Monday, August 19, 2013
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians Accuse Peace Negotiators of Treason
If Palestinian children are condemned for playing football with Israelis, why should it be acceptable for Erekat to be talking with Livni?PA officials accuse US of 'deception and misinformation' in peace talks
Palestinian Authority leaders can only blame themselves for the growing opposition to the peace talks with Israel. Palestinian leaders have simply not prepared their people for peace. These leaders have, instead, delegitimized Israel to a point where it has become a "crime" for any Palestinian to be photographed talking to, or negotiating with, any Israeli.
According to the newspaper, some of the Palestinian officials accused Washington of “deception and misinformation” in order to keep the PA at the negotiating table with Israel.U.S. Giving PA $148M
The officials also expressed concern that the US would dupe the PA into accepting a state with provisional borders, the newspaper said.
It quoted Abbas as telling the officials: “I have told the US administration 10 times, and I’m ready to tell them again, that we won’t accept any solution that contradicts the Palestinian vision.”
Negotiations with Israel are paying off already for the Palestinian Authority (PA).PLO charges Israel with ‘war crimes, anti-human, racist acts’
The United States' consul general in Jerusalem, Michael Ratney, signed an agreement Sunday with PA caretaker prime minister Rami Hamdallah, according to which the U.S. will pay the PA $148 million.
The PLO leaders said they would not accept a situation where the peace talks with Israel, which resumed recently, would become a “political cover for the implementation of the largest settlement project.”FresnoZionism: Fresno Zionism - Why I am important
They accused the government of working toward undermining “all prospects for peace.”
Referring to recent Israeli plans to build housing units in settlements and east Jerusalem neighborhoods, the PLO leaders said: “The PLO Executive Committee considers the unprecedented settler decisions which were announced by the occupation government as conclusive proof that Israel’s first and last option remains expansionism, Judaization and theft of Palestinian land, and not ending occupation and implementing the two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 borders.”
I understand also that the US and EU were ‘furious’ that Israel’s Prime Minister recently announced that perhaps a thousand new homes for Jews would be built someday in places that they consider illegal or illegitimate. The argument is that this construction would create facts on the ground that would prejudice a future peace agreement. Of course, not a peep was heard a few months ago when Israel announced that it would build housing for Arabs in the same area. What else does this prove except that Jews are more important than Arabs?Policy on the run is certainly a recipe for electoral disaster.
Speaking of Arabs, Israel’s neighbors Egypt and Syria are presently displaying their truly shocking barbarism by engaging in vicious religious/ethnic civil wars, bombing, gassing, shooting and raping each other with abandon. The status quo in Israel is peaceful, and the economy — both of Israel and the Palestinian Authority — is excellent. So you would think that the focus would be elsewhere rather than Israel.
[Australian] Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr’s announcement in the heat of an election campaign that Labor Party policy does not recognize the legal right of Jews to live in the West Bank – seems to have been hastily cobbled together without any serious discussion or consideration by the Labor Party.Israel treats record number of Syrians over weekend
Carr’s shock announcement has brought forth sharp criticism from peak Jewish organisations in Australia including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) – as well as a blistering attack by Opposition Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop.
Israel on Friday and Saturday allowed 15 Syrians into the country for medical treatment after they were seriously wounded in the civil war to Israel’s north. The number marks a new record for injured Syrians allowed into Israel.Syrian Islamist fighters reach border with Israel
Since February, well over 100 Syrian civilians have been admitted to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Many less serious cases have been treated by Israeli medical teams at an IDF field hospital in the Golan Heights. Israel has said it offers the care as an act of humanitarian assistance, while endeavoring to stay out of the Syrian war, in which an estimated 100,000 people have been killed since March 2011.
Fighting in the town of Breiqa, situated on the 1974 ceasefire line between Syria and Israel, and just 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Israeli agricultural village of Alonei Habashan, began in the early hours of Saturday.Young Druze seek Israeli citizenship as Syrian crisis worsens
“It’s good for them in the Jewish state,” said Majdal Shams Mayor Dolann Abu Saleh, where approximately 100 Druze – some as young as 16 – have applied for Israeli citizenship, according to municipality spokesperson Neven Abu Saleh, the mayor’s sister.JPost Editorial: Pollard’s appeal
And the increasing number of citizenship applications in the Golan Heights is also good for the Jewish state, according to Dr. Kedar who said more Israeli citizenship holders in the Golan Heights could help Israel’s claim to the territory.
“Why should the world act against the locals by forcing Israel to leave the Golan?” asked Dr. Kedar, referring to international organizations such as the United Nations who deem Israel’s presence in the Golan Heights illegal and have put pressure on Israel to withdraw.
Parole – even if the US government decides not to fight it in 2015, which is unlikely – would leave the balance of Pollard’s 45-year life sentence intact, and would not set him free.StandWithUs Campaign Runs Pro-Israel Ads in Response to Church in North Carolina
On the contrary, parole would mean that for another 15 years (the balance of his sentence) the US would severely restrict his freedom of movement, travel, speech, employment and even domicile. He certainly would not be free to come home to Israel, the country to which he has devoted his life.
Any solution that does not free Pollard immediately, without restrictions, and allow him to come home to Israel only compounds the injustice and is a severe affront to Israel.
The Church of Reconciliation’s ad stated “Build peace with justice and equality. End U.S. military aid to Israel.” The ad “confuses and deceives the public,” said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs.Jews Downunder: Rally: Free Palestine – Boycott Max Brenner
“The ad’s words suggest that the U.S. should stop financial assistance to Israel, implying that only Israel is to blame for a lack of peace,” Rothstein said in a statement. “The message is deceptive, and uses velvet-gloved rhetoric to try to influence unsuspecting commuters who may not know the facts.”
I’ve been involved now close to 3 years with BDS actions and have seen their numbers diminishing rapidly. The first one in Parramatta involved a couple of hundred people. The noise from their screaming was deafening. Mind you, this was before the police knew what was in store for them and they were not more than a few metres from Max Brenner.The Guardian’s perverse moral logic about terror bleeds onto their culture page
“And last, and by no means least, as the third photo shows, whilst this was going on outside Max Brenner’s chocolate shop, three Muslim girls, complete with hijabs, were sitting there drinking their hot chocolate !!!
THAT IS WHAT I CALL PRICELESS”
Yes, Israel’s security wall inspires Palestinian violence!Banner Tribute to Recently Deceased ‘Most Wanted’ Nazi Laszlo Csatary Displayed at Hungarian Soccer Match
In Di Cintio’s warped political reality the consequences of homicidal attacks becomes the cause – an Orwellian logical inversion which befits the moral inversion between Jewish victim and Palestinian perpetrator that continues to define the politics of the Guardian Left.
A banner honoring the memory of recently deceased “most wanted” Nazi, Laszlo Csatary, was displayed at a Hungarian soccer match Saturday, earning sharp condemnation from prominent Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff. The banner which was held by fans of the Ferencvárosi TC soccer club read “In memoriam Csatary Laszlo.”Israel’s latest invention: Free hi-res aerial photos for all
“My message to them is go back to the history of World War II and see where your hate took your predecessors and if that is what you support then we’ll know how to deal with you,” Zuroff said, in an interview with The Algemeiner.
WikiAir is more than just a collection of photos of pretty places; it’s a system of agreements to enable Wiki volunteers to take advantage of air travel in order to easily and cheaply take high-resolution photos of interesting and unique sites from the air.New Israeli tendon helps athletes spring back into action
Volunteer photographers hitch a ride with private planes and on short-range commercial flights that fly at lower altitudes, and take photos from the air using long-distance lenses. The photos are then uploaded to the WikiAir site as hi-res photos, where anyone can view or use them, within the parameters of the usage agreement common to most wikis (no cost to use for informational sites, educational use, and publications; attribution required).
A promising new ligament implant from Israel is now entering the market, kicking months of recovery time off any current treatment.Israelis create 'super plants' that resist drought
Inspired by stents, the device is developed by the five-year-old Israeli company Tavor. The Knee-T-Nol implant is made from a metal and titanium alloy, Nitinol, and looks a little like a dart.
A group of researchers in Israel have reportedly grown genetically engineered plants that can live longer and resist long periods without water and can yield more produce.A musical cure for African-American kidney disease?
In what could be the solution to world food crisis, scientists from the Faculty of Biology at Technion University in Haifa have created what they call "super plants" by modifying a longevity hormone in the genes known as zytokinin.
The average American has about a one in eight chance of suffering from kidney disease, but for African-Americans, due to genetic factors, those odds are about three and a half times higher.IDF Supreme Values: Human Life and Dignity
Now, in an unprecedented fundraising project for research on the issue by an Israeli institution, Haifa’s Rambam Hospital will be holding a gala entertainment event at the end of August featuring top African-American artists like Smokey Robinson, Natalie Cole (herself a kidney disease survivor), and a host of other black, Jewish and Israeli singers, actors, musicians, and more.
All human lives are worth saving – so the IDF teaches its soldiers. Israeli and Palestinian, Jew and non-Jew, soldier and civilian, in Israel and across the world. It doesn’t matter. When there is a person in need, the IDF will be there. Whether they are needed to provide emergency medical care, perform a daring rescue operation or evacuate survivors from under the rubble of a collapsed building – our soldiers will drop everything in order to save a life.Saving Lives: IDF's Humanitarian Mission to Haiti 2010
Why? The IDF’s code of ethics holds protecting human life and dignity as a supreme value. In the words of Sgt. Idan Ducach, who donated his bone marrow to save a young boy’s life, “if you save one life, its as if you saved an entire world.”
