14 sept 2016
MK Basel Ghattas
As Shimon Peres fights for his life in hospital, Israeli MKs come to his defense as MK Basel Ghattas seeks to besmirch his reputation; describes Peres as ‘a pillar of the arrogant, imperialist Zionist enterprise.'
Arab Knesset Member Basel Ghattas (Joint Arab List) attacked former President Shimon Peres in a Facebook post in Arabic on Wednesday as Peres lies unconscious and fighting for his life in a hospital bed after suffering from a stroke.
"Let us remember in his death his true essence as a tyrant," Ghattas's post said. “He was directly responsible for various atrocities and war crimes which he committed against us…He is completely covered with our blood."
The Arab MK continued, saying "Is Peres's inevitable end coming close? We don't know. He has seven lives. But he is, without doubt, on his final journey. We must remember that he is one of the pillars of the arrogant, imperialist Zionist enterprise, and of the settler enterprise, along with being one of the most heinous, most brutal, and oldest in terms of age and results.
He is the one who inflicted the most damage and brought a plethora of disasters to the Palestinian nation and to the Arab world. Yet despite all of this, Peres is viewed as a dove, and even won the Nobel Peace Prize."
Peres would not have been able to achieve this, Ghattas claimed, “without the direct and indirect help we gave him throughout his life. We should not rush to support this festival of sadness and collective loss to the tribe."
MK Yoel Hasson (Zionist Union) came out in Peres's defense, responding that "before Basel Ghattas opens his mouth to say Peres's name, it might be worth it for him to take his immense contribution to Israeli-Arab society in particular and Israeli society in general into consideration. You are someone who doesn't come to Knesset meetings, even to just warm up your seat. You're a man who has scammed the Israeli-Arabs, abandoned them, and have worked unceasingly to strengthen Palestinian terrorists."
Hasson continued, asking "when was the last time Ghattas worked to advance education in the Arab sector? When did he ever care about those who have been injured by violence, the lack of proper infrastructure, or the dearth of public transportation in Arab communities?"
"Basel Ghattas is a festival of disgust and shame, a festival of provocation, evil, and shame, and a loss to his constituents. Even if Ghattas lives for 300 more years, he wouldn't even be able to come close to the amount of good which Peres did for the Israeli-Arab community."
MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) also came out swinging against the comments, according Ghattas of self-promotion and a provocateur: “Ghattas is a small and wretched man and all his contribution to politics has amounted to sowing hatred and strife between people, support for terror and cheap provocation for his own self promotion. He is not worthy at all of even mentioning Peres’s name from his mouth.”
Similarly, Deputy Knesset Chairman MK Meir Cohen also joined the rejection and issued his own attack against the comments: “Basel Ghattas is a despicable person in the public domain. Comments such as these by haters of Israel have blackened our name around the world. He is a person who lives here and enjoys the fruits of the state but is constantly bashing it,” Cohen said. “And if that is not enough, he chooses to curse one of the greatest symbols of peace in the world. I hope that we will find the way to remove people like Ghattas from our parliament.”
He went on to say that he was consoled by the fact that Ghattas does not represent the vast majority of the the Arab public, but the “despicable extremists among them.”
He called upon the head of the Joint List to condemn Ghattas’s inflammatory statements, before recalling a personal encounter with Peres during which the former president implored him to ensure the wellbeing of the Arab community.
“I will tell you, Ghattas, that in my time as minister of welfare, Peres invited me to his office and asked me to utilize massive resources for the benefit of the Arab sector. He urged me to ‘Make sure that not another Arab child will go hungry,’” Cohen concluded.
As Shimon Peres fights for his life in hospital, Israeli MKs come to his defense as MK Basel Ghattas seeks to besmirch his reputation; describes Peres as ‘a pillar of the arrogant, imperialist Zionist enterprise.'
Arab Knesset Member Basel Ghattas (Joint Arab List) attacked former President Shimon Peres in a Facebook post in Arabic on Wednesday as Peres lies unconscious and fighting for his life in a hospital bed after suffering from a stroke.
"Let us remember in his death his true essence as a tyrant," Ghattas's post said. “He was directly responsible for various atrocities and war crimes which he committed against us…He is completely covered with our blood."
The Arab MK continued, saying "Is Peres's inevitable end coming close? We don't know. He has seven lives. But he is, without doubt, on his final journey. We must remember that he is one of the pillars of the arrogant, imperialist Zionist enterprise, and of the settler enterprise, along with being one of the most heinous, most brutal, and oldest in terms of age and results.
He is the one who inflicted the most damage and brought a plethora of disasters to the Palestinian nation and to the Arab world. Yet despite all of this, Peres is viewed as a dove, and even won the Nobel Peace Prize."
Peres would not have been able to achieve this, Ghattas claimed, “without the direct and indirect help we gave him throughout his life. We should not rush to support this festival of sadness and collective loss to the tribe."
MK Yoel Hasson (Zionist Union) came out in Peres's defense, responding that "before Basel Ghattas opens his mouth to say Peres's name, it might be worth it for him to take his immense contribution to Israeli-Arab society in particular and Israeli society in general into consideration. You are someone who doesn't come to Knesset meetings, even to just warm up your seat. You're a man who has scammed the Israeli-Arabs, abandoned them, and have worked unceasingly to strengthen Palestinian terrorists."
Hasson continued, asking "when was the last time Ghattas worked to advance education in the Arab sector? When did he ever care about those who have been injured by violence, the lack of proper infrastructure, or the dearth of public transportation in Arab communities?"
"Basel Ghattas is a festival of disgust and shame, a festival of provocation, evil, and shame, and a loss to his constituents. Even if Ghattas lives for 300 more years, he wouldn't even be able to come close to the amount of good which Peres did for the Israeli-Arab community."
MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) also came out swinging against the comments, according Ghattas of self-promotion and a provocateur: “Ghattas is a small and wretched man and all his contribution to politics has amounted to sowing hatred and strife between people, support for terror and cheap provocation for his own self promotion. He is not worthy at all of even mentioning Peres’s name from his mouth.”
Similarly, Deputy Knesset Chairman MK Meir Cohen also joined the rejection and issued his own attack against the comments: “Basel Ghattas is a despicable person in the public domain. Comments such as these by haters of Israel have blackened our name around the world. He is a person who lives here and enjoys the fruits of the state but is constantly bashing it,” Cohen said. “And if that is not enough, he chooses to curse one of the greatest symbols of peace in the world. I hope that we will find the way to remove people like Ghattas from our parliament.”
He went on to say that he was consoled by the fact that Ghattas does not represent the vast majority of the the Arab public, but the “despicable extremists among them.”
He called upon the head of the Joint List to condemn Ghattas’s inflammatory statements, before recalling a personal encounter with Peres during which the former president implored him to ensure the wellbeing of the Arab community.
“I will tell you, Ghattas, that in my time as minister of welfare, Peres invited me to his office and asked me to utilize massive resources for the benefit of the Arab sector. He urged me to ‘Make sure that not another Arab child will go hungry,’” Cohen concluded.
By Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon
Just a few weeks after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he cares about the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza more than the Palestinian leadership does, he posted a new video message on his Facebook wall, arguing that any future dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
He went on to intimate that insofar as the United States and other western countries support the uprooting of Israeli settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, they were, in effect, supporting the cleansing of Jews.
“Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks,” he rhetorically asked, thus drawing a direct link between the settlers in the colonised Palestinian territories and racially discriminated citizens in the US.
Netanyahu’s description of any potential evacuation of the West Bank colonies reflects the ethics of settler colonialism in which any attempt to dislocate the settlers is now equated with injustice.
Unwilling to acknowledge that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and 1967, and that they continue to live under the constant threat of displacement as a direct result of his own government’s policies, Netanyahu depicts Israeli and thus Jewish settlers’ disengagement from the occupied West Bank, which constitutes a mere 22 percent of Mandatory Palestine, as an egregious violation of the rights of Jewish settlers.
The irony is, of course, that these settlers initially colonized this land after it was captured in the 1967 war at the behest of the state.
Moreover, by invoking the phrase ethnic cleansing of Jews, Netanyahu is clearly mobilizing a concept that is deeply ingrained in Jewish collective memory and comprises a red line not only for the Israeli state but also for the international community.
In fact, he is actually repeating a refrain first invoked by Israel’s former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who in 1969 defined the return to the pre-1967 borders as “something of a memory of Auschwitz”.
Through the metaphor of “the memory of Auschwitz”, Eban suggested that a withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 would correspond to another genocide of the Jewish people, this time in the temporal and spatial setting of Palestine.
Tragically, the invocation of the horrific violations perpetrated during the Holocaust has long served to legitimize ongoing colonization and is presented as a preventive measure against the re-materialization of Auschwitz.
Thus, Netanyahu’s mobilization of settler ethnic cleansing echoes Eban’s “Auschwitz lines”, while introducing the novel notion of settler human rights.
Through his Facebook video he transforms the colonizing settler into the victim of human rights abuses and the subjected Palestinians into the perpetrators who are ostensibly supported – unjustly, according to this distorted logic – by the international community.
This, to be sure, is a very strange form of human rights: It is the human rights of a dominant ethnic group whose dominance has been instituted precisely through the expulsion and subjugation of Palestinians.
Furthermore, decolonization becomes a crime against humanity, and the global discourse of human rights is turned into a tool for advancing domination.
In sharp contrast to the racial discrimination against African-Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color in the US, Israeli settlers are an inordinately privileged group.
Moreover, they are not a minority in the Jewish state, and despite Netanyahu’s attempts to revise history, it is crucial to remember that state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing and ongoing human rights violations are what enabled the Jewish settlers to occupy the lands on which they live in the first place.
Nicola Perugini is lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. And Neve Gordon is a Leverhulme visiting fellow at SOAS, University of London. They contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. (A version of this article was first published at Al Jazeera.)
Just a few weeks after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he cares about the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza more than the Palestinian leadership does, he posted a new video message on his Facebook wall, arguing that any future dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
He went on to intimate that insofar as the United States and other western countries support the uprooting of Israeli settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, they were, in effect, supporting the cleansing of Jews.
“Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks,” he rhetorically asked, thus drawing a direct link between the settlers in the colonised Palestinian territories and racially discriminated citizens in the US.
Netanyahu’s description of any potential evacuation of the West Bank colonies reflects the ethics of settler colonialism in which any attempt to dislocate the settlers is now equated with injustice.
Unwilling to acknowledge that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and 1967, and that they continue to live under the constant threat of displacement as a direct result of his own government’s policies, Netanyahu depicts Israeli and thus Jewish settlers’ disengagement from the occupied West Bank, which constitutes a mere 22 percent of Mandatory Palestine, as an egregious violation of the rights of Jewish settlers.
The irony is, of course, that these settlers initially colonized this land after it was captured in the 1967 war at the behest of the state.
Moreover, by invoking the phrase ethnic cleansing of Jews, Netanyahu is clearly mobilizing a concept that is deeply ingrained in Jewish collective memory and comprises a red line not only for the Israeli state but also for the international community.
In fact, he is actually repeating a refrain first invoked by Israel’s former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who in 1969 defined the return to the pre-1967 borders as “something of a memory of Auschwitz”.
Through the metaphor of “the memory of Auschwitz”, Eban suggested that a withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 would correspond to another genocide of the Jewish people, this time in the temporal and spatial setting of Palestine.
Tragically, the invocation of the horrific violations perpetrated during the Holocaust has long served to legitimize ongoing colonization and is presented as a preventive measure against the re-materialization of Auschwitz.
Thus, Netanyahu’s mobilization of settler ethnic cleansing echoes Eban’s “Auschwitz lines”, while introducing the novel notion of settler human rights.
Through his Facebook video he transforms the colonizing settler into the victim of human rights abuses and the subjected Palestinians into the perpetrators who are ostensibly supported – unjustly, according to this distorted logic – by the international community.
This, to be sure, is a very strange form of human rights: It is the human rights of a dominant ethnic group whose dominance has been instituted precisely through the expulsion and subjugation of Palestinians.
Furthermore, decolonization becomes a crime against humanity, and the global discourse of human rights is turned into a tool for advancing domination.
In sharp contrast to the racial discrimination against African-Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color in the US, Israeli settlers are an inordinately privileged group.
Moreover, they are not a minority in the Jewish state, and despite Netanyahu’s attempts to revise history, it is crucial to remember that state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing and ongoing human rights violations are what enabled the Jewish settlers to occupy the lands on which they live in the first place.
Nicola Perugini is lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. And Neve Gordon is a Leverhulme visiting fellow at SOAS, University of London. They contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. (A version of this article was first published at Al Jazeera.)
13 sept 2016
Former Israeli President Shimon Peres has had a serious stroke and is currently breathing with the aid of a respirator.
Peres was rushed to a hospital in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after experiencing chest pains and an abnormal heartbeat and severe bleeding.
Officials at the hospital have described his condition as serious and added that he has been placed in a medically induced coma in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
In January, Peres was taken to hospital over chest pains a week after being treated for a heart attack.
Shimon Peres has held numerous official positions in the Israeli regime during his seven decades of political life. He has served as the Israeli president (2007-2014) and as the regime’s premier and military chief.
Under Peres, nearly 4,000 Palestinian lives were lost during two wars launched by the Israeli regime between 2007 and 2014.
In the second war, which began on July 8, 2014 and ended on August 26, some 11,100 people – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women, and 410 elderly – were also injured.
Peres was rushed to a hospital in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after experiencing chest pains and an abnormal heartbeat and severe bleeding.
Officials at the hospital have described his condition as serious and added that he has been placed in a medically induced coma in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
In January, Peres was taken to hospital over chest pains a week after being treated for a heart attack.
Shimon Peres has held numerous official positions in the Israeli regime during his seven decades of political life. He has served as the Israeli president (2007-2014) and as the regime’s premier and military chief.
Under Peres, nearly 4,000 Palestinian lives were lost during two wars launched by the Israeli regime between 2007 and 2014.
In the second war, which began on July 8, 2014 and ended on August 26, some 11,100 people – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women, and 410 elderly – were also injured.
11 sept 2016
Palestinian refugees leaving a village near Haifa, June 1948
Turning Israeli settlers into victims is the prime minister's most staggering act of chutzpah yet. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948, when some 700,000 Arabs were forced to leave their lands.
Israel knows a thing or two about ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about propaganda. The video he posted on Friday proves both points. Here’s the real thing — yet another record for Israeli chutzpah: The evacuation of settlers from the West Bank (which has never happened, and presumably never will) is ethnic cleansing.
Yes, the state that brought you the great cleansing of 1948 and that has never, deep in its heart, given up on the dream of cleansing, and that never stopped carrying out methodical microcleansings in the Jordan Valley, in the South Hebron Hills, in the area of Ma’aleh Adumim and in the Negev, too — that state calls the removal of settlers ethnic cleansing. That state compares the invaders of the occupied territories with the children of the land who clung onto their lands and homes.
Netanyahu proved once more that he is the real thing, the most authentic representative of the “Israeliness” that created reality for itself: Turning night into day, shamelessly and without any sense of guilt, without inhibition.
In Israel, many people, perhaps a majority, will buy these goods. The settlers of the Gaza Strip became “expellees,” their removal “deportation.” Not only is an aggressive and violent action — settlement — legitimate, but its agents are victims.
The Jews as victim. Always the Jews, only the Jews. An Israeli prime minister less brazen and arrogant than Netanyahu would not dare to utter the term “ethnic cleansing,” given the plank in his own eye. Few propaganda campaigns would dare go so far. Yet occasionally, reality intrudes.
And the reality is razor-sharp. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948. Some 700,000 human beings, the majority, were forced to leave their homes, their belongings, their villages and the land that had been theirs for centuries. Some were forcibly expelled, put on trucks and removed; some were intentionally frightened into fleeing; still others fled, possibly unnecessarily. They were never allowed to return, save for a few, even if only to recover their belongings.
Being barred from returning was worse than the expulsion. It is what proved that the cleansing was intentional. Not a single Arab community remained between Jaffa and Gaza, and all the other areas are scarred with the remains of villages, the vestiges of life. That is ethnic cleansing — there’s no other term for it. More than 400 villages and towns were wiped off the face of the earth, their ruins covered over by Jewish communities, forests and lies. The truth was concealed from Israeli Jews and the descendants of the deportees were forbidden to commemorate them — neither monument nor gravestone, to paraphrase Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
The number of settlers now exceeds the number of expellees. They invaded a land that was not theirs, with the support of successive Israeli governments and the opposition of the entire world, and they knew that their enterprise was built on ice. They and the Israeli governments not only crudely violated international law, which earns no respect in Israel. They also broke Israeli law, with the support of a subjugated judiciary.
Land theft is even a violation of the law practiced in Israel and the territories. When Israelis, and the world, began to become accustomed to this situation, to accept it as inevitable, along comes the prime minister and takes his chutzpah up one more level: The settlers are actually victims. Not the ones they expelled, not the ones they disinherited of their land. In the reality according to Netanyahu, the settlements that were built for the purpose of precluding arrangements with the Palestinians are not an obstacle, and he equates them with the she’erit haplita — the remnants of the Palestinians that remained in Israel, to borrow a term from the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Language can be twisted to any use, propaganda to any moral perversion. Farewell, reality, you’re not relevant here anymore.
Turning Israeli settlers into victims is the prime minister's most staggering act of chutzpah yet. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948, when some 700,000 Arabs were forced to leave their lands.
Israel knows a thing or two about ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about propaganda. The video he posted on Friday proves both points. Here’s the real thing — yet another record for Israeli chutzpah: The evacuation of settlers from the West Bank (which has never happened, and presumably never will) is ethnic cleansing.
Yes, the state that brought you the great cleansing of 1948 and that has never, deep in its heart, given up on the dream of cleansing, and that never stopped carrying out methodical microcleansings in the Jordan Valley, in the South Hebron Hills, in the area of Ma’aleh Adumim and in the Negev, too — that state calls the removal of settlers ethnic cleansing. That state compares the invaders of the occupied territories with the children of the land who clung onto their lands and homes.
Netanyahu proved once more that he is the real thing, the most authentic representative of the “Israeliness” that created reality for itself: Turning night into day, shamelessly and without any sense of guilt, without inhibition.
In Israel, many people, perhaps a majority, will buy these goods. The settlers of the Gaza Strip became “expellees,” their removal “deportation.” Not only is an aggressive and violent action — settlement — legitimate, but its agents are victims.
The Jews as victim. Always the Jews, only the Jews. An Israeli prime minister less brazen and arrogant than Netanyahu would not dare to utter the term “ethnic cleansing,” given the plank in his own eye. Few propaganda campaigns would dare go so far. Yet occasionally, reality intrudes.
And the reality is razor-sharp. The only mass ethnic cleansing that took place here was in 1948. Some 700,000 human beings, the majority, were forced to leave their homes, their belongings, their villages and the land that had been theirs for centuries. Some were forcibly expelled, put on trucks and removed; some were intentionally frightened into fleeing; still others fled, possibly unnecessarily. They were never allowed to return, save for a few, even if only to recover their belongings.
Being barred from returning was worse than the expulsion. It is what proved that the cleansing was intentional. Not a single Arab community remained between Jaffa and Gaza, and all the other areas are scarred with the remains of villages, the vestiges of life. That is ethnic cleansing — there’s no other term for it. More than 400 villages and towns were wiped off the face of the earth, their ruins covered over by Jewish communities, forests and lies. The truth was concealed from Israeli Jews and the descendants of the deportees were forbidden to commemorate them — neither monument nor gravestone, to paraphrase Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
The number of settlers now exceeds the number of expellees. They invaded a land that was not theirs, with the support of successive Israeli governments and the opposition of the entire world, and they knew that their enterprise was built on ice. They and the Israeli governments not only crudely violated international law, which earns no respect in Israel. They also broke Israeli law, with the support of a subjugated judiciary.
Land theft is even a violation of the law practiced in Israel and the territories. When Israelis, and the world, began to become accustomed to this situation, to accept it as inevitable, along comes the prime minister and takes his chutzpah up one more level: The settlers are actually victims. Not the ones they expelled, not the ones they disinherited of their land. In the reality according to Netanyahu, the settlements that were built for the purpose of precluding arrangements with the Palestinians are not an obstacle, and he equates them with the she’erit haplita — the remnants of the Palestinians that remained in Israel, to borrow a term from the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Language can be twisted to any use, propaganda to any moral perversion. Farewell, reality, you’re not relevant here anymore.
9 sept 2016
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Today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted another of his English language videos about the conflict. This one said that those who want to create a Palestinian state are seeking “ethnic cleansing” of Jews from the occupied territories, and some enlightened countries are supporting this program.
Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a state with one precondition: No Jews. There’s a phrase for that, it’s called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous… Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage. Ask yourself this, would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state, a territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks? Since when is bigotry a peace?… I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. |
And the State Department was quick to slam the prime minister today, and it included descriptions of the actual ethnic cleansing, that of Palestinians. Shades of a new assertiveness by the Obama administration in its waning days?
MS [Elisabeth] TRUDEAU: So we have seen the Israeli prime minister’s video. We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.
Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties. We share the view of every past U.S. administration and the strong consensus of the international community that ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution.
We have repeatedly expressed our strong concerns that trends on the ground continue to move in the opposite direction. Let’s be clear: The undisputed fact is that already this year, thousands of settlement units have been advanced for Israelis in the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units have been retroactively legalized, more West Bank land has been seized for exclusive Israeli use, and there has been a dramatic escalation of demolitions resulting in over 700 Palestinian structures destroyed, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
As we’ve said many times before, this does raise real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.
QUESTION: So you’re not a big fan of the video, I take it?
MS TRUDEAU: Correct.
QUESTION: So have you made your – not you personally, but has the Administration made its feelings clear to – other than your comments just now to the Israelis?
MS TRUDEAU: Yes. We are engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli Government on this.
QUESTION: And I mean, is there anything that you can do? I mean, he said this; he apparently believes it and it’s a pretty strong sentiment. You – even though disagree with it, I mean, what have you asked him to do? I mean, have you asked him to walk it back at all or --
MS TRUDEAU: I’m not going to get into our diplomatic discussions. What I would say is: unhelpful, it’s inappropriate. We’ll have our conversation with our Israeli allies and friends and we’ll see where that goes….
Notice the reference to Israeli house demolitions and displacement of 1000 Palestinians. That’s a start.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Scott Roth, who tweeted: “@IsraeliPM are you a serious person? All evidence suggests you’re not.”
MS [Elisabeth] TRUDEAU: So we have seen the Israeli prime minister’s video. We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful.
Settlements are a final status issue that must be resolved in negotiations between the parties. We share the view of every past U.S. administration and the strong consensus of the international community that ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution.
We have repeatedly expressed our strong concerns that trends on the ground continue to move in the opposite direction. Let’s be clear: The undisputed fact is that already this year, thousands of settlement units have been advanced for Israelis in the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units have been retroactively legalized, more West Bank land has been seized for exclusive Israeli use, and there has been a dramatic escalation of demolitions resulting in over 700 Palestinian structures destroyed, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
As we’ve said many times before, this does raise real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.
QUESTION: So you’re not a big fan of the video, I take it?
MS TRUDEAU: Correct.
QUESTION: So have you made your – not you personally, but has the Administration made its feelings clear to – other than your comments just now to the Israelis?
MS TRUDEAU: Yes. We are engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli Government on this.
QUESTION: And I mean, is there anything that you can do? I mean, he said this; he apparently believes it and it’s a pretty strong sentiment. You – even though disagree with it, I mean, what have you asked him to do? I mean, have you asked him to walk it back at all or --
MS TRUDEAU: I’m not going to get into our diplomatic discussions. What I would say is: unhelpful, it’s inappropriate. We’ll have our conversation with our Israeli allies and friends and we’ll see where that goes….
Notice the reference to Israeli house demolitions and displacement of 1000 Palestinians. That’s a start.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Scott Roth, who tweeted: “@IsraeliPM are you a serious person? All evidence suggests you’re not.”
8 sept 2016
A group of Haredim burst into the house of Kiryat Gat's chief rabbi and three were arrested. They opposed his support for an IDF–Chabad arrangement to permit some yeshiva students to leave the country if they enlist if unmarried at 26.
Three ultra-Orthodox Jews belonging to the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect were arrested on Wednesday night after breaking into the home of Moshe Havlin, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Kiryat Gat. Their break-in was apparently motivated by Havlin's support of the IDF draft arrangement for Chabad Lubavitch Hassidim, of which Havlin is a member.
The arrested men tore photographs from the walls of the chief rabbi's house and blew on a shofar. They detention was extended to four days.
Havlin also works as the director of the Chabad yeshiva in Kiryat Gat. Late Wednesday night, some ten Haredi protestors entered the rabbi's home. The police ascertained that they were creating a public disturbance and violating Havlin's privacy and arrested three, who were taken for questioning. They refused to identify themselves.
Havlin recounted to Ynet, "About 25 young men came and knocked on the door. I thought that is somebody who needed something from me because lots of people are used to coming to me at home.
"I opened the door, and they burst in, pushing me and coming into my house. My wife fainted. They started yelling and blowing on a shofar, tearing pictures and placards from the walls, yelling insults and attacking me. It was extremely frightening, but I wasn't deterred. My views are clear. I support the arrangement for drafting yeshiva students to the IDF. I am a Zionist, and I love Israel."
Chabad students generally complete their seventh year of studies (at around the age of 20–21) at Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn. Because the IDF forbids non-enlisting yeshiva students from exiting the country, Chabad rabbis asked for a special dispensation for their students, explaining that the trip to the US is part of their curriculum.
Thus, the arrangement to which Havlin referred was signed between the parties, setting that the students could leave the country on the condition that they agreed to enlist at the age of 26. However, as the great majority of the Chabad students are expected to be married by that age, they will receive a waiver for their military service.
This agreement has attracted criticism from rabbis and yeshiva heads of Hassidism inside the Haredi population, especially from the more extremist elements. According to them, while the arrangement is purely declarative, it is the thin edge of the wedge that will bring IDF enlistment for additional yeshiva students outside of Chabad.
Three ultra-Orthodox Jews belonging to the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect were arrested on Wednesday night after breaking into the home of Moshe Havlin, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Kiryat Gat. Their break-in was apparently motivated by Havlin's support of the IDF draft arrangement for Chabad Lubavitch Hassidim, of which Havlin is a member.
The arrested men tore photographs from the walls of the chief rabbi's house and blew on a shofar. They detention was extended to four days.
Havlin also works as the director of the Chabad yeshiva in Kiryat Gat. Late Wednesday night, some ten Haredi protestors entered the rabbi's home. The police ascertained that they were creating a public disturbance and violating Havlin's privacy and arrested three, who were taken for questioning. They refused to identify themselves.
Havlin recounted to Ynet, "About 25 young men came and knocked on the door. I thought that is somebody who needed something from me because lots of people are used to coming to me at home.
"I opened the door, and they burst in, pushing me and coming into my house. My wife fainted. They started yelling and blowing on a shofar, tearing pictures and placards from the walls, yelling insults and attacking me. It was extremely frightening, but I wasn't deterred. My views are clear. I support the arrangement for drafting yeshiva students to the IDF. I am a Zionist, and I love Israel."
Chabad students generally complete their seventh year of studies (at around the age of 20–21) at Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn. Because the IDF forbids non-enlisting yeshiva students from exiting the country, Chabad rabbis asked for a special dispensation for their students, explaining that the trip to the US is part of their curriculum.
Thus, the arrangement to which Havlin referred was signed between the parties, setting that the students could leave the country on the condition that they agreed to enlist at the age of 26. However, as the great majority of the Chabad students are expected to be married by that age, they will receive a waiver for their military service.
This agreement has attracted criticism from rabbis and yeshiva heads of Hassidism inside the Haredi population, especially from the more extremist elements. According to them, while the arrangement is purely declarative, it is the thin edge of the wedge that will bring IDF enlistment for additional yeshiva students outside of Chabad.
1 sept 2016
In a meeting on Thursday night, the Israel Police commissioner apologized for his earlier comments, stating that he did not mean to offend and that over-policing would be addressed.
Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh apologized on Thursday night to Israelis of Ethiopian descent for his controversial comments of Tuesday, despite his insistence earlier in the day that he would not do so.
In a meeting with the joint steering committee for the police and the leadership of the Ethiopian community in Israel, Alsheikh promised that encompassing work would be done in all police districts to evaluate if existing cases were due to over-policing and to continue to promote the closing of as many cases as possible.
The steering committee raised hard questions regarding the amount of cases opened for minors of Ethiopian descent. At their request, the police presented data showing a decrease of about 20% in the opening of cases this year when compared to the parallel period of last year.
The commissioner apologized to anyone who felt insulted from the publications of his statements and added, "There was no intention, Heaven forbid, to offend, but rather to raise the problem to promote agreed-upon solutions."
During the meeting, a dialogue took place relating to continued cooperation between the police and the Ethiopian community with a goal of restraining over-policing and reducing crime amongst youth.
In addition, to avoid incidents of friction between police and the Ethiopian community, "intensive work of the police to attain the appropriate tools for police to work with all strata of Israeli society will continue."
A message from the police stated that "The steering committee noted positively that police activity is a leading example that has no parallel in any other ministry in its scope and effectiveness in reducing the gaps regarding the Ethiopian community in Israel."
During an Israel Bar Association conference on Tuesday, Alsheikh had told listeners that it was “natural” for police to suspect someone of Ethiopian descent more than somebody from a different ethnic background.
Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh apologized on Thursday night to Israelis of Ethiopian descent for his controversial comments of Tuesday, despite his insistence earlier in the day that he would not do so.
In a meeting with the joint steering committee for the police and the leadership of the Ethiopian community in Israel, Alsheikh promised that encompassing work would be done in all police districts to evaluate if existing cases were due to over-policing and to continue to promote the closing of as many cases as possible.
The steering committee raised hard questions regarding the amount of cases opened for minors of Ethiopian descent. At their request, the police presented data showing a decrease of about 20% in the opening of cases this year when compared to the parallel period of last year.
The commissioner apologized to anyone who felt insulted from the publications of his statements and added, "There was no intention, Heaven forbid, to offend, but rather to raise the problem to promote agreed-upon solutions."
During the meeting, a dialogue took place relating to continued cooperation between the police and the Ethiopian community with a goal of restraining over-policing and reducing crime amongst youth.
In addition, to avoid incidents of friction between police and the Ethiopian community, "intensive work of the police to attain the appropriate tools for police to work with all strata of Israeli society will continue."
A message from the police stated that "The steering committee noted positively that police activity is a leading example that has no parallel in any other ministry in its scope and effectiveness in reducing the gaps regarding the Ethiopian community in Israel."
During an Israel Bar Association conference on Tuesday, Alsheikh had told listeners that it was “natural” for police to suspect someone of Ethiopian descent more than somebody from a different ethnic background.
Commenting on Roni Alsheikh's controversial statements regarding the Ethiopian community, Reuven Rivlin has tried to interpret the commissioner's intentions: 'We apparently didn't integrate this ethnic group properly.'
President Reuven Rivlin expressed his support on Thursday for Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh following the latter's controversial statements of Tuesday.
During an Israel Bar Association conference, Alsheikh told listeners that it was “natural” for police to suspect someone of Ethiopian descent more than somebody from a different ethnic background.
Speaking from a school in Kiryat Motzkin that he was visiting, Rivlin commented, "What the commissioner said is the same thing that I said on Jerusalem Day, at the Jerusalem festival of immigrants from Ethiopian Jewry: We apparently didn't integrate this ethnic group properly."
Rivlin said that he met Alsheikh once and understood from him that he attached great importance to integrating Ethiopian Jews. "He meant well," said the president. "He really tried to address the trend that's caused as a result of some reason or another that objectively he tried to analyze and he said, 'We're obligated today to understand that this thing must be…extracted from the root.'"
President Reuven Rivlin expressed his support on Thursday for Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh following the latter's controversial statements of Tuesday.
During an Israel Bar Association conference, Alsheikh told listeners that it was “natural” for police to suspect someone of Ethiopian descent more than somebody from a different ethnic background.
Speaking from a school in Kiryat Motzkin that he was visiting, Rivlin commented, "What the commissioner said is the same thing that I said on Jerusalem Day, at the Jerusalem festival of immigrants from Ethiopian Jewry: We apparently didn't integrate this ethnic group properly."
Rivlin said that he met Alsheikh once and understood from him that he attached great importance to integrating Ethiopian Jews. "He meant well," said the president. "He really tried to address the trend that's caused as a result of some reason or another that objectively he tried to analyze and he said, 'We're obligated today to understand that this thing must be…extracted from the root.'"