|
|
Dec. 20, 2013
Daily summary - Friday, December 20, 2013
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Main News
FUNERALS OF MARTYRS YASSIN AND SAADI IN QALQILYA AND JENIN CAMP
The Palestinian presidency condemned yesterday Israel’s killing of the two citizens Salah Yassin from Qalqilya and Nafe’ Saadi from Jenin, with presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rdeineh saying that this was a ‘dangerous Israeli escalation aimed at foiling American and international efforts to push the peace process forward. Meanwhile, government spokesperson Ihab Bseiso called for holding Israel accountable for its crimes and for the protection of the Palestinian people. Thousands of mourners participated in the funerals of the two men, shooting a 21-gun salute during the funeral of Salah Yassin who received a military ceremony given that he was a member of the security forces. (Al Quds)
HANIYEH CALLS ON ABBAS TO HOLD MEETING TO DISCUSS THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT
De facto Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh called on President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday to hold a national meeting to discuss the formation of a national conciliation government according to the reconciliation agreements reached in Cairo and Doha. Haniyeh made his call during the “Jerusalem Scientific Conference” in Gaza yesterday, saying that such a meeting would be able to ‘confront the collapse of the Palestinian national project and confront the Zionist plans.” He also called for an emergency meeting to convene for the temporary leadership of the PLO. During his speech, Haniyah also address Egypt, reassuring it that Hamas would not interfere in Egyptian affairs, stressing that “the only battle in Gaza is with the occupation.” (http://www.alquds.co.uk/?p=115586)
THE PRESIDENT TO BEGIN A VISIT TO EGYPT TODAY
Palestinian ambassador to Egypt Barakat Al Farra said yesterday that President Abbas would arrive in Cairo today on an official visit to the country. Al Farra told WAFA that the president would meet with Egyptian president Adli Mansour and would participate in the extraordinary session of the Arab League meeting of foreign ministers tomorrow, set up to discuss Palestinian issues, at Abbas’ request. (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
THE POPE TO VISIT ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES ON MAY 25
According to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahranoth, Pope Francis will make a short visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on May 25 in his first visit to the holy land. According to the newspaper, which published details about the Pope’s visit, Israeli authorities are disappointed over the short duration of his visit, which will be less than 48 hours. He will not hold mass in Jerusalem or Nazareth but in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. (http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=658583)
PA NOT OFFICIALLY INFORMED…ISRAEL TO RELEASE THE BODIES OF 36 MARTYRS FOR HANDOVER NEXT MONTH
Official sources in the PA said yesterday that they had not been officially informed yet of the handover of Palestinian martyrs being held by Israeli authorities in the cemetery of numbers. Coordinator for the national campaign to return martyrs’ bodies Salem Khilleh said that the PA had not been given any information by Israel of the handover, adding that it all depends on the completion of DNA tests for a number of bodies. Khilleh said that according too Israeli sources, Israeli authorities exhumed the bodies of 30 martyrs from the Beer Sheva cemetery yesterday and that six more would be exhumed from another unidentified cemetery in order to conduct DNA testing on them. Khilleh said they expected to receive the bodies of the 36 martyrs on January 7. He added that the PA would not accept any unidentified bodies, adding that they would not allow the same thing that happened the last time bodies were handed over when six have remained unidentified until now. (http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=658576)
NETANYAHU AMERICAN REQUEST TO STOP ANNOUNCING SETTLEMENT BUILDING AND VOWS: WE WILL NOT STOP FOR ONE MINUTE FROM DEVELOPING SETTLEMENTS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed yesterday to continue building settlements in the occupied West Bank in spite of American criticisms. According to Israel Radio, during a Likud meeting Wednesday night, Netanyahu said Israel would “not stop for one minute from building in our country and developing the settlement enterprise.” He argued that it was not because of settlements that there was no peace, but rather because of the opposition to accepting a Jewish national state regardless of its borders.
The radio said that Israel rejected an American request to cease from announcing new construction projects in settlements when the third group of Palestinian prisoners is released at the end of the month. According to a senior Israeli official, Kerry urged Netanyahu to practice self-control and not to undermine the negotiations, adding that Washington is worried that the Palestinians would not tolerate more settlement construction and would withdraw from the negotiations. According to an article written by former Israeli minister Yossi Belen, Netanyahu informed Kerry of Israel’s plans to build over 2,000 housing units when the prisoners are released on December 29. (Al Ayyam)
NEW VISIT BY KEERY EXPECTED TO PRESENT POLITICAL DETAILS OF HIS PROPOSAL FOR A FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT
A Palestinian official told Al Ayyam yesterday that he expected US Secretary of State John Kerry to return to the region very soon to present his proposals regarding the political articles of a framework agreement, saying Kerry hoped to officially announce this agreement by the end of January after which intensive negotiations would take place between the two sides to transform the agreement into a detailed one. Furthermore, western diplomatic sources said that an American-Palestinian security meeting took place yesterday to discuss the security proposals put forth by General John Allen. The source said there were ‘major Palestinian reservations’ over the arrangements, which would be conveyed to the Americans. (Al Ayyam)
SHTAYEH: NO EXTENTION OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH ISRAEL AFTER NEXT APRIL; EREKAT: WE WILL ACCEPT A TRANSITIONAL AGREEMENT FOR NO LONGER THAN ONE YEAR
Fatah central committee member Mohammed Shtayeh said yesterday that there would be no extension of negotiations after the end of the nine-month period, which ends in April. During a meeting with diplomats and reports in Beit Jala yesterday, Shtayeh said that the negotiations within these nine months were over a framework meeting and not over a final peace deal. That means, he said, that after the framework agreement is reached, the parties would enter into more negotiations over details and procedures to reach a comprehensive agreement, but stressed that the nine-month period would not be extended. Justifying his resignation from the negotiating team, Shtayeh said that he ‘no longer believed in the process” saying he only entered on the basis of one issue, which was to secure release of the prisoners, of which 104 were set free. (http://qudsnet.com/news/View/260519/اشتيه-لا-تمديد-للمفاوضات-مع-إسرائيل-بعد-أبريل-المقبل/)
Meanwhile, head of the negotiating team Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians would accept a transitional agreement if it included borders, a land swap, security, Jerusalem and refugees, if it were for a short period of time no longer than one year, marking the first time a Palestinian official announces acceptance of a new transitional deal with Israel. He went on to say that a framework agreement would be more detailed than a declaration of principles, but that it must turn into a comprehensive peace deal within 6-12 months. (http://safa.ps/details/news/118570/عريقاتنقبل-اتفاقاً-انتقالياً-لا-يزيد-على-عام.html)
THREE CHILDREN ARRESTD IN ISSAWIYEH
Israeli occupation authorities stormed the Jerusalem-area town of Essawiyeh yesterday and arrested three children between the ages of 13 and 15 while they were playing at the entrance to the town near the Hebrew University. According to Jerusalem activist Mohammed Abul Hummus, university guards and Israeli special forces attacked and beat the children before taking them to an unknown destination. Four other citizens were arrested in Jericho and three others in the Nablus area. (Al Quds)
CAIRO BEGINS CONTACTS TO RESUMRE THE TRANSFER OF QATARI FUEL TO GAZA
A spokesperson from the Egyptian foreign ministry said yesterday that Egypt had begun to make the necessary contacts for the resumption of transferring the remaining amounts of Qatari fuel to the Gaza Strip in light of the humanitarian crisis in the Strip because of lack of fuel and electricity. A statement from the ministry said that the Egyptian government had begun contacts with their Palestinian counterparts, namely the Palestinian energy authority in Ramallah in order to complete the necessary procedures for bringing in the fuel from Sinai and through the Karem Abu Salem crossing. (Al Ayyam)
UN RESOLUTION IN FAVOR OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION
The UN General Assembly ratified by overwhelming majority a draft resolution entitled “The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”, with 178 countries voting in favor of the resolution. Israel opposed the resolution along with six other countries: the United States, Canada, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshal Islands and Nauru, while four abstained: Cameroon, Tonga, Vanuatu and Paraguay (Al Quds)
AMERICA AND GERMANY FORCED ISRAEL TO HALT TRANSFERRING HEADQUARTERS OF MILITARY ACADEMIES TO JERUSALEM
According to the Israeli daily Maariv, PM Netanyahu was forced to halt work on building new headquarters for military academies on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem after Germany and the United States sent the Israeli government a warning that transferring these headquarters across the Green Line would force them to halt cooperation with the academies should they be built on occupied land. According to the newspaper, the warning was sent in the early stages of planning to build new buildings for the military academies in the aforementioned spot, which is land occupied in 1967. Israel was planning to transfer three military academies to Mt. Scopus (Jabal Al Masharef) including a national security academy. (Al Quds)
JERUSALEM MUNCIPALITY COMPLETELY IGNORED EAST JERUSALEM NEIGHBORHOODS DURING THE SNOWSTORM
Head of the parent committees union Abdel Kareem Lafi condemned the Jerusalem municipality for its disregard and marginalization of schools in East Jerusalem during the snow storm, saying they did not do their duty. Lafi said the parents of students were the ones who cleared out schoolyards so that students could return to classes, saying the municipality did not bring out one snowplow or bulldozer to open the main roads or streets. He said the neighborhoods did all of this on their own (Al Quds)
HUWWARA PRISONERS SUFFERING FROM COLD; PRISON SERVICES REFUSING TO ALLOW ENTRY OF BLANKETS
Prisoner affairs attorney Jamil Saadeh said prisoners in the Huwwara detention center are suffering from the extreme cold and lack of the minimum humanitarian requirements in the prison for warmth, hot water and covers. Saadeh said that he met with several prisoners who had been arrested in the last few days and who had been shackled and held for long hours in uncomfortable positions outside in the cold. He also said that prison services had refused to allow blankets to be brought into the prisoners, while the Red Cross and civil affairs ministry are trying their best to obtain permits to get the blankets in. (Al Quds)
|
Headlines
*Rabbi Glick leads a break in into the Aqsa (Al Hayat Al Jadida)\
*Occupation executes in cold blood young man from Qalqilya; thousands attend funeral of Saadi in Jenin camp (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*The President sends letter of reservation to Obama on Kerry’s vision for a final agreement (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Jewish demonstrator throws hot tea on Tibi’s face (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Consumer protection association calls for alleviating high princes on citizens (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*UN official: Israel is carrying out genocide against the Palestinians (Al Ayyam)
*Patriarch Lahham: 450,000 Christians displaced outside of Syria (Al Ayyam)
*President to brief Arab foreign ministers on developments in negotiations with Israel (Al Quds)
*Two merchants prosecuted for raising prices and cheating customers in Hebron (Al Quds)
*Arab parliament reiterates its support for the Palestinian people (Al Quds)
*Government bodies continue assessing damage from the snowstorm in the various districts (Al Quds)
*Three suicide bombers kill 36 people in attacks targeting Shiite visitors south of Baghdad (Al Ayyam)
|
Front Page Photos
Al- Quds:Jenin/Qalqilya: thousands of people participate in funerals of Nafe Saadi and Saleh Yassin who were killed by the Israeli army
Al-Ayyam:1) Children emotionally watch the funeral of a martyr in Qalqilya; 2) Scene from the attack in Al Doura
Al Hayat Al Jadida:1) Father of martyr Nafe’ Saadi bids him farewell before he is buried in Jenin; masses walk in funeral of Saleh Yassin; 2) The President, during his meeting with Martin Indyk in Ramallah; 2) Tight security measures in Baghdad during commemoration of 40th anniversary of Imam Al Hussein
|
|
|
More Headlines
Jewish demonstrator throws cup of hot tea in Tibi’s face
A Jewish demonstrator attacked Arab MK Ahmad Tibi yesterday during a demonstrator in Beer Saba’ against the Prawer Plan, throwing hot tea in his face. Tibi was injured slightly. Israeli police arrested the demonstrator and took him in for questioning. Tibi commented on the incident, saying, “No doubt, incitement from the right against Arab Knesset members brings about such results; there are people who carry out this incitement.” He said the attack on him was a result of the rampant and growing racism against Arab MKs, especially in regards to their positions against the Prawer plan. He added that he is not afraid of death threats, spitting or hot tea and would continue making their voices heard. (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
Haaretz: Hamas is running its military cells in the West Bank from Gaza
The Hebrew-language daily Haaretz said in its edition today that Hamas had reestablished a leadership for its military wing in the occupied West Bank but that it was run from the Gaza Strip through prisoners freed in the Shalit (Wafa’ Al Ahrar) deal. The newspaper said the general coordinator for the movement’s activities in the West Bank is Sheikh Saleh Aruri, who was deported by Israel to Syria and then transferred to Turkey. The newspaper said Aruri is commander of a group of released prisoners, two of whom command the mini-leadership of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank. One is named Abdel Rahman Ghneimat. The other, according to the newspaper, is Mazen Fuqaha. They said the two men along with others give directives and transfer money to cells working in the West Bank. According to the Israeli security services, they foiled eight operations in the West Bank but planned in Gaza and have arrested a number of Hamas activists who traveled to Gaza and received training there. (http://safa.ps/details/news/118573/هآرتس-حماس-تدير-خلاياها-العسكرية-بالضفة-من-غزة.html)
Christmas tree lit in Jerusalem
Hundreds of Jerusalemite Christians participated last night in the lighting of the Christmas tree near New Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. This is the second year the Christmas tree is lit at New Gate. (Al Quds)
|
Arab Press
Learning from dogged persistence and patience
By Abdel Bari Atwan | Special to Gulf News
The memorial service for Nelson Mandela last week became, for many of the world leaders who attended, a diplomatic opportunity, laced with amnesia and hypocrisy.
Mourning Mandela was ‘the right thing’ to do, hence the presence of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who demonstrated his grief by posing for a grinning ‘selfie’ with US President Barack Obama and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt — like excited teenagers in Disneyworld. It is unlikely that Cameron was genuinely saddened by the death of the man his role model, Margaret Thatcher, described in 1987 as “a terrorist”. In the early 1980s, Cameron was a member of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS). While liberal and leftist students were singing ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, the FCS had badges that read, ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’.
The Americans fare no better. Ronald Reagan described apartheid South Africa as “essential to the free world”. Mandela — who damned the US as a “threat to world peace” and for their “unspeakable atrocities” — was only removed from the US terrorism list in 2008.
Perhaps more telling than the attendances at the historical event were the absences. Most notable among these, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. The latter had last week penned a lengthy eulogy for Mandela, but as Yitzak Rabin’s defence minister, from 1974-1977, he revived the ailing Israeli economy with massive arms sales to the already isolated and heavily criticised Pretoria supremacist regime. Despite strenuous efforts, Israel was unable to suppress the leak, in 2006, of a 1975 military cooperation agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P.W. Botha. By the end of the 1970s, Israel had helped apartheid South Africa become a nuclear power. In exchange, the supremacist regime provided Israel with uranium and gave it space to test its nuclear warheads. Israel’s association with apartheid South Africa goes back decades. Coincidentally, both were born in 1948, and the South African Jewish community was the largest per capita financial donor to Israel in its infancy.
After the 1967 six-day war, and the 1973 Ramadan war, Israel’s international image morphed from refuge of the oppressed to that of coloniser and occupier. Its Arab neighbours and most of the African countries severed their ties with Israel, which turned to some of the most despotic regimes in the world for support — including Argentina, Chile, and apartheid South Africa.
In 1976, South African prime minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster received a red-carpet treatment from Yitzhak Rabin on an official visit to occupied Jerusalem. Vorster even visited the holocaust memorial; nobody seemed to remember that he had been a Nazi sympathiser in the Second World War, describing his Christian Nationalists as the South African equivalent of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism.
Begin’s right-wing Likud government (1977-83) was even more overt in its sympathies for Pretoria, perceiving the Israelis and Afrikaans as civilized Europeans besieged by an inferior, savage race. They each had their ”terrorist” bogeymen — Yasser Arafat and Mandela.
Nor was Pretoria’s contempt for black people at odds with Israel’s world view either then or today. Back in 1968, Rabin, then Ambassador to Washington, told the Israeli Knesset that, “The Negro problem has worsened”. He was referring to the aftermath of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King. Although Israel is the only country in the region founded entirely upon migration, today’s black immigrants are imprisoned in camps and, where possible, deported.
The day after she returned from Mandela’s memorial service, Israel’s first Ethiopian-born Knesset member, Pnina Tamano-Shata, went to give blood in response to a government donation drive. She was refused because she was African.
As long ago as 1961, South Africa’s former prime minister and architect of apartheid observed: “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”
Today the apartheid system is more deeply entrenched — from the wall separating Arabs and Jews, and Israeli demands that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Segregation is strictly enforced in the West Bank, with Israel colonists enjoying their own roads, legal system, the lion’s share of water supply and natural resources. In Gaza, the population is imprisoned and besieged by their oppressors.
The Pretoria regime was eventually dismantled — by the efforts of the African National Congress (ANC), certainly, but most of all by international sanctions and humiliating boycotts imposed by the civilised world. No western government has yet afforded the Palestinians this support in their struggle for justice. Not even the African-American President of the US — Obama.
As a result, Israel is emboldened. My relatives have told me about the proliferation of posters threatening young Palestinians with beating if they date Jewish girls. Female Jewish doctors have been banned from working late-night shifts in hospitals in case they have to “mix with Arabs”.
The critical perception of Israel as an apartheid state is gaining currency. Former US President Jimmy Carter’s book, Peace Not Apartheid, brought it into the mainstream and prominent Israelis, including Alon Liel, former Israeli ambassador to Pretoria and former prime minister Ehud Olmert, have warned that the country risks becoming a pariah state.
Mandela had famously said that, “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.
So what can the Palestinians learn from Mandela’s story?
We can learn from Mandela’s dogged persistence and patience. He was not willing to compromise and when he was offered early release from prison, if he would “unconditionally reject violence as a political weapon”, he refused in the absence of a just settlement for black South Africans. Having exhausted all nonviolent means of protest and securing change, Mandela championed the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK, the ANC’s armed wing) 30-year campaign of sabotage, bombing and attacks on police and military targets. Even after his release and the start of power-sharing negotiations, Mandela encouraged the continuation of the MK, which protected ANC supporters from attack by white supremacists.
The final great lesson we can take from last Wednesday’s memorial is that nothing is set in stone.
There is already some momentum towards sanctions against Israel and a widening of the boycott. The European Union (EU) recently issued guidelines prohibiting the awards of EU grants, loans or prizes to Israeli entities on Palestinian lands. Last week, UK Trade & Investment warned companies about the risk to their “reputations” if they did business with Israeli colonies. Even the US has begun to distance itself from its embarrassing protege.
Those world leaders who appear disinterested in the Palestinian cause today will quickly clamber over the fence if it becomes the ‘right thing’ to do, and maybe take a ‘selfie’ on the way too.(http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/learning-from-dogged-persistence-and-patience-1.1268476)
The BDS way
by George S. Hishmeh
Some Arab leaders apparently hope that President Barack Obama will emulate Peter O’Toole, who died this week, in his role as T.E. Lawrence, the daring British soldier in the epic film “Lawrence of Arabia” who successfully led an Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Turks in World War I.
But the American president is not interested in another military adventure, especially in the Middle East, as he showed when, recently, he abandoned the invasion of Bashar Assad’s Syria to oust him and put a stop to the bloody turmoil there that has cost the lives of thousands of Syrians and saw many more flee to neighbouring states in search of safety.
It is bewildering that these Arab leaders remain unable to bring about reasonable order that could pacify the situation internally or regionally, or to look for more effective and peaceful alternatives — a role that the Arab League should have pursued.
Impressive, lately, has been the effectiveness of some Palestinian groups in casting a spell on their Israeli opponents who refuse to meet them half way.
For example, recent successes in the campaign to boycott illegal Israel settlements have given fresh impetus, according to the AFP, “to calls for sanctions against Israel like those that brought down apartheid in South Africa“.
The French news agency continued: “Since the European Union said it would block grants and funding for any Israeli entity operating over the 1967 [armistice] lines, a growing number of international bodies have taken similar steps to cut ties, in a move that sparked alarm in Israel.”
There is no doubt that the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has lately been gaining ground.
The boycott debate has been further stoked by the death, earlier this month, of former South African president Nelson Mandela who is remembered for the international boycott that led to bringing down the minority white government in Pretoria.
Amira Haass of the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote last week that “at some point, the bubble of normality under [Israeli] occupation will burst — that’s a basic assumption that we hear all the time”.
Omar Barghouthi, a founding member of the BDS movement who lives in the West Bank, told the AFP that “a lesson we have learned from Mandela and our South African comrades and colleagues is that internal resistance must be coupled with sustained, effective international solidarity, particularly in the form of BDS, to isolate the oppressive state and compel it to respect its obligations under international law”.
Even US Vice President Joe Biden was quoted last week as saying that “the whole effort to delegitimise Israel is the most concentrated that I have seen in 40 years I have served. It is the most serious threat in my view to Israel’s long-term security and viability”.
Britain has recently toughened its stance on trading with Israeli settlements that were illegally established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The five largest European Union states have reportedly told Israel that if it declares construction of new settlements after the scheduled release of Palestinian prisoners at the end of this month, and the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks collapse, Israel will be held responsible.
In the US, the American Studies Association, which has about 5,000 members, announced last Monday a boycott of Israeli academic institutions to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, signalling, according to a front-page news story in The New York Times, that “a [BDS] movement to isolate and pressure Israel that is gaining ground in Europe has begun to make strides in the United States”.
Members of the association voted by a ratio of more than two to one to endorse the boycott, a step the paper described as a “milestone” for the Palestinian BDS movement.
An organisation of Asian American Studies scholars endorsed a similar boycott last April.
In response to the “Days of Rage” over the expropriation of land and the forcible “cleansing” of tens of thousands of Arab bedouins from 35 “unrecognised” villages in the Naqab desert in southern Israel, known as the Prawer Plan, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew its bill from the Knesset.
The withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill was seen by Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, as “a major achievement”.
All this may complicate the upcoming visit to Israel by Secretary of State John Kerry, especially that he is said to have disappointingly endorsed the Israeli view that the Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state despite the fact that a quarter of the population is Arab.
Kerry is reported to be working on a so-called framework accord that will focus on the main issues between the two parties, namely security, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of the Palestinian refugees, in order to serve as a broad outline for a final agreement.(http://jordantimes.com/the-bds-way)
|
Opinions
Boycotting Israel
Al Khaleej Editorial
While the boycott of the Zionist entity is weakening in the Arab region and in some developing countries, especially in Africa, it is getting stronger in western countries. Western governments, which are pressuring countries in the developing world not to boycott Israel and even cooperate with it, find themselves besieged from within from certain civil institutions and individuals who are active in boycotting certain Israeli products and activities. Boycott activities used to be concentrated more in Europe, but they have started to appear in the United States as well.
A few days ago, the American Studies Association, which includes a few thousand study societies, announced its boycott of Israeli universities and higher education centers because of its ‘concern over the handling of Palestinians.” Before this, the Asian-American studies organization also announced its decision to boycott these institutions because of Israel’s violation of human rights in Palestine. These two decisions, especially the American Studies Association’s, has made a lot of noise among Israel supporters. The organizers of the campaign against the ASA are aimed at halting the chain of boycotts taking place. They are afraid that not only will it escalate but that it will open the floor to a wider discussion within the United States that would include many more organizations over Israel’s policies, not to mention the political and economic price of this on the US.
Like usual, the hysteria surrounding this issue has prompted some to envision it as anti-Semitic, even though some of the people involved in the boycott are Jewish American. Others critical of the decision chose to spin an ‘intellectual cocoon” around the criticism, saying that the boycott of academic and scientific institutions violates the freedom of thought, research and expression.
In spite of the charm of these words, this is dead criticism because the boycott is not directed at individuals but at organizations that participate in various ways in the racial discrimination against the Palestinians and even in their killing, through research offered to Israeli army forces, which improves their material and moral performance against innocent Palestinians.
This is criticism that offers no value to ethics, because it does not distinguish between research that develops humans and makes them happy and another type that works to oppress and torture humans. This is very a hypocritical stance because at the same time they are criticizing the boycott based on moral and humanitarian values, they did not hesitate to justify the trial of those who carried out orders from the Nazi command during World War II. Their response was that no orders trump the demands for a conscience and moral principles.
The fear of these appellants is that the boycott will spread in the west and ultimately return to the developing world. (http://www.alkhaleej.ae/studiesandopinions/detailedpage/1c7ed186-0fd5-4188-862b-dd636bbe4e3a)
Assassinations, continued settlement building and torpedoing the negotiations
Al Quds Editorial
The assassinations carried out by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank, which affected a number of activists, in addition to the continued settlement construction at an escalated pace, all work towards torpedoing the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis under US sponsorship, and threaten to foil the peace process entirely.
The assassination of the activists, under the guise of their attempted capture, is a blatant violation of the human rights of the Palestinians. In the cases of the three men who were assassinated, they should have been arrested and brought before court, not executed, according to their family and eyewitnesses in the region along with the local and international media.
It is clear that in the Palestinian territories, Israel acts as if it is part of a feudal system where the land is under its control: it builds settlements at whim, arrests any Palestinian it likes and assassinates whoever they want without fearing a response from the Arabs or the world over their violations and aggression.
The Israeli government does not want to admit that there is a people under its occupation. It also refuses to acknowledge that this people exists on its own homeland and that it has a right to establish an independent state on this land. in this context, it choose absolute solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, at a time when the Palestinians have accepted peaceful negotiations as a strategic method to end the conflict and achieve a just solution.
Israel has brought the negotiations to an impasse because of its insistence on maintaining the occupation and the settlement enterprise, which is the opposite of a peaceful solution and an obstacle to peace; at least according to the international community which stipulates this point in UN resolutions.
With this, the Israeli government is challenging the will of the international community and is squashing international and legitimate resolution under the claws of its bulldozers to build more settlement, which it has no desire to stop.
Even though these settlement and occupation facts are clear to anyone who can see, the international community remains silent and tolerant towards these measures, which are exposed every day and every hour in the media. The world has no excuse for its silence towards Israel’s practices, which are ruining the negotiations and destroying the peace process, even as the Palestinians are showing unprecedented flexibility in dealing with these negotiations, prepared to continue them even under these circumstances so as to reach their aspirations of freedom of independence.
We need an active move from the international committee to pressure the Israeli government into halting settlements and stopping arrests, assassinations and the demolition of homes in the occupied Palestinian territories. It needs to put an end to this occupation, which is almost half a century old and thus the longest occupation in modern history – it is an occupation that the world has stayed silent over for way to long. (Al Quds)
|
|
WHAT'S NEW
BACKGROUND
POLLS
WAYS TO GET JMCC
CONTACT US
|
To subscribe to free newsletter submit your email |
|
|
|