You Want to Understand Anti-Semitism? Just Look in the Mirror

Benjamin Weinthal, the Jerusalem Post’s correspondent in Berlin wondered earlier this week whether Germany has learned from its Nazi history? The question is in itself very intriguing. Considering its past, one may expect Germany to oppose any form of racist, discriminatory, expansionist and nationalist ideology. Bearing in mind Israelis are considered the ‘Nazis of our time’ by more than just a few commentators, one may expect the Germans to advise the Israelis what not to do. One may also expect Germany to stand by the Palestinians for the Palestinians are, de facto, the last victims of Hitler.

Do not hold your breath. When Jpost’s writer Weinthal refers to Germany learning from its history, he means the complete opposite. What he seeks is German subservience to the Zionist ideology and Jewish national interests. Weinthal, wants to see a clear diplomatic rift between Germany and Iran in the name of the Shoa and its memory. “With regard to its more future-oriented responsibility to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and its threats to obliterate Israel, critics say Germany is stumbling.” Weinthal makes it transparent that as far as Zionists are concerned, guilt-tripping the Germans is the way forward.

Weinthal reports that the paths of Iran and Demjanjuk crossed at the International Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin conference ‘Time to Act’ last weekend. “The Berlin conference's policy experts raised questions about Germany's historic responsibility to Israel and the lessons from the genocidal Nazi anti-Semitism.” In case one is failing to understand, the Jewish lobby in Germany is mounting pressure on German politicians and academia to increasingly act against Iran in the name of Jewish suffering.

In the conference Dr. Charles Small , the head of the Yale ‘Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism’ insisted that Germany had failed to extract the necessary lessons from the Nazi period. The Germans, according to this exceptionally lame ‘interdisciplinary’ academic Zionist do nothing to prevent an “Iran-organized Shoah”.

Zionist academics are indeed amusingly innovative. Interestingly enough, I myself never thought that Anti Semitism is a subject for an ‘interdisciplinary’ study. I always believed that if Zionists and Jewish tribal campaigners are interested in the origin of anti Jewish feeling all they really need to do is to look in the mirror. In fact Dr Small and the Jpost’s Weinthal who promote the prospects of a new world conflict in Germany should self-reflect so they understand where the resentment to Jewish nationalism and tribal activism are coming from. Once again, it is Jewish activists who openly promote conflict. Once again they do it in the name of Jewish suffering. This is enough to make Jewish national politics a repugnant concept.

“Holocaust denial is unlawful in Germany”, says Weinthal, yet Iranian Holocaust-deniers are welcome in German conferences. For a change Weinthal is almost correct. There is indeed an element of discrepancy here. But it can be resolved quite easily. Holocaust denial laws in Germany and anywhere else must be abolished immediately. It doesn’t make any sense that a certain historical chapter within our living memory should be legally restricted. Holocaust denial laws are an assault against humanism and free thought. Leave alone the fact that they make the Zionist Shoa narrative look highly suspicious.

Weinthal concludes by posing a criticism of German intellectual integrity. “Historical responsibility unites Demjanjuk and the Islamic Republic”, yet he continues, “the glacier-like pace at which the connection is being understood is rather surprising in a country that helped to develop philosophical thinking based on connections.”

There is a Glimpse of truth in Weinthal’s argument. On the face of it there is a discrepancy here between the German legal action and the state’s attitude towards Iran. Yet again, the solution is pretty simple: as I argued in a previous paper, Demjanjuk should have never been put on trial in Germany or anywhere else for ‘accessory’ charges. If the Germans are interested in Nazi ‘accessories’ they may start with the Jewish Kapos, continue with the Judenrat and eventually finish with the Zionist agencies that collaborated with Nazis all along the war.

According to Weinthal, the Germans fail to ‘make connections’. I would advise Weinthal that the Germans are indeed famous for their superior philosophers. It is also depressingly notable that Germany didn’t produce a single major philosophical work or a great symphony since the end of WWII. Due to its guilt and the constant Zio-centric pressure, Germany is wary of its own greatness or even greatness in general. Instead of hosting some major academic conferences that would elaborate on questions to do with Being, Ethics or Metaphysics (following the tradition of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger), Berlin is welcoming some of the shallowest ‘interdisciplinary’ Zionist minds, the likes of Dr. Charles Small. Germany must immediately liberate itself of this pseudo academic trend.

Unlike Weinthal, I do believe that Germans have not lost their ability to think, to judge and to ‘make connections’. Germans do grasp what is really going on. In dismay they see the crimes that are committed in Palestine by the Jewish state. Germans may be confused by it all, but not for too long. Making the necessary ethical connections is inevitable.

To conclude, I do not think that anyone except Zionists doubt the fact that German people learned their lesson. However, it is evidently clear that Israelis, Zionists and Jewish Interdisciplinary tribal activists fail to draw the necessary lesson from the Shoa. Instead of making our planet a peace seeking habitable place the Zionists and Jewish tribal activists use Jewish suffering as an excuse for more wars and world conflicts. Zionists had a chance to open a new page in Jewish history. They obviously failed completely. The images of Israel starving Palestinians and dropping white phosphorus on populated neighborhoods depict a total Israeli ethical failure. Israel implements genocidal tactics. Israel is the only state to practice Nazi like racist discriminatory ideology and policies.

If Israel and its supporters want to tackle anti-Jewish resentments they should stop chasing their critics at once. They instead better look in the mirror and understand once and for all that the problem is inside.

Source: Gilad Atzmon

NY Jews Say No to Dershowitz… No to Occupation

by Desert Peace

On Saturday, November 21st, Alan Dershowitz was appearing at the 92nd Street Y in N.Y.C. to debate a person representing the new lobby, J Street, on the subject of what the future policies of Israel should be. Dershowitz supports Israel’s most aggressive policies. Aware of that, members of the N.Y. group, Jews Say No, gathered outside the Y with signs and leaflets that said “No, not in our name!” and indicated opposition to the ongoing siege of Gaza, the separation wall, the settlements, and the occupation. People carried placards that read:

Am I really a self hating Jew if I criticize the Israeli government’s unethical and inhumane policies?

Does Israel’s security really depend on illegal occupation and siege?

What Jewish law permits the killing of 1400 Gazan citizens?

Is Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people consistent with the long Jewish tradition of social justice?

Doesn’t the Holocaust teach us that it must never happen to anyone again?

They also handed out copies of Justice Goldstone’s letter to the U.S. Congress regarding his report about Israel’s war crimes.

When Dershowitz arrived he told those gathered that they should come inside and hear what he had to say. People said that they had already read and heard what he had to say, that’s why they were there.

When those attending the event arrived some read the signs with a look of astonishment, obviously not realizing that there was an alternate view within the Jewish community, and a few, very few, expressed agreement. Overwhelmingly, from where this reporter was standing, the response was hostile. A few used profanity but most made comments like, “Shame on you”, “Sure, you want them to kill 6 million more of us”, or simply, “Stupid.”

Several people passing by asked to meet with members of the group to discuss the issues and learn more about Jews Say No.

JSN will continue to gather in public areas with their signs and leaflets to express an ethical voice from within the Jewish community.

Read more at Desert Peace

South Africa: Israel actions in East Jerusalem akin to apartheid

The South African government has issued an unusually harsh statement condemning Israel for approving 900 new housing units in Gilo and evicting Palestinians from their East Jerusalem homes, comparing Israel’s actions to the “forced removals” of the apartheid era.

“We condemn the fact that Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem is coupled with Israel’s campaign to evict and displace the original Palestinian residents from the City,” the statement said. “South Africa is deeply concerned that these activities by Israel will only serve only to deepen the cycle of violence in the region.”

Israeli officials and Jewish leaders in South Africa condemned the statement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: “We deeply regret this unexplainable statement, which ignores key facts while presenting as realities nonexistent matters. It is highly misleading not to take cognizance of Israel’s repeated calls to renew peace talks unconditionally and without deferral. It is simply unjust to call the neighborhood of Gilo a ’settlement,’ or to conjure a phantasmagorical ‘campaign to evict Palestinians.’”

“One cannot equate building new homes for Israelis… in Gilo with the forced removals that occurred under apartheid,” said David Saks, the associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. “In the latter case, many thousands of non-whites were forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for white settlement; in Gilo, by contrast, no one is being forcibly removed to make way for new developments.”

Israel says the two Palestinian families evicted from homes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood over the summer were living in buildings that have been owned by Jews since before Israel’s founding, and that a court ordered the evictions because the families had violated the terms of their leases.

Another leader of the South African Jewish community said that while individual government officials have occasionally invoked the apartheid comparison, it’s unusual for the government itself to do so.

A spokeswoman for the South African Zionist Federation, Bev Goldman, said the group “questions again why Israel is always judged to a standard different from that of the rest of the world.” She said the statement would “do little more than create and heighten tensions within the local Jewish community and with South Africa’s radical pro-Palestinian elements.”

Source: Haaretz News Jerusalem

Norman Finkelstein: Zionism’s Version of History

My guest tonight is a Jewish American political scientist and author who Jewish supporters of Israel right or wrong love to hate. He is – Norman Finkelstein.

Norman Finkelstein grew up in New York City where, before he obtained academic employment, he was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts.

He completed his undergraduate studies at New York’s Binghampton University in 1974. After studying in Paris, he went on to get his Master’s degree in political science, and later his PhD in political studies, from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at five American universities.

The reason why Finkelstein is vilified by Jewish supporters of Israel right or wrong can be simply stated. In his writing and public speaking, as in his doctoral thesis, he is committed to exposing books which present Zionism’s version of history. They are, he writes and says, part of a “monumental hoax”, “fraud” and “nonsense”.

His friend Noam Chomsky once warned him in a letter that he would get into trouble because, Chomsky wrote, “you’re going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they’re going to destroy you.”

A dramatic moment in Zionism’s on-going attempt to destroy Finkelstein, and also its highly successful strategy for restricting academic freedom in general, came in June of last year (twenty o seven) when, giving in to Zionist pressure, Chicago’s DePaul University denied him tenure. Prior to that decision, Finkelstein had been an assistant professor at DePaul for six years, and described in an official university statement as “a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher.”

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net.

more about “Hart of the Matter – Norman Finkelstein“, posted with vodpod

h/t: ICH

from the archives:

Norman Finkelstein: The Coming Breakup of American Zionism (vids)

see

Clinton, Goldstone and true cost of the occupation

Dennis Kucinich: Almost As Serious As Committing War Crimes Is Covering Up War Crimes!

Source: Dandelion Salad

NEW BREED OF HOLOCAUST DENIER

Having burned out the pejorative phrase “anti-Semite” though overuse and endless misapplication, Israel’s defenders of late have been resorting to their last and most powerful rhetorical weapon of mass distraction, “Holocaust Denier”, to silence critics or at the very least to deprive them of an objective audience ready to give the critic a fair hearing.

“Holocaust Denier” is being hurled hither and yon, and the reality is that hardly anybody being labeled a “holocaust denier” denies anything. They just want to ask a few specific questions about specific historical events, or simply defend the right of all people in this post “Saddam has nookular bombs” era to re-examine everything we have ever been taught by the state-operated schools and media. Nobody is denying that war crimes took place. But that there have been hoaxes and false claims made in the aftermath of WW2 is beyond question.

However, ’sauce for the goose’ etc. and I have decided that from here on out, I will identify all defenders of Israel’s actions in Palestine and all those who are fighting to block the bringing of war crimes charges against Israel for Operation CAST LEAD as “Goldstone Deniers”.

I feel that this is perfectly appropriate because the “Holocaust Denier” label is used to claim that the denier is trying to conceal NAZI Germany’s atrocities. Therefore, those who are trying to conceal Israel’s atrocities should be accorded the same treatment. After all, they are indeed trying to deny the atrocities which took place inside Palestine.

So, that is it. They are all “Goldstone Deniers” from here on out!

Source: Desert Peace

What Would Anne Frank Think About Jewish War Crimes In Gaza?

I know what you are thinking, shouldn't I be referring to these as Israeli war crimes? Well no, to do so would impugn the character of 2 million Israeli Arabs who had nothing to do with the Gaza slaughter. You see Arabs are not allowed to serve in the Israeli military. Arabs are second class citizens in the Jewish democracy. Their citizenship is little more than window dressing for this fraudulent Israel is a liberal democracy claim. These war crimes committed against the people of Gaza are Jewish war crimes plain and simple.

My daughter is the one who got me thinking about Anne Frank. She is reading The Diary of Anne Frank in school. She expressed her outrage to me about what happened to Anne not long ago. I told her her feelings were perfectly understandable and that any decent human being would feel compassion for her. At the same time I wondered, if Anne Frank had survived the war, would she be a Zionist today? Would she feel that it was perfectly acceptable to do to others, what others had tried to do to her? Would she have joined this Zionist supremacist death cult? I hope not. I would like to think the compassion we feel for her is justified.

Source: Liberal WHite Boy

Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water

From Amnesty International

Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.

The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.

While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.

In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.

Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.

Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.

In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.

Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.

To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.

Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.

Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.

It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.

Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.

In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.

In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.

In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.

“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”

Source: Amnesty International

Could you ever imagine the Times running something like this? Rattling the Cage: Some victims we are

From The Jerusalem Post

The kill ratio was 100-to-1 in our favor. The destruction ratio was much, much greater than that. To this day, thousands of Gazans are living in tents because we won’t let them import cement to rebuild the homes we destroyed. We turned the Gaza Strip into a disaster area, a humanitarian case, and we’re keeping it that way with our blockade.

Meanwhile, here on the Israeli side of the border, it’s hard to remember when life was so safe and secure.

So let’s decide: Who was the victim of Operation Cast Lead, them or us?

No question - us. We Israelis were the victims and we still are. In fact, our victimhood is getting worse by the day. The Goldstone report was the real war crime. The Goldstone report, the UN debates, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, B’Tselem, the traitorous soldiers of Breaking the Silence and the Rabin Academy - those were the true crimes against humanity. This is what’s meant by “war is hell.”

It is we who’ve been going through hell from the war in Gaza. It is we who’ve been suffering.

Gazans? Suffering? What’s everybody talking about?

We let them eat, don’t we?

This imaginary monologue is how we actually see ourselves today. We initiated the war in Gaza, we waged one of the most one-sided military campaigns anyone’s ever seen - and we’re the victims.

We’re fighting off the world with the Holocaust; witness Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the UN with his Auschwitz props. “We won’t go like lambs to the slaughter again,” vowed his protégé, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in a cabinet discussion of the Goldstone report.

Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter, Operation Cast Lead. To Israelis today, it’s all of a piece, it’s one story, one unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood.

The truth is that the State of Israel has never been a victim, and our likening of ourselves to the 6 million has been embarrassing from the beginning - but now? After what we did in Gaza? With the stranglehold we have on that society, while we over here live free and easy?

Victims? Lambs to the slaughter? Us?

No, this has gone beyond embarrassing; this is out-and-out shameful.

And, despite our excuses, it’s not that we’re “traumatized” by the past into believing that we’re still weak, still the frightened, powerless Jews about to be led to the gas chambers. Many Holocaust survivors still believe this, and to some very limited extent, this vestigial fear still takes up space in the Israeli mind.
But by now, 64 years after the Holocaust, 42 years after seeing in the Six Day War how strong we’d become, we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that we aren’t the victims anymore. We know we aren’t a continuation of the 6 million but rather a deliberate and stark departure from them.

THE REASON we tell ourselves and the world that we are victims is because we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that victimhood is power. Victimhood is freedom. A victim can’t be told to restrain himself. A victim fighting for survival can’t be accused of abusing his power because, after all, his back is to the wall, he’s desperate.

On the facts, it’s very hard to convince ourselves, let alone the world, that Gaza and its Kassams have pushed Fortress Israel’s back to the wall, that we’re desperate, that we’re struggling to survive. So, to convince ourselves and the world that this really is so, we do two things.

One, we refuse to acknowledge any facts that mar this image of ourselves as victims, and instead go over and over and over only the facts that fit the picture.

We talk only about the thousands of Kassams fired at Sderot; we never mention the thousands of Gazans we killed at the same time.

We talk only about Gilad Schalit; we never mention the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners we’re holding.

And we never mention our ongoing blockade of Gaza or the devastation it does to those people.

The second thing we do to convince ourselves and the world that we’re still victims is to never, ever, ever let go of the Holocaust - because that’s when we really were victims. Victims like nobody’s ever known, victims a million times worse than the Gazans.

Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter. Remember us, the people of the Holocaust? That wasn’t the Middle East’s superpower you saw fighting in Gaza.

That was the 6 million.

So you can’t blame us. We’re immune from your criticism. We’re the biggest victims the world has ever known. We’re desperate, so don’t tell us about kill ratios and disproportionate use of force and collective punishment. We’re fighting for our survival.

This is what we tell ourselves and the world, and, in the face of what we did and are still doing in Gaza, it has become intolerable. We are not the 6 million. The 6 million were powerless Jews three generations ago; we cannot wrap our abuses of power in their tragedy.

Instead, let’s take a good, hard look at what we did and what we’re doing in Gaza. Then let’s take a good, hard look in the mirror. And then let’s admit who’s the true victim here and now, and, more importantly, who isn’t.

Source: The Jerusalem Post

Law becomes racism with double standards

A series of recent reports and statements critical of Israel by respected individuals and institutions reminds us of a vital challenge to coherent national development and safeguarding the rule of law in the Middle East: why should anyone respect international law and orderly relations among nations if such standards of conduct are not equally applied to all?

Once or twice a week now we hear statements criticizing Israel’s behavior or exhorting it to respect international rules and norms. A few days ago Amnesty International issued a report about how Israeli control of water resources leaves the Palestinians in the occupied territories dangerously deficient in minimum amounts and quality of their water. A few days later United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to allow the reconstruction of Gaza to proceed, nearly a year after a massive Israeli military offensive crippled the area’s infrastructure and productive capacity.

He noted: “Ten months after hostilities ended in Gaza, we see no progress on reconstruction or the re-opening of borders. Families have not been able to rebuild their homes. Clinics and schools are still in ruins. I urge Israel to accept the UN reconstruction proposals as set forth, recognizing that the only true guarantee of peace is people’s well-being and security.”

These two examples of international pleas to Israel to adhere to international standards of law-abiding decency came just a few weeks after the report by the Richard Goldstone fact-finding mission for the UN Human Rights Council found sufficient evidence to say that both Israel and Hamas seem to have engaged in war crimes and even crimes against humanity in their conduct of the war nearly a year ago.

The larger point of such recent developments pertains to the slow degradation and ultimate negation of the rule of law in guiding the behavior of states and individuals. If states, armed groups and individuals see that some states, like Israel, are merely criticized but not seriously pressured or sanctioned because of their consistently criminal behavior – such as building colonies and inflicting mass reprisals against whole civilian populations – they conclude that international law, human rights standards, UN resolutions, international conventions and other such noble instruments have no meaning, and can be safely ignored.

When legal standards are applied only to some people and not all people, they cross the line from law to racism.

The importance of the Goldstone Report was captured in Goldstone’s statement to the UN Human Rights Council, in which he stressed that pursuing justice for all is critical for ensuring accountability, which in turn is vital for ending impunity in the use of violence against civilians. Here are a few of his statements that I believe reflect the essence and importance of his mission, reflecting the core values that the UN system tries to represent and keep alive:

“We accepted [to undertake the fact-finding mission] with the conviction that pursuing justice is essential and that no state or armed group should be above the law. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during any conflict will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice …

“The mission found that the attack on the only remaining flour-producing factory, the destruction of a large part of the Gaza egg production, the bulldozing of huge tracts of agricultural land, and the bombing of some 200 industrial facilities, could not on any basis be justified on military grounds. Those attacks had nothing whatever to do with the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel. The mission looked closely and sets out in the report statements made by Israeli political and military leaders in which they stated in clear terms that they would hit at the ‘Hamas infrastructure.’ If ‘infrastructure’ were to be understood in that way and become a justifiable military objective, it would completely subvert the whole purpose of International Humanitarian Law built up over the last 100 years and more. It would make civilians and civilian buildings justifiable targets. These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes …

“A word about accountability. It has been my experience in many regions of the world, including my own country, South Africa, that peace and reconciliation depend, to a great extent, upon public acknowledgement of what victims suffer. That applies no less in the Middle East. It is a pre-requisite to the beginning of the healing and meaningful peace process. The truth and accountability are also essential to prevent ascribing collective guilt to a people …

“A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence.”

Source: The Daily Star

AT LEAST THEY LET ROSA PARKS ON THE BUS!

Is history starting to repeat itself? Are we not learning from the mistakes of the past?

Almost 55 years ago, the following took place….(from Wikipedia)

On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind: Irene Morgan, in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys, in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Interstate Commerce Commission respectively in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks’s action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

And now THIS……… IN ISRAEL

A 23-year-old woman of Ethiopian descent claimed that the driver of an Egged No. 5 bus in Rishon Lezion refused to allow her to board his bus because of the color of her skin.

Speaking to Ynet, Yedno Verka recounted last Wednesday's incident: "As I prepared board the bus, the driver suddenly shut the door. I banged on the glass, but he ignored me. Then a young woman came running towards the bus, and he opened the door for her. I stayed close to her and boarded the bus.

"When the driver saw me he said, 'what, don’t you understand that I don't allow Kushim (derogatory term for black people) on board? Are you trying to smash my door in? Were there buses in Ethiopia? Why don't you walk? In Ethiopia you didn't even have shoes and here you do, so why don’t you walk?' I was shaking all over; I couldn't even speak," she said.

At this point Verka handed the driver the bus fair, but, according to her, he refused to accept it and said, "Kushit hold on, what's your hurry? Since you (Ethiopians) made aliyah you've become arrogant."

Verka said she responded by saying, "You can't treat me this way. Treat your mother this way."

At this point, she said, "He grabbed my skirt and yelled: 'You don’t talk like that about my mother. A Kushit will not talk about my mother like that.' I was afraid he was going to hit me, and explained that I did not curse his mother. But he continued: 'Go back to Ethiopia! You are not even Jews; who brought you all here anyway? You're ruining our country; you are a stupid people.'

Only then did the other passengers intervene and call the driver out for his racist behavior, said the woman, adding that the driver continued his tirade even after she made her way to the back of the bus.

"I told myself that I would not cry in front of him. As we approached the college I rang the bell and got off. I couldn't hold it in anymore and began to weep.

"It was such a humiliating experience, and what scares me most is the thought that he'll continue to act this way. I would sue him had jotted down the names and numbers of some of the passengers, but I didn’t even think about it," said Verka.

Knesset Member Shlomo Molla (Kadima) turned to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who in turn instructed his office to demand that the Egged bus company investigate the incident and see to it that the driver is punished if it is found that he acted inappropriately.

Egged said in response that it "condemns any expression of racism and services all people, regardless of race, gender and creed. The details of the incident have been forwarded to Egged's control committee for an in-depth investigation. Should the allegations prove true, Egged will act accordingly."

Source: YNET News

One-year old expelled from Israeli day care for being Palestinian

An Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli day-care center on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages, accusing her of racist incitement against their child.

Maysa and Shuaa Zuabi, from the village of Sulam in northern Israel, launched the court action last week saying they had been "shocked and humiliated" when the center's owner told them that six Jewish parents had demanded their daughter's removal because she is an Arab.

In the first legal action of its kind in Israel, the Zuabis are claiming $80,000 from Neta Kadshai, whom they accuse of being the ringleader.

The girl, Dana, is reported to be the first Arab child ever to attend the day-care center in the rural Jewish community of Merhavia, less than one kilometer from Sulam.

However, human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has operated an education system almost entirely segregated between Jews and Arabs.

However, chronic underfunding of Arab schools means that in recent years a small but growing number of Arab parents have sought to move their children into the Jewish system.

Dana was admitted to the day-care center last December, according to the case, after its owner, Ivon Grinwald, told the couple she had a vacant place. However, on Dana's first day six parents threatened to withdraw their own children if she was not removed.

Kadshai, in particular, is said to have waged a campaign of "slurs and efforts aimed at having [Dana] removed from the day-care center, making it clear that [her] children would not be in the same center as an Arab girl." Zuabi was summoned to a meeting the same evening at which Grinwald said she could not afford to lose the six children. She returned the contract Zuabi had signed and repaid her advance fees.

Zuabi said that while she was in the office Grinwald received a call from Kadshai again slandering Dana and demanding her removal.

Grinwald refused to speak to the media last week. However, last December, when the Zuabis first complained, she told Army Radio: "The [Jewish] parents called her a girl from 'the [Arab] sector,' they said this is a day-care center for Jewish children and that it should stay that way ... I can't change the world, I have to look out for my livelihood."

Although Israel lacks a constitution, the Zuabis' lawyer, Dori Kaspi, is suing Kadshai under the terms of the 1992 Basic Law on Human Freedom and Dignity, the nearest legislation Israel has to a bill of rights.

In previous cases when Arab children have been excluded from schools, the parents have launched a legal action for discrimination against the education authorities or the school itself.

Lawyers are doubtful that the couple can win given the law's lack of reference to the principles of equality or equal opportunities.

One lawyer, who wished not to be named, said: "Instances like this are not covered by laws against discrimination. Anti-discrimination legislation in Israel is very specific, covering mainly examples of discrimination in employment and access to public places like pubs and clubs."

Even then, the lawyer added, enforcement was extremely lax.

Instances of Arab children being denied places at Jewish kindergartens and junior schools have become more common in recent years, especially in the country's handful of mixed cities.

Yousef Jabareen, head of Dirasat, a Nazareth-based organization monitoring education issues, said when parents tried to switch their children to Jewish schools it was because of the poor conditions in Arab education institutions.

"Although it's an understandable reaction, it's a cause for concern," he said. "In Jewish schools Arab children are not taught their language, culture or history. Their Arab identity has to be sacrificed for them to receive a decent education."

A report published in March revealed that the government invested $1,100 in each Jewish pupil's education compared to $190 for each Arab pupil. The gap is even wider when compared to the popular state-run religious schools, where Jewish pupils receive nine times more funding than Arab pupils.

There is also an official shortfall of more than 1,000 classrooms for Arab children, said Jabareen, though Arab organizations believe the problem is in reality much worse. In addition, a significant proportion of existing Arab school buildings have been judged unsafe or dangerous to children's health.

In some parts of the country where private religious schools are available, particularly in Nazareth and Haifa, Arab parents are turning their back on the state-run system, said Jabareen.

Two-thirds of the 7,500 Arab pupils in the northern mixed city of Haifa, for example, are reported to be attending private schools, despite high levels of poverty among the population.

Last September, the Adalah legal center for Israel's Arab minority forced the municipality of the mixed city of Ramle, near Tel Aviv, to register an Arab boy in a Jewish kindergarten close to his home.

The mayor, Yoel Lavi, had earlier told the boy's parents that he could not be admitted because he was an Arab and that the kindergarten served only Jewish children.

Jabareen said he favored binational and bilingual schools in which Jewish and Arab children could meet and study as equals. However, the state did not offer such schools to parents.

Four bilingual elementary schools admitting both Arab and Jewish children have been established privately. Israel has no mixed secondary schools.

Mike Prashker, director of Merchavim, an organization advocating shared citizenship in Israel, recently told the Haaretz newspaper: "The Israeli reality of segregated education systems creates ignorance and fear of the 'other.'"

A poll published by Haifa University in January found that three-quarters of Jewish pupils regarded Arabs as "uneducated, uncivilized and dirty."

A recent survey by Merchavim found that the segregation among pupils was mirrored by segregation among teachers. Despite some 8,000 Arab teachers being recorded as unemployed by the education ministry, only a few dozen work in Jewish schools, mainly teaching Arabic, even though the Jewish system is suffering from staff shortages.

The previous dovish education minister Yuli Tamir established a public committee last year to develop for the first time a "shared life" policy for Jewish and Arab schools.

The committee issued its report earlier this year recommending more meetings between Jewish and Arab children, that Arabic should be taught to Jewish pupils, and that schools should employ both Arab and Jewish teachers.

The new right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu announced it was freezing the report in April.



Source: American Jews For A Just Peace