Sunday, July 12, 2015
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Tunisia to Build Border Wall & Trenches !!
The Tunisian government has announced that it will begin building a wall and a trench along its border with Libya as part of an effort to stop militants from crossing over from the war-torn country.
The wall will be 168 kilometers (105 miles) long and will be finished by the end of 2015
And why not? Of course it should be allowed to protect its citizens.
Is the UN taking note? Is it only in Israel it is "illegal" ?
Monday, July 6, 2015
When Palestinians Die in Palestinian Jails
by Khaled Abu
Toameh July 6, 2015
- Like the mainstream
media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians
torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
- The Palestinian
Authority and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.
- When three detainees die
in less than a week, this should sound an alarm. But pro-Palestinian
groups and human rights activists do not care about the human rights of
Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their obsession with
Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living under the
Palestinian Authority.
Three
Palestinian men were found dead in their jail cells in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip this past week.
But
their stories did not attract the attention of the international media or human
rights organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Nor was their case brought to the
attention of the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC).
By
contrast, the case of 17-year-old Mohamed Kasba, who was shot dead north of
Jerusalem by an Israeli army officer as he attacked the officer's car with
stones, received widespread coverage in
the Western media.
The
UN even rushed to condemn the
killing of Kasba, and called for an "immediate end" to violence and
for everyone to keep calm. "This reaffirms the need for a political
process aiming to establish two states living beside each other safely and
peacefully," said UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace
Process, Nickolay Maldenov.
The
UN official, needless to say, made no reference to the deaths that occurred in
the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas jails. He did not even see a need to
express concern over the deaths or call for an investigation. Like the
mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when
Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
The
reason the case of the three detainees will not interest anyone in the
international community is because the men did not die in an Israeli jail.
Instead, the three men died while being held in Palestinian-controlled jails.
Had
the three men died in Israeli detention, their names would have most likely
appeared on the front pages of most leading Western newspapers. The families of
the three men would have also been busy talking to Western journalists about
Israeli "atrocities" and "human rights violations."
But
no respected Western journalist is going to visit any of the families of the
three detainees: they did not die in an Israeli jail.
The
same week that the three Palestinian men were found dead in jail, the UN Human
Rights Council decided to adopt a resolution
condemning Israel over the UN report into last year's Operation
Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. Again, the UN Human Rights Council chose to
ignore human rights violations by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who deny
detainees basic rights and proper medical treatment.
Two
of them died in PA security installations in Bethlehem, while the third was
found dead in a Hamas-controlled jail in the Gaza Strip.The Palestinian Authority
and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.
The
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based non-profit group
dedicated to protecting human rights, promoting the rule of law and upholding
democratic principles in the Palestinian territories, called for an
investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of
the detainees.
"PCHR
stresses that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the lives of
prisoners and detainees under its control and is thus responsible for treating
them with dignity, including offering them medical care," the group said
in a statement.
When
three detainees die in less than a week in Palestinian detention, this should
sound an alarm bell, especially among so-called pro-Palestinian groups and
human rights activists in different parts of the world.
But
these folks, like the UN and mainstream media, do not care about the human
rights of the Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their
obsession with Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living
under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, as well as to the horrific crimes
committed every day by Muslim terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The
story of the three men who died in Palestinian jails is yet another example of
the double standards that the international community and media employ when it
comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Egypt Destroys 1.5 km Smuggling Tunnel Near Rafah
Egyptian forces on Saturday
discovered and destroyed a 1.5 kilometer smuggling tunnel beneath
the Gazan border, the Egyptian army said. Egyptian security sources told Ma'an
that the tunnel was found by Egyptian border guards in the Dayniya area south
of Rafah. They said that eight sacks of explosive TNT material and a half-ton of C-4 -- another explosive
material -- had been found inside the tunnel. Both the
tunnel and the explosive material were destroyed by the army... [The Ma'an
editors seem to have no problem headlining the story as being about a smuggling
tunnel, and casually including a reference to colossal quantities of
explosives. ]
The following comment is cross posted from bloggist "This Ongoing War" http://tinyurl.com/nzgpoym
Bottom line: there's no problem
securing enough cement in today's Gaza to construct a 1.5 kilometer long,
underground cement tube, if you're Hamas. And if ordinary Gazans can't get
their hands on cement, it's because that's the way Hamas wants it to be.
And why, looking at the world through Islamist terrorists' eyes, would you want it to be any different?: keep the stuff to yourself to build your own aggressive capabilities, and keep the reporters and photographers busy chronicling the suffering of cement-challenged ordinary folk. Win/win, it's called.
A Bloomberg report last summer ["Gaza's Next Disaster: No Cement for Rebuilding", July 31, 2014] quoted estimates that every one of the scores of Hamas tunnels on Gaza's periphery "required 350 truckloads of building supplies". A previously uncovered Hamas tunnel on the scale of the one just destroyed was estimated by IDF sources quoted in a Washington Post article ["How Hamas uses its tunnels to kill and capture Israeli soldiers"] a year ago to have taken about two years of work, $10 million of capital, and some 800 tons of concrete. In a different world, that could have produced a substantial number of new homes, medical clinics and upward-facing lives.
By the way, did Friday's report of the massive concrete-lined Hamas tunnel found and destroyed along with the explosive materials stored inside it, make it to the news reports in your community?
And why, looking at the world through Islamist terrorists' eyes, would you want it to be any different?: keep the stuff to yourself to build your own aggressive capabilities, and keep the reporters and photographers busy chronicling the suffering of cement-challenged ordinary folk. Win/win, it's called.
A Bloomberg report last summer ["Gaza's Next Disaster: No Cement for Rebuilding", July 31, 2014] quoted estimates that every one of the scores of Hamas tunnels on Gaza's periphery "required 350 truckloads of building supplies". A previously uncovered Hamas tunnel on the scale of the one just destroyed was estimated by IDF sources quoted in a Washington Post article ["How Hamas uses its tunnels to kill and capture Israeli soldiers"] a year ago to have taken about two years of work, $10 million of capital, and some 800 tons of concrete. In a different world, that could have produced a substantial number of new homes, medical clinics and upward-facing lives.
By the way, did Friday's report of the massive concrete-lined Hamas tunnel found and destroyed along with the explosive materials stored inside it, make it to the news reports in your community?
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Faiths pull together in Haifa for world’s biggest magic trick
Israeli magician Cagliostro broke the record for the largest magic
session at the Haifa International Convention Center on Monday morning. The
session, teaching the new "Haifa Magic for Peace" trick, brought
together 1,573 Jewish, Christian, and Muslim students from 25 schools across
the city.
"The world does not know that we here in Haifa have been
living in peace for over a hundred years, I really want the whole world to know
and learn this magic of peace that we live daily in the city."
Every participant received a pack of cards, each card with a word relating to coexistence written on it, such as friendship, respect, and dialogue. After a lesson and practice runs in front of witnesses, a notary, and qualified surveyors, all 1,573 children and Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav performed the trick in unison, with the one card each participant chose flying out of their pack and into the air.
"We have to enter the Guinness Book of Records with the Haifa Magic for Peace," said Yahav to the participating children. "The world does not know that we here in Haifa have been living in peace for over a hundred years, I really want the whole world to know and learn this magic of peace that we live daily in the city."
The event was hosted in partnership with Beit HaGefen, a Haifa based Jewish-Arab Culture Center, the Haifa Municipality Department of Education – Department of Social Value Education, and volunteers from Maarag, a Tel Aviv based organization promoting multicultural society in Israel.
What is the "Farhud"? Jews Expelled from Iraq
Below is a very relevant question posed by a researcher at the
Middle East department of Bar-Ilan University. This is one of many such stories
that are very rarely brought into the open.
The outbreak of mob violence against Baghdad
Jewry known as the Farhud, or “violent dispossession,” broke out on June 1,
1941. During the two days of violence, rioters killed 180 Jews, wounded 600
others and raped an undetermined number of women. They also looted some 1,500
stores and homes.
The Farhud was the beginning of what became a broad Nazi-Arab alliance in the Holocaust. The Farhud was both Nazi-inspired and encouraged by a prominent Arab leader, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who escaped from the British in Palestine and arrived in Iraq in October 1939.
While everyone is familiar with the Palestinian Nakba, few in Israel are aware of the tragic history of the Farhud or the fate of the Jews from Arab countries who were chased from their homes, leaving all their property and possessions behind. This, even though these Jews and their descendants constitute over 55 percent of Jewish Israeli citizens today.
Approximately 900,000 Jews left their homes in Arab countries between the years 1948-1970. Some of them came to Israel while others immigrated to other countries. Many were forced to leave behind property of great value – property that was sometimes seized by the governments of the countries they fled.
Unfortunately nothing is taught by the Education Ministry about the pogroms suffered by the Jews in Arab countries, or of their rich and unique culture. Pupils are not exposed to the Farhud riots. They are not taught about the riots in Egypt and Libya in which hundreds of marauding Muslims desecrated, burned and destroyed synagogues in November 1945. Hundreds of Jews were killed just because they were Jews.
The tragedy of these Jews has been downplayed and almost unheard of for many years. No one talks about the suffering of these refugees who were ousted from these Arab countries.
No one speaks of the tremendous amount of Jewish property and wealth that was left behind. No one mentions the hundreds of synagogues or holy places, the numerous cemeteries or the communal property that was confiscated by the Arab governments, mainly by the Iraqi and Egyptian governments.
There is a need to create a national committee to investigate the following subjects: the value of the property the Jews left behind; a documented list of personal and communal property of Jews in each country; the integration of the rich culture and legends of these Jews in the programs of the Education Ministry; the creation of a Jewish Cultural Center for Jews from the Arab countries; preservation of synagogues that remain in Arab hands; keeping watch over the holy places and shrines of the righteous and rabbis in these countries; and the restoration and prevention of the destruction of cemeteries in these countries.
The question remains: why has Israel not demanded compensation for the Jewish properties left behind or stolen in Arab countries? Israel did little to break the silence about the dire circumstances of the Jewish exodus from Arab countries. Last year State Comptroller Joseph Shapira issued a scathing report on the state’s failure to take action toward the restoration of property that was lost when hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Iran and the Arab states came to Israel in the years after Independence in 1948.
In his report Shapira wrote: “Israel is dealing with the issue lackadaisically, not paying it sufficient attention. It has not set any policy or budget, nor has it allocated resources toward researching and documenting the assets or collecting information about the rights of the Jews who came from those countries.” Shapira described the situation as “bleak,” a “fiasco” that could be “a perpetual tragedy.”
The Knesset and the Israeli government need to create a National Restoration Committee for Jews from Arab countries whose property was stolen.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett should introduce more elements of Mizrahi Jewish culture into the education system. Our children must learn the culture of their grandfathers.
The Farhud was the beginning of what became a broad Nazi-Arab alliance in the Holocaust. The Farhud was both Nazi-inspired and encouraged by a prominent Arab leader, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who escaped from the British in Palestine and arrived in Iraq in October 1939.
While everyone is familiar with the Palestinian Nakba, few in Israel are aware of the tragic history of the Farhud or the fate of the Jews from Arab countries who were chased from their homes, leaving all their property and possessions behind. This, even though these Jews and their descendants constitute over 55 percent of Jewish Israeli citizens today.
Approximately 900,000 Jews left their homes in Arab countries between the years 1948-1970. Some of them came to Israel while others immigrated to other countries. Many were forced to leave behind property of great value – property that was sometimes seized by the governments of the countries they fled.
Unfortunately nothing is taught by the Education Ministry about the pogroms suffered by the Jews in Arab countries, or of their rich and unique culture. Pupils are not exposed to the Farhud riots. They are not taught about the riots in Egypt and Libya in which hundreds of marauding Muslims desecrated, burned and destroyed synagogues in November 1945. Hundreds of Jews were killed just because they were Jews.
The tragedy of these Jews has been downplayed and almost unheard of for many years. No one talks about the suffering of these refugees who were ousted from these Arab countries.
No one speaks of the tremendous amount of Jewish property and wealth that was left behind. No one mentions the hundreds of synagogues or holy places, the numerous cemeteries or the communal property that was confiscated by the Arab governments, mainly by the Iraqi and Egyptian governments.
There is a need to create a national committee to investigate the following subjects: the value of the property the Jews left behind; a documented list of personal and communal property of Jews in each country; the integration of the rich culture and legends of these Jews in the programs of the Education Ministry; the creation of a Jewish Cultural Center for Jews from the Arab countries; preservation of synagogues that remain in Arab hands; keeping watch over the holy places and shrines of the righteous and rabbis in these countries; and the restoration and prevention of the destruction of cemeteries in these countries.
The question remains: why has Israel not demanded compensation for the Jewish properties left behind or stolen in Arab countries? Israel did little to break the silence about the dire circumstances of the Jewish exodus from Arab countries. Last year State Comptroller Joseph Shapira issued a scathing report on the state’s failure to take action toward the restoration of property that was lost when hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Iran and the Arab states came to Israel in the years after Independence in 1948.
In his report Shapira wrote: “Israel is dealing with the issue lackadaisically, not paying it sufficient attention. It has not set any policy or budget, nor has it allocated resources toward researching and documenting the assets or collecting information about the rights of the Jews who came from those countries.” Shapira described the situation as “bleak,” a “fiasco” that could be “a perpetual tragedy.”
The Knesset and the Israeli government need to create a National Restoration Committee for Jews from Arab countries whose property was stolen.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett should introduce more elements of Mizrahi Jewish culture into the education system. Our children must learn the culture of their grandfathers.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Helping the Ethiopian Community
An amazing video from a local association ESRA (English Speaking Residents) that highlights what the English Speaking Residents Association is doing to help the 30,000 plus Ethiopian community in the city of Netanya.
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