Aid groups: Israel razed dozens of European-funded projects in Occupied Palestine

[P F Tinmore]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and other organizations said Monday that Israel destroyed various infrastructures built with European funds across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2011.
This came in a report compiled by a group of local and international NGOs chaired by OCHA, and published just ahead of a meeting of the European union foreign ministers in Brussels.

Israel demolished dozens of Palestinian homes, water cisterns and farm buildings built with European funds in 2011, and over 100 such structures are at risk, the humanitarian groups stated in a report.

The displacement working group (DWG) said Israel razed 62 European-funded structures last year and another 110 such projects are at risk of demolition.

The DWG said the affected structures were financed by France, the Netherlands, Britain, Poland, Ireland and the European commission.

France last month protested to Israel's ambassador in Paris over the demolition of two water cisterns in Al-Khalil city in the southern West Bank, which were financed as part of a French agricultural cooperation project.

OCHA said a total of 620 structures in the West Bank were demolished in 2011, 62 of them were European-funded.

Aid groups: Israel razed dozens of European-funded projects in O. Palestine

 

[JStone]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

Muslim occupation of Jewish Israel.

Hebrew Bible

Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. He had reigned forty years over Israel – seven years in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem.

Hebrew Bible

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite

Muslim Commentator Burak Bekdil, Hurriyet [Turkey]

Hardly a day passes in the Islamic world (or in the western intellectual world) without people standing up against and decrying the occupation of “al-Quds” (otherwise known as Jerusalem). In this column I have often argued otherwise: A counter-occupation is no occupation.

Now, dear Islamists, I have a “witness” whom I guess you could hardly refute. Forget my words and listen to what Turkey’s top Muslim cleric, Professor Mehmet Görmez, had to say just last week: “After the Prophet Omar conquered al-Quds he was invited to pray at a church (since there were no mosques in Jerusalem). But he politely refused because he was worried that the (conquering) Muslims could turn the church into a mosque after he prayed there.”

Now, read that line once again, or a thousand times if you wish to: “After the Prophet Omar conquered al-Quds…” And think about why there were no mosques in Jerusalem at the time of the conquest. Still no clue? Allow me to explain: Because Jerusalem was not a Muslim city. And now you claim it back because it is under “Jewish occupation!”

The refusal to pray at the church was very noble of the Prophet Omar. I personally do not expect you, dear Islamists, to behave as virtuously and gallantly as the prophet, but at least you can do something easier: Stop fighting for a city that belonged to other faiths before your ancestors conquered it. And please recall my witness when you flood my inbox with more hate-mail tomorrow. Or is Professor Görmez, too, an infidel like me?

BURAK BEKD