Saturday, June 26, 2010
Elder of Ziyon
Friday, June 25, 2010Suzanne
flotillaThe voyage has been encumbered by bureaucratic and political obstacles from the start. UN resolution 1701 bars any attempts to enter Israeli territory directly from Lebanon, so Lebanon’s minister of transportation has only given permission to a French-registered ship, the Julia, to embark for Cyprus. But authorities in Nicosia have barred the ship from entering Cypriot waters, so the vessel – to be renamed the Naji al Ali after a famed Palestinian cartoonist – is expected to leave for Cyprus but change course for the Gaza Strip.
The organisers of the endeavour said they had been authorised to depart Lebanon immediately, but they were unwilling to announce the exact time of the departure, apparently in the hope of confusing the Israeli military about their intentions.
....
The exact time of the ship’s departure was not the only secret yesterday. Organisers of a group of women activists led by the wife of a former Lebanese general once held in an Israeli jail, Ali al Hajj, said they would be leaving Lebanon in a ship named the Mariam. This group claims it will have more than 50 women aboard, but it was not immediately clear that the ship even exists.
Lebanon’s transportation minister, Ghazi Aridi, emphatically denied the existence of a second ship and insisted that no permission had been requested or given for a second ship to join the Julia on the voyage. “There is a campaign called ‘Mariam’, and the organisers of the campaign to lift the Gaza blockade did not say there was a vessel carrying that name,” a local newspaper quoted Mr Aridi as saying. “I do not know anything about a second aid ship”, he added. Earlier, he was quoted as saying that the Julia and the Mariam were the same vessel.Let there please be just a natural hot summer.
Whether two ships or one, the Israel military has already declared that the Islamic militant group Hizbollah is behind the effort, and that the boats were likely to be filled with weapons intended to help Hamas, their allies in Gaza. Israeli officials have said that Lebanon is an especially unwelcome collaborator in the effort to break the siege because it remains hostile towards the Jewish state.
Hizbollah has denied any association with the effort, although Mr Hajj joined the group after his release from an Israeli prison in 2008.
The Lebanese government has responded to Israel’s warnings about aid ships leaving Lebanese shores with a warning of its own. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed Lebanese official as saying that the Lebanese government had sent Israel a letter saying it would hold Israel responsible for any violence befalling ships departing its shores, although it did not specify how it plans to do so.
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of Ziyonarab refugees, unrwa, unrwa reports13. Although they have been sheltered in their host countries, and in the notable instance of Jordan have been offered full citizenship, the refugees are people apart, lacking, for the most part, status, homes, land, assets, proper clothing and means of livelihood. Many cling to their only evidence of nationality--a worn, dogeared Palestine passport issued in Mandate days by a government that no longer legally exists. In Lebanon they cannot be issued working permits and by law cannot hold jobs; in Egypt, they cannot receive Agency relief and assistance unless they are physically located in the 5 by 25 mile Gaza strip; in Syria, although they are permitted to work when they can find jobs, they have not been offered citizenship...
16. The Agency has unceasingly endeavoured to limit the granting of relief only to those recipients who genuinely need it. Its field teams constantly investigate ration entitlement so as to eliminate forged ration cards and duplicate registrations, and to remove from ration rolls those fortunate individuals who have managed to obtain an income which approximates the average for the local inhabitant. Efforts along these lines have been frustrating and only moderately successful. The difficulty of obtaining accurate figures of income, when desperate measures are taken to conceal the income, is particularly unfortunate, so that the Agency's attempt to apply throughout its area of operations an "income scale" designed to eliminate from ration rolls refugees whose cash income, usually by reason of employment, is considered adequate to enable the refugee to be self-supporting has not been very effective. In addition, in Syria, Jordan and Gaza, the agreement of the government must be obtained to the removal of ration recipients for reason of income, but in these countries, due to government insistence, such a high scale has been established that seldom does removal for this reason occur. Indeed, there are numerous instances of fulltime government employees remaining on ration rolls because of the high "income scale". With sharply declining funds for relief, the Agency at the end of the year was making new plans for concentrating its limited resources on the most needy.UNRWA at this point was still trying to find decent jobs for the refugees, but the welfare mentality was starting to strengthen:
26. The existence of vast numbers of able-bodied individuals who for four years have looked to the United Nations for the provision of all their basic needs--medical and health care, education, shelter, clothing and food--is a social and economic blight of incalculable dimensions.And UNRWA also started to realize that its relief programs were having an adverse effect on the surrounding population, as Palestinian Arabs on the dole could afford to work for little money. In fact, they had incentive to work for low wages, because if it was found out that they were doing well they would risk losing free food, medicine and schooling for their kids:
27. The need for aggressive steps to be taken to terminate relief operations is not only emphasized by the psychologically debilitating effect of giving relief over long periods of time, with the consequent development of a professional refugee mentality, but also by the crushing economic burden--apart from the cost of the care of the individual, which the presence of the refugees has placed upon the host countries. In the absence of advanced plans for economic development, the presence of refugees has in many instances and in many areas glutted the labour market, thus depressing wages. With the assurance that his basic need for food and shelter will be met by the international community at no cost to himself, the refugee suffers less from the prevailing low wages for casual work than his indigenous neighbour. In Lebanon, despite the ban on refugee employment, much of the seasonal work in the fields is done by refugees, who are able to work for exceptionally low wages. In Jordan, the average wage level has fallen markedly in recent years, due to the presence of the refugees, who are there in such numbers that every third person in the entire country is an Agency ration recipient. In Egypt, where cultivable areas are overcrowded by Egypt's own nationals, the presence of 200,000 refugees in the Gaza strip has forced the Government not only to contribute heavily to the relief of the refugees, but also to provide relief to the non-refugee Gaza population of 80,000 who are in an even worse economic position than the refugees. Thus, in all countries where the refugees are concentrated, a heavy primary and secondary economic burden is placed upon the economy despite the fact that the basic costs of refugee care are met by the contributing governments.No wonder the refugees would cheat to stay on the dole - they didn't want to end up as badly off as their non-refugee neighbors!
32. During the Agency's first year, work relief projects were vigorously planned and pushed forward by the Agency. Governments and refugees viewed the projects with suspicion, feared resettlement implications, and were slow in acceptance. Finally, a start was made because refugees wanted wages and governments wanted public works. At the peak of employment on those works programmes, more than 12,000 refugees were employed. As governments and refugees discovered advantages in the programme the Agency began to see liabilities. Local governments contributed no funds; the full burden of wages fell on the Agency; the cost was five times that of simple relief. The approved projects were typically roads and public structures, and when they were finished the refugees returned to tents and ration lines. In short the Agency found itself financing and operating labour camps to build public works which the governments themselves would have built the following year. There was no enduring benefit for the refugee nor financial relief for the Agency, and the programme was gradually brought to a conclusion as funds ran out.So, UNRWA started a "new programme" that tried to eliminate the shortfalls of its earlier works program:
46. The objective is to be accomplished through the following activities:The Arab countries looked upon this program as an opportunity for more free money without any commitment whatsoever to permanently improve the lives of the refugees, and they agreed to this new program.
(1) Helping refugees find employment where there is need for their services;
(2) Training refugees for occupations where there is a shortage of trained workers;
(3) Making loans or grants to refugees to enable them to establish small enterprises to improve their economic position;
(4) Building houses in or near urban areas where employment is available;
(5) Establishing rural villages in areas where land is available for cultivation;
(6) Developing agricultural lands through well drilling, irrigation works, access roads and similar activities;
(7) Generally, financing economic development and providing technical assistance where there are assurances of proportionate benefit to refugees.
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of ZiyonHRWRussia is bound by the law of occupation wherever it exercises effective control within the territory of Georgia without the consent of the Georgian state. Anywhere Georgian authorities are prevented from their full and free exercise of sovereignty - such as denying access for Georgian authorities including law enforcement and military forces - because of Russian presence, Russia is assuming the role of an occupying power for the purposes of international humanitarian law, and all its obligations towards the civilian population remain.The examples given in the first paragraph necessitate a presence of troops in the actual territory. The second paragraph, where such troops are not present, is ambiguous: HRW says accurately that there is a still an obligation for humanitarian access but it pointedly does not say that this is considered a legal occupation. The two issues are separate, as legal blockades (for example) must allow basic needs to get through but do no indicate an occupation.
If Russia exercises effective control of access to an area, such as a so-called buffer zone, even if it grants access to some authorities, for example, Georgian police, it is still bound by its obligations to the civilian population to ensure public safety and welfare and permit humanitarian access.
“The removal of settlers and most military forces will not end Israel’s control over Gaza,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “Israel plans to reconfigure its occupation of the territory, but it will remain an occupying power with responsibility for the welfare of the civilian population.Again, this is not a direct contradiction, but the first source (written in 2008, after HRW was already committed to the definition about Gaza written in 2004) does imply that "effective occupation" means troops on the ground.
“Under international law, the test for determining whether an occupation exists is effective control by a hostile army, not the positioning of troops,” Whitson said. “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”
The term “occupied territory” is used to mean any area in which military government is cxerciscd by an armed force. It does not include territory in which an armed force is located but has not assumed supreme authority.
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of Ziyon
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of Ziyon
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of Ziyon"Whenever that criminal gang of Israeli pirates seizes a ship, I become more optimistic that the day will come when these ships will carry these dregs of European garbage back to their own countries.
"Let Gilad Shalit return to Paris. Let those murderers return to Poland. Once they are back there, we will hunt them down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres, from Deir Yassin to this day.
[...]
"I would like to say something to the Israeli people."
Interviewer: "To the settlers."
Yasser Qashlaq: "Yes, to that gang of criminal murderers. Board the ship we are sending you, and return to your countries. Don’t be misled by the Arab leaders or the moderate camp. You will never be able to make peace with us. Our children will return [to Palestine]. There is no reason for coexistence. Even if some of our leaders or regimes sign [peace] with you – we will never sign. Do not be misled by these regimes. Return to your countries."Qashlaq's biography in his website says that he is "from Safed" - but he was born in Damascus in 1971. He says such peaceful statements as "tear down the so-called Temple of Solomon."
Friday, June 25, 2010Elder of ZiyonWhy so much emotion about the soldier Shalit ? Don't all conflicts produce prisoners of war, and isn't the young PFC from a tank crew, abducted in June, 2006, just a prisoner among others?
Well, actually, no. For there are, first of all, international conventions governing the status of prisoners of war, and the sole fact that this one has been sequestered for four years, the fact that the Red Cross, which regularly visits Palestinians in Israeli prisons, has never been granted access to him is a flagrant violation of the laws of war. But moreover and most of all, we must never tire of repeating this: Shalit was not captured in the fury of a battle but during a raid in Israel, when Israel, having evacuated Gaza, was at peace with its neighbor. In other words, calling him a prisoner of war is tantamount to judging that the fact that Israel occupies a territory or has ceased to occupy it changes nothing in terms of the hatred one believes it deserves. It means accepting the idea that Israel is at war even when it is at peace, or that we should make war against Israel because Israel is Israel. And if we do not accept that, if we refuse this logic that is Hamas's own logic and which, if words mean anything, is the logic of total war, we must begin by completely changing the rhetoric and the lexicon. Shalit is not a prisoner of war but a hostage. His fate is comparable to that of, not a Palestinian prisoner, but a kidnap victim being held for ransom. And he must then be defended as we defend the hostages of the FARC or the Libyans or the Iranians -- we must stand up for him with the same energy devoted to the defense of, say, Clotilde Reiss or Ingrid Betancourt.
Hostage or prisoner, no matter, why all the fuss over a single man? Why this focalisation on an individual "of no importance to the community," a man "made of all men, worth them all and of the same value as anybody" [Sartre]? Well, it is because Shalit is, precisely, not just anybody, and that he is going through what sometimes happens, in times of extreme tension in world history, to individuals in no way predisposed to play a part who suddenly become the captors of this tension, those who attract the resultant lightning, the points of impact of forces that, in a given situation, converge and clash. The dissidents of the era of communism were such, as are the persecuted of China or Myanmar today. Or, yesterday, this or that humble Bosnian figure an unparalleled concentration of adverse circumstances catapulted to prominence, turning him into a sort of a chosen one, in reverse. So it is with Gilad Shalit. Thus this man whose face is still that of a child incarnates, most unwillingly, the unending violence of Hamas; the mindless urge to exterminate of its supporters; the cynicism of those "humanitarians" who, like those of the Free Gaza flotilla, refused to take a letter from his family; or, once again, the double standard whereby he does not benefit from the same wealth of sympathy as, precisely, a Betancourt. Is a Franco-Israeli worth less than a Franco-Colombian? Is the signifiant Israel enough to degrade him? Exactly why hasn't his portrait been hung next to that of the heroic Colombian, on the facade of the Hotel de Ville in Paris? And how can one explain that, in the little park in the 12th arrondissement where it was finally displayed, it has been so regularly vandalized, and with such impunity? Shalit the symbol. Shalit, like a mirror.
One last question, that of the price the Israelis seem ready to pay for the liberation of the captive and the related question of hundreds, some mention a thousand, of potential assassins who will then be released. This is not the first time the problem has occurred. Already, in 1982, Israel freed 4,700 combatants being held in the camp of Ansar in exchange for eight of its own soldiers. In 1985, 1,150 of them (including the future founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassine) were set free in return for three of theirs. Not to mention the bodies, just the bodies, of Eldad Regec and Ehud Goldwasser, killed at the outset of the last war in Lebanon, traded, in 2008, for several leaders of Hezbollah, some of them sentenced for serious crimes. The idea, the double idea, is simple, and it is to Israel's credit. Against the cruelty, first of all, of the famous reasons of State, against the workings of the cold monsters and their terrible laziness, at the opposite of the glacial intransigence Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia was not afraid to decry in the wake of Aldo Moro's kidnapping by the Red Brigades and the way he was abandoned by his "friends," calling it another face of terrorism, this categorical and irrefutable imperative: between the individual and the State, always choose the individual. Between the suffering of only one and the turmoil of the Grand One, the one alone must prevail. A man may be worth nothing, but nothing -- and especially not the swaggering, chest-inflating pride of the Collective -- is worth the sacrifice of one man. And then, against a pseudo "sense of the Tragic" that serves as an alibi for so many instances of cowardice, in the face of the dime-store dialecticians rambling on ad infinitum about the possible perverse effects this action or that (the potential rescue, in this case, of a Daniel Pearl) might provoke in the distant future when faced with a situation of which we are presently unaware, this principle at the heart of Jewish wisdom, admirably summed up in Ecclesiastes (III: 23): do not concern yourself with that which goes beyond your works -- in your ignorance of the kingdom of ends and purposes and its ruses, just save the soldier Shalit.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of ZiyonAmnesty
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of ZiyonThe Arab world is rife with hypocrisy when it comes to the Palestinian issue. Arab leaders frequently and rightly cite the chronic human rights violations in which Israel engages, but fail to address the marginalisation of Palestinians within their own societies. Historically, Lebanese citizens have declared that naturalising Palestinians will act as a disincentive to their eventual repatriation and the exercise of their inviolable right of return. But this is a specious and cynical misrepresentation of the issue.Sounds like stuff I've been saying for years! Arab leaders, in the name of "unity," take away the free will of every Palestinian Arab to choose to become a citizen of other countries. As I mentioned earlier this year,
First, many diaspora Palestinians who have been naturalised in foreign countries, including myself, still seek to return to Palestine. Second, an individual ought to have the right to lead a complete and fulfilling life in his/her country of birth, irrespective of national or racial identity; it is not up to the Arab leaders to safeguard the Palestinian right of return against the prospect of a meaningful life lived outside Palestine.
In the 1950s, Lebanon offered citizenship to many Christian Palestinians as well as Muslims who could prove Lebanese ancestry, and some 50,000 people jumped at the offer. A loophole that opened up in 1994 that offered citizenship was equally pounced upon and tens of thousands more became Lebanese citizens - many even falsifying papers - before that loophole was closed.This is proof that the leaders are not conforming to the wishes of the people whose rights they are pretending to protect.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of ZiyonAmnestyAfter Hamas took control in Gaza in June 2007, the existing Israeli policy of closure was tightened to a blockade restricting the entry of food, fuel, and other basic goods....
As the occupying power, Israel bears the foremost responsibility for ensuring the welfare of the inhabitants of Gaza.So in the case of Israel, Amnesty (and others) consider a closure of a territory over most of its borders to be "occupation."
The definition of belligerent occupation is given in Article 42 of the Hague Regulations:In the first quote from Amnesty above, it is clear that they recognize that Hamas has taken over Gaza. By their own definitions, which are very clear in the case of Iraq, "occupation" occurs only is when the outside army has physical control of the territory on the ground, and when it can override the decisions taken by the local authorities.
"Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised."
The sole criterion for deciding the applicability of the law on belligerent occupation is drawn from facts: the de facto effective control of territory by foreign armed forces coupled with the possibility to enforce their decisions, and the de facto absence of a national governmental authority in effective control. If these conditions are met for a given area, the law on belligerent occupation applies. Even though the objective of the military campaign may not be to control territory, the sole presence of such forces in a controlling position renders applicable the law protecting the inhabitants. The occupying power cannot avoid its responsibilities as long as a national government is not in a position to carry out its normal tasks.
The international legal regime on belligerent occupation takes effect as soon as the armed forces of a foreign power have secured effective control over a territory that is not its own. It ends when the occupying forces have relinquished their control over that territory.
The question may arise whether the law on occupation still applies if new civilian authorities set up by the occupying power from among nationals of the occupied territories are running the occupied territory’s daily affairs. The answer is affirmative, as long as the occupying forces are still present in that territory and exercise final control over the acts of the local authorities.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of Ziyonarab refugees, unrwa, unrwa reports5.... In the large towns such as Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, there was, in addition, a fairly large floating population of unskilled labourers, working in the ports, or for the oil companies, who had migrated from the country owing to the pressure on the land. Since the last census under the Mandate was taken, as far back as 1931, such persons were mostly registered in their village of origin, although for many years they had lived and worked in the large towns. The effect of this unrecorded movement of population has been to introduce a double source of error into any estimates of the number of persons who could have become refugees; since more people came out of towns in Israeli-held territory than were registered there and fewer people were actually living in the villages of the area which was later annexed to Jordan.Here is another source of error of counting the numbers of refugees: People who really lived in Jordan and the West Bank would work in the coastal cities for much of the year. They fled along with the other Arabs, but they had homes to go to. Even so, they seem to have been counted as "refugees" anyway.
15. Today, after nearly three years, the refugees are still scattered over 100,000 square miles of territory in five different countries; still dependent on relief and without knowledge of the future; the victims of circumstances they are unable to grasp. Legally, humanly and economically speaking, they are little better off than they were when they first left Palestine, since against the sporadic and low-paid work that some of them have found must be set the exhaustion of the resources that others managed to bring out. No government, except in Jordan, has proclaimed their right to stay.
28. The number of refugees housed in UNRWAPRNE camps has risen by some twenty per cent since May 1950, and is still rising. Many thousands of new applications are received each month. These originate from (I) families who have hitherto managed to maintain themselves in lodgings but are now too poor to pay the rent however small; (II) new arrivals from Israel; (III) refugees who have been evicted for quarrelling with the villagers or for cutting down the fruit trees for fuel; and, lately (IV), some considerable movement of the population in the search of water, particularly in Jordan, as a result of the severe drought that has dried up wells and cisterns.Why were there new arrivals from Israel in 1950 and 1951? I am not aware of any expulsions or mass flight during that time period; on the contrary, as I showed in the previous post, Israel bent over backwards to accommodate the refugees and displaced persons. My only guess is that some Arabs either wanted to go to the same camps as their families; they were disgusted at the idea of living in a Jewish state; or they decided that it would be better to move to a camp with free lodging, education and medical care than to try to find jobs in Israel.
(c) The morale of the refugeeIn 1951, Arabs from Palestine exhibited zero sense of nationalism or unity. The idea that they self-identified with a nation called Palestine is a joke. To be sure, they were attached to their homes, but these ties were familial and tribal, not national. As we saw during the 1948 war, Palestinian Arabs would not fight for any other villages besides their own.
32. Owing to his intense individualism, the refugee has little sense of solidarity with his fellows. The concept of giving increased relief to the very needy is incomprehensible to him, making it very difficult for the Agency to distribute welfare goods to special cases. In the same way, much persuasion is necessary before he is willing to contribute labour for the greater good of the camp, or even for mending his own tent, unless he is paid for it.
33. To his natural individualistic tendencies has now been added the characteristics of the typical refugee mentality, and its passive expectation of continued benefits. In the crowded and abnormal existence that the refugee leads, moral values tend to deteriorate and the authority of the head of the family, which would formerly have kept such behaviour in check, has seriously declined; yet, in spite of this, he has retained his inherent dignity to a remarkable degree.A welfare state generates laziness. To be sure, many Palestinian Arabs took the initiative and started finding jobs; tens of thousands moved to Gulf states in the 1950s and helped build countries there from scratch. However, the camps tended to attract the ones who felt a sense of entitlement, and they in turn bred more of the same. This mentality infested UNRWA itself over the years, as the agency lost interest in finding jobs for the PalArabs.
34. It is probably true to say that the refugees are physically better off than the poorest levels of the population of the host countries; and in some cases better off, in the way of social services, than they were in Palestine; but, in their minds, the overwhelming fact of being uprooted from their homes, dependent and yet insecure, is more than enough to cancel out these benefits.The mentality can be understood in 1951, but the fact that it has become institutionalized today is one of the greatest failings of UNRWA. The report mentions a number of times how its services were very attractive to neighboring Arabs who were not directly affected by the war.
35. The United Nations, in particular certain of the great Powers, are considered by the refugee to be entirely responsible for both his past and present misfortunes, and for his future fate. They say that they have lost faith in United Nations action since, after more than thirty months, the General Assembly resolution recommending their return home, although not revoked, has never been implemented and no progress has been made towards compensation.
36. The relief given by the Agency is therefore considered as a right, and as such is regarded as inadequate. Individual efforts to explain the situation to them are usually in vain; the refugee will listen politely but in the end remains convinced both of the bitter injustice done to him, and the fact that little or nothing is being done to rectify it.
37. The desire to go back to their homes is general among all classes; it is proclaimed orally at all meetings and organized demonstrations, and, in writing, in all letters addressed to the Agency and all complaints handed in to the area officers. Many refugees are ceasing to believe in a possible return, yet this does not prevent them from insisting on it, since they feel that to agree to consider any other solution would be to show their weakness and to relinquish their fundamental right, acknowledged even by the General Assembly. They are, moreover, sceptical of the promised payment of compensation.
38. This sense of injustice, frustration and disappointment has made the refugee irritable and unstable. There are occasional strikes, demonstrations and small riots. There have been demonstrations over the census operation, strikes against the medical and welfare services, strikes for cash payment instead of relief, strikes against making any improvements, such as school buildings, in camps in case this might mean permanent resettlement; experimental houses to replace tents, erected by the Agency, have been torn down; and for many months, in Syria and Lebanon, there was widespread refusal to work on agency road-building and afforestation schemes.This mentality became institutionalized, and eventually accepted by the UN. The nadir of the same counterproductive thinking that caused the 1951 refugees to tear down houses may have occurred in 1977, with UN Resolution 32/90, in response to Israel's having built permanent housing for Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip. The resolution called on Israel to return the Arabs to the camps rather than let them have real homes, thus showing how important the perpetuation of the "refugee" problem had become to the UN itself thirty years after it had started.
39. This then is rich and tempting soil for exploitation by those with other motives than the welfare of the refugee. Happily, there are defences that blunt this effort. There are enduring religious defences and there still exist resistant strengths of communal ties and leadership. There are sustaining services of food, shelter, health and education from many sources. There are refugees who left no assets in Palestine. There are refugees who wish to live in Arab countries. There are refugees who have sought and found new roots.The refugees who no longer needed to be on the UN dole were therefore ignored in future reports, and the idea that all Palestinian Arabs are needy refugees became the conventional wisdom in part since UNRWA had no responsibility for the many who actually took control of their lives.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of Ziyonsaudi vice
Thursday, June 24, 2010Suzanneantisemitism
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of ZiyonAl-Aqsa Satellite channel has announced that it would stop broadcasting via the French Noorsat satellite as of 8 pm Thursday after failure of negotiations with the French government.The decision was made last week, as AP reported:
Samir Mohsen, director of programs in Al-Aqsa, told the PIC on Wednesday evening that the channel would continue to broadcast on the Arabsat satellite.
The bureau urged Egypt to host Al-Aqsa on Nilesat in its capacity as a committed national, Arab channel.
A France-based satellite provider is halting broadcasts of the Hamas TV channel to Europe and parts of the Arab world because of concerns that it spreads incitement, a station official said Tuesday.Since this was written by AP's Ibrahim Barzak, you can expect that the story would downplay how bad Al Aqsa TV is:
The decision will deprive Gaza-based al-Aqsa TV of most of its viewers, said the channel's head, Hazem Sharawy.
The Hamas station — best known for its children's programs glorifying violence against Israel — is the centerpiece of a growing media operation of Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers. Losing the satellite provider will hamper the group's attempts to spread its message and raise funds abroad.
The decision to cut off the Hamas station came six years after a similar move by France and the U.S. against al-Manar, the channel of Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
In Paris, Eutelsat spokeswoman Vanessa O'Connor said that last week the French broadcasting regulator CSA ordered it to stop beaming the Hamas channel into Europe by June 26. Al-Aqsa TV is part of a package of channels transmitted by Bahrain-based satellite operator Noorsat, which passes them in a single signal to Eutelsat, O'Connor said.
In the past, Israel and others have repeatedly accused al-Aqsa TV of inciting against Israel, especially in children's programs.Al Aqsa TV was more than just inciting against Israel - it was blatantly anti-semitic, as it broadcasted many Friday sermons talking about how evil Jews were.
One of its most criticized programs, Tomorrow's Pioneers, once featured a high-pitched Mickey Mouse rip-off called "Farfour" who encouraged children to fight against the occupiers of Muslim countries, while taking calls from kids who were praised for singing about fighting Israel.
After a wave of criticism, the station killed off Farfour with mock-Israeli soldiers beating him to death. But it has not toned down the message of its children's programs.
Hamas sees media outreach as a vital part of the movement's success.Why does Israel not have a satellite channel that broadcasts to Europe and the US?
It has another television channel that broadcasts from Lebanon, several affiliated Web sites, a radio station, a glossy magazine for its military wing and two newspapers printed in Gaza. The militant group has also produced a movie glorifying one their militants and created animations boasting about their capture of an Israeli soldier held for the last four years in Gaza.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of Ziyonarab refugees, unrwa, unrwa reportsHISTORYUNRWA did not intend at first to be a permanent agency. It really tried to provide jobs for the Palestinian Arabs and to work with Arab governments to help integrate them. The Arabs' recalcitrance is the single major reason we still have so many "refugees" today, and after a few years UNRWA gave up and turned into a giant, self-perpetuating welfare system.
6. When UNRPR was set up by the General Assembly, it was presumably with the idea that the problem would be resolved in a matter of months. During the summer of 1949 it became obvious that some other approach was needed, and the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East was dispatched to study and report on conditions and to make recommendations concerning future activity. After three months of exhaustive study in the field, the Mission's interim report to the General Assembly in November 1949(1) recommended the creation of a new agency, which would not only carry out relief on a diminishing scale, but would inaugurate a works programme in which able-bodied refugees could become self-supporting and at the same time create works of lasting benefit to the refugees and the countries concerned. The recommendations of the report were embodied in resolution 302 (IV) which provided for the setting up of UNRWAPRNE. The final report signed in Paris in December covered the subject comprehensively and has been accepted by the Agency as its guide.2
NUMBERS OF REFUGEESAs far as I know, the census was never completed and the problems of exaggerated numbers of refugees remain, even today. A sense of entitlement will turn many people into lazy opportunists, and if they have no disincentive to act that way this behavior gets passed on to the next generation, and the following ones as well.
16. The Agency has accepted as realistic the figures set forth in appendix B of the first interim report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission, but recognizes that the numbers have increased in conformity with the extremely high birthrate of the refugees. There is reason to believe that births are always registered for ration purposes, but deaths are often, if not usually, concealed so that the family may continue to collect rations for the deceased.
17...The figures for Lebanon (128,000) are confused due to the fact that many Lebanese nationals along the Palestinian frontier habitually worked most of the year on the farms or in the citrus groves of Palestine. With the advent of war they came back across the border and claimed status as refugees. Only an exhaustive and expensive census, now under way although ardently opposed by those concerned, will divide worthy from false claimants.
18. The former Trans-Jordan and the portion of Palestine remaining in Arab hands and now annexed to the Hashimite Kingdom of the Jordan received the greatest influx of refugees of any of the countries adjacent to Israel -- probably more than half of all the refugees. For various reasons, the largest number of fictitious names on the ration lists pertain to refugees in this area. All earlier attempts at a close census of those entitled to relief have been frustrated, but a comprehensive survey, now under way, is achieving worthwhile results in casting up names of dead people for which rations are still drawn, fraudulent claims regarding numbers of dependents (it is alleged that it is a common practice for refugees to hire children from other families at census time), and in eliminating duplications where families have two or more ration cards. The census, though stubbornly resisted, will eliminate many thousands from the lists of refugees now in receipt of rations.
19. Unauthorized movement between camps, and sometimes across international boundaries, as well as deep-rooted reluctance of refugees to reveal personal information to census-takers, make it very difficult to obtain accurate statistics concerning them.
MORALEArab governments in general considered UNRWA the enemy, and they did everything possible to thwart any chance of solving the refugee crisis, instead wanting to use the refugees as pawns to pressure Israel. This attitude has not changed in sixty years.
26. Strangely enough the general morale of the refugees is higher than might be expected after spending more than two years in exile under most trying conditions. Real trouble-makers are confined to a very small proportion of the total number of refugees, and food strikes and work stoppages are generally considered to be the result of organized pressure groups.
27. During August, a campaign of bitter criticism of the Agency, its motives and personnel, was carried on in a large section of the Arab Press. The rather unvaried monotony of the charges gave indication of central inspiration. An organized series of work stoppages occurred in Lebanon in early September wherein small groups threatened the workers in such a manner that they declined to work for a time. The Syrian office of the Agency, located in Damascus, was destroyed by explosives and a bomb was thrown at a truckload of workers in Lebanon. Threats of violence have been made against individual employees of the Agency. It seems likely that the two campaigns--denunciations in certain sections of the Arab Press and violence--are closely related and spring from the same source which fostered the food strikes in the early days of the Agency.
REFUGEES IN ISRAELHow great a contrast is there between how Israel treated its Arab refugees and how the Arab nations did! Within a short time after the war, Israel managed to fully integrate every single Arab refugee as citizens (and they eventually allowed tens of thousands more to come into Israel for family re-unification.) Not only did Israel inform the UNRWA that its services would not be needed for long, but said that the very idea of an outside agency taking responsibility for its Arab citizens is repugnant!
30. In Israel, the Agency has provided relief to two types of refugees, Jews who fled inside the borders of Israel during the fighting, and Arabs in most instances displaced from one area in Palestine to another. Jewish refugees at first numbered 17,000 but, during the current summer, all but 3,000 of these have been absorbed into the economic life of the new State. Arabs on relief were first numbered at 31,000 but many have been placed in circumstances in which they are self-supporting, so that it was possible to reduce the number to 24,000 at the end of August 1950.
31. Recent discussions with the Israel Government indicate that the idea of relief distribution is repugnant to it, and the Agency was informed that already many of the 24,000 remaining refugees were employed and that all able-bodied refugees desiring employment could be absorbed on works projects if they would register at the government registry offices for that purpose. It was stated that they all have status as citizens of Israel and are entitled to treatment as such. It was claimed that after cessation of relief, aged and infirm refugees would be cared for under the normal social welfare machinery of Israel. The Agency was requested to share financially in a programme of re-establishment of displaced Arabs now within the boundaries of Israel.
Thursday, June 24, 2010Elder of Ziyon
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