donderdag 2 oktober 2014

Saeb Erekat beweert doden Gaza voor 96% burgers

Erekats beweringen zijn te zot voor woorden.

The radio interview is in English and these absurd lies can be heard at the 30 second mark here. He also says Israel "demolished" 50,000 homes (according to anti-Israel site Electronic Intifada, 15,670 homes were damaged, not demolished,) and that 500,000 Gazans are homeless (that is the maximum number displaced during the war but only about 50,000 remain in shelters as of a few weeks ago.)

Erekat heeft al vaker onzinnige dingen gezegd en Israel van de meest idiote zaken beschuldigd. Het is een wonder dat deze man nog serieus wordt genomen. Elder heeft een hele lijst van zijn leugens en idioterie verzameld.

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PA’s Erekat claims 96% of Gaza dead were civilians

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pas-erekat-claims-96-of-gaza-dead-were-civilians/

Chief Palestinian negotiator repeats Abbas’s ‘genocide’ charge; Israeli minister says Palestinian leaders building ‘industry of lies’ against Israel

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF September 29, 2014, 11:18 am

Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90/File)

Escalating the Palestinian leadership’s rhetorical assault on Israel, the chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, on Monday claimed that 96 percent of Gazans killed in the summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict were civilians, reiterated PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s charge of Israeli “genocide,” and accused Israel of seeking to impose apartheid on the Palestinians.

Responding to Erekat’s interview, Israel’s Communication Minister Gilad Erdan said the Palestinian leadership was operating “an industry of lies” aimed at fundamentally delegitimizing Israel, and that there was “no one to talk to” about peace on the Palestinian side.

Erekat spoke three days after Abbas leveled the genocide allegation against Israel in his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to address the General Assembly later Monday, having vowed to “refute the lies” disseminated by Abbas against Israel.

Erekat, in the radio interview, defined genocide as “a direct attempt to eliminate, horrify, relocate, destroy a way of life” and claimed “Israel committed the killing of 12,000 and wounding 12,000 Palestinians; 96 percent of them are civilians.”

UN figures put the death toll in Gaza of the 50-day Israel-Hamas conflict at some 2,100, almost three-quarters of them civilians. Israel disputes these findings, and says about 1,000 of the dead were Hamas and other gunmen. It blames Hamas for all civilian casualties, since the Islamist terror group emplaced its war machine amid the civilian populace. Seventy-two Israelis — six of them civilians — were killed in the conflict, during which Hamas and other Gaza terror groups fired some 4,600 rockets and other projectiles at Israel.

“I know Israelis are provoked for the fact that someone is using the term genocide,” Erekat said, but that, he claimed, was “the reality in Gaza today.” He also said the PA had “condemned atrocities and genocidal attempts by IS (Islamic State) and others,” and had “never condoned the firing of missiles to Israeli civilians.”

In the wake of Abbas’s speech, Erekat said, the Palestinians would be presenting a resolution to the UN Security Council demanding a Palestinian state “to live side-by-side in peace and security with the state of Israel” based on the pre-67 lines. Israel, he said, would thus be “getting 78 percent” of mandatory Palestine; “I’m getting 22%.”

The resolution would also call on the parties to find solutions to all core issues of dispute, including the fate of Palestinian refugees. “We will still need a just and agreed solution to the refugees,” he said, “just and agreed with you.”

However, Israel has a government “that does not believe in a two-state solution,” he charged. “You have a government that believes in one state, two systems — the translation of this is apartheid. We will not accept a new apartheid regime by Israel.”

Responding to the interview, Likud minister Erdan, a member of Israel’s key eight-member security cabinet, said that the attitude of the PA leadership underlined that “in the coming years, there’s nobody to talk to.”

Erdan added: “We have to understand that we have a stubborn enemy… The right and left in Israel have to unite against this Palestinian plot to delegitimize the state of Israel.”

He dismissed Erekat’s statistics as part of the Palestinian “industry of lies,” and said he did not believe the PA’s purported readiness for a state on the pre-67 lines was anything but “tactical” — implying that the PA was ultimately seeking the elimination of Israel.

Rather than directly fostering terrorism, Erdan charged, Abbas was engaging in “political terrorism” against Israel.

Challenged by the radio interviewer over the government’s opposition to territorial withdrawal, Erdan said “Israelis have seen that any territory we left has been seized by terrorists. That’s what happened in Lebanon; that’s what happened in Gaza.” If it hadn’t been for the presence of the IDF, terrorists would have taken over the West Bank as well, toppling Abbas, he said.

He said Abbas’s security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank was a case of “self-interest,” because Abbas knew “terror groups in Judea and Samaria would otherwise bring him down too.”

In an earlier interview, with Israel’s Channel 2 on Sunday night, Erekat had also dismissed Israeli and American condemnations of Abbas’s “genocide” terminology, and said that “ignoring facts doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

In his address to the UN, Abbas said 2014 was meant to be a year of international solidarity with the Palestinians, but blamed Israel for choosing to make it “a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people,” referring to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Friday said Abbas’s speech “included offensive characterizations” that the US rejects, and Netanyahu called it “inciting,” “slanders and lies.”

Underlining the intensification of a Palestinian legal campaign against Israel, Erekat also said Sunday that the Palestinians were “planning now to join 522 international agreements, conventions, protocols,” including those “paving the way to the International Criminal Court.”

Ilan Ben Zion contributed to this report.

Abbas wil via Veiligheidsraad vertrek Israel afdwingen

Voordat onderhandelingen met Israel kunnen worden hervat, moet eerst de Veiligheidsraad een eenzijdige resolutie aannemen waarin een aantal Palestijnse eisen zonder enig tegengebaar worden ingewilligd.

Het is wederom een slimme zet van Abbas: zo kan hij een deel van zijn eisen binnenhalen zonder iets terug te hoeven doen, en met Israel wordt dan over de precieze invulling verder gepraat. Wanneer de Veiligheidsraad niet instemt, wat de verwachting is, heeft hij een mooi excuus om niet te hoeven onderhandelen. Ondertussen blijven Palestijnse politici hard uithalen naar Israel en Netanyahu, wat uiteraard de kansen op onderhandelingen niet zal doen toenemen:

“We are the lords of the land for 3,000 years, Netanyahu can return to his Brooklyn roots,” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said Wednesday in connection with the statehood bid.

Channel 2 also showed a clip of Abbas aide Jibril Rajoub calling Netanyahu a “Nazi fascist.”

Als dit is hoe het Palestijnse leiderschap erover denkt, waarom zou Israel ze dan nog vertrouwen? Het zijn slechts een paar voorbeelden in een lange reeks, waaronder Abbas’ eigen speech voor de VN van vorige week en Erekats leugens over 96% burgerslachtoffers in Gaza.

NB: Netanyahu werd overigens in 1949 in Tel Aviv geboren; zijn grootouders stamden uit Litouwen en Polen.

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Palestinians submit statehood plea to UN, want Israel gone by 2016

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ahead-of-netanyahu-obama-meet-palestinians-submit-draft-statehood-bid-to-un/

Security Council petition calls for Israeli withdrawal by November 2016, ‘a just resolution’ to the refugee problem, and an end to all military and settlement activity

BY AP AND MARISSA NEWMAN October 1, 2014, 6:17 pm

The Palestinians have asked the UN Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It follows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement to the UN General Assembly on Friday that he would ask the council to set a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal.

The draft also demands an end to all Israeli military operations and settlement activities, the opening of all border crossings in the Gaza Strip, and deployment of “an international presence” throughout the Palestinian territories to protect Palestinian civilians.

Abbas said Wednesday that the PA would reevaluate its security coordination with Israel in the West Bank if its statehood bid to the UN Security Council was rejected, and added that the Palestinians would file for membership to the ICC if the resolution failed to pass, according to Arabic media.

Speaking to journalists in Ramallah, Abbas said the Palestinians were meeting with representatives of the Security Council states to persuade them to accept the resolution once proposed. He added that once a timetable for Israeli withdrawal was set, he would agree to return to the peace talks with Israel.

“As soon as we get that, we are willing to return to the negotiating table,” he said, according to the Haaretz daily.

The unilateral move, widely expected to be shot down in a veto, has been lobbied against by Israel and the United States, which say the conflict needs to be resolved through a negotiated settlement.

Israel’s Channel 2 quoted the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat saying that the US has already told him it will veto Abbas’s statehood resolution.

Nonetheless, the Palestinians are pushing to try to win the support of 9 of the 15 UN Security Council members in order to force a veto.

The TV report also quoted a new series of offensive statements made against Israel by leading PA figures.

“We are the lords of the land for 3,000 years, Netanyahu can return to his Brooklyn roots,” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said Wednesday in connection with the statehood bid.

Channel 2 also showed a clip of Abbas aide Jibril Rajoub calling Netanyahu a “Nazi fascist.”

The PA president on Wednesday reiterated his stance against armed conflict with Israel, stating that “not even one bullet” would be fired under his watch.

The PA has repeatedly threatened to apply for membership in the international court, and lodge war crime charges against Israel. However, Abbas has yet to submit an application, according to ICC officials. Membership in the ICC would also place Hamas under international scrutiny for firing rockets on Israeli civilians.

Abbas’s remarks follow a strongly worded address he made at the UN, in which he accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians.

In response, Netanyahu on Tuesday decried Hamas’s use of human shields and firing rockets on Israeli civilians and held Abbas responsible.

“And I say to President Abbas, these are the war crimes committed by your Hamas partners in the national unity government which you head and you are responsible for. And these are the real war crimes you should have investigated, or spoken out against from this podium last week,” Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly.

He also indicated that the peace talks should be coordinated with the Arab world.

Netanyahu said “to achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but also to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere. I believe peace can be realized with the active involvement of Arab countries, those that are willing to provide political, material and other indispensable support.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

woensdag 1 oktober 2014

Ophef rond open brief Gaza in The Lancet

Niet alleen laaggeschoolde rappers en middelbare ambtenaren zijn bevattelijk voor wilde complottheorieën over de Joodse almacht en samenzwering, ook vermeende intellectuelen zoals medisch specialisten verliezen hun (naar men zou aannemen) kritische blik wel eens als ze zich buiten hun vakgebied begeven. Net als bij Gretta Duisenberg vraag ik me dan wel af: antisemiet (zoals hieronder gesteld) of gewoon ontzettend onnozel?

De medici die een aanklacht tegen de Gaza oorlog in The Lancet publiceerden zijn bepaald geen nieuwkomers:

Dr. Ang was naar eigen zeggen een fundamentalistisch christen die tot de eerste Libanon Oorlog Israel steunde. Ze was als vrijwilligster in Libanon ooggetuige van de slachting in Sabra en Shatilla. Ze getuigde voor de Kahan commissie en schreef er een boek over.

Dr. Manduca, een Italiaans professor in genetica, steunde 5 jaar geleden al een petitie om Hamas van de EU-lijst van terroristische organisaties te laten schrappen. Ook de open brief in The Lancet bevat geen letter kritiek op Hamas. Manduca en Ang wordt verweten antisemitische complotfantasieën te verspreiden via e-mail groepen.

Dr. Gilbert is lid van een linksradicale splinterpartij in Noorwegen. Hij was in de jaren ’70 vrijwilliger op een kibboetz en werd nadien actief voor de Palestijnse zaak.

The Lancet is een gerenommeerd Brits medisch tijdschrift, maar raakte al vaker in opspraak door controversiële politieke stellingnames, zowel betreffende Israel als andere onderwerpen.

Wouter

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Surprise! Doctors who wrote Lancet anti-Israel letter are antisemites

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.nl/2014/09/surprise-doctors-who-wrote-lancet-anti.html

From The Telegraph:

For almost 200 years, it has been regarded as a well-respected medical journal.

But according to senior British medical figures, the Lancet is being hijacked to campaign indefatigably against Israel, and used as a platform by alleged conspiracy theorists.

In August, it published a controversial “open letter for the people of Gaza” that condemned Israel in the strongest possible terms, but strikingly made no mention of Hamas’ atrocities.

The five principal authors of the letter made it clear that they had “no competing interests”. However, all of them have campaigned vociferously for the Palestinian cause over many years.

In addition, a cache of emails openly available in Google groups show that two of the authors, Dr Paola Manduca and Dr Swee Ang, have sympathies with the views of David Duke, a white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard.

Dr Swee Ang, an orthopaedic surgeon, and Dr Manduca, a professor of genetics at the University of Genoa in Italy – who are both members of pro-Palestine NGOs – sent round-robin emails to their contacts promoting a video entitled “CNN Goldman Sachs & the Zio Matrix”.

The video features an extended anti-Semitic rant by Duke, in which he claims that “the Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking” and that “some of the Jewish elite practices racism and tribalism to advance their supremacist agenda”.

Dr Ang wrote: “This is a shocking video please watch. This is not about Palestine – it is about all of us!”

In another email, Dr Manduca forwarded a message alleging that the Boston marathon bombings were in fact carried out by Jews. “Let us hope that someone in the FBI us smart enough to look more carefully at the clues in Boston and find the real culprits behind these bombings instead of buying the Zionist spin”, it said.

Elsewhere, she shared an article comparing the Jewish state to a “strangler fig”, which grows around other trees and takes their sunlight, often resulting in the death of the original trees.

David Duke has been delighted by the apparent support of these respected doctors.“The latest group of people to join the ranks of those who have broken the chains of Zionist censorship have been a brave group of medical professionals,” he wrote on his blog.

In response to questions by the Daily Telegraph, Dr Manduca issued a statement in which she denied being anti-Semitic. “[But] I legitimately use my right of freedom of opinion,” she said, “and do not agree or value the politics of the government of Israel, nor of many others, including Jews in and out of Israel.”

For her part, Dr Ang said: “I didn’t know who David Duke was, or that he was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. I am concerned that if there is any truth in the video, that Jews control the media, politics and banking, what on earth is going on? I was worried.”

She said that she was made aware of the video by a friend, Dr Kamal Alubaid, who appears to have been active on 9/11 "truth" websites. In one post, he referred to the Jewish State as "Racist Apparthide (sic) Israel".

Moreover, Dr Mads Gilbert, a third author of the letter, gave an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in 2001 in which he said that the 9/11 atrocities were as a result of Western foreign policy, and that he supported terror attacks in that “context”.

Israeli campaigners brought this information to the attention of the Lancet in a letter sent on 1 September. However, the journal has refused to issue a response and has not removed the open letter from its website – through which it collected 20,000 signatures in support of the letter.

“It's utterly irrelevant. It's a smear campaign,” the editor of the Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, told the Daily Telegraph. “I don’t honestly see what all this has to do with the Gaza letter. I have no plans to retract the letter, and I would not retract the letter even if it was found to be substantiated.”

Dr Horton, who has in the past spoken at rallies organised by Stop The War Coalition, denied that the journal's reputation would be damaged by giving a platform to people who appear to hold such views, and said that the Lancet is not intending to investigate the allegations.
...
NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog, points out that over the past 15 years, the journal has formed a number of partnerships with Palestinian groups, including the Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance, Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

By contrast, there have been no comparable collaborations with Israeli groups.

Professor Katz and a number of other senior medical figures have written to the medical ombudsman to register their complaints.

On 29 August, Professor Sir Mark Pepys, director of the Wolfson Drug Discovery Unit at UCL, wrote: “The failure of the Menduca et al authors to disclose their extraordinary conflicts of interest… are the most serious, unprofessional and unethical errors.

“The transparent effort to conceal this vicious and substantially mendacious partisan political diatribe as an innocent humanitarian appeal has no place in any serious publication, let alone a professional medical journal, and would disgrace even the lowest of the gutter press.”

He accuses Dr Horton, the Lancet editor, personally: “Horton’s behaviour in this case is consistent with his longstanding and wholly inappropriate use of The Lancet as a vehicle for his own extreme political views,” he says. “It has greatly detracted from the former high standing of the journal.”

In response, Dr Horton said: “How can you separate politics and health? The two go hand-in-hand.”

Somehow, however, Dr. Horton can separate clear antisemitism and politics. He cannot even be bothered to issue a perfunctory denunciation of Jew-hatred.

Perhaps there is a reason for that.

NGO Monitor has more.

In the past couple of hours, Dr. Swee Ang issued this bizarre apology:

"I thought about the situation and if it is not too late, please would you kindly include my regret for circulating Dr Duke's lecture and my apology for the offence I have caused to many of my friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish in doing this. I have done this out of shock at the contents and my ignorance of the undercurrents, and will be more discerning in future about these kind of allegations."

Are we expected to believe that an educated doctor has no idea that blaming the Jews for having a secret conspiracy to control the world is offensive?

She is also on the record for justifying suicide bombings. But, hey, supporting cold-blooded murder isn't enough to convince The Lancet to question her opinions on politics and health.

dinsdag 30 september 2014

Israëlische wapens 'getest op Palestijnen'? (IPI)

Israëlische wapens ‘getest op Palestijnen’?

http://www.israel-palestina.info/actueel/2014/09/30/israelische-wapens-getest-op-palestijnen/

- Door Tjalling. –

Op 10 september verscheen in Trouw een artikel van Sander Becker waarin werd gesteld dat Israëlische wapens “in de praktijk ‘getest’ zijn op Palestijnen op de bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever en in de Gazastrook”. Terwijl het na de afgelopen Gaza oorlog langzaam is doorgedrongen dat de praktijken van Hamas mede debet waren aan het hoge aantal burgerdoden in Gaza, moest er desondanks weer een artikel worden gepubliceerd om hoe dan ook alles, maar dan ook alles, wat Israël doet verdacht te maken.

Aanleiding voor het artikel was de Nederlandse première van de documentaire The Lab die is gemaakt door de Israëlische filmmaker Jotam Feldman. In deze documentaire onderzoekt Feldman een mogelijke interactie tussen de Israëlische wapenindustrie en de politiek van het land, de economie en militaire besluitvorming. Feldman ging bij het maken van zijn documentaire echter uit van een veronderstelling, en ja die zal toch op de een of andere manier moeten worden aangetoond. In elk geval reden genoeg voor Sander Becker om een artikel hieraan te wijden.

Amorele conclusie

Feldman concludeert dat ‘de Israëlische wapenindustrie bloeit als nooit tevoren. Buitenlandse klanten staan in de rij, vooral omdat Israëlische wapens in de praktijk ‘getest’ zouden zijn op Palestijnen op de bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever en in de Gazastrook’.

Becker weerlegt die conclusie niet. Dit is vreemd, want een bewering als ‘in de praktijk getest op Palestijnen’ is onjuist en zelfs amoreel. Hier had op z’n minst een kritische noot bij moeten worden geplaatst. Israël moet zich verdedigen tegen terroristisch geweld en daarbij vooral de eigen burgers beschermen, en tegelijkertijd zoveel mogelijk voorkomen dat onschuldige Palestijnen getroffen worden. Het richt zijn militaire acties dan ook op militaire doelen zoals wapenopslagplaatsen en commandocentra van Hamas, en daarnaast de communicatiemiddelen en infrastructuur (waaronder de tunnels) die voor terreur worden gebruikt. Problematisch is dat Hamas c.s. opzettelijk vanuit dichtbevolkt gebied opereren en daar ook hun wapens opslaan, waardoor het aantal slachtoffers bij Israëlische aanvallen groter wordt.

Er is veel aandacht in de media voor de militaire campagnes die Israël noodzakelijkerwijs moet voeren, waarbij vaak het accent wordt gelegd op het hoge aantal slachtoffers onder burgers. Ondanks hetgeen in veel mediaberichten wordt gesuggereerd slaagt Israël er vrij goed in om het aantal burgerslachtoffers beperkt te houden, maar elke dode is er één te veel en wordt door Hamas zelfs als weerzinwekkend propagandawapen gebruikt tegen Israël. Los van onheuse imagoschade is het zeker de bedoeling van Israël om het aantal onschuldige slachtoffers zoveel als mogelijk is te beperken. Het ligt dan ook voor de hand om bij het ontwikkelen van wapens en gevechtstechnieken dit belangrijke doel te verwezenlijken.

Gaza oorlogen

Tijdens de afgelopen drie Gaza ‘oorlogen‘ (de tweede was een beperkte campagne) kwamen er aan Palestijnse kant aanzienlijk meer burgers om het leven dan aan Israëlische zijde. Israël doet er alles aan om zijn burgers te beschermen en investeert in bijvoorbeeld een heel duur raketafweersysteem, een waarschuwingssysteem en tal van schuilplaatsen voor haar burgers. Hamas daarentegen heeft nooit geld geïnvesteerd in schuilkelders en schiet raketten af ten midden van burgervoorzieningen, zoals huizen, scholen en moskeeën, waardoor de burgers tot een menselijk schild worden gemaakt. Dit verklaart voor een groot deel het verschil in aantal doden aan beiden kanten, naast het evidente verschil in vuurkracht. Het hoeft geen betoog dat als Israël op burgerdoden uit zou zijn, het een veelvoud aan slachtoffers zou kunnen maken met enkele bombardementen, maar het probeert deze juist te voorkomen.

Daarbij moet worden opgemerkt dat de cijfers over het aantal burgerdoden aan Palestijnse kant onbetrouwbaar zijn. Kortom, het is onjuist om te stellen dat Israëlische wapens ‘in de praktijk worden getest op Palestijnen’. Ze hebben wel hun effectiviteit in de praktijk bewezen door het uitschakelen van militaire doelen met een minimaal aantal burgerslachtoffers (hoe wrang dat ook klinkt voor de nog vele onschuldige slachtoffers).

Lucratief

Israël zou veel geld verdienen aan de wapenindustrie. Maar liefst 20 procent van alle Israëlische export zou nu van militaire aard zijn en de verkoop van militair materieel en kennis aan het buitenland zou zo’n 5,5 miljard euro per jaar opbrengen. De bron waaruit deze informatie komt wordt overigens niet genoemd. Maar als we aannemen dat de wapenindustrie inderdaad geld opbrengt, dan staat daar tegenover het hoge defensiebudget, wat voor een groot deel opgebracht moet worden door de Israëlische belastingbetaler. Israël krijgt 3 miljard dollar jaarlijks van de VS op een defensiebudget van ruim 15 miljard dollar, 1900 dollar per inwoner. Er wordt dus niet alleen aan wapenindustrie verdiend. Overigens kostte deze oorlog Israël minstens 2,5 miljard dollar (experts schatten zelfs 3 tot 4 miljard). Maar Feldman houdt het erop dat het moreel twijfelachtig is wanneer een land zoals het zijne drijft op wapens die in de praktijk zijn getest.

Bezetting werkelijke oorzaak van amok

Hoe omstreden het verdienen van geld aan wapenindustrie ook moge zijn, het komt overal op onze planeet voor, ook in de westerse landen. Het bezwaar van Feldman kan dan ook niet genoemd worden als specifiek gericht op Israël. Iedereen die streeft naar een betere wereld schuwt immers wapengebruik. De diepere reden waarom Sander Becker publiceerde over The Lab zal hoogstwaarschijnlijk verband houden met de bezetting.

De Israëlische oud-generaal Joaf Galant, het brein achter de Gaza Oorlog van 2008-2009, had opgemerkt dat Westerse landen Israël toen veroordeelden vanwege ‘de vele burgerslachtoffers’. Maar na afloop van de oorlog stuurden volgens Galant diezelfde landen hun militaire experts, om van Israël te leren hoe het ‘zo weinig burgerslachtoffers’ had kunnen maken. Galant noemt dit een huichelachtige houding. Daar is Feldman het mee eens, maar om een andere reden: hij vindt dat de westerse landen door Israëlische wapens te kopen de bezetting legitimeren. En dat is natuurlijk waar het werkelijk om gaat, de bezetting. Die zou dè oorzaak zijn van alle ellende en dat zal, hoe dan ook, telkens weer moeten worden aangetoond. Er is altijd wel een aanleiding te vinden, in dit geval de première van The Lab, om met behulp van eenzijdige uitlegkunde en retoriek een artikel te produceren om maar weer eens te ‘bewijzen’ hoe verkeerd die bezetting is. Veel publicaties in Trouw en ook in andere mainstream media, die direct of indirect verband houden met de bezetting, doen mij denken aan een soort van eindeloos herhalen. Varieer alleen een beetje met de manier waarop het gebracht wordt en dan is succes verzekerd! Echter wanneer er steeds weer naar een wijze wordt gezocht om feiten uit te kunnen leggen in het nadeel van Israël, dan slaat zo’n herhaalreeks om in amorele publicatie.

The Lab ging op afgelopen 10 september in première in De Balie te Amsterdam, in aanwezigheid van de filmmaker. De première is georganiseerd door de Universiteit van Amsterdam en Gate48, een platform voor Nederlandse Israëliërs die de bezetting afkeuren.

Tekortkomingen van de Palestijnse universiteit

Naar aanleiding van het verhaal van Amira Hass, die de Birzeit universiteit bij Ramallah werd uitgezet vanwege een regel dat Joodse Israeli’s niet welkom waren, kwam ik onderstaande kritiek over het Palestijnse universitaire onderwijs tegen.

Palestijnen heten overigens tot de best geschoolde Arabieren te behoren. In de rest van de Arabische wereld, waar geen Israelische bezetting in de weg zit, worden studenten nog minder tot onafhankelijk denken aangezet.

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The real lesson of Amira Hass' ejection from a Palestinian university

How Palestinian universities like Bir Zeit are intellectually straitjacketing their students.

By Matthew Kalman | Sep. 30, 2014 | 12:53 PM

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/outside-edge/.premium-1.618420

Palestine Technical University - Kadoorie Photo by Wikimedia Commons

I’m not an Israeli, so even though I’ve been reporting on Birzeit University near Ramallah for more than 15 years, I didn’t know until my colleague Amira Hass was asked to leave the campus last week that the university operates a ban on Israelis.

Well, not all Israelis, as Amira explains. Just “Jewish Israelis.”

The ban probably makes sense to most Palestinians, but it’s a disgrace and should be repealed.

The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which organized the conference from which Amira was ejected, denounced her expulsion as “discrimination” and expressed its solidarity with her. In a statement, the university said it had “no objection to the presence of the reporter Hass” but felt justified “as a national institution to distinguish between friends of the Palestinian people and its enemies.”

On Tuesday, the university issued a tougher statement, regretting the “lamentable incident” excluding Amira and clarifying that it welcomes “supporters of the Palestinian struggle and opponents of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, regardless of nationality, religion, ethnicity, or creed. Hence, Hass, who has consistently condemned the Israeli occupation, evinced support for Palestinian rights, and helped expose the discriminatory policies of occupation and its flagrant violations of these rights, is always welcome on our campus.”

So not all Jewish Israelis, then. Not the good ones.

The ban is not just immoral and racist, it’s symptomatic of the crushing failure of the Palestinian higher education system to fulfill its role as the engine powering the Palestinian future because of its stifling obsession with the Palestinian past.

I've reported from Bir Zeit dozens of times for The Chronicle of Higher Education and other media. I've reported the random arrests and administrative detention of their students and lecturers, often in the middle on the night, by the IDF. I’ve reported how many of those students and lecturers have been held for months, even years, without a fair trial, sometimes without even being told the crimes of which they are suspected.

In 2009, for example, there were 83 Birzeit students incarcerated in Israeli jails, of whom 39 were convicted of various terror-related charges, 32 were awaiting trial, nine were in “administrative detention” and three were undergoing interrogation following their arrest. Birzeit accounts for more than half of all the 1,000 Palestinian students arrested by Israel since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, including at least three of its student council heads who were arrested and held for months on end.

Clearly, some of these students were also engaged in dangerous terrorist activity, but the majority appears to have been innocent of any real crime.

Nor is Birzeit alone in feeling the crushing weight of Israel’s occupation interfering daily with its studies and students. Just about every Palestinian university in the West Bank has stories of nighttime IDF raids, campus teargas attacks and random arrests and intimidation.

So I am well aware of the pressures that distinguish university life at Birzeit from Berkeley or Brooklyn College.

But much of the trouble there has little to do with Israel or the occupation. I have also reported the political intimidation and violence doled out by some Birzeit students to their political opponents. I met the Islamist student who led the stone-throwing rioters who injured the visiting French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and chased him off campus in February 2000. The British Consul-General Sir Vincent Feane had to beat a similar retreat in 2013.

In 2007, university classes were suspended and students evacuated from the campus after Ahmad Jarrar, a student supporter of the ruling Fatah party, was assaulted in his dormitory room, apparently by four men from the Marxist PFLP. Jarrar was treated at a hospital for severe injuries suffered as he was apparently being tortured. The assailants used charcoal to burn Jarrar’s face and hammered nails into his feet. Fatah gunmen arrived soon after, threatening to kill PFLP supporters.

Earlier this year, I broke the story of a Palestinian student trip to Auschwitz organized by a professor at Al-Quds University who has since resigned over the fallout it caused. Two Birzeit students were due to go on that trip. They pulled out at the last moment after heavy pressure from the university.

This obsession with politics, although understandable, does a considerable disservice to the students who rely on Birzeit and the other Palestinian universities to help them create a better future for themselves – and for the Palestinian people.

Birzeit, ironically, was actually founded by the Israelis. The dictatorial Jordanian regime would never sanction an independent university in the West Bank. It soon became the intellectual powerhouse of Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.

But it has failed to mature into a new, post-revolutionary role and become the engine of emerging Palestinian statehood.

One small example illustrates the problem. Despite enormous efforts by international companies, Arab entrepreneurs and a small number of Israeli and Jewish investors, the Palestinians are failing to produce a viable high-tech sector. While thousands of Israeli twenty-somethings are developing world-class technology with little more than a Wi-Fi connection and a laptop, their Palestinian counterparts have precious little to show. Apologists argue that it’s because of Israel’s refusal to allow a Palestinian 3G network, but that’s not true. Sure, the lack of 3G is another disgrace, which should be fixed, but it affects domestic consumers, not developers. Tech development uses Wi-Fi, not 3G, and is aimed at the international market, not the local one.

The main reason for the under-development of Palestinian high-tech is the poor education on offer from universities like Birzeit. One of the few successful tech start-ups in Ramallah was founded by an East Jerusalem Palestinian who studied at a Hebrew-speaking Israeli school and then at an Israeli university. His business is expanding fast, but he cannot find enough skilled Palestinian graduates to hire.

It’s a complaint I hear repeatedly when I’m reporting on Palestinian graduates. High grades in exams are achieved by parroting the lecturers’ ideas, not by challenging them. The universities are simply not teaching their students the independent critical thinking skills needed in today’s world. Their educational system is mired in the past.

If Birzeit and the other Palestinian universities spent less effort intellectually straitjacketing their students, and more time teaching them how to think critically and independently, the Palestinian future would look a lot brighter.

Meer burgerdoden van de Gaza oorlog

Elder of Ziyon komt nog zeer geregeld zogenaamde burgerslachtoffers op het spoor van de recente Gaza oorlog, die in werkelijkheid bij de gewapende tak van Hamas of de Islamitische Jihad zaten. Hij heeft er een serie van gemaakt waar inmiddels vele tientallen voorbeelden op staan, allemaal met naam en toenaam en foto of video. Blijkbaar neemt geen enkele van de gerenommeerde media de moeite om dit soort uitzoekwerk te doen, want daar komt men niet verder dan het klakkeloos herhalen van de bekende VN cijfers.

Zie deze link voor de hele serie, die nog steeds wordt aangevuld met nieuwe voorbeelden.

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Fake Gaza Civilian of the Day

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.nl/2014/09/fake-gaza-civilian-of-day.html

PCHR on July 12 said that "civilian" Haitham Ashraf Zo'rob was killed.
Here he is in his Hamas and Al Qassam Brigades martyr poster:

Interestingly, Zo'rob was also apparently a member of the Palestinian Authority security services, based on logo in his beret and poster here:

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3 more fake "civilians" of the day

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.nl/2014/09/3-more-fake-civilians-of-day.html

On July 14, PCHR said that Adham Mohammed 'Abdul Fattah 'Abdul 'Aal, 29, was a civilian.
The Fatah Al Nidal Brigades calls him a "mujahid martyr."

On July 20,PCHR implied, and Al Mezan said, that Mohammed 'Abdul Rahman Mahmoud Abu Hamad, 24 was a civilian.
Fatah's Nidal Brigades also call him a "mujahid martyr."

PCHR said on July 30 that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Astal, 25, was a civilian.
The same Fatah page describes him also as a "martyr mujahid."

His home had one of the families that B'stelem claimed Israel wiped out for no reason; B'Tselem did not identify him as a terrorist and his family as human shields.

(h/t Bob Knot for Hamad poster)