The Palestine thread

[seafoid]

"They lie to us and then they lie to themselves about lying to us" John Trudell

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/peres-extends-holiday-wishes-to-nation-as-israel-turns-65.premium-1.515779

"Israel's victory is one of humanity, not of land." Shimon Peres , Israeli president

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/28/alliance-dared-not-speak-its-name/

"Shimon Peres, the wheeler-dealer who served as David Ben-Gurion's right hand on arms procurement before stepping into the political limelight himself, takes a bigger beating than P.W. Botha for his "customary sanctimony." In private, he could laud South Africa's white leaders, telling them that they shared "a common hatred of injustice." In public, he called apartheid "the ultimate abomination" and "the cruelest inhumanity." Having ascended to the post of prime minister, he assured the president of Cameroon that "a Jew who accepts apartheid ceases to be a Jew. A Jew and racism do not go together."
 
Peres on Dutch television, explaining why so many Palestinian children were killed during Cast Lead (takes him just one minute):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8XQspTXz_A

[Ball DeBeaver]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/167279

For the second time this week. I wonder what the excuse is this time. Maybe the big bad jews have made it rain too much for the poor wee palestinians. Seafoid will no doubt have an eppy when Israel hits back.


Gaza Terrorists Fire Two Rockets at Israel

Terrorists from Hamas-controlled Gaza fire two rockets at southern Israel. No physical injuries or damages reported.


AAFont Size
By Elad Benari
First Publish: 4/18/2013, 11:29 PM




Hamas terrorists fire rockets at Israel



Terrorists from Hamas-controlled Gaza fired two rockets at southern Israel on Thursday evening.

The rockets exploded in an open area of the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no physical injuries or damages.

On Wednesday morning, the Color Red rocket alert siren blared throughout the city of Eilat shortly after 9 a.m. It is believed that terrorists fired three rockets at the city. No casualties were reported.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said the rocket fire had been traced to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, a region which has become a hotbed of terrorist activity since the fall in 2011 of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.   

A Salafi jihadist group, the Mujahedeen Shura Council, later claimed responsibility for the attack.

[bennydorano]

Though  there'd have been a bit of chat about tbe BBC2 doc on the other night, good balanced view of Israel's potential future (which prob doesn't suit most contributors on here).

The most interesting point raised was regarding the growth of Orthodox & Ultra Orthodox Jewish sects - under law they are entitled to pray all day, cant be conscripted to the army, are a nuisance to Police & IDF and are paid generous welfare benefits by the state in the process, the non-fundamentalists (secularists) abhor this situation & want change, this could be dangerous to state in future.

Was a good show, few other points made.

[seafoid]

Though  there'd have been a bit of chat about tbe BBC2 doc on the other night, good balanced view of Israel's potential future (which prob doesn't suit most contributors on here).

The most interesting point raised was regarding the growth of Orthodox & Ultra Orthodox Jewish sects - under law they are entitled to pray all day, cant be conscripted to the army, are a nuisance to Police & IDF and are paid generous welfare benefits by the state in the process, the non-fundamentalists (secularists) abhor this situation & want change, this could be dangerous to state in future.

Was a good show, few other points made.

The centrist party Yesh Atid which won a surprising number of seats recently in the Knesset elections campaigned on an anti ultra Orthodox ticket. The ultra Orthodox justify refusing army service on the basis that praying for Israel is more important. I don't think the secular schmucks who serve buy that argument any more.

Israel has a big challenge figuring out what to do to integrate the ultra orthodox. Most are not very well educated and struggle to find jobs .   

One in 4 Israeli Jewish kids is malnourished and the kids concerned are overwhelmingly Orthodox/ultra Orthodox. It is quite a sad state of affairs really.

But obviously the settlers need the money more.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Have you a link to this claim of malnutrition in Israeli kids?

[seafoid]

Have you a link to this claim of malnutrition in Israeli kids?

meirpanim.org who say actually  2 in 5 israeli  kids do not get enough to eat .

They also support orthodox couples pay for their weddings. Some of the stories would break your heart . Women who  can't even afford to buy a wedding dress . Too ashamed to ask for help. That ain't right .

[Ball DeBeaver]

Palestinian 'refugees', hypocrisy and unity: just follow the money


Cross posted at 'This Ongoing War', a blog edited by Frimet and Arnold Roth

The Arab-on-Arab bloodbath just across Israel's northern border goes on and on, and with it the incredible – and worsening – suffering of ordinary Syrians. That is, in significant ways, a function of politically correct but morally repugnant decision-making of the 'world community'.


Syrian Refugees January 2013

The decades-long handling of the Palestinian Arabs as a uniquely deserving cause is revealed for the scam it always was. People are paying with their lives for the double-talk about the 'refugees'. Those people are not only Arabs, but in many cases they are also the close kin of the undeserving beneficiaries of the Palestinian Arab Victimhood industry.

Evelyn Gordon writes ("How UNRWA Steals Money from Those Who Need It Most") about the current threat by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to halt all relief operations in Syria and for the benefit of Syrian refugees. 1.3 million of them are being looked after until now; the number – given the ongoing unchecked savagery throughout Syria – is certain to grow.

$1.5 billion was pledged to the UN agency by donors earlier this year; only $400 million has turned up. That's a shortfall of more than 70%. What can we learn from this?

For anyone familiar with the way Arab national giving works, this is a constant: fancy rhetoric and high-flying speeches about Arab solidarity and Arab unity and Arab generosity, followed by... not much. Is there a shortage of available cash in the oil-soaked Arab world? Not really. (We wrote about the phenomenon of $600 million recreational yachts a few days ago. See 10-Apr-13: "I cannot help but cry out long live the descendants of apes and pigs")

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that unless more money arrives (read: unless the promises of funding are honored, which so far has not happened), UNHCR is going to stop distributing food to refugees in Lebanon from May. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with the largest population of Syrian refugees, has said it will close its borders to more of them; it cannot cope without aid.

Now pause.

Evelyn Gordon writes about a different (a very different) UN agency that deals with refugees, one that


enjoys comfortable funding of about $1 billion a year to help a very different group of refugees–refugees who generally live in permanent homes rather than flimsy tents in makeshift camps; who have never faced the trauma of flight and dislocation, having lived all their lives in the place where they were born; who often have jobs that provide an income on top of their refugee benefits; and who enjoy regular access to schooling, healthcare and all the other benefits of non-refugee life... Their generous funding continues undisturbed even as Syrian refugees are facing the imminent loss of such basics as food and fresh water. I am talking, of course, about UNRWA.

People who have never heard this before think we're making this up, so please read carefully and verify:


It has long been clear that UNRWA–which deals solely with Palestinian refugees, while UNHCR bears responsibility for all other refugees on the planet–is a major obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. Since, unlike UNHCR, it grants refugee status to the original refugees' descendants in perpetuity, the number of Palestinian refugees has ballooned from under 700,000 in 1949 to over five million today, even as the world's non-Palestinian refugee population has shrunk from over 100 million to under 30 million. Moreover, while UNHCR's primary goal is to resettle refugees, UNRWA hasn't resettled a single refugee in its history... It has thereby perpetuated and exacerbated the Palestinian refugee problem to the point where it has become the single greatest obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement... Unfortunately for the Syrians, it seems that many of the world's self-proclaimed humanitarians prefer harming Israel to helping those who need it most. [Evelyn Gordon]

Last year, we asked [in a post called "5-Jun-12: If there's one single thing about UNRWA that we wish people understood, it's this"] a question that, if it were to get an honest answer, might point to a genuine breakthrough in resolving our neighbourhood's problems.


If (to borrow the laughable claims made by its many supporters) UNRWA's work is so important, if it brings us closer to peace, if it restores dignity to the lives of dispossessed and destitute Arabs, then why, when you look at the top twenty list of donors to this agency that exists entirely from donations, do you see that only one is Arab (the Islamic Development Bank). What is it about UNRWA that the Arab states understand better than the nations and tax-payers of the West?


Allow us to restate this in a simpler way:


Arab leaders, many of whom preside over phenomenal cash resources, (a)  to the strange UN agency that exists specifically to support the most beloved cause that exists in the Arab world – the Palestinians. And (b) they fail to honour their pledges (as we noted above) to fund the one organization that can do something to relieve the genuine suffering of the Syrians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed in the past two years' Arab-on-Arab fighting and millions of whom are now desperate to find shelter.

The role of rampant hypocrisy in explaining what happens in global politics is under-appreciated.

http://cifwatch.com/

[seafoid]

At some point empathy was surgically removed from all zionist brains. I am sure at some point the nazis said the ukrainians needed food more than the poles did but how jews ended up speaking like that is one of the great   mysteries.  I suppose if Israelis don't care about hunger amongst their own poor it is a but much to expect them to care about anyone else.

[seafoid]

Beaver- if you genuinely want to.improve how Israel is perceived then you really shouldn't post links which imply that the country is a collective.of obnoxious sectarian arseholes. But maybe that is your goal.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Israeli police quiz IRA suspect


Israeli police are questioning a suspected Irish bombmaker in the West Bank after arresting him last night over contact with Palestinian militants, Israeli security sources said.

British and Irish newspapers had reported that a manhunt was under way for a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombmaker suspected of training Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Israel has been on alert for attacks by foreigners acting on behalf of a 33-month-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since two British Muslims carried out a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub in April, killing three people.

According to reports in Sunday newspapers, the suspect had been a member of the mainstream IRA guerrilla group, but switched allegiances to the dissident Real IRA splinter group four years ago.

Palestinian militants have largely suspended attacks against Israel as part of a truce brokered by the Palestinian leadership in order to advance a US-backed "road map" to peace. Yet some West Bank-based militant offshoots have vowed to go on fighting.

Palestinian links with Northern Ireland stretch back to the early days of the three decade conflict between Catholic republicans fighting to end British rule and Protestant loyalists committed to maintaining it.

Within Israel's security services, it is believed a West Bank sniper who killed 10 Israeli soldiers and settlers in March 2002 may have been an IRA-linked mercenary.

In hardline Catholic districts of Belfast it is common to see pro-Palestinian slogans painted on walls, while in staunchly Protestant areas Israeli flags are sometimes flown alongside British flags and loyalist paramilitary banners.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-188399/Israeli-police-quiz-IRA-suspect.html

[seafoid]

Israeli police quiz IRA suspect


Israeli police are questioning a suspected Irish bombmaker in the West Bank after arresting him last night over contact with Palestinian militants, Israeli security sources said.

British and Irish newspapers had reported that a manhunt was under way for a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombmaker suspected of training Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Israel has been on alert for attacks by foreigners acting on behalf of a 33-month-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since two British Muslims carried out a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub in April, killing three people.

According to reports in Sunday newspapers, the suspect had been a member of the mainstream IRA guerrilla group, but switched allegiances to the dissident Real IRA splinter group four years ago.

Palestinian militants have largely suspended attacks against Israel as part of a truce brokered by the Palestinian leadership in order to advance a US-backed "road map" to peace. Yet some West Bank-based militant offshoots have vowed to go on fighting.

Palestinian links with Northern Ireland stretch back to the early days of the three decade conflict between Catholic republicans fighting to end British rule and Protestant loyalists committed to maintaining it.

Within Israel's security services, it is believed a West Bank sniper who killed 10 Israeli soldiers and settlers in March 2002 may have been an IRA-linked mercenary.

In hardline Catholic districts of Belfast it is common to see pro-Palestinian slogans painted on walls, while in staunchly Protestant areas Israeli flags are sometimes flown alongside British flags and loyalist paramilitary banners.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-188399/Israeli-police-quiz-IRA-suspect.html

"Palestinian links with Northern Ireland stretch back to the early days of the three decade conflict between Catholic republicans fighting to end British rule and Protestant loyalists committed to maintaining it."

Like Palestine,Northern Ireland was settled by colonists with no links to the place who needed an ideology to make sense of the land grab. God and chosen people were at the centre of both ideologies which are now falling apart. 

[Ball DeBeaver]

Should we do with the protestants what you propose to do with the jews? Shall we send them packing, or are they allowed to stay?

[seafoid]

Should we do with the protestants what you propose to do with the jews? Shall we send them packing, or are they allowed to stay?

Jews should be allowed to do whatever they want subject to the parameters of democracy.
Maybe some will leave once they lose their privileges.
But Israel as is is no democracy. 

[seafoid]

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-lawmaker-amend-west-bank-law-to-let-settlers-defend-property-with-live-fire.premium-1.517232

"
Israeli lawmaker: Amend West Bank law to let settlers defend property with live fire
Settlers should have the same right to defend their property under the so-called Dromi Law as Israelis who live within the Green Line, MK Orit Strock (Habayit Hayehudi‏) said Tuesday.
Instead, she charged, their rights are restricted by the Israel Defense Forces' rules of engagement.
She is therefore demanding that the rules be changed to allow settlers to confront "nationalist attacks" against Jewish property with live fire. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee will hold a special hearing to examine how the law is applied in the West Bank.
The Dromi Law absolves a person who shoots a burglar from criminal liability. Since it's part of the Penal Code, it should apply to Jewish residents of the West Bank as well. In practice, however, the IDF has issued stringent rules of engagement for the West Bank so as to prevent friction between Jews and Palestinians. "


Unfortunately for the settlers the West bank isn't actually part of Israel so Israeli law has no validity there.
 

[Ball DeBeaver]

Should we do with the protestants what you propose to do with the jews? Shall we send them packing, or are they allowed to stay?

Jews should be allowed to do whatever they want subject to the parameters of democracy.
Maybe some will leave once they lose their privileges.
But Israel as is is no democracy.

Then you agree that they should be allowed to live where they want, just as long as they abide by any democratic decision made by whoever governs where they live?

If Israel isn't a democracy, then what the hell is PA?