Arabische leraren en gidsen in Jeruzalem ontkennen Joodse geschiedenis Israel

 

Dit zijn precies het soort dingen die het wantrouwen in Israel over de Israelische Arabieren voeden. Er staan natuurlijk ook verhalen tegenover van Arabieren die wel loyaal aan Israel zijn, die trots zijn op hun land en dat ook uitdragen. Dit zijn verhalen die je niet zo snel van PMW zult horen, maar die je evenmin zult horen van Israel-kritische organisaties, die vaak vooral het Arabische narratief uitdragen, en daar passen Arabieren die loyaal zijn aan de staat en haar steunen ook niet in. Zo houden beide kanten een vijandbeeld in stand.

 

Israelische Arabieren zitten in een lastige positie. Ze sympathiseren vaak met de Palestijnen maar zijn ook staatsburger van Israel, met alle rechten en plichten vandien, en het is terecht dat van hun ook loyaliteit aan de staat wordt gevraagd, met name in bepaalde beroepen (waarvoor ze zelf hebben gekozen). Het vreemde is, dat volgens enquetes het overgrote merendeel in Israel wil blijven wonen na de stichting van een Palestijnse staat. Zaken als onderstaande zou je in dat licht kunnen uitleggen als bewuste pogingen Israels positie te verzwakken en uiteindelijk ondermijnen, en niet als het gevolg van een oprecht loyaliteitsconflict waar men zich (noodgedwongen) voor geplaatst ziet.

 

RP

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

 

PMW Bulletin
Jan. 4, 2010

 

p:+972 2 625 4140     e: pmw@palwatch.org
f: +972 2 624 2803     w: www.palwatch.org
PMW | King George 59 | Jerusalem | Israel

 

Click here to view on PMW's new web site

Three Arab employees of Israeli institutions
misuse their positions to slander Israel
 
A teacher instructs his Israeli Arab students
that the Israeli curriculum should "not be considered information"
 
A researcher of the Tower of David Museum of Jerusalem's History calls
the museum's information "lies"
 
A guide at the museum prefers to convey "the Arab point of view"
  rather than the museum's "deceptions" to Arabic-speaking visitors
 
Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

 

 

Interviews with three Arab employees of official Israeli institutions in Jerusalem, a teacher, a researcher and a guide, were recently broadcast on Palestinian TV. The interviewees revealed that in the course of their work they do not convey to students and visitors the historical information which they are meant to impart - contrary to the guidelines of their Israeli employers, and without their knowledge.
 
Mustafa Othman, a teacher from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, revealed on Palestinian television that he teaches Israeli Arab children that the Israeli state curriculum is "only for the test; you shouldn't consider it as information". The truth, he teaches Israeli Arab youth, is "that [Israel] conquered our land by armed force, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages."
 
In another broadcast, two employees of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem, a history scholar and an Arabic-language tour guide, were interviewed. Both defined the Israeli historical narrative regarding the Jewish connection with Jerusalem, which they are meant to convey to tourists, as "false," and testified that they teach different information instead. According to one, the museum invents stories for the purpose of "creating a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming that they [the Jews] were here 3,000 years ago and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here." The tourist guide in the museum said that the information signs on the walls of the museum are incorrect, while the history scholar reiterated the central Palestinian historical distortion denying the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, referring to it as the "alleged Temple".
 
The following is from the interview with the Arab teacher, Mustafa Othman, describing what he teaches Israeli Arab youth in Israeli schools:

"In the [preferred] Jordanian or Palestinian curriculum, if I may say, the material is studied on the basis of them [Israel] having conquered our land militarily, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages. When I taught the Israeli curriculum I would tell the [Israeli Arab] students that it was only for the test, 'you shouldn't consider it as information.'"

[Al-Filistiniya (Fatah) TV, Sept. 10, 2009]

The following is a transcript of the television interview with the two employees of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem:

Abir Zayyad, history scholar, employed by the Tower of David Museum
Rubin Abu Shamsiya, Arabic-language tour guide at the museum

 

PA TV Host, Houloud Al-Afifi: "[Speaking about the site known as David's Citadel] So we've spoken about its importance, its location, and its connection to the Christian religion, and that it's an Islamic structure, but what, inside this Citadel... is [related to] the alleged Israeli history, which the Israelis claim? What exactly is inside the Citadel?"
 
History scholar Abir Zayyad: "... In the hall pertaining to the Bronze Age, which they [the museum] call the [period of the] "First Temple" - and this appellation is not correct - in that period they focus on the issue of Palestine - that the Jews, comprising 12 tribes, entered it, and how Palestine was divided in this period between the 12 tribes, and the process of the conquest of the city of Jerusalem by David, and the construction of the alleged First Temple by Solomon."
 
[Zayyad goes on to say that the archaeological findings indicate that David and Solomon did not live in Jerusalem or in "Palestine", and that there are no structures in Jerusalem that can be attributed to them.]
 
Host: "What are they [the Israelis] proving by means of their version? And what is inside the Citadel? What are they trying to create in order to prove this matter and to sell it to the world?"
 
History scholar Zayyad: "It's the creation of a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming they were here 3,000 years ago, and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here, and that all of Palestine was under their rule, as though they created the city of Jerusalem and created all of Palestine."
 
Host (addressing tour guide Rubin Abu Shamsiya): "Mr. Rubin, when you accompany groups of tourists, how do you treat [the subject] - especially when you see the [museum's] history full of lies, the artificial and alleged history - how do you relate to these groups of [Arabic speaking] tourists in presenting the history that is found there?"

Tour guide Abu Shamsiya: "From my tour-guiding experience in the Tower of David Museum, I see many historical deceptions, which are displayed on the [museum] walls... Obviously, if I try to treat it in a more neutral way, from a historical point of view, I try to show the neutral historical point of view by means of information which I have drawn from a number of [other] historical institutions. I do not rely exclusively on that which is written on the museum's walls and texts. It is more important to me to convey the Arab point of view, but by means of greater historical neutrality."
 
History scholar Zayyad: "There is a documentary film at the Citadel which they present on the history of Jerusalem. This film is full of historical lies and historical deceptions and their dissemination."

[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 13, 2009]

 

PA weigerde vooraf om moordenaar van Rabbi Meir Chai te arresteren

 

Israel had om de arrestatie van de moordenaar van rabbi Meir Chai gevraagd, maar de Palestijnse Autoriteit weigerde dat, aldus Arutz Sheva. Als dit inderdaad zo is, is de verontwaardiging van het Palestijnse leiderschap over zijn dood door Israel helemaal schijnheilig. Men had dit (en de moord op de rabbi) immers kunnen voorkomen door hem zelf te arresteren. De PA heeft de plicht onder de Routekaart en met Israel gemaakte afspraken om terrorisme te bestrijden.

 

Arutz Sheva has learned that the Shabak received highly dependable information that Subuh had gone back to terror activity after the fugitive "pardon." The IDF therefore demanded that the PA, which is headed by Fatah, arrest him. The PA refused, apparently because Subuh belonged to a Fatah subgroup and not to rival Hamas.

 

RP

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

PA Rejected Request to Arrest Fugitive Before He Murdered Rabbi
by Gil Ronen
Published: 01/04/10, 6:48 PM / Last Update: 01/04/10, 7:27 PM
www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135349


(IsraelNN.com) Shortly before the murder of Rabbi Meir Chai ten days ago, the Palestinian Authority rejected a request by Israel's security forces to re-arrest Fatah terrorist Anan Subuh, who later participated in the murder.

Subuh, 36, a resident of Shechem, was a member of the Fatah terror group's "Al Aqsa Martyrs" and Tanzim subgroups. He had been a member of a Tanzim cell that operated from the casbah area of Shechem and was led by Naef Abu Sherach until Sherach's death in June 2004. Subuh traded in weapons and supplied the weapons for terror activity.

He was included in the "fugitive agreement" between Israel and the PA, in which Israel agreed to stop hunting down certain fugitives in return for a promise by them not to go back to terror activity.

Arutz Sheva has learned that the Shabak received highly dependable information that Subuh had gone back to terror activity after the fugitive "pardon." The IDF therefore demanded that the PA, which is headed by Fatah, arrest him. The PA refused, apparently because Subuh belonged to a Fatah subgroup and not to rival Hamas.

Shortly afterward Subuh participated in Rabbi Chai's murder. Two days later the IDF gunned him down when he hid in a weapons cache in his home. Two other terrorists who carried out the murder were also eliminated that day.

The Palestinian Authority is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads Fatah. However, ever since the 1993 Oslo Accords, world leaders and news media usually refer to terror acts by Fatah subgroups as unconnected to Fatah's political leadership and to Abbas.

Eerste Palestijnse zelfmoordterroriste geëerd door Abbas en PA televisie

Recentelijk eerde de Palestijnse Autoriteit de terroriste Dalal Mugrabi, die in 1978 een buskaping in Israel leidde waarbij 37 burgers werden gedood. Ter ere van haar 50ste verjaardag werd een ceremonie georganiseerd en op haar geboortedag werd een plein in Ramallah naar haar genoemd. Eerder al werden een computercentrum en een voetbaltoernooi naar haar vernoemd.

 

Nu is de eerste vrouwelijke zelfmoordterroriste aan de beurt om eens postuum in het zonnetje te worden gezet.

Toch worden president Abbas en de Palestijnse Autoriteit in het Westen nog steeds als gematigd en vredelievend beschouwd, en stellen alleen islamofoben als Geert Wilders dit soort dingen aan de orde. Je hoeft toch niet rechts te zijn om te zien dat dit erg weinig met vrede te maken heeft??

 

Uit het meest recente PMW Bulletin:

 

Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide terrorist, was honored as a "Shahida" - holy Martyr - in a new Fatah promotional music video broadcast this week on Palestinian Authority TV. Idris killed one Israeli and wounded 150 in her suicide bombing in 2002.

This picture of Wafa Idris with the text "The Shahida (Martyr) Wafa Ali Idris" appears in the new PA TV music video, which blends scenes and pictures paying tribute to the PLO, Fatah, Yasser Arafat and PA and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. PA TV is under the control of Abbas's office.

 

Click to see documentation of glorification of terrorists on PMW's web site
Click to see PMW's recent bulletin on PA glorification of most recent terrorists
Click to see PMW's recent bulletin on PA glorification of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi

 

RP

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

 

Palestijnse Autoriteit gestopt met martelen Hamasleden in gevangenissen Westoever

In the West Bank, persistent reports of abuse emerged over the past two years from prisons and interrogation centers. Since 2007, eight detainees have died in West Bank lockups and 15 in Gaza, human rights researchers say, though circumstances in some cases remain murky.

The abuse was driven both by a desire to take revenge for the Gaza takeover and by fear that Hamas would seize control of the West Bank, said Salah Mousa, a human rights activist and former member of the Palestinian security forces.

 

De mishandelingen op de Westoever zijn nu gestopt, volgens Hamas vanwege de internationale aandacht door de media en mensenrechtenorganisaties. Terwijl ook onderstaand artikel vooral gaat over mishandelingen op de Westoever, blijkt uit bovenstaande dat Hamas er in Gaza ook wat van kan. De vraag is wanneer de druk op Hamas om dat te beëindigen wordt opgevoerd, maar kritiek op Hamas lijkt haast het nieuwe taboe van de media en mensenrechtenorganisaties. Het gaat, voor de duidelijkheid, niet om een eenmalig iets zoals de mishandelingen door Hamas van Fatah activisten tijdens de Gaza oorlog (waar wel aandacht voor was), maar om de vele mensenrechtenschendingen van Hamas op een dagelijkse basis, de positie van minderheden, vrouwen en andersdenkenden in Gaza, de indoctrinatie en training van kinderen, het misbruik van civiele gebouwen voor wapenopslag, etc. etc.

 

RP

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

The Jerusalem Post
Jan 4, 2010 2:11 | Updated Jan 4, 2010 2:16
Hamas inmates say torture ends in West Bank jails
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339384609&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank have stopped torturing Hamas prisoners, ending two years of systematic abuse, Hamas inmates told The Associated Press in jailhouse interviews.

The change in practice, said to have taken effect in October, was confirmed by a West Bank Hamas leader, human rights activists and the Palestinian Authority prime minister. It defuses a potential problem for Washington since the US has been closely involved in training PA troops under the control of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Human rights groups say their public pressure campaign helped bring about change, and US President Barack Obama's no-torture policy might have helped set a new tone. However, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the decision to halt any abuse was an independent one, part of an effort to make sure a future state is built on the right foundations.

Hamas legislators and human rights researchers said they still get sporadic reports of prisoners being slapped or forced to stand for several hours during interrogation. And security forces continue to keep a close watch on Hamas activities, often arresting activists and holding them for lengthy periods without charge.

However, they said the worst behavior - prisoners beaten with clubs and cables, suspended from the ceiling while tied up in painful positions and forced to stand for days - has ended.

Fayyad confirmed a "dramatic change for the better" in West Bank prisons and said 43 officers have been jailed, fired or demoted for abusing prisoners.

In an interview, he denied torture was ever official policy, but acknowledged past "excesses" that he said stemmed from a flawed culture of revenge.

Abbas's security forces, dominated by supporters of his Fatah movement, have been clamping down on Hamas in the West Bank since June 2007, when the terror group wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian leader.

Since then, some 4,000 Hamas followers were arrested in the West Bank, and 500 are currently in detention, according to Hamas. Just two weeks ago, dozens of Hamas supporters were detained during the group's anniversary celebrations. In Gaza, Hamas has rounded up hundreds of Fatah supporters, who also have complained of severe mistreatment.

Hamas and Fatah have failed to reconcile, despite many rounds of Egyptian-brokered mediation. However, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said in a visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday that significant progress has been made in reconciliation talks.

In the West Bank, persistent reports of abuse emerged over the past two years from prisons and interrogation centers. Since 2007, eight detainees have died in West Bank lockups and 15 in Gaza, human rights researchers say, though circumstances in some cases remain murky.

The abuse was driven both by a desire to take revenge for the Gaza takeover and by fear that Hamas would seize control of the West Bank, said Salah Mousa, a human rights activist and former member of the Palestinian security forces.

The worst accounts of abuse came from those held at Jneid Prison, a barbed wire-topped jumble of low buildings in Nablus, a former Hamas stronghold.

Last week, an AP team was granted access to the prison, including the wing holding 40 Hamas prisoners. Officials unlocked the metal cell doors on both sides of a hallway and bearded inmates in track suits stepped out. With wardens out of earshot, inmates described past abuse and said it has largely stopped.

Khaled Susah, 48, at Jneid for the past 14 months, pulled back a sleeve to show a swollen right wrist, which he said was the result of being repeatedly handcuffed and strung up from the ceiling during 80 days of interrogation at the start of his detention.

"They were dealing with us like sheep in a slaughter house," said Susah, who was arrested on suspicion of ties to Hamas' military wing but has yet to get a trial date.

He said inmates were told of the new policy during a prison visit in October by a man who identified himself as an Abbas adviser.

Another inmate, 38-year-old shopkeeper Ayman Hamad, leaned forward to show a deep scar on the bald crown of his head, where he said he was clubbed by a security officer a year ago. "Now things are much better. Beating has stopped, except for some violations here and there," such as slapping, Hamad said.

Other inmates said interrogation still involves being forced to stand, sometimes for several hours.

In the Military Intelligence section of the prison, three windowless isolation cells, each the size of a parking space, are still used at times to hold and pressure those under interrogation, prisoners said. Wardens insisted the cells are only used to punish those breaking prison rules.

The AP was not granted access to the interrogation area. However, Hamas officials who debrief released Hamas prisoners said security agents have stopped abusing prisoners.

"Torture has stopped, following strong articles in the foreign media and threats by human rights organizations of suing Palestinian Authority officials," said Mahmoud Ramahi, a Hamas leader in the West Bank and a leading critic of the security forces in the past.

Two leading Palestinian rights groups, Al Haq and the Independent Palestinian Commission for Human Rights, both confirmed the abuse has stopped. Shahwan Jabarin of Al Haq said lesser violations persist, such as denying prisoners blankets for days at a time, but the phenomenon is not widespread.

US officials wouldn't comment, noting that they do not train the forces accused of past torture.

Human rights activists say many of the government's measures remain problematic, such as holding Hamas supporters for long periods without charge and firing civil servants believed to be sympathetic to the group. Ramahi estimated that 1,500 Hamas loyalists have been fired from government jobs in the West Bank.

But in Jneid Prison, life is getting a little better.

The cells are still grimy and crowded, with prisoners sleeping in metal bunk beds.

But last month, each cell got a TV, and lawyers and relatives are now allowed to visit once a week, compared with restricted access in the past.

For some of the Muslim prayers, the inmates step out of their cells and kneel on mats on the floor in the hallway. In the past, they were unable to worship as a large group and had to pray in their cells.

One of the second-floor tracts is being renovated, with new tiles and wall paint, and hot water boilers have been installed.

Fayyad, the prime minister, said Hamas militants can be kept at bay with legal means. "If that means we get less information, so be it," he said.

Twee boeken over Gilad Shalit en het uitruilen van gevangenen

 

Dit is een boekbespreking van twee boeken, en vooral de eerste lijkt me erg interessant, omdat hij kritisch kijkt naar gevangenendeals en wat Israel daarvoor bereid is te betalen. Een citaat:

 

The data reveal the distance Israeli governments have slid down that slippery slope. On January 1, 1970, Fatah abducted night watchman Shmuel Rosenwasser from the northern Galilee town of Metula. Fourteen months later, Rosenwasser was swapped for a single Fatah man, Mahmoud Hijazi. On March 14, 1979, soldier Avraham Amram, who had been taken prisoner in Lebanon by Ahmed Jibril's organization, was released. This time, the price was 76 Fatah operatives, 20 of whom had "blood on their hands." In May of 1985, the notorious "Jibril deal" went through. It involved the return to Israel of three soldiers in exchange for 1,150 terrorists.

 

Het blijkt dat veel vrijgelaten gevangenen later weer werden gearresteerd vanwege terroristische activiteiten.

 

RP

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

Haaretz book supplement, Jan. 1, 2010
The principle turned on its maker
By Reuven Pedatzur

---
Medinat Yisrael Ta'aseh Hakol: Hakrav Hahashai al Hashevu'im Vehane'edarim

(By Any Means Necessary: Israel's Covert War for Its POWs and MIAs ), by Ronen Bergman
Kinneret Zmora-Bitan (Hebrew ), 637 pages, NIS 98
---
Mabat Me'aza
(Captive: A View From Gaza), by Sleman Al-Shafhe
Yedioth Ahronoth Books (Hebrew ), 188 pages, NIS 98
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139558.html

As these lines are being written, Gilad Shalit is still a captive of Hamas, and Israel waits to hear whether the Islamist Palestinian organization will accept the terms it has set for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners that would make the Israeli soldier's release possible. Although a deal could be completed by the time you read this, it's also true that more than once in the past, the news that an agreement was about to be signed ended in disappointment. Last March, for example, attorney Eli Zohar informed Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, on behalf of then-prime minister Ehud Olmert, that "possibly the deal will be clinched tonight." That night, as we remember, went by and the deal did not go through. Whether Shalit is returned in the coming days, or the sides end up returning to the negotiations facilitated by a German mediator, the affair meshes with a long series of blunders and loss of good sense that have long characterized the government's approach to the subject of prisoners and abductees.

Our respective governments have taken, and continue to take, advantage of the public's short memory and of their own authority to employ censorship. This has made it possible to hide the blunders they have made in efforts to negotiate the release of Israeli soldiers and civilians taken prisoner or abducted by enemy states or terror organizations.

This is why reading Ronen Bergman's "By Any Means Necessary," which confronts the reader with a concentrated dose of all such cases, is so disturbing. It is impossible not to agree with Bergman, a commentator on intelligence affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, who concludes his book with the statement that, "if we follow the sequence of dealing with prisoners and MIA affairs, it appears that the sacred principle of 'We don't abandon soldiers in the field' has turned on its maker. Only in recent years has the principle become the excuse, or at least trigger, for two failed wars. From a painful humanitarian issue, a natural byproduct of wars and the ongoing conflict, the affairs of Israel's various prisoners and MIAs and the attempts to move them out of a state of stasis have often become a dominant factor that itself makes history and leads to escalation of the conflict."


An excessive price?

The slide down the slippery slope that has so many times ended in the payment of unreasonable prices for the release of prisoners, and even dead bodies, can be attributed to the weakness of national leaders, who have not learned how to deal with pressure from the families, as well as to poor judgment, rigid thinking and rivalry among the various intelligence agencies.

"The cult of the dead bones has become life-threatening," writes Bergman, citing the incident in which fighters from the Nahal Brigade were sent to rescue the crew of a tank that was destroyed in the first hours of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Those who sent them knew "they were on their way to gather pieces of corpses and that there were no living survivors." Another soldier was killed on that mission, and his comrades were wounded.

"You have an exceptional attitude on this issue," Dr. August Hanning, chief of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND ) told Jacob Perry, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, regarding the difference between Hezbollah's attitude toward the remains of its own dead (including a son of Hassan Nasrallah ) and the way Israelis are so often willing to pay a high price for the return of Israel Defense Forces soldiers for burial in Israel.

The data reveal the distance Israeli governments have slid down that slippery slope. On January 1, 1970, Fatah abducted night watchman Shmuel Rosenwasser from the northern Galilee town of Metula. Fourteen months later, Rosenwasser was swapped for a single Fatah man, Mahmoud Hijazi. On March 14, 1979, soldier Avraham Amram, who had been taken prisoner in Lebanon by Ahmed Jibril's organization, was released. This time, the price was 76 Fatah operatives, 20 of whom had "blood on their hands." In May of 1985, the notorious "Jibril deal" went through. It involved the return to Israel of three soldiers in exchange for 1,150 terrorists.

The excessive price Israel is willing to pay for the release of soldiers or bodies has significance beyond the numerical asymmetry. The release of terrorists serving time for murder increases the supply of terrorists motivated to attack Israelis again. This is one of the main reasons the current Shin Bet chief, Yuval Diskin, opposes a deal with Hamas for the release of Shalit in exchange for 980 Palestinian prisoners.

"Of the 364 who were released in the Tennenbaum deal in January 2004 who were infiltrated back into the territories, 30 percent were arrested again," writes Bergman about the case of Elhanan Tennenbaum, a businessman and reserve army officer kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2000. "Of the 238 released in the Jibril deal who were returned to the territories, 48 percent were imprisoned for a second time." After his release, one of them, Louay Saadi, established a broad infrastructure for attacks in the northern West Bank that led to the deaths of 30 Israelis and the wounding of 300 more. He was killed in 2005.

The decisions by Israeli governments concerning prisoners merit an academic study to establish the diplomatic and political background to a policy that seems to be very problematic. In the meantime, we have to content ourselves with Bergman's book, which presents the facts and paints quite a broad picture of the sequence of events in each case in which the government conducted negotiations for the release of prisoners and abductees.

Though much of the material has previously been published elsewhere, Bergman succeeds in casting new light on the subject and revealing details not previously known. He provides new details about the abduction of Ahmed Jibril's nephew from the heart of Beirut in 1985; about the determination that the MIAs from the battle of Sultan Yacoub, in 1982, were no longer among the living; and about a document on those MIAs whose conclusions were dictated by the people who had ordered it. Bergman also reveals that Yitzhak Rabin offered to "forgive" Austrian president Kurt Waldheim his Nazi past if he would help obtain details about the fate of missing air force navigator Ron Arad.

Bergman holds up a mirror before Israeli readers, and the image reflected back is not flattering. The Israel that emerges from this book has repeatedly failed to formulate a rational policy, leaving the country's leaders to make mistakes.

Bergman quotes Maj. Gen. (ret. ) Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council: "There is no issue on which Israel is in a position of greater inferiority than prisoner deals. All the pressure is on us, and when you're discussing only this you really do arrive at insane formulas, like what Hamas is demanding in the Shalit deal."

It would be appropriate, therefore, for those who are supposed to be making the decisions on these matters to read this book. Perhaps they will agree with Bergman, who writes in his epilogue: "This book is a call to restore the discussion to rational but humane lines ... A very thinline runs between the solidarity deriving from the good deed of ransoming prisoners and the chilling panic that deters politicians from doing what is necessary and saying what should be said, no matter how difficult."


A rumor circulating in Gaza

Another book about the Shalit affair has been accorded a great deal of publicity mainly because it led to Channel 2 News' decision to fire its author, journalist Sleman Al-Shafhe, who had reported from Gaza for the channel. The program let him go when they learned he was about to publish a book on the Shalit affair that would include information he had not passed along to the station, having held it back until he had published it in "Captive: A View from Gaza." Al-Shafhe sued the station in labor court, which determined in mid-December that his dismissal was legal.

All this would not be relevant to a review of his book were it not for the testimony of the news division's CEO Avi Weiss, which places the book in a problematic light: "I will tell you about the forums I participated in, with the top security people in this country," Weiss told the court. "These are the highest military brass you can think of. People who wear uniforms and also people who don't ... and there it was said explicitly by the most senior people -- perhaps the most senior person in uniform and the most senior not in uniform -- it was spoken there in jest about how unserious this book is."

I don't know the basis for the opinions of these "top security people" regarding the seriousness of the book. What is clear is that Al-Shafhe's work purports to paint a very detailed picture of the conditions of Shalit's captivity, the state of his health, his psychological state and the dynamic that has developed between him and his captors. Al-Shafhe says he based his account on numerous sources in Gaza City, Rafah, Cairo and throughout the Arab world. These, the author states, will continue to remain anonymous, "for understandable reasons, and at their request."

Weiss also told the court that when he asked Al-Shafhe about his sources for some of the stories in the book, Al-Shafhe replied, "That's the rumor circulating in Gaza." Weiss went on to say that he had asked Al-Shafhe in astonishment: "Are you writing a book that you are saying is a rumor? That is based on rumors circulating among the elite in Gaza? He said to me, 'That's why its subtitle is ... 'A View from Gaza.'"

Al-Shafhe describes what supposedly happened in hiding places where Shalit was held. The descriptions are detailed and specific, and written as though Al-Shafhe had been there in the room, or as though it were Shalit's captors revealing these things in inner sanctums. The problem, of course, is that Shalit's guards are cut off from the outside world, as Al-Shafhe himself states, and they therefore cannot verify or contradict the story.

Al-Shafhe also describes in great detail Shalit's reactions to certain events, and even includes exact quotations of what the captive soldier is supposed to have said. "Shalit was still wounded in his arm and was suffering from a skin rash that bothered him as much as the wound. His psychological state was very bad. Every few hours he suffered an anxiety attack. He would scream loudly and cry out, 'Mom ... Mom ...' with no response," the author writes. Elsewhere, he states: "With no connection to his captor's threats, the fear of death was reflected in Shalit's everyday behavior. His situation grew worse day by day and his hysterical and strange behavior, as it was described to me, aroused real concern among his captors about his mental health. When he fell asleep, his sleep was always short and restless and he would awaken from it screaming and drenched in perspiration." And later in the book: "Every time the door of his small room opened for the purpose of bringing in food and water, he would burst out crying hysterically and plead: 'I don't want to die ... I don't want to die.'"

It is, of course, hard to know what is really going on in Shalit's place of captivity, and it is also possible that these things were told to Al-Shafhe by people interested in creating the sense that Shalit was on the verge of psychological collapse in order to hasten the negotiations and achieve a better price in return for his release.

Al-Shafhe also writes about the preparations in Gaza for the June 2006 raid that culminated in Shalit's capture and the way it was carried out. This description seems more reliable than the details about his behavior in captivity, and it appears the author does indeed have sources who had been in on the secret and shared details with him that had not been revealed previously.

He presents the theory that Israel intended to take advantage of Operation Cast Lead last winter to bomb the building where the IDF thought Shalit was being held, in order to kill him. "Many sources claimed to me that Israel was not interested in paying the price tag attached to the release of the Israeli soldier and wanted to take advantage of the war to get rid of him, and afterward to cast the blame for his death on Hamas," the author writes. It is not clear who the "many sources" are, or what is behind this theory.

The most interesting and credible part of "Captive" is not about Shalit himself, but rather describes the effect the Shalit affair has had on the more than one million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. The IDF attacks and the siege Israel imposed on the Strip after Shalit was abducted have constituted a real disaster for Gaza's residents. Al-Shafhe, who covered the Gaza Strip before the abduction, paints a bleak picture of the conditions and mood there over the past three years, based on interviews with Gazans. It seems we will never know whether all of Al-Shafhe's descriptions reflect the reality or are merely figments of the imaginations of anonymous sources. In any case, as he writes in his book, "This story has not yet ended."
---
Reuven Pedatzur is a lecturer in the political science department at Tel Aviv University.

Haaretz Books, January 2010, haaretzbooks@gmail.com

Joodse pianist Kissin protesteert tegen anti-Israel teneur BBC

 

Het komt niet vaak voor dat een beroemde Joodse kunstenaar in Europa het voor Israel opneemt. Terwijl Joodse critici van Israel vaak hoog van de toren blazen en ook enorm veel media aandacht krijgen, houden zij die met Israel sympathiseren meestal hun mond. De Britse pianist Evgeny Kissin is een prettige uitzondering op die regel, maar of hij ook zoveel aandacht van de media zal krijgen valt nog te bezien.

 

RP

---------------
 

Pianist Kissin protests against BBC anti-Israel bias
World famous musician writes to BBC Director-General

 

By Stephen Pollard and Robyn Rosen, December 30, 2009
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/25549/pianist-kissin-protests-against-bbc-anti-israel-bias

 

The Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin, who became a British citizen in 2002, has accused the BBC of "slander and bias" against Israel, broadcasting material he describes as "painfully reminiscent of the old Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda".

 

Mr Kissin, 38, who until now has not generally been known as politically engaged, has written to the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson. According to a close friend of the pianist, he has decided to become "actively involved in exposing and countering the evil propaganda of certain British media and especially the BBC."

 

Mr Kissin's decision to use his fame and artistic renown to protest to the BBC on Israel's behalf contrasts with the criticisms against the Jewish state regularly voiced by musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, who holds Israeli citizenship.

 

In Mr Kissin's letter, he accuses the BBC's Persian Service of a "blood libel concerning Israel's alleged harvesting of Palestinian organs and blood for future transplant".

 

He continues: "It beggars belief that the British taxpayer should be funding an organisation which is aligning itself with Iran's despotic leader in its antisemitic propaganda. Other print media like the Guardian, which erroneously printed this libel propagated by Israel's enemies, have since apologised. I am not aware of any such retraction from the BBC."

 

Mr Kissin, who was a child prodigy in his native Russia and is now widely recognised as one of the greatest living pianists, intends from now on to speak out against media bias against Israel, which he sees as both fuelling and being fuelled by antisemitism.

 

In his letter, he says that when he became a British citizen he was "inspired and proud to belong to the country of Winston Churchill, who famously said: 'There is no antisemitism in England because we do not consider ourselves more stupid than the Jews'. Above all, the BBC and especially its World Service, had always been a beacon of light, of truth and objectivity to those of us behind the Iron Curtain, in the 'Evil Empire'. Reaching out to far corners of the world, it was the voice of a country which for us was a model of democracy and human rights."

 

He concludes by asking: "Is it not time for the BBC to return to the values for which it was so much respected, before it finds itself in the garbage of history, together with Pravda, Tass, Volkischer Beobachter and Der Angruff?"

 

The classical music promoter, Lilian Hochhauser, said this week: "I fully support Evgeny Kissin's initiative to counter the increasing bias displayed by the BBC and others against Israel. I encourage all in the arts world to act against the growing stigmatisation of Israel, as well as increasing our cultural co-operation with the country."

 

A spokesman for the BBC said the corporation was unable to comment until it had received Mr Kissin's letter.

 

 

Regeringscommissie tegen segregatie op orthodoxe buslijnen

 

Als het hek van de dam is...  Wat begon als een paar buslijnen in orthodoxe buurten van Jeruzalem zonder precieze regels, eindigt met nu al meer dan honderd buslijnen waar vrouwen achterin moeten zitten. Ondertussen ligt de zaak bij het hooggerechtshof en is er een speciale commissie samengesteld door de regering:

 

In May 2008, the High Court asked the Transportation Minister to establish a special committee to investigate the functioning of the Mehadrin lines, in response to a petition by the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center and others who say that the lines may be illegal because they discriminate against women, restrict freedom of movement and freedom from religious coercion.

In its recommendations, the committee, made up of representatives from the Transportation Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office, found the current situation on the lines to be unjust.

 

Dus als ik het goed begrijp heeft het hooggerechtshof de zaak bij de regering gelegd (via een speciaal comité) en dat comité heeft bepaald dat de segregatie niet rechtvaardig is. Waarom het het dan nog door een ander juridisch instituut moet worden beoordeeld, ontgaat me. Het comité concludeerde onder andere: 

 

According to the committee's report, the ministry did not have records of how many Mehadrin lines were actually in service. The committee, which worked according to a list of routes published by the Rabbinic Council on Public Transportation, said that since Mehadrin lines were not licensed separately, any notice coming out of a haredi source could state that a line was Mehadrin, without government approval or knowledge.
The committee also criticized the public transportation operators, and the bus drivers themselves, for helping enforce the separation, something they were not allowed to do, and for failing to meet their obligations to the general public by reducing regular bus lines operating in places where Mehadrin buses operated.
In the end, the committee recommended that the arrangement be canceled and that every person be allowed to sit anywhere they wanted on the buses.

 

Daar lijkt me geen woord Frans bij.

 

RP

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

The Jerusalem Post
Jan 3, 2010 21:02 | Updated Jan 4, 2010 12:03
Is Tiberias next for 'Mehadrin' segregated buses?
By RON FRIEDMAN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339382376&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Will Tiberias be the next city to offer segregated buses for the haredi population?

On Sunday, Haaretz reported that haredi representatives in the city sent a letter to Veolia Transportation asking the company to operate a special line for the haredi population.

The legality of such lines is uncertain pending a High Court of Justice ruling on the matter and Tiberias municipal officials say it is unnecessary.

Rabbi Asher Idan, director of Jerusalem-based Kol HaNa'ar, a haredi organization that helps at-risk youth, contacted Veolia Transportation last week requesting the company designate a special bus line for the haredi population in Tiberas, where for modesty's sake, men and women sit at opposite ends of the bus. Such routes, which have been termed "Mehadrin lines," exist in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh, Safed, Ashdod and other cities with large haredi populations.

According to Idan, the haredi community wants a bus that will take its members from the lower city to Shikun Dalet (the Dalet Neighborhood), where a majority of the haredi population resides. "The religious/haredi community in Tiberias is large and important and will surely appreciate the new initiative that already exists in Israel's large cities," read the letter.

In its response, Veolia stated it would be happy to provide the service to the haredi population, in line with Transportation Ministry regulations.

What remains uncertain is whether bus routes such as the proposed one in Tiberias will be allowed to continue. In May 2008, the High Court asked the Transportation Minister to establish a special committee to investigate the functioning of the Mehadrin lines, in response to a petition by the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center and others who say that the lines may be illegal because they discriminate against women, restrict freedom of movement and freedom from religious coercion.

In its recommendations, the committee, made up of representatives from the Transportation Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office, found the current situation on the lines to be unjust.

The lines, which were originally established in the beginning of the last decade to increase haredi use of public transportation, were meant to be regulated on a voluntary basis, whereby both the front and back doors of the buses would be available for boarding, and people could choose where they wanted to sit. In practice, the committee discovered, the rules regarding separation were strictly enforced by members of the haredi population, and women who sat in "male territory," at the front of the bus, were often intimidated and bullied into moving to the back or getting off the bus altogether.

In its proceedings, the committee received statements from nearly 7,000 people, both secular and religious. Of these, 5,064 were in favor of the separation and 1,234 were against it.

One of the main problems that the committee faced in its deliberations was that the Mehadrin bus lines had no formal standing. Because it was meant to be strictly voluntary, the Transportation Ministry could not set up strict regulations.

According to the committee's report, the ministry did not have records of how many Mehadrin lines were actually in service. The committee, which worked according to a list of routes published by the Rabbinic Council on Public Transportation, said that since Mehadrin lines were not licensed separately, any notice coming out of a haredi source could state that a line was Mehadrin, without government approval or knowledge.

The committee also criticized the public transportation operators, and the bus drivers themselves, for helping enforce the separation, something they were not allowed to do, and for failing to meet their obligations to the general public by reducing regular bus lines operating in places where Mehadrin buses operated.

In the end, the committee recommended that the arrangement be canceled and that every person be allowed to sit anywhere they wanted on the buses.

It also noted that the use of both the front and back doors of buses was a benefit in terms of safety, service and efficiency and, if possible, should be adopted in additional lines, but that it should not serve as a means of de facto segregation.

Tiberias municipal spokeswoman Shani Yisraeli said that as a commercial company it was up to Veolia to decide whether it wanted to operate a Mehadrin line, subject to Transportation Ministry approval, but questioned its necessity.

"The mayor's policy is that companies and business owners should act according to their conscience and commercial considerations and not be affected by irrelevant pressures. At the same time, due to the fact that Tiberias doesn't have a haredi sector that is larger than other cities in the region, there is no justification for a special line and it is doubtful it will be approved," Yisraeli said.

Tiberias religious council director Eliyahu Cohen said he saw no reason not to have such lines in the city, but that he saw no advantage in them. According to Eliyahu, 30-35 percent of Tiberias's Jews are secular and the rest are of varying levels of religious orthodoxy.

"In general there is little tension between religious and non-religious in the city and we like it that way. There are one or two streets in the city that are identified with the haredi community, but even there, secular people live peacefully," said Eliyahu. "I believe that Torah should be taught with calm and politeness and not be bashed like a club over one's head."

When asked if he knew of the haredi community's request for the segregated bus line, Eliyahu said he had heard about it in the news, but had not heard the call first-hand. When asked if he knew Ilan, the rabbi who sent the letter to Veolia, Eliyahu said that he did not.

The Transportation Ministry spokesman said the ministry would not respond to questions on the Mehadrin bus lines as long as the issue was still before the court.

According to a survey conducted by Hiddush, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting religious freedom in Israel, 41% of Israeli Jews say that Mehadrin lines should be canceled, 39% say they should be limited to special routes, 14% say they should continue operating as they are and 6% said they should be extended further.

A Jerusalem Post online poll found that 76% of those who responded did not approve of segregated buses, 6% approved and 18% said that segregation should only exist in lines that operate in haredi neighborhoods.

Jordanië claimt rechten op Dode Zee rollen

 

Een sprekend voorbeeld van hoe de Arabieren - letterlijk - proberen zich de Joodse geschiedenis toe te eigenen.

 

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

 

The Jerusalem Post
Jan 3, 2010 22:05 | Updated Jan 3, 2010 22:56
Arab claim to Dead Sea Scrolls rejected
By RON FRIEDMAN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339383479&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Jordan has asked Canada to seize the selected parchments of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls that have been on display in Toronto, invoking international law in a bid to keep the artifacts out of Israel's hands until their "disputed ownership" is settled, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail reported last week.

In its request, Jordan invoked the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime.

The 1954 convention requires signatories "to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory."

The Jordanians claim Israel acted illegally when it seized the scrolls from the Rockefeller Museum, located in eastern Jerusalem, during the Six Day War.

On Sunday, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum ended its exhibit "Words That Changed the World," which featured scroll fragments on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

In the six months the scrolls were on display in Toronto, they sparked an unprecedented number of visitors, as well as political demonstrations.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called Jordan's claim ridiculous.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls are an intrinsic part of Jewish heritage and religion. The scrolls have no relation to Jordan or the Jordanian people," said Palmor.

"Moreover, Jordan's occupation of the West Bank was never recognized by the international community and the kingdom relinquished all claims on the territories back in the '80s. On what grounds are they trying to lay claims to the scrolls, which are a cornerstone of Jewish cultural history?"

The Foreign Ministry had not contacted the Jordanian ambassador in Israel and believed that the matter was strictly between Jordan and Canada, Palmor said.

"Since it's a ridiculous claim, we are sure that it will be rejected. We haven't contacted the Canadians, either. At this stage it is a legal issue, not a diplomatic one," said Palmor.

The Jordanians aren't the only ones trying to get their hands on the ancient scrolls. Last April, the Palestinian Authority appealed to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cancel the show. The Palestinian Authority and Toronto-based Muslim activists claimed that the scrolls were "stolen" from Palestinian territory and illegally obtained when Israel annexed east Jerusalem.

The exhibit sparked days of protest outside the museum, with pro-Palestinian groups calling on the public to boycott the exhibit.

So far Canada has refused to comply with Jordan's request. A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade told the Globe and Mail that "differences regarding ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls should be addressed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. It would not be appropriate for Canada to intervene as a third party."

The Israel Antiquities Authority said in response to the report that it had the right to loan the artifacts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are made up of roughly 900 documents and biblical texts and are considered one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

The scrolls were first discovered in 1947, by Beduin in underground caves in and around Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Excavations that took place between 1947 and 1956 discovered a total of 11 caves.

The texts include some of the only known surviving copies of biblical texts made before 100 BCE, and preserve evidence of Jewish life during the Second Temple period.

More than 200,000 people went to see the display in Toronto, which along with the scrolls featured 200 other artifacts on loan from the IAA.

The scrolls are scheduled to appear at the Milwaukee Public Museum starting January 22.

Arabisch-Israelisch Knessetlid vindt kolonisten een kwaadaardige tumor

Yisrael Beiteinu is niet altijd even genuanceerd over Arabieren, en dat wordt in Nederlandse kranten en andere media breed uitgemeten, maar wat sommige Israelisch-Arabische Knesset-leden zeggen liegt er ook niet om:

 

Calling the settlers "unjustifiable vermin," Sanaa stated that Jewish West Bank residents kept themselves occupied by "chasing and abusing" others. "According to international law, they cannot be there (in the West Bank). They are a malignant tumor," he concluded.

 

Het overgrote merendeel van de kolonisten leven hun leven en gooien niet met stenen, vernielen geen Palestijnse olijfbomen en moskeeën en eten ook geen Palestijnse kinderen bij het ontbijt. Het overgrote merendeel van de Palestijnen is overigens evenmin aanslagen aan het voorbereiden of qassams aan het fabriceren. Beide kanten, kolonisten en Palestijnen, doen wel te weinig tegen de extremisten in hun midden en laten zich (in ieder geval aan Palestijnse kant) ook door hen intimideren, bang als ze zijn voor verrader te worden uitgemaakt.

Het is onvoorstelbaar dat Joden vreedzaam op de Westelijke Jordaanoever zouden kunnen wonen onder Palestijns bestuur, eigen partijen in het Palestijnse parlement zouden hebben en daar dan zouden uitroepen dat de Arabieren in Israel een kwaadaardig gezwel zijn dat zo snel mogelijk vernietigd moet worden.

 

RP

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

The Jerusalem Post
Jan 4, 2010 14:44 | Updated Jan 4, 2010 15:58
Arab MK: Settlers are a malignant tumor
By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339390355&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


A verbal spat erupted Monday afternoon at the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee when MK Taleb A-Sanaa (United Arab List-Ta'al) called settlers "a malignant tumor," setting off a flurry of furious reactions from the assembled MKs.

The committee had convened on Monday morning to discuss the 10-month moratorium on settlement construction, its implications and its possible negative effects on the civil rights of West Bank residents.

At the start of the meeting, Sanaa alleged that settlers were "undermining the government and High Court rulings and attending Knesset sessions only to instill terror," later accusing settler MKs of conducting themselves "as though the Knesset were the the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip." He also vehemently rejected "any connection" between the settlers and civil rights.

Calling the settlers "unjustifiable vermin," Sanaa stated that Jewish West Bank residents kept themselves occupied by "chasing and abusing" others. "According to international law, they cannot be there (in the West Bank). They are a malignant tumor," he concluded.

Committee chairman MK David Rotem (Israel Beiteinu) irately replied, "If the settlers are a malignant tumor in the body of the Palestinian state, we hope the tumors will grow until the Palestinian state ceases to exist."

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) consequently accused Sanaa of incitement against settlers.

Yeshiva student veroordeeld voor gewelddadig verzet tegen bouwstop Westoever

Ik vind de voorgestelde straf niet echt getuigen van 'zero tolerance' maar het is iets. In Nederland zullen de straffen voor vergelijkbare vergrijpen niet hoger zijn, alle retoriek over hard straffen wanneer hulpverleners, politie en andere publieke functionarissen worden aangevallen ten spijt. Het is natuurlijk ook de vraag hoeveel hard straffen helpt. Uit onderzoek blijkt dat snel straffen meer effect heeft, en dat lijkt hier redelijk te zijn gebeurd.

Ondertussen moet de oorzaak natuurlijk aangepakt worden, en dat is het extreem-rechts gedachtengoed onder bepaalde groepen (met name) jonge en zeer religieuze kolonisten. De overgrote meerderheid van de kolonisten deelt deze ideeën niet, maar veroordeelt ze naar mijn idee ook te weinig, hoewel de vernielingen in een moskee vorige maand wel breed door hen werden veroordeeld.

 

RP

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

Yeshiva student convicted of biting IDF officer in W. Bank
By Nir Hasson and Amos Harel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139711.html


A Jerusalem yeshiva student who admitted to the November assault of an army officer in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar was convicted last week of charges in connection to the incident.

Ephraim Haikin, 18, was protesting against the construction freeze in West Bank settlements.

Haikin admitted to deliberately puncturing the tire of a vehicle in which two high-ranking commanders were sitting, as well as biting a third officer and threatening a police officer.

Haikin was convicted in Kfar Sava Magistrate's Court of interfering in the work of a public servant, aggravated assault of a public servant, committing property damage, fleeing from law-enforcement officials and also of illegal weapons possession.

The attorneys for the defendant and the state reached a plea bargain in the case. If accepted by the court Haikin will be sentenced to one month in prison (for which he will be credited the time served in police custody), three months' community service (reduced to two months in light of his prison stay) and a fine of NIS 5,000.

Judge Nitza Maimon-Shashua set sentencing for next month. Until then Haikin will remain under house arrest at his parents' Jerusalem home.

The incident occurred on November 26, while Col. Itzik Bar, commander of the Samaria Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, was touring the Nablus sector with a battalion commander.

After Haikin punctured the tire of the vehicle he was pursued by the brigade's operational commander, Maj. Erez Tal, and a communications officer. They apprehended Haikin and brought him to the ground, at which point Haikin bit Tal.

Two weeks after the incident in Yitzhar a mosque in the nearby Palestinian village of Yasuf was torched. The perpetrators spray-painted the words "Price tag - greetings from Effi" on the floor of the mosque before they left.

The Shin Bet security service and police are still investigating the case, but investigators believe that the perpetrators may have been friends of Haikin who were protesting his continued detention.

GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi told settler leaders yesterday that he is taking a "zero tolerance" approach to anyone who assaults soldiers or harms military property.

Lobbies kunnen doorbraak niet forceren of verhinderen

 

De twee auteurs werken aan een antwoord op de omstreden "Israel lobby" mythes die door o.a. Mearsheimer en Walt populair zijn gemaakt.

Ze betogen in onderstaand artikel dat het een fictie is dat lobby groepen echte invloed hebben op politieke ontwikkelingen en regeringsbeleid van bijv. de VS.

Doorbraken vinden plaats als de politieke situatie daarvoor rijp is en de economische ontwikkeling daarom vraagt.

 

Wouter

______________

 

Last update - 08:44 31/12/2009 
Why lobbies don't matter
By Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138925.html


The signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Turkey in October was a little-noticed milestone. Since the Ottomans deported and murdered Armenians in World War I in what Armenians and much of the world call the Armenian Genocide, Armenians have not been fond of Turkey. For its part, Turkey has long disputed both the genocide and the Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally. Though signed pledges do not guarantee peace, the U.S.-brokered pledges to reestablish ties and open borders could well prove to be the beginning of the end of this intractable conflict.

The pledges were made in the face of some resistance in both countries, but particularly among the Armenian diaspora and its leaders. The so-called "Armenian lobby," which was thought in the 1990s to determine both U.S. and Armenian government policy in the Caspian Sea, staunchly opposed the deal and mobilized the community against it. In Los Angeles the week before the signing, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan was confronted by around 12,000 protesters. One prominent Armenian-American declared the agreement "the latest entry in the ledger of crimes committed, and covered up, against the Armenian nation." Nevertheless, opposition from the Armenian Diaspora did not stop Turkey and Armenia from coming to terms.

The Armenian lobby's failure to block the treaty is instructive when one considers that other mythically powerful diaspora group known as the "Israel lobby." The Israel lobby has long been thought to exert vast influence on U.S. policy in the Middle East. In the extreme version of this view, it is only the foot-dragging of hawkish pro-Israel groups like AIPAC that has stymied American efforts to improve the prospects for peace in the Middle East.


Many believers in the power of lobbying have expressed hope that new dynamics in the American Jewish community could shift U.S. policy in the Middle East. Finally, there is a president who has pledged a more "evenhanded" policy between Israelis and Palestinians, and the American Jewish community remains firmly in his camp. Furthermore, a new dovish Israel lobby called J Street, which held its inaugural conference in November to great fanfare, was formed with the explicit task of supporting U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policy - or in the words of J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, "to be the president's blocking back."

In short, if ever there were a time in which America could "change course" in the Middle East, it would seem to be now. Obama, supported by J Street and the American Jewish community at large, can lean on Israel with no domestic political cost, so American policy in the Middle East can finally become more rational and effective.

But so far, there has not been much progress. A year into Obama's term, the situation in the Middle East - particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian front - looks as intractable as before. The parties remain as far from each other as ever on the so-called "core issues" such as the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction has said he will not run for a new term. Without him, Fatah's control over the West Bank, tenuous at the best of times, could become still weaker.

Over in Gaza, Hamas is deepening its control and does not seem to be moderating its position with the necessities of governing, as some experts had hoped. Meanwhile, Israel's settlements in the West Bank, thought by some to be an obstacle to peace, continue their "natural growth." If there is progress on Israel-Palestine any time soon, it doesn't seem that it will come by way of U.S. diplomacy.

Both the successful signing of an Armenian-Turkish accord and the inability of Israelis and Palestinians to achieve one indicates that the power of lobbies to influence events, and even U.S. policy, has been highly exaggerated. The Armenian diaspora could not stop the Armenian government from concluding a deal. Despite its alleged power on Capitol Hill, the Armenian lobby could not dent American enthusiasm for blessing this new opening in the Caucasus. Earlier, it had been thought that the Armenian lobby was hindering an accord. But it turns out the moment for such an accord was just not right. Now, with Turkey's serious push for European Union membership and Armenia's desire to benefit from the end of the Turkish blockade, conditions have become favorable for a deal.

Similarly, the Obama administration faces no politically relevant opposition from American Jews on its Middle East policy. But no progress has been made, despite this administration's new orientation, because the sides aren't ready. The situation, to use the old phrase, is not ripe. Ignorance of those conditions could lead one to believe that a little bit of lobbying can make all the difference - and to a vast over-estimation of the power of ethnic lobbying over U.S. policy. But, happily or unhappily, reality has other ideas.

With all the attention on lobbying, shuttle diplomacy and the like, genuine small achievements in Israel-Palestine have gone unnoticed. Checkpoints have been removed in the West Bank, the Palestinian economy in the West Bank has grown steadily, and robust civil society, slowly but surely, continues to grow in the West Bank. These encouraging signs may one day make the situation ripe for agreement. Should that materialize, let's not allow any lobbying organizations to take much credit for it.

 

..........
Prof. Yossi Shain heads Tel Aviv University's Hartog School of Government. Neil Rogachevsky is a doctoral student at Georgetown University. The two are writing a book on American foreign policy and the myth of the Jewish lobby.

Gaza krijgt moderne waterontziltingsinstallaties

 

Overigens: hoewel buitenlandse actievoerders vanuit het vrijwel hermetisch afgesloten Egypte klagen dat Israel niets doorlaat naar de Gazastrook, zijn daar vorige week zes geavanceerde waterontziltingsinstallaties heen gebracht die 40.000 burgers van goed drinkwater moeten voorzien.

 

Aldus Jantien op Israned. Het zijn dit soort berichten, over hoe Israel haar technologie deelt met de Palestijnen, over de vele duizenden Palestijnen die jaarlijks in Israelische ziekenhuizen worden behandeld, over hoe Israel voorop loopt bij de ontwikkeling van de electrische auto en andere zaken om het milieu te sparen, die hardnekkig worden genegeerd door de geprinte media en de televisie. Alsof er een stilzwijgende afspraak is dat men nooit iets mag melden dat Israel in een positief daglicht kan stellen. Een enkele keer maakt een moedige verslaggever of correspondent een uitzondering, maar het overgrote deel van dit nieuws vind je alleen in Israelische (en soms Amerikaanse) media en op weblogs.

 

RP

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

 

Grootste ontziltingsinstallatie gestart

http://www.israned.com/2010/01/grootste-ontziltingsinstallatie-gestart.html

 

Het groeiende watertekort in het Midden-Oosten is een potentiele bron van conflicten. Maar aangezien water zich niets aantrekt van grenzen, kan het ook landen dwingen om samen te werken. (Voor de liefhebbers: Green Prophet is bezig met een serie interviews met sleutelfiguren over water in het Midden-Oosten, hier.) Een mogelijke oplossing is het ontzilten van zeewater of brak water. Ontzilten is duur en kost veel energie, maar afgezien van het importeren van water uit bijv. het weinig Israelvriendelijke Turkije blijft het een van de weinige mogelijkheden. Israel werkt aan de nadelen, door grotere installaties te openen (kostenbesparend) en door technologie die het energieverbruik moet drukken. Vorige week begon de nieuwe ontziltingsinstallatie in Hadera ontzout zeewater in het drinkwaternet van Mekorot te pompen.

Na wekenlang testen heeft het ministerie van Volksgezondheid het nieuwe drinkwater goedgekeurd voor consumptie. Voorlopig worden er nog maar kleine hoeveelheden water in het net gepompt; de installatie is nog niet helemaal operationeel en wacht nog op een 'ontziltingsvergunning'. De installatie, waarschijnlijk de grootste ter wereld, moet 127 [miljoen kubieke meter] water per jaar gaan produceren. Samen met de bestaande installaties in Ashkelon en Palmachim komt de productie dan op 300 miljoen kubieke meter. Dat is niet alleen goed tegen het heersende watertekort, maar zal ook het meer van Galilea ontlasten, waarvan het waterpeil jaarlijks daalt.

Overigens: hoewel buitenlandse actievoerders vanuit het vrijwel hermetisch afgesloten Egypte klagen dat Israel niets doorlaat naar de Gazastrook, zijn daar vorige week zes geavanceerde waterontziltingsinstallaties heen gebracht die 40.000 burgers van goed drinkwater moeten voorzien.

De blokkade is lang niet zo zwart-wit als hij wordt afgeschilderd. Wat wordt tegengehouden, zijn vooral bouwmaterialen die volgens Israel gebruikt kunnen worden voor smokkeltunnels. De hoeveelheid door Israel doorgelaten humanitaire hulp steeg bijna 900% in 2009. Er werd .6 miljard ton hulpgoederen per vrachtwagen doorgelaten en 100 miljoen liter brandstof via leidingen doorgelaten, plus materialen om een overdekte voetgangersbrug te bouwen van Gaza City naar de Erez grensovergang. Ruim 4000 inwoners van Gaza, begeleid door 3600 anderen, kregen toestemming naar Israel en de Westbank te reizen voor medische behandeling. Bij dit laatste is vooral Hamas een grote hindernis.

Twee tunnels tussen Gazastrook en Israel gebombardeerd

 

In reactie op raketbeschietingen vanuit Gaza heeft Israel twee tunnels gebombardeerd die bedoeld waren om Israel binnen te dringen en er een terroristische operatie uit te voeren. Het gaat dus blijkbaar niet om smokkeltunnels. Aaron Lerner van IMRA vraagt zich terecht af of er nog meer van dergelijke tunnels zijn en of het beleid is die alleen te bombarderen wanneer de Palestijnen een evenzo groot aantal raketten hebben afgevuurd op Israel. Ik begrijp het zelf ook niet helemaal. Als die tunnels een reëel gevaar zijn voor Israel, dan moet het ze sowieso onklaar maken, raketten of geen raketten. De kans op onschuldige slachtoffers bij zo'n actie lijkt me klein. Ik kan mij niet voorstellen dat Israel het risico zou nemen dat door middel van deze tunnels wederom een soldaat wordt ontvoerd. Het lijkt mij dus dat men ofwel zulke tunnels altijd zou bombarderen, of het is toch vooral een symbolische actie.

 

RP

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[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Question #1  How many infiltration tunnels  leading from the northern and southern Gaza Strip towards Israel are in Israel's "target bank"?

If the answer is greater than zero:

Question #2:  What is the approximate number of such tunnels, on average, being constructed each month by the Palestinians?

and

Question #3:  Does this mean that it is Israeli policy to allow these tunnels, that could be used at any time "for infiltrating into Israel and executing a terror attack against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers" remain in place - or even increase in number - in accordance with the number of Gaza attacks that justify retaliatory strikes?]

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

 

IDF Spokesperson

January 2nd, 2009
IAF Targets Terrorist Infiltration Tunnels in Response to Rocket Fire

 

The Israel Air Force successfully targeted two terror tunnels leading from the northern and southern Gaza Strip towards Israel in a joint IDF-ISA operation last night. The tunnels originated from a distance of approximately one kilometer from the Gaza Security Fence, and were intended for infiltrating into Israel and executing a terror attack against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.

The attacks are in response to the firing of a rocket at the city of Netivot on Thursday evening. More than 280 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel since the end of operation Cast Lead and more than 750 hit Israel in the whole of 2009. Throughout 2008, prior to Cast Lead, over 3300 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The IDF will not tolerate the firing of rockets by terrorist organizations at Israel and will continue to respond against any attempt to disrupt the calm in Israel's southern communities.

Hedy Epstein: antizionistische Holocaust overlevenden veel gevraagd in Europa

Antizionisten en antisemieten nemen Joden vaak kwalijk dat ze de Holocaust zouden misbruiken om Israels bestaansrecht en acties te verdedigen. Het is een bekende truuk die ook hier weer blijkt te werken: beschuldig een ander van wat je zelf doet. De Holocaust wordt tegenwoordig vooral tegen Israel gebruikt, dat daar ten onrechte morele rechten aan zou ontlenen en zich als slachtoffer voor zou doen terwijl het in een wrede dader is veranderd.

 

Israels bestaansrecht is natuurlijk in de eerste plaats gebaseerd op het recht van het Joodse volk op zelfbeschikking en de bevestiging daarvan door de Volkerenbond, het Britse Mandaat en de VN. De Holocaust toonde op tragische en cynische wijze aan waarom juist de Joden, meer dan welk volk ook, een eigen staat nodig hebben, een plaats waar Joden altijd terecht kunnen en een land dat bereid en in staat is om terug te vechten als dat nodig is.

 

Dat rechtvaardigt natuurlijk niet per definitie alle militaire acties van Israel. Er is echter geen enkele rechtvaardiging voor het continu vergelijken van Israel met de nazi's, of je nou een Holocaust overlevende bent, een Jood, een Palestijn of een Eskimo. Voor de nazi vergelijking is geen enkele rechtvaardiging; het toont alleen je morele bankroet aan.

 

RP

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The Jerusalem Post
Jan 3, 2010 1:09 | Updated Jan 3, 2010 9:01
Analysis: Hedy Epstein's European media sex appeal
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JPOST CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339369673&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


There is a tried-and-true Jewish method in Europe to garner instant media coverage and awards of recognition: Scream the trendy anti-Israeli slogans equating the Jewish state with Nazi Germany and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, while highlighting one's background as a Holocaust survivor.

According to seasoned media observers in Germany, the formula of Shoah survivor coupled with anti-Israeli activism helps to explain the public relations coup of Hedy Epstein, an anti-Zionist 85-year-old German Jew who fled the Nazis in 1939, and is now promoting her hunger strike in Egypt to advance the so-called "Free Gaza Movement."

Epstein declared her hunger strike on Monday, as part of a campaign involving 1,400 activists from 42 countries in Egypt hoping to enter Gaza, in a bid to compel Israel to end its restrictions on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. She has attracted widespread press coverage in Europe.

Prompting the activists, many of whom are from organizations affiliated with Hamas, to march into Gaza, is the one-year anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel's southern periphery.

The European laws of supply and demand (similar ones apply on many American college campuses) show an endless demand for Jewish senior citizens willing to invoke anti-Israeli language that meets the definitions of contemporary anti-Semitism. According to a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs report, Epstein had "compared Israel to a Nazi state and Israeli soldiers to Nazis" during a lecture at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Writing this past week from Beirut, the liberal Huffington Post site reported that Epstein said, "The issue for Israeli Jews and the American Jewish community is the Holocaust, and everything is due to the Holocaust. But Israel is not being persecuted now. Israel is the persecutor."

The US State Department and the European Union both define parallels between Nazi Germany and Israel as a form of modern anti-Semitism.

To circumvent the unsavory Nazi-equals-Israel comparison, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli groups in Europe frequently outsource the new anti-Semitism to a minuscule group of anti-Zionist Jews who seek to strip Israel's legitimacy as a nation. A Holocaust survivor as spokesperson helps to insulate the "Free Gaza Movement" from charges of anti-Semitism. The problem, however, for the anti-Zionist market is more a question of supply than demand.

The fringe group of anti-Zionist Jews who fled the Hitler movement or survived the extermination camps are passing out of existence because of their age. Within the European Union, anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors hold enormous media and political currency. Telling examples are the 85-year-old Hajo Meyer, who argues that "the earliest cause for anti-Semitism is situated in Jewry," and equates IDF checkpoints with Nazi actions.

German President Horst Köhler last year awarded his country's most important award, the Federal Cross of Merit, to 80-year-old hard-core anti-Zionist attorney Felicia Langer, a dual German-Israeli citizen who is widely sought as a lecturer in Germany and Austria because of her Israel-equals-apartheid views.

German critics argue that anti-Zionist Jews such as Epstein, Langer and Meyer have cornered the European media and speaking-tour markets because they sanitize guilt in countries which are plagued by their complicity during the Holocaust. Epstein contributes, according to the social-psychology of post-Holocaust anti-Semitism, to depicting Israelis as the new Nazis and Palestinians as the new European Jews.

The cottage industry of anti-Zionist Jews pushing, wittingly or unwittingly, a modern anti-Semitic agenda serves to cleanse the guilt pangs of a non-Jewish audience and turn Israel's democracy into a pariah state.

The "Gaza Freedom March" Web site in Switzerland wrote that in contrast to most Holocaust survivors, "Hedy Epstein is an advocate for the Palestinians."

The Shoah as a cynical form of moral shock therapy for Diaspora Jewry and Israelis remains a ubiquitous bully club to pit a clique of anti-Israeli Jews against the mainstream European Jewish community.

Epstein told The Jerusalem Post last week that "when people are suffering it comes upon the rest of us to do whatever we can."

The pressing question for the critics of Epstein's human rights activism is, why are she and other activists not engaging in a hunger strike for persecuted Iranians risking their lives for democracy on the streets of the Islamic Republic? Where are the hunger strikes opposing the Islamist Sudanese government-sponsored genocide against its black population in the Darfur region?

The media appeal of catapulting Epstein into a poster girl for criticizing Israel's right to self-defense in Gaza resonates with a European audience starved for moral exoneration because of its complicity in the crimes of the Holocaust.