Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: disability rights

Showing posts with label disability rights. Show all posts

Thursday, May 26, 2022

When an elevator to help the disabled is a “racist Judaization crime"

Today, construction started on an elevator at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

It took years any many court cases. The Jewish community offered to work with the Hebron municipality on the design, only to be refused. The elevator will be available to Jews and Muslims. Up until today, people who are wheelchair bound had to be literally carried up in order to see the holy site.

In other words, this is a no-brainer.

Except - anything Jews do is automatically awful.

Palestine Today describes it this way:

The attempts of the “ Israeli ” occupation to Judaize in the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Khalil al-Rahman never stops. The installation of the metal structure of the electric elevator comes within the framework of strengthening the comprehensive Jewish grip on the city, including the Ibrahimi Mosque , and transforming the Islamic aspect into a Jewish one.

The Mufti of Jerusalem also says this is a Judaization crime:

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories and the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, affirmed that the occupation authorities yesterday removed parts of the Ibrahimi Mosque, the “White Staircase”, as a “racist Judaization crime.”

In a press statement, Sheikh Hussein said: "What is happening comes within the framework of the occupation authorities' plans to change the landmarks of the archaeological site and complete the "electric elevator" project, which it intends to build to serve the settlers' incursions."

He explained that these measures of the occupation authorities lead to depriving Palestinian citizens of performing their religious rites in their mosques....

The funny thing is that the exact types of people who support disability rights will be the ones who are the most adamantly against this.

In the hierarchy of social justice issues, Jew-hate is at the top.

UN Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons

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Read all about it here!

An elevator for the disabled is called a "racist, Judaizing, colonialist,Talmudic crime" by the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement condemning Israel for doing...something..at the Cave of the Patriarchs, what they call the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Nowhere in the entire press release does the ministry actually say what Israel is planning to do.

The mentality of the racist colonialism dominates the government in the occupying state and its various arms, and is embodied in its worst forms, with the operations of control, familyization and Judaization of the Ibrahimi Mosque, changing its historical, cultural, cultural and religious landmarks, and depriving the original owners of the land and Muslims from accessing it and praying in it. The occupation is one, its mentality is one, and its narrative is one, whether as it constantly appears in the oppression of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in prisons, or in the theft of Palestinian land and targeting the Palestinian presence through mass demolitions and forced displacement, or in the attempt to impose Israeli sovereignty and control over all the holy, archaeological and historical sites that are located in the heart of cities and Palestinian towns. As a result of this racist mentality, Palestinians are constantly paying high prices for the occupation’s complex crimes and violations. ....It is the mentality of Judaization and creeping annexation that denies the right of the Palestinian to his homeland and tries to change the parameters of the historical and legal reality to serve the Talmudic narrative of occupation, with the aim of replacing the political character of the conflict with the religious one.

The Ministry condemns in the strongest terms Israel's colonial attacks on the Ibrahimi Mosque and Christian and Islamic holy sites, and bears the Israeli government full and direct responsibility for this crime. The Ministry calls on UNESCO to defend its decisions and take the necessary practical measures to protect the Ibrahimi Mosque and return it to its historical and legal reality that was distorted and stolen by the occupation forces....

When the ministry says they want the Cave of the Patriarchs to "return to its historical and legal reality," they mean they want to revert to the days before 1967 when Jews were not allowed to visit the site altogether.

So why did they issue this unhinged screed?

This is all about an elevator that Israel approved to be built to that handicapped people can access the holy site. Right now, anyone in a wheelchair needs to be physically carried up the ancient stone stairs to visit the site.

Israel unilaterally decided to build the elevator after many years of lobbying because the Palestinian Authority would never agree to anything like this. The human rights of the disabled would not even be considered as a factor. In fact, you will not find any supposedly liberal anti-Israel activist who supports the idea that Jews have the human right to visit the site freely, let alone that disabled people have the right to visit safely, because the imperative of being anti-Israel is much more important than mere human rights.

Arab media claim that this will be a Jewish-only elevator. Arab media is lying - the elevator is for all. But the hate that the Palestinians and their supporters have for Jews is far, far higher than their desire to allow even disabled Muslims to visit their own holy sites, as long as the plan also helps any Jews.

The main Palestinian argument is that this elevator and supporting infrastructure is using land that belongs to Arab Hebron and the Waqf, and therefore this violates agreements. But the Palestinians have also signed agreements saying that Jews should have free access to their holy places. No one seems to insist that they hold up those agreements. If they were a normal government that cared about human rights and peace, something could have been hammered out to allow wheelchair access for all back in 2003.

When the PA uses language like "racist" and "colonialist" and "Talmudic" - one of their favorite epithets - to describe an elevator to help the disabled, it proves yet again that this is all about hating Jews and denying Jews their rights.

Israel set to build elevator for all to access to Tomb of the Patriarchs, Palestinians claim it is only for Jews

The planned additions

Palestinian site Safa reports that Israel's attorney general Avichai Mendelblit recently approved a plan use land next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron to build an elevator and ramps to help access "for the Jewish disabled" to the holy place.

Even though they are quoting Arutz-7, the original report makes clear that the elevator is meant for all, Arabs and Jews as well as tourists.

Israel has tried for years to cooperate with the PA in helping give access to all to the site, and the PA refused to talk with Israeli authorities, as this 2019 report notes. Even the most right-wing Jews of Hebron insist that the elevator be open to Muslims, saying "The Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs belongs to the people of Israel, and the state must ensure that every person of every religion can pray there."

Even the far left Meretz agrees that there should be universal access:

A wide variety of elected officials this year have joined the call to create access for the disabled. Mossi Raz, a former Member of Knesset from the left-wing Meretz party called for wheelchair access. Despite being an and an ardent opponent of the Jewish community, Channel 20 reported he sent a personal letter to the Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs and to the PA mayor of Hebron asking them to approve the permit.

Right now people in wheelchairs need to be physically carried up some 60 stairs.

The Palestinians are saying that the land surrounding the site belongs to the Waqf.

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