1948 Palestinians demonstrate against land confiscation in Negev

[P F Tinmore]

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

The demonstration was called for by the Supreme Follow up Committee of Arabs in the Green Line which is also preparing for a general strike next Sunday and a massive demonstration outside the office of the Israeli prime minister in occupied Jerusalem to protest the plan by which 800,000 dunums (1 dunum= 1000 square meters) of Palestinian land in the Negev will be confiscated by the occupation.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/...391yAqrrnY76H1fvACxjgINWusGGqc/EndLrDF1Aa6OU=

 

[JStone]

Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World TodayGlobal Politician - Israel’s Arab Citizens And The Jewish State

Blinded by their anti-Semitism, Arabs ignore the fact that neither are they an indigenous group nor is the Jewish nationhood a new phenomenon in Palestine; the Jewish nation was born during 40 years of wandering in the Sinai more than five thousand years ago and has remained connected with Palestine ever since. “Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, never had a separate identity. They always thought of themselves as Arabs rather than as Palestinians. It is a matter of record that the Arabs owe their presence in Palestine to the Ottomans who settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks and Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler who brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. And during all those times when Arabs lived under the Ottoman rule, they never showed any desire for national independence. According to Bernard Lewis, “From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.” Lewis notes, "There had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries." In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

A resolution adopted by the first Congress of the Muslim Christian Association which met in Jerusalem in February 1919 underlines the Arab understanding of the situation conclusively. It said, "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."

Jerusalem has always remained a Jewish majority – a symbol of Jewish yearning to be an independent nation as they thrived in communities in many of Palestine’s towns. “By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem - more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire and the League of Nations Mandate. During the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. President Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

The present Arab declaration challenging the Jewish character of Israel cannot be ignored because it is not just an expression of dissatisfaction by a minority about their socio-economic situation but a reminder that Islamist radicalism and fundamentalism has now decided to challenge openly the legitimacy of the Jewish state using Arab citizens of Israel as its proxy in Israel. It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[P F Tinmore]

It took you only two minutes to post something irrelevant.

You are good.

 

[JStone]

Salim Mansur: Don't Blame Israel for Arab Failures. "Palestinians are an integral part of this dysfunctional Arab world"
Don't blame Israel for Arab failures | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun

Israel is merely a dot relative to the Arab world, and yet made responsible, in the logic of the anti-Zionist bigots, for the problems of the Middle East and the inability of the Arab-Muslim culture to deal with the challenges of the modern world.

Consider the following: The Arab world, excluding Iran and Turkey, is comprised of 22 countries stretching from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean with a total area around 13 million sq. km and a population of nearly 350 million. In terms of territorial size, only Russia is larger than the Arab world at 17 million sq. km.

Israel is barely 22,000 sq. km, or about three times the size of New York City, with a population of 7.5 million of which 20% are Israeli Arabs.

An objective consideration of the huge disparity in size and population between the Arab world and Israel should dispel the drivel the world has been fed that Arabs are the "underdog" in a colonial struggle against Jews as a colonizing people.

The reverse disparity between Israelis and Arabs is the tremendous human achievement of the former as free people, and the contrast when measured against the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.

But here, too, Arabs, Muslims and their apologists in the West will fault Israelis for the collective failure of the Arab world.

It is as if the plight of Palestinian "occupation" by Israelis explains the Sudanese civil wars and genocide in Darfur, or the savage killings inside Algeria, or the long list of atrocities, gender oppression, humiliation of religious minorities, wars, military dictatorships, and with no end in sight of violence and murder in the name of Islam across the Arab world.

It is sheer absurdity to hold Israelis responsible for the utterly dysfunctional nature of the Arab world.

Palestinians are an integral part of this dysfunctional world, and their politics reflect, in a heightened sense, the problems the rest of the world seeks to avoid discussing for fear of being denounced as politically incorrect.

Israel is a very small country packed with immensely talented people.

Their story is a gift to the Arab-Muslim world as it is to be found in the Qur'an if only Arabs and Muslims understood either.

 

[JStone]

Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, and author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World Today

A Muslim In A Jewish Land

I do not believe that anyone but a committed anti-Semite will deny that Israel is not a democracy. Democracy in Israel is proportional and representative...The object of a free and democratic Israeli society is to reach satisfactory compromise but often the conclusions are less than satisfactory - especially for the majority. It involves coalitions and unity which are also checks and balances on any potential abuse of minority rights. It is a better system than the American Representative Republican system - which is really a representation of power and special interests. In the U.S. you get a democracy for the few. In Israel you have a democracy for everyone.

Here, protected by Israel's democratic principles, the Muslim Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship. When the first elections to the Knesset were held in February 1949, Israeli Arabs were given the right to vote and to be elected along with Israeli Jews. Today, Israel's Arab citizens are accorded full civil and political rights entitled to complete participation in Israeli society. They are active in Israeli social, political and civic life and enjoy representation in Israel's Parliament, Foreign Service and judicial system.

As our air-conditioned bus negotiated the mountainous curves of the road to the heart of Galilee, I could not miss the rising minarets identifying a number of Palestinian Arab towns dotting the hillsides. The imposing domes of mosques underlined the freedoms that are enjoyed by the Muslims in the Jewish State. Large Arab residences, wide spread construction activity and big cars underlined the prosperity and affluence of Palestinians living under the Star of David

On my way from the city of David to the Royal Prima hotel in Jerusalem, I asked my Palestinian taxi driver how he feels about moving to the territories under Palestinian Authority. He said that he could never think of living outside Israel. His answer blasted the myth spread by anti-Semites that Israel's Arab citizens are not happy there.

Another Israeli Arab informed me that Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights. In fact, Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men. Muslim women have the right to vote and to be elected to public office. Muslim women, in fact are more liberated in Israel than in any Muslim country. Israeli law prohibits polygamy, child marriage, and the barbarity of female sexual mutilation.

Moreover, I found out that there are no incidences of honor killings in Israel. The status of Muslim women in Israel is far above that of any country in the region. Israeli health standards are by far the highest in the Middle East and Israeli health institutions are freely open to all Arabs, on the same basis as they are to Jews.

Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel and underlines the tolerant nature of the Jewish State. All the street signs call out their names in Arabic alongside Hebrew. It is official policy of the Israeli government to foster the language, culture, and traditions of the Arab minority, in the educational system and in daily life. Israel's Arabic press is the most vibrant and independent of any country in the region. There are more than 20 Arabic periodicals. They publish what they please, subject only to the same military censorship as Jewish publications. There are daily TV and radio programs in Arabic.

Arabic is taught in Jewish secondary schools. More than 350,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. At the time of Israel's founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today, there are hundreds of Arab schools. Israeli universities are renowned centers of learning in the history and literature of the Arab Middle East.

Aware of the constraints that a non-Wahhabi is faced with while performing religious rituals in Saudi Arabia, Kiran (my wife) could not hide her surprise at the freedoms and ease with which peoples of all religions and faiths were carrying out their religious obligations at the Church of the holy Sepulcher, Garden Tomb, Sea of Galilee, newly discovered Western Wall Tunnels, Western Wall, tomb of King David and all the other holy places we visited.

All religious communities in Israel enjoy the full protection of the State. Israeli Arabs—Muslims, as well as many Christian denominations—are free to exercise their faiths, to observe their own weekly day of rest and holidays and to administer their own internal affairs. Some 80,000 Druze live in 22 villages in northern Israel. Their religion is not accessible to outsiders and Druze constitute a separate cultural, social and religious Arabic-speaking community. The Druze concept of taqiyya calls for complete loyalty by its adherents to the government of the country in which they reside. As such, among other things, the Druze serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Each religious community in Israel has its own religious councils and courts, and has full jurisdiction over religious affairs, including matters of personal status, such as marriage and divorce. The holy sites of all religions are administered by their own authorities and protected by the government.
A Hindu journalist who came to visit me talked about the openness that Jewish society represents. He told me that more than 20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish of which approximately 1.2 million are Muslims, 140,000 are Christians and 100, 000 are Druze. Another non-Jewish Israeli told me that Christians and Druze are free to join even the defense forces of the Jewish State. Bedouins have served in paratroops units and other Arabs have volunteered for military duty.

The big houses owned by Arab Israelis and the amount of construction that was going on in the Arab towns exposed the falsity of propaganda that Israel discriminates against Israeli Arabs from buying lands. I found out that in the early part of the century, the Jewish National Fund was established by the World Zionist Congress to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. Of the total area of Israel, 92 percent belongs to the State and is managed by the Land Management Authority. It is not for sale to anyone, Jew or Arab.

The Arab Waqf owns land that is for the express use and benefit of Muslim Arabs. Government land can be leased by anyone, regardless of race, religion or sex. All Arab citizens of Israel are eligible to lease government land.

I asked three Israeli Arabs if they face discrimination in employment. They all said the same thing; normally there is no discrimination but whenever homicide bombers explode and murder Israelis, some Israelis feel uncomfortable dealing with them. But that uncomfortable feeling is also very temporary and does not stay for long.

My first visit to Israel has not only consolidated my belief that Israel is vital for the stability of the region but has also convinced me that the existence of Israel will one day convince the Muslims of the necessity of reformation in their theology as well as sociology.

Looking at the development and transformation that the land has gone through because of the Jewish innovative spirit, hard labor and commitment to freedoms for all times to come, I am convinced that it is true that God created this earth but it is also a fact that only an Israel can keep this earth from dying.

Muslim World Today: Front Page 1222005

 

[P F Tinmore]

Today, Israel's Arab citizens are accorded full civil and political rights entitled to complete participation in Israeli society.

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

The demonstration was called for by the Supreme Follow up Committee of Arabs in the Green Line which is also preparing for a general strike next Sunday and a massive demonstration outside the office of the Israeli prime minister in occupied Jerusalem to protest the plan by which 800,000 dunums (1 dunum= 1000 square meters) of Palestinian land in the Negev will be confiscated by the occupation.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/...391yAqrrnY76H1fvACxjgINWusGGqc/EndLrDF1Aa6OU=

 

[JStone]

Today, Israel's Arab citizens are accorded full civil and political rights entitled to complete participation in Israeli society.

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/4494786-post5.html

 

[JStone]

palestine-info

Palestine? Roman occupiers of Israel renamed Israel "Palestina". They went back to Italy 1500 years ago. Are "Palestinians" Italian?

King Salem was king of "Palestine" right?

Historian Sir Martin Gilbert, Author of Three Books on History of Jerusalem...

On August 18 Yasir Arafat, speaking as head of the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza and Jericho, told Arab youngsters at a summer camp, "Those of you who lit the intifada fire must now act as defenders of this young state, whose capital is Jerusalem. It is Bir Salem [the fountain of Salem]. Salem was one of the Canaanite Kings, one of our forefathers. This city is the capital of our children and our children's children. If not for this belief and conviction of the Palestinian nation, this people would have been erased from the face of the earth, as were so many other nations."

King Salem is a newcomer on the historical scene. No such Canaanite, Jebusite or Philistine king is known to history

 

[JStone]

Is it racist to criticize the Palestinians as the world's most tiresome crybabies with a bogus cause and a plight that's entirely self-inflicted? The Palestinian cause is a lie. They could have had peace ten times over if they wanted it, but, they don't want peace, they want victory and they won't be happy until Israel is wiped from the map....driven by crude, irrational, religious hatred.

This is not about territory and it's certainly isn't about justice or human rights because Arab societies don't know the meaning of those words.It's about Jew-hatred as mandated by the Koran and as preached in the mosques and taught to the children in Arab countries day in and day out generation after poisoned generation.

We need to do the Arabs a huge favor and tell them the truth they so badly need to hear, that their hatred is the cause of their misery. They've become prisoners of it. It has come to define their very identity. And, until they can find a way to remove this ugly stain from their hearts they will always be chained to it and they and their children will never be free, Arab spring or no Arab spring.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1N1zhUm84w]The great Palestinian lie - YouTube[/ame]

 

[P F Tinmore]

the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

The demonstration was called for by the Supreme Follow up Committee of Arabs in the Green Line which is also preparing for a general strike next Sunday and a massive demonstration outside the office of the Israeli prime minister in occupied Jerusalem to protest the plan by which 800,000 dunums (1 dunum= 1000 square meters) of Palestinian land in the Negev will be confiscated by the occupation.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/...391yAqrrnY76H1fvACxjgINWusGGqc/EndLrDF1Aa6OU=

 

[JStone]

the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

Fucking losers.

Is it racist to criticize the Palestinians as the world's most tiresome crybabies with a bogus cause and a plight that's entirely self-inflicted? The Palestinian cause is a lie. They could have had peace ten times over if they wanted it, but, they don't want peace, they want victory and they won't be happy until Israel is wiped from the map....driven by crude, irrational, religious hatred.

This is not about territory and it's certainly isn't about justice or human rights because Arab societies don't know the meaning of those words.It's about Jew-hatred as mandated by the Koran and as preached in the mosques and taught to the children in Arab countries day in and day out generation after poisoned generation.

We need to do the Arabs a huge favor and tell them the truth they so badly need to hear, that their hatred is the cause of their misery. They've become prisoners of it. It has come to define their very identity. And, until they can find a way to remove this ugly stain from their hearts they will always be chained to it and they and their children will never be free, Arab spring or no Arab spring.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1N1zhUm84w]The great Palestinian lie - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Palestinians living in the 1948-occupied lands demonstrated for the second week running at a number of cross roads in Galilee and the triangle area in solidarity with Negev Palestinians who are threatened with home demolition, exile and confiscation of their land under the Israeli desert plan which means uprooting 30,000 Palestinians.

Asshole, can you try to marry a Palestinian girl? If you do, make sure you propose near a well.

SURIF, West Bank -- A 20-year-old Palestinian woman who was thrown into a well and left to die in the name of "family honor" has not become just another statistic in one of the Middle East's most shameful practices.

The killing of Aya Baradiya – by an uncle who didn't like a potential suitor – sparked such outrage that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas scrapped laws this week that guaranteed sentences of six months or less for such killings.

On the day of the killing, the uncle and two accomplices snatched the woman and tied her hands and feet, Hebron police chief Ramadan Awad said. The suspects told interrogators she screamed and demanded to know why they wanted to kill her, but the uncle said only that she deserved to die, he said. She told them she had done nothing wrong, then her attackers dumped her into the well The water would have reached to her neck, Awad said, adding: "We can't be sure ... if she died immediately or it took her a long time to die."

So-called "honor killings" are committed regularly in traditional Arab societies that enforce strict separation between the sexes and view an unmarried woman's unsupervised contact with a man, even by telephone, as a stain on the family's reputation. There were nine such killings in the West Bank last year, and Jordan reports about 20 every year.

The police chief said suspects in honor killings often come forward immediately because they don't face serious punishment and a confession is part of the "cleansing" of family honor. However, Aya Baradiya's uncle remained silent, even saying at one point that his niece had called him and told him she just decided to go away.

Leniency for honor killings dates back to a 1960 Jordanian legal codex, parts of which are still in effect in the West Bank; the area was under Jordanian rule until it was captured by Israel in 1967. Awad, the Hebron police chief, said that under the old system, someone who killed for family honor would get a maximum of six months in prison.

In 2010, there were nine family honor killings in the West Bank, Awad said. In most cases, "family honor" was just a pretext, he added: Men would kill to clear the path for remarriage, get their wives' gold or because of problems in the family. The tougher new laws will likely reduce the number of such killings, he said.

In Hamas-ruled Gaza, at least 10 women were killed by male relatives over the past three years, according to a local activist, Majda Ibrahim. She said punishment is generally light, though in one case, a man was sentenced to death for killing his cousin after she rejected his marriage proposal. The man is on death row.

Palestinian Woman Aya Baradiya's 'Honor' Killing Sparks Tougher West Bank Laws