at heading off the momentum that Ramadan may give to protesters, he said by phone from Damascus.

 

Gematigde Palestijn Nabil Shaath tegen tweestatenoplossing

 

Meer bewijs dat de Palestijnen – zowel de bevolking als het leiderschap – tegen een tweestatenoplossing zijn.

 

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Another "moderate" saying he wants to destroy the Jewish state

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-moderate-saying-he-wants-to.html

MEMRI released this interview with Nabil Sha'ath, a Fatah leader:

(See de video here)

Nabil Shaath: The recognition of a [Palestinian] state is basically a bilateral action, which receives the blessing of the UN. This act, however, will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states, and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel, in order to force it to recognize us and to leave our country. This is our long-term goal. 
...

[The French initiative] reshaped the issue of the "Jewish state" into a formula that is also unacceptable to us – two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of "two states for two peoples" means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this – not as part of the French initiative and not as part of the American initiative. We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country. We will not accept this, whether the initiative is French, American, or Czechoslovakian.

Barry Rubin notes:

Supposedly, [Shaath] is the archetypal Palestinian moderate. There was a time when the Western media ridiculed the Israeli declaration that he was a secret Fatah member. When Israel agreed to negotiate with non-PLO Palestinians, the PLO put his name forward although it knew, of course, that he was no such thing. Peace processors ridiculed Israel’s refusal to accept him....It is reasonable to call Shaath as moderate as anyone in the PA’s leadership, more moderate than the Fatah leadership.

...In other words, Shaath, one of the most important and relatively moderate Palestinian Authority leaders, is against a two-state solution. First, there will be a Palestinian state “for one people,” that is an Arab, Muslim state. But there can be no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state because that implies a permanent peace. Shaath and the Palestinian leadership almost unanimously seek a second stage in which the “Palestinians with Israeli citizenship” plus the “returning…to their country” of Palestinian refugees will turn Israel into an Arab Muslim Palestinian part of Palestine.

This is merely a restatement of the “two-stage” solution of the PLO adopted forty years ago.

 

Also, note that Sha'ath is saying - by his own definition of what "a state for its people" means - that Jews will never be allowed to live in "Palestine!" 

He is saying that Israel is racist because he misunderstands what a "state of the Jewish people" means - but he has no problem saying, explicitly, that "Palestine" will be a state of one people, which by his own definition means zero non-Palestinian Arabs living there.

Which sounds suspiciously like he is advocating ethnic cleansing and apartheid.