The Palestine thread

Started by give her dixie, October 17, 2012, 01:29:42 PM

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seafoid

Quote from: give her dixie on October 26, 2012, 11:45:11 AM
If you refuse to serve in the IDF and have a conscience, you go to jail......

Israeli conscientious objector begins 10-day sentence for refusing to serve in IDF


Moriel Rothman, 23, a Jerusalem native who lived in the United States for two decades, says he is acting in 'solidarity with the Palestinians living under occupation.

A U.S.-Israeli citizen who is refusing to perform his compulsory IDF service as a "conscientious objector", has a  has been sentenced to ten days in a military jail, Haaretz has learned.

Moriel Rothman, 23, a Jerusalem native who lived in the United States for two decades before returning to Israel last year, reported Wednesday to IDF headquarters outside in Tel Aviv after receiving a draft notice last June. Rothman told Haaretz late Wednesday night that he had been sentenced.

The IDF Spokespersons' Unit responded, "The soldier was arrested for avoiding the draft and for violating the Security Service Law and was sentenced to 10 days' incarceration," the IDF Spokesman's Unit said in a statement.

"The above-mentioned soldier submitted a request to appear before the Conscience Committee, and when he completes his sentence a decision will be made concerning the rest of his military service."

The statement did not mention where Rothman was being held.

In an interview with Haaretz, Rothman said he had planned to state his objections to IDF officials, knowing full well he faced incarceration. Rothman said he appealed the June letter, which was rejected ten days ago.

In a long letter posted to his blog, "The Leftern Wall," earlier this week, Rothman, a long-time resident of Yellow Springs, Ohio, laid out his manifesto, framing his refusal to serve in the Israel Defense Forces "on the basis of conscience, opposition to structural violence and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories."

Clad in jeans, a plaid shirt and sandals, and an army-style jacket, Rothman appeared at an East Jerusalem transit point for soldiers at 8 A.M. Wednesday en route to Tel Aviv, accompanied by about ten friends and family members. He was holding a bag that he said bore a "toothbrush, some almonds, a notebook, a pen, and books by Hanoch Levin, Rebbe Nachman [of Bratslov], [Jorge Luis] Borges and the Dalai Lama."

"Occupation can only be theoretical if you are not occupied, and thus my refusal to support the occupation by serving in the IDF is also an act of solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation," blogged Rothman, a 2011 graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, and former student president of the national board of "J Street U," the student organizing arm of J Street, a non-profit liberal advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-conscientious-objector-begins-10-day-sentence-for-refusing-to-serve-in-idf-1.472247
It's a cult. You can't opt out.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

Ball DeBeaver

Half the planet has compulsory military service.  ::)

If the man is too much of a coward, (don't believe the lie about having a concience) then he should be jailed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

Ball DeBeaver

Quote from: seafoid on October 26, 2012, 10:16:52 AM
Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 26, 2012, 03:22:42 AM
Maybe it was the big bad Jews that done this too.....

Quote
Theft and Destruction at Jewish-Owned Olive Grove

A Jewish farmer went to harvest olives Tuesday from his grove in the Shilo region, but discovered his trees sawn and stripped of fruit.


AAFont Size
By Chana Ya'ar
First Publish: 10/25/2012, 11:00 AM




Jewish olive grove destroyed in Shomron

Israel news photo: Shomron Residents' Council



A Jewish farmer went to harvest olives Tuesday morning from his grove in the Shilo region in Samaria (Shomron), but discovered that his grove had been stripped of the fruit. Dozens of trees were destroyed as well, their branches chopped. Many were sawn down.

Farmer Erez Ben-Saadom was left with only broken branches, he said, and fabric olive sacks with Arabic writing. There were also some olives spilled on the ground.

"We don't know what to do now," the farmer said. "We are talking about tens of thousands of shekels lost, and serious damage to the grove."

Ben-Saadon said it's not the first time he has has fallen victim to theft and vandalism from his Arab neighbors. "Last Sabbath, Arabs harvested from my trees and stole olives from 40 other trees in the same area," he told Arutz Sheva. "A few years ago, they planted three bombs in our vineyard in Har Bracha," he added. "It was a miracle nobody was hurt.

"Uprooting trees, theft and throwing rocks at farmers is not rare, unfortunately," he said. "Every year we suffer from assaults and thefts, both from the Arabs and from anarchists and leftist who come here from around the world.

"It's outrageous that next to my home in Rechelim, Arabs harvest olives without being disturbed, and yet they attack us in the media as if we're plotting against them – while Arab attacks and thefts targeting Jewish farmers in Samaria are met with silence," he declared.

Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Committee head Benny Katzover confirmed that farmers in the region have faced frequent harassment, theft and vandalism during the olive harvest season, as well as attempted libel.

"Unfortunately, this serious issue is met with a lack of proper response," Katzover said. "I call on the legal authorities to take Arab and far-left attacks as seriously as they take Jewish attacks on Arabs," he added.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161327

BDB. What sort of Arabs are these people referred to in your posts ? Are they Algerians or Omanis or what? I would appreciate an explanation.
Why don't you click on the link and find out?
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

AZOffaly

You believe that everyone who feels they cannot serve in the military is a coward?

Ball DeBeaver

No, it would be absurd to think that. This man knew he was going to have to do military service when he returned to Israel, but chose not to. He was given the chance to plead his case to the Israeli conscience committee, but his case was rejected. They didn't believe he was a real conscientious objector.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

AZOffaly

Surely that makes him more courageous, not less, and probably even more principled. If you return somewhere where you *know* you are going to be pressed into the military, by law, yet you still go and try to make a stand against that conscription, is that not saying something about his motivation?

It might say that he's someone who is deliberately causing this issue so he can highlight his beliefs, but it hardly makes him a 'coward'.

seafoid

Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 26, 2012, 02:39:11 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 26, 2012, 10:16:52 AM
Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 26, 2012, 03:22:42 AM
Maybe it was the big bad Jews that done this too.....

Quote
Theft and Destruction at Jewish-Owned Olive Grove

A Jewish farmer went to harvest olives Tuesday from his grove in the Shilo region, but discovered his trees sawn and stripped of fruit.


AAFont Size
By Chana Ya'ar
First Publish: 10/25/2012, 11:00 AM




Jewish olive grove destroyed in Shomron

Israel news photo: Shomron Residents' Council



A Jewish farmer went to harvest olives Tuesday morning from his grove in the Shilo region in Samaria (Shomron), but discovered that his grove had been stripped of the fruit. Dozens of trees were destroyed as well, their branches chopped. Many were sawn down.

Farmer Erez Ben-Saadom was left with only broken branches, he said, and fabric olive sacks with Arabic writing. There were also some olives spilled on the ground.

"We don't know what to do now," the farmer said. "We are talking about tens of thousands of shekels lost, and serious damage to the grove."

Ben-Saadon said it's not the first time he has has fallen victim to theft and vandalism from his Arab neighbors. "Last Sabbath, Arabs harvested from my trees and stole olives from 40 other trees in the same area," he told Arutz Sheva. "A few years ago, they planted three bombs in our vineyard in Har Bracha," he added. "It was a miracle nobody was hurt.

"Uprooting trees, theft and throwing rocks at farmers is not rare, unfortunately," he said. "Every year we suffer from assaults and thefts, both from the Arabs and from anarchists and leftist who come here from around the world.

"It's outrageous that next to my home in Rechelim, Arabs harvest olives without being disturbed, and yet they attack us in the media as if we're plotting against them – while Arab attacks and thefts targeting Jewish farmers in Samaria are met with silence," he declared.

Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Committee head Benny Katzover confirmed that farmers in the region have faced frequent harassment, theft and vandalism during the olive harvest season, as well as attempted libel.

"Unfortunately, this serious issue is met with a lack of proper response," Katzover said. "I call on the legal authorities to take Arab and far-left attacks as seriously as they take Jewish attacks on Arabs," he added.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161327

BDB. What sort of Arabs are these people referred to in your posts ? Are they Algerians or Omanis or what? I would appreciate an explanation.
Why don't you click on the link and find out?
Because Jewish settlers are scumbags and that's a settler site.
I wouldn't read the BNF site either. 

Why do Zionists call Palestinians "Arabs" anyway? Because there is no such thing as a Palestinian under the laws of Zionism. They are just some class of non humans. 
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

Ball DeBeaver

Go ahead, let it all out.

Jewish settlers, scumbags? You'd be more welcome in the NF than you realise, with your anti jewish leanings. Some might even call you an anti semite.  :-X


Ar·ab
   [ar-uhb] 

noun
1.
a member of a Semitic people inhabiting Arabia and other countries of the Middle East.

2.
a member of any Arabic-speaking people.


Is that enough for you?











BTW, if anyone were to post on this site that catholics or muslims were scumbags, they would be banned. But it seems OK to call Jews scumbags. Thats OK then.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

LeoMc

Quote from: deiseach on October 26, 2012, 12:41:05 PM
Quote from: LeoMc on October 26, 2012, 12:36:38 PM
Quote from: deiseach on October 26, 2012, 12:29:39 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 26, 2012, 10:21:19 AM
BDB - fascinating. It is very strange that the Arab parties would be so pro Palestinian. Do you have any ideas as to why this might happen ? it couldn't happen here.  Imagine Irish catholics in Westmeath taking an interest in British catholics living in Armagh. The mind boggles.

I'm sure the Thatcherite press was stuffed to the gills during the apartheid era with tales of the good blacks who wanted to engage with the government of South Africa and condemned the terrorism of Mandela and the ANC. It would have been nauseating then too.

In the 1980's the SDLP wanted constitutional politics and were condemning the activities of the IRA.

I see. By that logic, I presume you think the UK and South Africa were comparable states during that period.
No more comparable than than South Africa and Israel.

give her dixie

When Israel bombed the UN buildings and schools in Gaza during Cast Lead, their spokesman, Mark Regev, came on TV and said they responded to fire from these locations. We knew all along they were lying, and today they have admitted to lying. What else did they lie about?

This is Mark Regev telling said lies to Paxman on Newsnight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9wv0giW1elo

This is his interview with Jon Snow where Jon cuts him off at the end due to his lies, complete with sub titles to explain what Mark is really saying !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMd_js_oQAk

This is Irishman John Ging, the head of the UN relief and works agency in Gaza during Cast Lead, explain how Israel knew the exact locations of their buildings and still went ahead and bombed them.

next stop, September 10, for number 4......

seafoid

Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 26, 2012, 03:52:08 PM
Go ahead, let it all out.

Jewish settlers, scumbags? You'd be more welcome in the NF than you realise, with your anti jewish leanings. Some might even call you an anti semite.  :-X


Ar·ab
   [ar-uhb] 

noun
1.
a member of a Semitic people inhabiting Arabia and other countries of the Middle East.

2.
a member of any Arabic-speaking people.


Is that enough for you?


BTW, if anyone were to post on this site that catholics or muslims were scumbags, they would be banned. But it seems OK to call Jews scumbags. Thats OK then.
BDB

It has been a great laugh this week with your attempts to pretend your are a hasbara expert but you are a poor actor.

Anyone who seizes land of peasants at gunpoint with the backing of an army and claims it in the name of God is a sc**bag in my view. The Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara are also scumbags.  As was/were  Ian Smith, the Portuguese in Angola etc

It has nothing to do with the religion of the people involved.  Israeli  colonialism in the West Bank is illegal under international law.

If I took over your house and claimed it was mine because of something G-d said to
Abraham you wouldn't like it either, would you ?

Re" Israeli Arabs" - call them Palestinians, like everyone else does.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

seafoid

Quote from: give her dixie on October 26, 2012, 04:28:31 PM
When Israel bombed the UN buildings and schools in Gaza during Cast Lead, their spokesman, Mark Regev, came on TV and said they responded to fire from these locations. We knew all along they were lying, and today they have admitted to lying. What else did they lie about?

This is Mark Regev telling said lies to Paxman on Newsnight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9wv0giW1elo

This is his interview with Jon Snow where Jon cuts him off at the end due to his lies, complete with sub titles to explain what Mark is really saying !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMd_js_oQAk

This is Irishman John Ging, the head of the UN relief and works agency in Gaza during Cast Lead, explain how Israel knew the exact locations of their buildings and still went ahead and bombed them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NCyAK3rDA
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

deiseach

Quote from: LeoMc on October 26, 2012, 04:03:15 PM
No more comparable than than South Africa and Israel.

Israel is unquestionably comparable to apartheid South Africa. Both are states where rights are conferred based on blood. Israel wouldn't even dispute that, so why would anyone else?

give her dixie

There are many courageous Israeli's who refuse to serve in the IDF, and they usually all go to jail. Another group of people are current IDF soldiers who refuse to take part. 550 of the put their names to the following statement:

We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.

We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.

We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.

We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.

We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF's human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.

We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.

We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.

We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.

We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense.

The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.
next stop, September 10, for number 4......

Ball DeBeaver

Has anyone got a problem with me quoting the ultra zionist Guardian?  ::)



Israel is hostile towards Arabs, but it is not an apartheid state

My experience of apartheid in South Africa leads me to think a survey of Israeli attitudes towards Arabs has been spun too far




Benjamin Pogrund

guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 October 2012 16.32 BST



That Israel's Jewish public has moved sharply to the right in recent years is well known. There's a rightwing government to prove it – and so beyond challenge is Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and so confident about his hold on power, that he has called early elections for January. Indeed the government will shift even further to the right with this week's dramatic announcement that Netanyahu's Likud party will join forces for the elections with the foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home).

Lieberman, who speaks for many of the Russian immigrants who form about 20% of the population, stands well to the right of even the rightwing Likud, so Netanyahu could run into problems with some of his own members in addition to their resentment at being pushed down the list for parliamentary seats. If the link endures greater curtailment of civil liberties can be expected, harsher attitudes towards Israeli Arabs who also form about 20% of the population, and less influence for Jewish religious parties.

Even with all this, the extent of the hostility expressed by Israeli Jews towards the country's Arab citizens, reported in an opinion survey this week, still comes as a shock: among much else, 42% said they don't want their children in the same school class with Arab children and 42% don't want to live in the same building with Arabs.

A second look moderates the shock. The survey notes that those with the strongest anti-Arab prejudices are religious and ultra-Orthodox Jews – and this is no surprise. Rabbis incite feelings against Arabs and issue circulars urging Jews not to rent or sell property to Arabs.

The ultra-Orthodox go further and not only shun Arabs but, perhaps even more, fellow Jews and especially those who are secular. The ultra-Orthodox keep their children in their own separate schools and live in their own separate neighbourhoods. Not only do they keep seculars and Arabs, and indeed the whole world, at bay but they also discriminate among themselves: many Ashkenazim (Jews of Western origin) view Sephardim (Jews who originate mainly from Arab countries) as less "pure" in their practice of Judaism and thus some Ashkenazi schools for girls impose a quota for Sephardim.

The survey's picture is very different for the secular – who form the majority of Israel's Jews: 73% did not object to having Arabs in their children's school, and 68% would live in an apartment building alongside Arabs.

These are remarkably positive views in light of the effect of the Palestinian suicide bombings during the Second Intifada in driving many Israeli Jews to the right, plus the continuing threats to Israel's existence by Iran and Palestinian militants and their supporters in the world. The firing of rockets and mortars – more than 80 this week – at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and others adds to antipathy towards Palestinians. Rightwing leaders gain support by playing on Jewish fears.

The survey's handling of Jewish views about the West Bank, based on a hypothetical annexation by Israel, raises questions about the way it was conducted and how the results were presented to the public: 69% of Israeli Jews, according to the survey, would oppose giving the West Bank's 2.5 million Palestinians the vote inside Israel. The summary of the survey is headlined: "In case of annexation, most Jews will support apartheid."

I know about apartheid. I was born in South Africa and spent 26 years as a journalist specialising in reporting apartheid; I have also written several books about it. I only left South Africa because my newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, of which I was then deputy editor, was closed down by its commercial owners under pressure from the government. We paid the price for being the country's leading voice against apartheid.

I also am familiar with Israel. I have lived in Jerusalem since 1997 and for more than 12 years was founder director of the Yakar Center for Social Concern whose purpose was to promote dialogue between Jews and Christians, Jews and Muslims, and Israelis and Palestinians. I was surprised by the survey's findings: could it really be true that most Jews in Israel support apartheid?

Scratch this a little bit and there is a much simpler explanation than alleged "apartheid" for so many opposing giving Palestinians the vote: to do so would, in demographic terms, mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state; on the other hand, denying Palestinians the vote in a one-nation state would end Israel's democratic basis.

With all the survey's references to "apartheid" it cannot be said how those interviewed understood the word. Was it explained to them? How?

The apartheid theme was projected strongly in Haaretz, Israel's liberal newspaper. The writer, Gideon Levy, is famed for his exposes of the evils of occupation; he is also one of the small, perhaps tiny, number of Israeli journalists and academics who seek to pin the "apartheid" tag on Israel.

He wrote that, "a sweeping 74% majority is in favour of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank". But the sentence that follows needs to be noted: 24% believed separate roads were "a good situation" and 54% believed they were "a necessary situation". Decoded, this gets to the heart of the issue of the separate roads which Israel has built for some settlements. Critics say this is apartheid. But as the 54% indicate, they see it as a security issue; that is, it is the (expensive and extravagant) way to counter drive-by and roadside shootings which have killed many settlers. Nor (and this is little understood) are the roads only for Jews: the cars allowed on it are those with Israeli black and yellow number plates, irrespective of whether the driver is an Israeli Jew or Arab; the barred cars are those with Palestinian green and white plates.

Levy's report said that the survey had been commissioned by the US-based New Israel Fund's Yisraela Goldblum Fund. But the New Israel Fund, a major player in fostering equality and democracy in Israel, quickly announced that it had nothing to do with the survey. With equal speed its deputy communications director, Noam Shelef, wrote in New York's Daily Beast that the survey actually shows that Israelis want to separate themselves from the West Bank: "So, claiming the poll demonstrates support for 'apartheid' is spin at its worst." He said it "seems to amount to a misrepresentation of the data".


Whatever attitudes might be claimed for Israel's Jewish public the situation on the ground does not support accusations of apartheid. The Arab population, some 20%, certainly suffers discrimination but to liken their lot to apartheid South Africa is baseless, indeed ridiculous. Arabs have the vote, which in itself makes them fundamentally different from South Africa's black population under apartheid. And even the current rightwing government says that it wants to overcome Arab disadvantage and promises action to upgrade education and housing and increase job opportunities. Of course time will show how genuine it is.
The West Bank is a linked but separate issue: it's a military occupation which, in its nature, is violent and discriminatory. Trying to put an erroneous apartheid label on it confuses and distorts and is propagandistic.

Why do I dismiss the apartheid analogies so emphatically? Because I straddle both apartheid South Africa and Israel today and have knowledge of the good and the ill in both societies.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל