Romney comments at fundraiser outrage Palestinians

AP News

By Kasie Hunt on July 30, 2012

JERUSALEM (AP) — Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch.

 

"As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who breakfasted around a U-shaped table at the luxurious King David Hotel.

The reaction of Palestinian leaders to Romney's comments was swift and pointed.
"It is a racist statement and this man doesn't realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"It seems to me this man (Romney) lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people," Erekat added. "He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority."

The economic disparity between the Israelis and the Palestinians is actually much greater than Romney stated. Israel had a per capita gross domestic product of about $31,000 in 2011, while the West Bank and Gaza had a per capita GDP of just over $1,500, according to the World Bank.
Romney, seated next to billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson at the head of the table, told donors at his fundraiser that he had read books and relied on his own business experience to understand why the difference is so great.

"And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence."
Romney, in comparing the Israeli and Palestinian economies, made no mention of the fact that Israel has controlled the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem since capturing them in the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but continues to control access, and has enforced a crippling border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

In the West Bank, Israel retains overall control, and Palestinians only have limited self-rule. Israel controls all border crossings in and out of the West Bank, and continues to restrict Palestinian trade and movement.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said repeatedly that the Palestinian economy can only grow if Israel lifts those restrictions.

"It's Israeli occupiers and Palestinians under occupation, and that's why Palestinians cannot realize their potential," Erekat said.

The breakfast with top donors — including Adelson, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and hedge fund manager Paul Singer — concluded Romney's visit to Israel, the second leg of a three-nation overseas tour designed to bolster the his foreign policy credentials.

Standing on Israeli soil for the first time as the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has promised never to "look away from our passion and commitment to Israel."

The status of Jerusalem is a critical issue in peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
During his visit to Israel, Romney did not meet with Abbas or visit the West Bank. He held a brief meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Romney's campaign says his trip abroad, which began in England last week, is aimed at improving the former Massachusetts governor's foreign policy experience through a series of meetings with foreign leaders. The candidate has largely avoided direct criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama while on foreign soil.
The Jerusalem fundraiser, however, was a political event that raised more than $1 million for Romney's campaign. It marks at least the second finance event during his tour. The first, in London, attracted about 250 people to a $2,500 per person fundraiser.

'Occupation can't be rewarded even in US campaigning'

By JPOST.COM STAFF, TOVAH LAZAROFF, HERB KEINON
07/29/2012 23:53

After Mitt Romney repeatedly stresses that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat says "those who stand tall for 2 state solution must stand tall for E. J'lem as Palestine's capital."

               Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Sunday criticized Romney's declarations that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, saying, "I don't think occupation and aggression is rewarded even during an election campaign," according to CNN. 

Romney delivered a foreign policy speech in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying it was a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, "the capital of Israel."

"East Jerusalem is occupied territory," Erekat said. "Those who seek peace between Palestine and Israel and those who seek to save lives must stand tall for the two state solution and for East Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Palestine."

Mitt Romney would support Israeli military strike against Iran, says aide

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Jerusalem July 29, 2012. Photo by Reuters

US presidential candidate to say in speech in Israel that stopping Iran's nuclear arms capability must be 'highest priority'

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 July 2012 07.27 EDT   

Mitt Romney meets Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss Iran's nuclear programme Link to this video

Mitt Romney would back unilateral military action by Israel against Iran's nuclear sites, a senior aide said as the presumptive Republican candidate embarked on a series of high-level meetings in Jerusalem.

"If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision," Dan Senor, Romney's senior national security aide, told reporters accompanying the candidate.

Romney arrived in Israel on Saturday evening for a brief visit, during which he will meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and president, Shimon Peres, as well as the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad. The visit is aimed at reinforcing Romney's support for Israel and his personal friendship with Netanyahu, and appealing to Jewish voters in the US ahead of November's presidential contest.

He will also make a speech on Sunday on foreign policy and US-Israeli relations. It is expected to focus on the Iranian nuclear issue and the common interests of Israel and the US.

In comments echoing Netanyahu's position that a nuclear Iran is the biggest threat to the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Romney will say: "We have seen the horrors of history. We will not stand by. We will not watch them play out again."

Preventing the Iranian regime developing a nuclear weapons capability "must be our highest national security priority," Romney will say according to excerpts of the speech released in advance. "The security of Israel is in the vital national security interests of the United States."

Romney is seeking to sharply differentiate his position from that of President Obama, who has urged caution on Israel's leaders regarding a military strike against Iran. Sanctions and diplomacy must be given time to reap results, Obama has said.

However, a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz said a senior US official briefed Netanyahu on America's contingency plans for possible military action in the event of sanctions and diplomacy failing.

National security adviser Tom Donilon, who visited Israel two weeks ago, shared details of the preparations, including US weaponry and military capability for striking underground facilities, during a three-hour meeting with the Israeli prime minister, according to the report which was sourced to "a senior American official".

The timing of the story suggests a desire by the administration to pre-empt Romney's presentation of himself as a more robust supporter of tough action against Iran.

However, the report was denied by a senior Israeli official. "Nothing in the article is correct. Donilon did not meet the prime minister for dinner, he did not meet him one-on-one, nor did he present operational plans to attack Iran," said the official, speaking anonymously.

Romney's efforts to win over American Jewish voters are having limited success, according to a recent opinion poll, which puts support for Obama at 68% among US Jews compared with 25% for the Republican candidate. Although a drop from the 75% of American Jews who backed Obama in the 2008 election, the latest figures also represent sliding support for Romney compared with a Gallup poll in June, which gave 29% of the Jewish vote to the Republican and 64% to Obama.

Romney has attacked the US president – who has not visited the Jewish state since his election – for publicly criticising Israel. Although custom dictates that presidential candidates refrain from criticising their opponents while abroad, in his speech Romney will reiterate the strong ties between the US and Israel.

"We're part of the great fellowship of democracies. We speak the same language of freedom and justice, and the right of every person to live in peace. We serve the same cause and provoke the same hatreds in the same enemies of civilisation," he will say.

Romney's visit falls on the Jewish religious day of Tisha B'Av, a day of fasting and mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples. A fundraising event had to be postponed until Monday morning when it was realised it had been scheduled before the end of the fast at sunset.

Romney and his wife, Ann, are scheduled to dine with the Netanyahus at their residence on Sunday evening. Netanyahu and Romney have had a warm personal relationship since working together in the US in the 1970s. Following controversy over the candidate's comments on the preparedness of London to host the Olympic Games, his aides will be anxious to avoid further gaffes. Media access to events during the visit has been tightly restricted, and there are expected to be no opportunities to put questions to Romney.

The Romney entourage is to fly to Poland on Monday.

What are future Americans going to think about Israel's takeover of America's foreign policy that has made all Americans accomplices to the Palestinian holocaust, the crime against humanity. What crime against humanity you say? That would be the U.N. Partition of Palestine in 1947-48 without any democratic process, not one single Palestinian ever consulted about the fate of their homeland in the hands of Western Powers. This breaks the U.N.'s own Charter protecting the right to self-determination by indigenous populations. Zionists used America and America and Western winners of WW II used the U.N. as a front to create another European colony in the heart of the Middle East to control Middle East oil reserves, the largest in the world. Do not let this crime against humanity, the 64 years of Palestinians made to suffer as scapegoats for European treatment of European Jewry, continue on without a peep of protest. Your grandchildren will thank you for standing up for justice for all without prejudice.

650,000 Jewish settlers

From: Mazin Qumsiyeh
Cc:Human Rights Newsletter
Sent: Fri, Jul 27, 2012 02:34 PM
blog at
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/07/650000-jewish-settlers.html

More than 15,000 Jewish settlers were added in one year to bring the
total colonial settlers living in the West Bank to 650,000.  Does any one
still think a two-state solution is possible?  In parallel, settler
violence increased many folds in the past few years (see When settlers
attack:  A sobering study of the skyrocketing Jewish colonial settler
attacks on native Palestinians
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/32678 ). 

Israel is enjoying unprecedented Western government support.  The US Republican
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is making his pilgrimage here to pay
homage to those who will help elect him.  This has become a ritual among US
presidential candidates hoping to live in the White House in
Israeli-occupied Washington.  Not to be out-staged, President Obama signed
an enhanced "security" arrangement with Apartheid Israel the day before
Romney lands here. More tax money is thus diverted to Israel and Israel
promoted wars while the USeconomy keeps suffering.  Romney will also meet
with Salam Fayyad who seems content to keep repeating that we want a state
in 1967 borders (and not mentioning the refugees which is THE central
issue) but in his interview with the independent seemed resigned that
Palestine is now marginalized.  European and other Western governments hold
meetings about Syria and abuses of human rights there (while supporting
such abuses both in Syria and elsewhere). No one demanded such meetings
about Israel and its abuses (see the recent article by Saul Landau
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/20/does-it-matter-what-israelis-do/) or
Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Rohingya or Libya post Qaddafi or others.

Even when these governments know that there are abuses they continue
business as usual.  For example the British government reported widespread
abuse of Palestinian Children (
http://worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18513) but business
is business and British officials continue to cooperate economically and in
other ways with apartheid.  The European Union leadership considers Jewish
colonial settlements to be violations of International law and yet give
Israel a most favored nation status and regularly trade! Everyone likes to
pretend there are no problems and the status quo can continue.  The
monarchies of Arabia (or the gang of kleptocracies) seem content in their
dictatorships untouched by the Arab spring and seem happy that they are now
using it to their advantage; witness  Saudi  Arabia s junta dibbing their
hands into Syria and claiming they want to promote  democracy.  They seem
satisfied.  The Kings of Jordan and Morocco give some power to governments
that they hope will absorb public discontent.  The USA supports all these
ruling families.  Everyone pretends that the people s discontent can be
absorbed for a long time or manipulated to serve Western and Israeli
interests.   Even Hamas and Fatah leadership (though not many of their
members) pretend that continuing down the path of the last few years will
be OK and are not willing to  rock the boat .  Many are bidding time and
hoping for some outside miracle.  Maybe Obama will be better in his second
term.  Maybe the Arab Spring will work in our favor. Maybe this or that
will happen.  Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and
our mother earth is devastated.

As in all human history, the only positive changes come from citizens
finally realizing that they hold power in their hands. Once people realize
that tyranny only lasts as long as apathy dominates, that is when
revolutionary change happens. We the people, not governments, made history
in the past and will make history in the future.  Many ask what common
people like us can do about certain issues like the pivotal problem of
Palestine.  Here are 64 suggestions for this issue (one for every year of
the ongoing Nakba) but many can be equally applicable to environmental
issues or to human rights violations in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia:
http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/

Palestinian Investments Require Divestment, Sam Bahour  July 27,12

 Over the years, not only has Israel prohibited the emergence of a new
Palestinian economy -- it structurally and systematically has made certain
that even the buds of such a productive economy would never see the light
of day . Palestinian civil society and Palestinians -- Christians and
Muslims alike -- have urged everyone interested in seeing peace with
justice to divest from the occupation.
http://bit.ly/Investments-Require-Divestment

Israel coined the term "Nakba" and is still implementing it by Ilan Pappe
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-coined-term-nakba-and-still-implementing-it/1
1518).

(Action) Thirsting for Justice: Join the Campaign for Palestinian Water
Rights

https://www.mecaforpeace.org/projects/maia-project/thirsting-justice-campaign

With Sudden Greenland Ice Melt, Reiterating Declaration of Planetary
Ecological Emergency by Dr. Glen Barry

http://www.countercurrents.org/barry250712.htm

NASA reported that Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Melt

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-217

Stay human

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

Animal attendants make more than in-home workers

Redwood Times 

Posted:   07/24/2012 02:26:26 PM PDT

To the Editor: 

Back in 1999, IHSS workers, who do in-home care for the elderly or impaired on Medicaid, were being paid minimum wage. At the same time, the Humboldt Board of Supervisors were each being paid $46,563 a year.

Today, IHSS workers are still being paid minimum wage ($8 an hour) but the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors who last week voted against raising the IHSS worker’s minimum wage have since raised their own salaries more than $35,000, and now earn a whopping $81,584 a year.

The only requirement for a supervisor’s job is to attend one weekly board meeting. Absolutely nothing else is legally required of them. Even if they did put in a full 40 hours a week, they would earn almost $40 an hour. And they get health benefits and pensions. IHSS workers get no such benefits, and work for $8 an hour.
No one else working for the county is being paid anywhere close to this low of a wage. In fact, the other entry-level county jobs that require no special training or education are paid between 45% and 75% more per hour. For example, custodians get $11.49, stock clerks $12.01, airport groundskeepers $14.59 and road maintenance workers $14.96. Even an animal shelter attendant gets $12.44 over 50% more for taking care of a stray pet than for taking care of a human.

None of these people is being overpaid; that’s not the point. But IHSS workers are being grossly underpaid and the irony is that they save us taxpayers money by keeping Medicaid recipients out of nursing homes, which would cost the government much, much more.

Call the board of supervisors right now at (707) 476-2396 and let them know their actions are shameful.
Richard W. Salzman

As someone who has done in-home support work I fully agree withy Mr. Salzman's letter. Lucky IHSS workers get supplemented like I did from minimum wage to $10.oo/hr but considering the fact that your in-home support is as vital to a ailing person as their nurse or doctor, in fact many IHSS people are doing nurse's work without any nursing union protecting their wages.

States vote to help kill poor Americans

Medicaid expansion in U.S. states found to cut death rates

By Lewis Krauskopf

Wed Jul 25, 2012 5:21pm EDT

(Reuters) - State expansions of the Medicaid health insurance program for poor Americans reduced adult mortality rates by more than 6 percent compared to states that did not broaden eligibility for their plans, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine could fuel a political furor over new plans for a nationwide expansion of Medicaid that erupted after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to uphold President Barack Obama's healthcare law in late June.

In an unexpected move, the high court ruling also left it up to states to decide whether to participate in the law's broader eligibility criteria for Medicaid that would extend insurance coverage to as many as 16 million more Americans starting in 2014. At least five Republican governors who opposed the healthcare law have vowed to opt out of the expansion, saying the program will pose a huge financial burden.

The lead author of the study was Benjamin Sommers, an assistant professor in health policy and economics at the Harvard School of Public Health who is temporarily working as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to a disclosure note in the study, the paper was conceived and drafted while Sommers was employed at Harvard and the findings do not reflect official U.S. government policy.

The study examined three states that substantially broadened Medicaid eligibility for adults since 2000 -- New York, Maine and Arizona. They were compared to neighboring states that did not implement expansions -- Pennsylvania (for New York), New Hampshire (for Maine) and Nevada and New Mexico (for Arizona).

Adults between the ages of 20 and 64 years old were studied for five years before and after the expansion, using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Medicaid expansions were associated with a reduction in mortality from all causes, by 19.6 deaths per 100,000 adults, for a 6.1 percent decrease compared to the states without expansions.

The mortality declines were greatest among adults between ages 35 and 64, minorities and residents of poor counties.

The expansions also led to decreased rates of uninsurance, lower rates of delayed care because of costs, and an increase in the rate of people reporting their health status as "excellent" or "very good".

"The takeaway is that state expansions of Medicaid coverage to adults appear to be effective at improving both access to care and health for low-income Americans," Sommers said in an interview.

The results corresponded to 2,840 deaths prevented per year in the states with Medicaid expansions. That figure suggests that 176 additional adults would need to be covered by Medicaid in order to prevent one death per year, according to the study.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Carol Bishopric)

13 states aim to limit Medicaid
By Phil Galewitz and Matthew Fleming, Kaiser Health News

Thirteen states are moving to cut Medicaid by reducing benefits, paying health providers less or tightening eligibility, even as the federal government prepares to expand the insurance program for the poor to to as many as 17 million more people.

States routinely trim the program as tough times drive up enrollment and costs. But the latest reductions — which follow more extensive cuts last year — threaten to limit access to care for some of its 60 million recipients.

"With more people on Medicaid, states will have to continue to ratchet down payments and limit services," says Nina Owcharenko, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

    MORE: Doctors: Limiting prescriptions adds risk
    MORE: State-by-state chart

Some worry the cuts to doctors and hospitals could make it more difficult to expand the state-federal program in 2014, as called for by the federal health law. "Some providers may be unwilling to accept new Medicaid patients," former New York Medicaid director Deborah Bachrach says.

But she notes the law may counter that effect with its funding boosts to community health centers and its temporary rate increases for primary care doctors, beginning in January 2013.

Most of the cuts went into effect this month, according to a 50-state survey by Kaiser Health News for USA TODAY. Among them:

•Illinois limited enrollees to four prescriptions a month; imposed a co-pay for prescriptions for non-pregnant adults; raised eligibility to eliminate more than 25,000 adults; and eliminated non-emergency dental care for adults.

•Alabama cut pay for doctors and dentists 10% and eliminated coverage for eyeglasses.

•Florida cut funding to hospitals that treat Medicaid patients by 5.6% — following a 12.5% cut a year ago. The state also seeks to limit non-pregnant adults to two primary-care visits a month, and to cap emergency room coverage at six visits a year.

•California added a $15 fee for those who go to the emergency room for routine care. It cut reimbursements to private hospitals by $150 million and to public hospitals by $41.5 million.

•Wisconsin added or raised monthly premiums for most non-pregnant adults with incomes above $14,856 for an individual.

Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire and South Dakota also are making reductions to their programs. Connecticut is weighing cuts likely to go into effect this fall.

A few states have increased Medicaid benefits, including Arizona, which will boost pay for mental health providers next April. And some are looking to restore cuts made during the worst of the recession, says Vernon Smith, managing principal with consulting firm Health Management Associates and a former Michigan Medicaid director.

Stacey Mazer, senior staff associate with the National Association of State Budget Officers, notes that fewer states are cutting the program this year, partly because many are in better economic shape and partly because of reluctance to make further cuts.

"States are hearing a lot of hue and cry about the impact on access," she says.

Last November, for instance, about 3,500 Medicaid recipients in New Hampshire had to find new doctors after cuts led LRGHealthcare in Laconia to stop offering primary care to non-pregnant adults, Senior Vice President Henry Lipman says.

"To see two decades of providing access for our community basically erased has been very disheartening," he says.

It is unclear how many states will participate in the law's Medicaid expansion since the Supreme Court ruled last month that they may not be penalized for opting out. A number of Republican governors have vowed not to participate, citing costs. Although the federal government will pay for the first three years, states will have to cover up to 10% of the costs after that.

Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

When governments choose providing higher salaries for government workers, choose to support tax cuts for the rich, choose to cut healthcare for the poor, they are in effect killing the poor. Why do we let this happen in America? Do something!

Under Israeli blockade of Gaza, books are a rare, cherished commodity

Israel does not explicitly ban importing books to Gaza, but the blockade makes it extraordinarily difficult to do so. The shortage amounts to a kind of censorship, Gazans say.

By Ruqaya Izzidien, Contributor / July 24, 2012
The Christian Science Monitor

Gaza City, Gaza

The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has been blamed for a multitude of problems facing the population there: malnutrition, unemployment, limited access to electricity and potable water.

Gazan students and educators say that under the Israeli-imposed siege, education is suffering too. The blockade makes it so difficult to bring in books that they are forced to resort to bootlegging and smuggling, they say. The limited supply of original books has driven up costs, making them difficult for most Gazans to afford.

Part of the problem is that Israel does not communicate directly with Hamas, the Islamist militant party that governs Gaza, instead relying on the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) to handle issues in both of the Palestinian territories. However, Gaza is isolated from the West Bank, both geographically and politically, so the limited number of books entering Gaza via Israel are chosen by the PA, not Gazans.

Hamas may be Israel’s target when circumventing dialogue with Gaza’s book-buyers, but Gazan students say they're the ones paying the penalty and that the shortfall in book supply amounts to an infringement on their freedom to get an education.
Work-arounds

Book smugglers in Gaza are reluctant to disclose details on their routes, fearing ramifications from the Israeli government, which already bombs the Egypt-Gaza tunnels several times a year, and the Hamas government, which has increased its searches at the passenger-only Rafah border crossing, through with retailers also attempt to smuggle goods. The Gazan government considers the tunnels a legitimate trade route, so it allows goods to pass through there.

Gazan education officials assert that the tunnels are key to the education of Gaza’s 500,000 students. Awni Maqayyid, head of the Hamas-run Islamic University’s Central Library, says that “the education system would collapse” without the tunnel industry.

Despite smugglers' attempts to stock Gaza’s libraries and bookstores – around 5 million textbooks are required per year – Palestinians are still frustrated by the lack of books in Gaza. They hold Israel responsible, arguing that the restrictions on book imports amounts to a censoring of their education.

One Gazan bookshop owner, who introduced himself as Mohammed Ahmed, says that it is too difficult to import books via Israel, “so we travel to Egypt, buy books, and bring them back in our bags.” Many bookshop owners tell the same story.

And although it is possible for bookshop owners to buy books from Israel, they claim that Israeli book prices are unaffordable for Gaza’s underemployed and besieged population. Smuggling books from distant countries can be less expensive than buying them from just across the Israeli border.

A bookshop employee who is also a medical student explains how he smuggles books in his luggage through Rafah, which is a passenger-only crossing: “I cross into Egypt, buy a plane ticket to London to purchase the books for medical students. This way is easier and even cheaper than it is to import the books through Israel," says the man, who introduced himself as Mahmood Bakri.

Bootleg textbooks are another "solution." Osama Almassri, a lecturer at Gaza’s Ummah University, borrows textbooks from other universities and makes copies – a tactic widely and openly practiced in Gaza. "Textbooks are so few in number that some teachers even type up entire books by hand in order to produce legible textbooks," Almassri says.

The Israeli authorities are unaware of the book shortage, according to Maj. Guy Inbar, spokesman for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has never raised the issue, he says.
Zeyad Thabit, deputy minister for education in Gaza, claims that the Gaza Strip has been unable to acquire school textbooks via Israel since 2007. Mr. Thabit (whose jurisdiction does not include those schools run by the United Nations refugee agency) says the requests were made but were turned down.

“We tried many times since the siege began to get textbooks in, making sure that we only ask for plain academic books.” When that failed, Thabit says, “We started printing and photocopying books. But no paper is entering Gaza from Israel to allow the Ministry of Education to print textbooks, so all paper enters via the tunnels from Egypt.”

Israel's Maj. Inbar explained that Israel transfers books to Gaza through the Palestinian Authority or, in the case of schools run by the United Nations refugee agency, via the UN. As a result, most Gazans have no influence over what books are sent to the besieged territory.

If Hamas is so bothered by the existence of Israel, “then Hamas can take their books through Rafah," Inbar says.
Another kind of 'censorship'

But many Gazan students, unable to buy the books they want, view the lack of books as amounting to censorship, regardless of whether it is intentional or merely an unintended side effect of policies.

Rana Baker, a business student who also blogs about Palestinian social and political issues, considers the lack of political and historical books in Gaza censorship and an infringement on her right to education.

“The books at my university are old, and it doesn’t have the kinds of books that I like to read: books that speak about Palestine, its culture, refugees, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid," she says.

“Regardless of whether they censor books coming in or not, in a country that's not under siege, you can go into a bookshop and buy a book without having to smuggle into the country. That itself is censorship."

The Gaza branch manager of an international mail courier, who refused to give his name, insists that the lack of political books entering Gaza is deliberate.

“I’ve worked at the Karam Abu Salam (Keren Shalom) goods crossing between Gaza and Israel for ten years and I know what is prohibited,” he explained. “Books related to politics or movements are forbidden. Also forbidden are images of violence, or anything that we call ‘resistance,' but Israel deems as 'terrorism'."

However, it doesn't seem to be a blanket restriction. To test it, this reporter sent a copy of The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finklestein, which argues that Israel has exploited the issue of the Holocaust for political ends, from Egypt to the Gaza Strip via the courier Aramex in May 2012. It was not confiscated and arrived in Gaza within 20 days.

But last year, Pam Bailey, a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., tried to mail nine books to a friend in Gaza via the shipping courier DHL. “The books were a mix of novels and histories of Palestine,” recalled Ms. Bailey. "I had been told that although some items were banned altogether, papers [and therefore books] were ok."

"Four days later, however, the package was returned as ‘not deliverable’," she says. DHL refused to offer a reason.

Inbar suggested that Gazans can request a book by ordering it from abroad and requesting it be sent to Gaza by courier, but this is not usually an option for average Gazans, 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line, according to Israeli human rights organization B’tselem.

Jehad A., who works for a Gaza-based think tank and refused to give his full last name, believes that the inconsistent import rules, which go far beyond textbooks, are a destabilization tactic.

“If people are living in a stable situation, they will behave stable. But if their situation is unstable, that causes the attacks that you see in the streets, the recklessness and radicalization. Things here are not stable. They fluctuate and the goal is to isolate Gaza because the most critical impact of the siege is the psychological one.”

Egypt's move to allow Palestinians freer entry draws cheers and confusion

Published July 23, 2012 

Associated Press

CAIRO –  Egypt is allowing freer temporary entry for Palestinians into the country in an unprecedented move that eases long-imposed travel restrictions, particularly on Gazans, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said Monday.

The decision has caused confusion among the security agencies here -- and appeared to bring some resistance. Some officers at the airport refused to implement the measures, an airport official said, in a sign of how deeply some in the security forces view the Palestinians as a potential threat.

Even as some officials initially denied any easing, airport officials said seven Gazans were allowed into Egypt by dawn Monday without the usual restrictions.

The changes appeared to be a gesture to the Palestinians after separate meetings last week between Egypt's new president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, whose group controls Gaza.

Egypt's powerful security agencies have monopolized policy-making toward the Palestinians for years, generally working closely with Israel and taking a tough line for fear of Hamas and the spread of militancy. But security forces have been shaken since the fall last year of Hosni Mubarak -- and now particularly with the election of an Islamist as his successor. The initial reaction from some officials could reflect fear the president was moving into their usual spheres of power.

The new measures ease the situation for those living in Gaza, which has been subject to a 5-year-old Israeli blockade keeping them penned into the tiny, Mediterranean coastal territory. The only non-Israeli outlet from the strip is through Egypt, and for years Cairo assisted the blockade. Even after Egypt officially opened the border crossing it imposed heavy restrictions.

Until now, any Palestinian under 40 was escorted by security agents to or from the Gaza border to ensure they spent no time in Egyptian territory. Palestinians saw the practice as a humiliation, especially since it often meant detention at the border or airport for up to three days, often in small rooms alongside criminals, as they waited for an escort.

The new measures end the procedure and allow Palestinians to cross through Egypt on their own arrangements, allowing them to stay in the country for up to 72 hours to do so. The measures came into effect early Monday, and took many security agencies by surprise because it came before a formal announcement was made.

An unidentified Egyptian official at the Rafah crossing separating Egypt and Gaza confirmed to the official news agency MENA that the "deportation" policy had been "abolished" at the crossing.
The official also said an existing black list for Palestinians barred from entering Egypt or traveling abroad is currently under review. Some on the list date back to the 1970s, following Egypt's peace deal with Israel.
Egypt's ambassador to the West Bank, Yasser Othman, said transiting Palestinians must have Palestinian national identification and passports, or a proof of residency in a third country.

"We are planning for more procedures to facilitate the movement of the Palestinians but there are no plans to cancel the visa requirement if Palestinians want to enter Egypt," Othman said.

A Palestinian official in Cairo said more easing of restrictions are being negotiated. He and airport officials in Cairo spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Palestinians have generally been subjected to strict Egyptian travel requirements that have kept many of them, particularly after the 2000 uprising against Israel, from entering the country. The situation became more complicated as Egypt under Mubarak closely coordinated its security plans with Israel, and observed the blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.

After a partial easing of the blockade Egypt allowed a limited number of Gazans out of the territory on humanitarian grounds. Most were subjected to the "deportation" unless they had visas to stay in Egypt.
The director of the border crossing in Gaza, Maher Abu Sabha, said more than 20,000 Gazans are on a two-month waiting list to exit the territory.

Another Egyptian border crossing said more than 600 Gazans have already crossed into Egypt and less than 200 returned to th seaside strip Monday. The official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said the number of those who benefited from the easing of restrictions is not yet determined.

After years of such strict treatment, many Palestinians in Gaza were hopeful but skeptical there will be a change of treatment.

"Imagine yourself locked in a small room in the basement of the airport, not allowed to smoke, eat or go to the bathroom except after approval from a security official," said Youssef Ramadan, a 36-year old merchant from Gaza who often travels to China through Egypt. "Humiliation is not the word. It is a nightmare."
He spent 36 hours in such conditions on his way back from China in May.

"It's time to end this and forever. It makes no sense to travel all over the world then Egypt, an Arab country, treats you like an animal."

Tax havens: Super-rich 'hiding' at least $21tn

A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.

The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, and commissioned by the Tax Justice Network. He said $21tn is a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion.

Mr Henry used data from the Bank of International Settlements, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and national governments. His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts. The report comes amid growing public and political concern about tax avoidance and evasion. Some authorities, including in Germany, have even paid for information on alleged tax evaders stolen from banks. The group that commissioned the report, Tax Justice Network, campaigns against tax havens.

Mr Henry said that the super-rich move money around the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries. "The lost tax revenues implied by our estimates is huge. It is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries. "From another angle, this study is really good news. The world has just located a huge pile of financial wealth that might be called upon to contribute to the solution of our most pressing global problems," he said.
'Huge black hole'

The report highlights the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens that is put beyond the reach of local tax authorities. Mr Henry estimates that since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3tn to $9.3tn of "unrecorded offshore wealth" by 2010. Private wealth held offshore represents "a huge black hole in the world economy," Mr Henry said.
Other findings in the report include:

At the end of 2010, the 50 leading private banks alone collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients  The three private banks handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. Less than 100,000 people worldwide own about $9.8tn of the wealth held offshore.

I wrote the following back in 1998 and it still applies:
 


Tax the Super Rich

End Poverty, hunger and despair for millions of human beings in America and throughout the World: Tax the Super Rich and create an Economic Boom in the process.

The Super Rich are an abomination before God. They are an abomination to any decent society. They are a serious threat to the Nation's international trade relationships. And they are supreme evidence of a dysfunctional social system guaranteeing social destabilization caused by enormous disparities in the distribution of socially produced goods and services. The Super Rich get that way by unconscionable conduct. By using unfair economic advantages over less economically fortunate or less aggressive individuals, the Super Rich are those individuals and families who run monopoly empires, ruling like kings over mass distribution systems such as energy, computers, drugs, weapons, sports, entertainment, communications, any systems or products that have gigantic mass markets. Once an enterprise or an individual reaches the multi-million dollar bracket, further gains become almost automatic. Bank interest payments alone will continually add gigantic amounts of new wealth to these few individuals and families.

Our current legal and business system favors Big Money enterprise over smaller enterprises. Competition gets reduced and eliminated as corporate monopoly players team together to force out competition from smaller enterprises. It's time to put a stop to the social irresponsibility of letting the Super Rich system continue. Putting enormous fortunes into the hands of a privileged few who earn as much as the combined earnings of 90% of American citizens cannot be tolerated. Putting enormous fortunes in the hands of these few Super Rich while millions upon millions of people live in constant threat of starvation is barbaric behavior and totally unconscionable in any civilized society worthy of the name. We must end the Super Rich socially criminal behavior like we ended Al Capone's criminal career. We tax them out of existence. We regain our economic strength by having Congress legislate either an Act of Congress or an Amendment to the Constitution that simply states:

1) All U.S. citizen will be taxed at a rate of 100% for any income exceeding one million dollars per year, with no exceptions, no loopholes, no way for any individual to acquire over one million dollars per year.
2) No individual or corporation can hold assets exceeding one million dollars per year or transfer assets exceeding a million dollars per year into foreign bank accounts without the same tax law applying.
3) All taxed income over one million dollars per year is to distributed to Social Security programs, Medicare programs, educational grants, low interest home and business loans to low and moderate income families and individuals, and environmental protection projects.
4) A fund will be established for United Nations and various church and charitable organizations' for bringing food, clothing, shelter, and cooperative community self-sufficiency programs and advisers to the world's desperately poor.

Taking this action will only effect the illegitimate prosperity of a very few number of individuals while it will bring the middle-class back into its rightful prominence as the stable economic and social backbone of America. This action will also begin an Economic Boom era for America's economy as the Super Rich are forced to divest their holdings and companies. With divestment mandatory, re-investment will occur and hundreds, if not thousands of new businesses and jobs will be opened up. This action will rightfully gain America new productive members of society as well as opening up huge new markets both within the U.S. and throughout the world. This action will start a worldwide precedent for all nations laboring under the thumbs of about 250 Super Rich individuals who's combined yearly incomes could feed and house the majority of the world's people and allow them the opportunity to rise out of unnecessary poverty and hopelessness. And this action won't stop the benefits of entrepreneurism. There's still plenty of room left for enterprising individuals to prosper with every year with the opportunity to become multi-millionaires.
Society should rightfully honor those individuals who organize economic enterprises that service and enhance our lives. But the economic rewards of entrepreneurial creation must not become ends in themselves or society suffers. A taxation system like this will return us pride in being Good Americans--giving as we receive--just as this taxation system will brings us new days when to be a "millionaire" will really mean something special once again.

Hungary arrests the 'most wanted living Nazi'

 Jerusalem Post 
By GIL SHEFLER 

07/18/2012 13:39

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal center tells the 'Post' he is "overjoyed by the news," calls it a great victory.

Police in Hungary on Tuesday arrested Laszlo Csatary, said to be the world's most wanted living Nazi, and charged him with war crimes related to the deportation of thousands of Jews to Auschwitz during World War II.

Hungarian prosecution said it indicted the 95-year-old for the part he played in sending 15,700 Jews to Nazi death camps when he was the police chief of Kosice.

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who tracked down Csatary to a suburb of Budapest late last year, told The Jerusalem Post shortly after the arrest took place he was overjoyed by the news.

"Hallelujah," he said. "You can't understand what this means to me. It's a great victory and a very important one."

The Jerusalem Post ran a story on Zuroff's claims against Csatary last April, but it wasn't until The Sun sent a journalist to Hungary last week and published shirtless photos of the pensioner answering the door that it made headlines around the world. Over the past week the story has been picked up by media outlets around the world putting pressure on Hungary to act.

"It's very simple, we owe our debt to The Sun," said Zuroff. "People may snicker but The Sun spent thousands of pounds to photograph him and embarrass him. To get a nazi in prison you have to take a photo of him in his underwear."

The visit by Hungarian President Janos Ader to Israel on Tuesday, where he is set to attend a ceremony at Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, may have also also played a part in the decision to prosecute the Hungarian national.

Zuroff said he had sent a letter to senior Israeli politicians ahead of Ader's arrival calling for them to ask for the arrest of Csatary, but he had no idea if they received it.

Csatary was the police chief of Kosice during the deportation of 15,700 local Jews to Auschwitz in spring 1944, according to Zuroff.

After the war he emigrated to Canada but was stripped of his citizenship in 1995 when his wartime role was discovered and he subsequently returned to his country of birth.

Zuroff said on Thursday he hoped Csatary's trial will be swift due to the suspect's age.

Asked why he insisted on bringing the remaining Nazis and their collaborators --the youngest of which are well in their 90s-- to trial over 60 years since World War II ended, Zuroff said "the passage of times does not diminish the guilt of the killers."

"Don't look at Csatary when he if old and frail, look at a man who when he was at the height of the his powers devoted them to killing people," he said.

I'm sorry but this religious insanity and indicative of a very warped mindset that seems unfamiliar with the concept of forgiveness without which violent conflicts cannot be resolved peaceably. One has to compare the insane Jewish wish for revenge with the African Obuntu spirit that allowed South Africans to forgive their white oppressors instead of seeking revenge. Here where I live I work with descendants of Native American survivors of one of America's worst massacres of Native Americans and they too do not have this sickness that carries hatreds for generations as do the Jews. Yes, I have ancestors from Poland who died at the hands of Nazis but this 2012, not 1944, and I don't know of any Jewish memorial to the American men like my father who risked their lives to get rid of Nazis. I don't hear any Jewish praise of America for never having any pogroms against Jews as did Europe by the scores. And lastly, what makes Jews think that taking out their revenge against Gentile Arab Palestinians in any way makes up for the European holocaust caused by Europeans without a single Palestinian involved?

Gaza Christians protest what they call forced conversion to Islam

Photo: Hana (left) and Huda (right), parents of Palestinian Ramez Amash, hold a picture of their son in their home on Tuesday, July 17, 2012. Credit: Mohammed Abed/AFP/GettyImages

Los Angeles Times
July 17, 2012 | 11:26 pm

GAZA CITY -- Scores of Christians in the Gaza Strip organized a sit-in Tuesday at the Greek Church of Gaza to protest what they call the "kidnapping” of five Christians by an unknown Islamist group seeking to forcibly convert them to Islam.

A smaller protest was held Monday at the church in which Christians, who have long complained of persecution in Gaza, demanded that Hamas, which controls the seaside territory, return the five individuals.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said in a statement Tuesday that the five people had met with their family members and affirmed that they had not been forced to convert.

Family members of the five Christians believe the young man, a woman and her three children are being held against their will by a Hamas lawmaker, and say that it is impossible that they have changed their beliefs.

"If my son is not kidnapped, why don't they just let him go home with me?" asked Huda Amash, mother of Ramez Amash, 25, the missing young man. “My son was brought up as a Christian. His love of Jesus is strong enough to keep him Christian. He cannot change his beliefs all of a sudden."

The Hamas police, however, said the five people had not been kidnapped and that they have converted to Islam voluntarily and without any pressure. Hamas officials said the individuals are staying with a Muslim family under the protection of the police.

Christian leaders in Gaza say there are about 1,500 Christians in Gaza, down from about 3,500 in 2008.


-- Ahmed Aldabba

At some point soon Christians from Western countries will unite in a boycott of all Muslim countries in which Christians are being persecuted by Muslims. Muhammad's Islam is plagued by ancient social barbarity and religious warfare and Muslims will have to make a choice of either welcoming foreign Christian tourists in their countries who spend quite a bit of money or being even poorer by treating their own Christians badly forcing wealthier Christians to stay away. Most of America and Europe still are nominally Christian so a mass boycott by Christians united would not be a small thing. 

UNESCO chair at Gaza University angers Israel

By IAN DEITCH, Associated Press – 1 hour ago 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has condemned UNESCO's decision to establish a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza, calling the institution "a breeding ground for terrorists."
Israel's foreign ministry said Thursday that "(Palestinian militant group) Hamas uses Gaza University laboratories to develop and produce explosives and rockets and has even run a course on explosive making."

Gaza militants often bomb southern Israel with mortars and rockets.
Israel, the US, EU and others consider Gaza's Hamas rulers a terror group because of their suicide bombings and attacks on civilians that kill hundreds.
UNESCO said the chair is to promote astronomy, astrophysics and space sciences.
Earlier this month, it approved Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity as an endangered site. The U.S. and Israel dismissed the move as cynical politicization of the cultural body.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

The tag-team, Israel and the U.S., now a puppet state of Israel which controls Congress and the Presidency and has since 9-11.

Israeli jailed for illegal US kidney transplants

BBC News11 July 2012 Last updated at 22:24 ET

Levi Izhak Rosenbaum, 11 July 2012 Rosenbaum was arrested during a huge operation into corruption in many walks of life

An Israeli convicted of arranging US kidney transplants for profit has been given a two-and-a-half-year sentence.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum admitted brokering kidney transplants for profit, becoming the first person convicted over illegal organ sales in the US, prosecutors say.

He was alleged to have charged between $120,000 (£77,400) and $160,000 to arrange kidneys for three people.

He was caught trying to arrange fourth operation when the FBI launched a sting operation in 2009.

New Jersey prosecutors said Rosenbaum, an Israeli living in Brooklyn, used newspaper adverts in his homeland to find donors willing to give up a kidney in return for cash.

He was alleged to have paid as little as $10,000 to secure a donor organ.

He then helped set up blood test and services to ensure a proper match was arranged for those in need of a transplant in the US.
'The cause was good'

Although at least one recipient of a kidney spoke up in defence during Rosenbaum's sentencing hearing, one other said they had felt exploited.

"It was wrong, but I thought the cause was good," Rosenbaum, 61, told the court.

"I can assure this court I will never do this again."
Continue reading the main story   
“Start Quote

    There are no victims here. The donors are happy and the recipients are happy”

Rachel Warshower Family friend

Prosecutor Paul Fishman said Rosenbaum was motivated by profit, not by a desire to heal the sick.

"A black market where the moneyed sick can buy replacement parts from the less fortunate is not only grim, it apportions lifesaving treatments unfairly, insults donor dignity, and violates the law," he said in a statement.

"Although Rosenbaum painted himself as a benevolent kidney matchmaker, the criminal profits went right into his pocket," Mr Fishman added.

But those who spoke in support of Rosenbaum described him as a devout Orthodox Jew who was dedicated to helping people.

"There are no victims here," Rachel Warshower, who travelled from Brooklyn to support Rosenbaum, told the Associated Press.

"The donors are happy and the recipients are happy. Izhak Rosenbaum is not the monster the media has made him out to be."

In other words, we can do no wrong. It's not a crime for richer people if they're Jewish to take advantage of poorer people desperate enough to sell body parts.

Pakistan shuns prize-winning physicist linked to ‘God particle’ because of religious beliefs

AP - In this picture taken on Oct 15, 1979, the first Pakistani Nobel Prize laureate Professor Abdus Salam, pictured in London, England after he heard the news that he was joint winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics.
By Associated Press, Published: July 8 (what an old photo!)

ISLAMABAD — The pioneering work of Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate, helped lead to the apparent discovery of the subatomic “God particle” last week. But the late physicist is no hero at home, where his name has been stricken from school textbooks.

Praise within Pakistan for Salam, who also guided the early stages of the country’s nuclear program, faded decades ago as Muslim fundamentalists gained power. He belonged to the Ahmadi sect, which has been persecuted by the government and targeted by Taliban militants who view its members as heretics.

Their plight — along with that of Pakistan’s other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Christians and Hindus — has deepened in recent years as hardline interpretations of Islam have gained ground and militants have stepped up attacks against groups they oppose. Most Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims.

Salam, a child prodigy born in 1926 in what was to become Pakistan after the partition of British-controlled India, won more than a dozen international prizes and honors. In 1979, he was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which theorizes how fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe. He died in 1996.

Salam and Steven Weinberg, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize, independently predicted the existence of a subatomic particle now called the Higgs boson, named after a British physicist who theorized that it endowed other particles with mass, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist who once worked with Salam. It is also known as the “God particle” because its existence is vitally important toward understanding the early evolution of the universe.

Physicists in Switzerland stoked worldwide excitement Wednesday when they announced they have all but proven the particle’s existence. This was done using the world’s largest atom smasher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, near Geneva.

“This would be a great vindication of Salam’s work and the Standard Model as a whole,” said Khurshid Hasanain, chairman of the physics department at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Salam wielded significant influence in Pakistan as the chief scientific adviser to the president, helping to set up the country’s space agency and institute for nuclear science and technology. Salam also assisted in the early stages of Pakistan’s effort to build a nuclear bomb, which it eventually tested in 1998.

Salam’s life, along with the fate of the 3 million other Ahmadis in Pakistan, drastically changed in 1974 when parliament amended the constitution to declare that members of the sect were not considered Muslims under Pakistani law.

Ahmadis believe their spiritual leader, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a prophet of God — a position rejected by the government in response to a mass movement led by Pakistan’s major Islamic parties. Islam considers Muhammad the last prophet and those who subsequently declared themselves prophets as heretics.

It seems in every century one or more of the Abrahamic religions goes overboard in its willingness to forget about God's goodness and mercy in efforts to "purify" everyone else who doesn't believe the same way. I love the Ahmadiyyahs who fantastically are able to glean real peacefulness from Muhammad's Quranic teachings although these are filtered through a messianic Ahmadiyyah prophet which upsets the Muslim purists who really do think God speaks only through one man in history. Ah, the day that the Abrahamic Emancipation Proclamation takes effect worldwide will be the day of peaceful reconciliation of all peoples escaping the lunacies of fundamentalist believers.

Israel won't cooperate with UN settlement probe

By TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST.COM STAFF
07/06/2012 21:13

Three jurists appointed to fact-finding probe into Israeli settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.

Israel reiterated Friday that it would refuse cooperation with a a UN Human Rights Council fact finding mission to probe Israeli West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.

The Geneva-based council appointed three international jurists to the mission on Friday, eliciting a rebuke from Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

"The fact finding mission will find no cooperation in Israel and its members will not be allowed to enter Israel and the territories. Its existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UNHRC treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important human rights agenda by non democratic countries," he said.

The three jurists are: Christine Chanet of France, Unity Dow of Botswana and Asma Jahangir of Pakistan.

“I have appointed three highly distinguished individuals to carry out the Council’s fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem,” said UNHRC President Laura Dupuy Lasserre.

She spoke to the council of the settlement probe as it wrapped up its 20th session in Geneva. The council ordered the probe at its 19th session in March.

At the time Israel said that it did not plan to cooperate with the probe and cut its ties with the council in protest.

On Friday, Lasserre called on Israel “not to obstruct the process of the investigation and to cooperate fully with the mission.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva based non profit group UN Watch, immediately attacked the announcement. “While there are genuine human rights victims on all sides, this inquiry’s mandate is imbalanced and lacks credibility,” Neuer said.

“Its terms were framed in a four-page resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab and Islamic groups, that omits any reference to Arab terrorism against Israeli civilians, including the hundreds of rockets fired recently from Gaza and Sinai into Israeli towns and villages."

The UNHRC on Friday provided background on the the three panel members, however, which showed that they had a distinguished history of judicial credentials.

Chanet, who chairs the committee, was part of the Round Table Conference at the Peace Palace at The Hague in November 2001, in which the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct were finalized. She has been a member of the UN Human Rights Committee since 1996 and was twice its chairperson.

Jahangir is the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and has twice chaired her country's Human Rights Commission. She directs the AGHS Legal Aid Cell which provides free legal assistance to the needy. She has also served as UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Council of Human Rights. In 1983 she was imprisoned for for her activism against her country's military regime.

Dow has been Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists since 2004. She was re-elected in 2009. She is a practicing lawyer in Botswana. From 1998 to 2008 she was Botswana's first female High Court judge. She is also novelist and has authored books such as Juggling Truths, The Screaming of the Innocent and Far and Beyond.

U.N. names experts to probe Israeli settlements

GENEVA | Fri Jul 6, 2012 2:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United Nations named French judge Christine Chanet on Friday as the leader of a team of three experts who will investigate whether Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories violate human rights law.

The other team members are Pakistani lawyer Asma Jahangir and Botswana judge Unity Dow. Jahangir has been the subject of human rights cases in the past, having been put under house arrest in 1983 and warned of a plot to assassinate her last month.

The U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) launched the probe in March under an initiative brought to the 47-member forum by the Palestinian Authority. Israel's ally the United States was the only member to vote against it.

The council said Israel's planned construction of new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem undermined the peace process and posed a threat to the two-state solution and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Israel on Friday condemned the investigation. "The establishment of this mission is another blatant expression of the singling out of Israel in the UNHRC," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

"This fact-finding mission will find no co-operation in Israel, and its members will not be allowed to enter Israel and the Territories."

The council's president, Uruguay's ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre, announced the names of the investigators after holding consultations among member states, diplomats said.

As the team will not be allowed access to Israeli settlements, they are likely to have to gather information from second-hand sources, including media.

Even if the investigators conclude settlements violate human rights law, U.S. opposition is likely to stymie any attempt to impose any punishment on Israel.

About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Palestinians seek the territory for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians say settlements, considered illegal by the International Court of Justice, the highest U.N. legal body for disputes, would deny them a viable state.

Israel cites historical and biblical links to the West Bank and says the status of settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.

On Monday Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, told a news conference that the acceleration of settlement building had "closed the book" on the feasibility of a two-state solution.

"The Palestinian position gets weaker and weaker through time and the Israelis get more and more of a fait accompli through their unlawful activities," he said.

"Is it just a delaying tactic that allows the Israelis to expand the settlements, expand the settled population, demolish more and more Palestinian homes and structures and engage in a program that has assumed such proportions that the language of ethnic cleansing is the only way to describe the demographic changes in East Jerusalem?"

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Editing by Pravin Char)

Presbyterian assembly narrowly rejects Israel divestment

Jul 06, 2012
USA TODAY
By Douglas Stanglin,
Updated 42m ago

The General Assembly of the 2-million strong Presbyterian Church (USA) has narrowly rejected a motion to divest in three companies over the Israeli military's use of their products in the Palestinian territories, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

The proposal, presented by the assembly's Committee on Middle East and Peacemaking Issues, was rejected late Thursday by a vote of 333-331, with two abstentions.

BLOG:  A long-simmering issue for the church

The New York Times reports that the results were so close that a collective gasp went up from the convention floor when the tally was posted electronically.

Divestment supporters argue the targeted companies — Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Motorola — are profiting from Palestinian suffering, the Associated Press reports. The American Jewish Committee, a public policy group, has said the proposal demonizes Israel and threatens Christian-Jewish relations.

Other major American Protestant denominations, including the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church, have rejected past divestment proposals, the AP reports.

Yasser Arafat: Palestinians call for poison inquiry

BBC News
4 July 2012 Last updated at 13:05 ET

Yasser Arafat led the Palestine Liberation Organisation for 35 years

Palestinian officials are calling for an international inquiry into former leader Yasser Arafat's death, over renewed claims that he was poisoned.

Swiss scientists told an al-Jazeera TV documentary the radioactive material polonium-210 was on belongings given to his widow after he died in 2004.

She objected to a post-mortem at the time, but now wants his body exhumed to enable further tests to be carried out.

Arafat's medical records say he had a stroke resulting from a blood disorder.

Mr Arafat's former aide, Nabil Abu Rdeinah, who is now spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said "there is no religious or political reason that prevents further investigation into this matter, including exhuming his body" provided the request came from the former Palestinian leader's family.

Another senior Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, said what was most important was to "secure an international investigation committee through the (UN) Security Council or the International Court of Justice to deal with the matter as a whole".

Many Palestinians continue to believe Arafat was poisoned by Israel, which saw Arafat as an obstacle to peace and had put him under house arrest. Israel has denied any involvement.

Others allege that he had Aids.
'Unexplained'

Arafat, who led the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) for 35 years and became the first president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1996, fell violently ill in October 2004 at his besieged West Bank compound.

Two weeks later he was flown to a French military hospital in Paris, where he died on 11 November 2004 at the age of 75.

French doctors bound by privacy rules did not release information about Arafat's condition.

On Tuesday, al-Jazeera reported that the Institute of Radiation Physics (IRA) at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland had found "significant" traces of polonium-210 present in samples taken from Arafat's personal effects, including his trademark keffiyeh.

"I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids," Dr Francois Bochud, the director of the Institute of Radiation Physics, told al-Jazeera.

In some cases, the elevated levels were 10 times higher than those on control subjects, and most of the polonium could not have come from natural sources, the scientists said.

However, a spokesman for the institute, Darcy Christen, told the Reuters news agency that the clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical records were not consistent with polonium-210 poisoning.

The former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died of exposure to polonium-210 in London in 2006. The UK authorities have accused Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB officer, of poisoning his tea.
International inquiry

To confirm the theory that Arafat was poisoned by polonium-210 it would be necessary to exhume and analyse his remains, Dr Bochud said.

"If [Suha Arafat] really wants to know what happened to her husband [we need] to find a sample," he added. "An exhumation... should provide us with a sample that should have a very high quantity of polonium if he was poisoned."

Mrs Arafat confirmed that she would make such a request, telling al-Jazeera: "We have to go further and exhume Yasser Arafat's body to reveal the truth to the Muslim and Arab world."

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee, said exhumation could take place if an international inquiry demanded it.

"We need to discuss this issue and look at it from all angles," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee, told the BBC.

"I think that if there is an international court case - and I think there should be - we should do everything we can to help the case, including exhuming the body of the late President Yasser Arafat, in order to reach a conclusion."

In 2005, the New York Times obtained a copy of Arafat's medical records, which it said showed he died of a massive haemorrhagic stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown infection.

Independent experts who reviewed the records told the paper that it was highly unlikely that he had died of Aids or had been poisoned.

Scientists: Radioactive polonium-210 found on Yasser Arafat's toothbrush, clothes

Ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat says goodbye to well-wishers as he leaves Ramallah on October 29, 2004. He was flown to Paris to seek medical treatment, but died less than two weeks later.
By Reuters

ZURICH - Traces of the poisonous element polonium have been found in the belongings of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a Swiss institute said on Wednesday, and a television report said his widow had demanded his body be exhumed for further tests.

Arafat died at a hospital in France in 2004, after a sudden illness which baffled doctors. Many Palestinians have long suspected he was poisoned.

Darcy Christen, spokesman for the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, told Reuters on Tuesday it had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210 in Arafat's belongings.

But he stressed that clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not.

The Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channel said the institute had tested Arafat's personal effects, given them by his widow.

'Unexplained'
Its documentary said they showed that his clothes, toothbrush and kaffiyeh headscarf contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element.

"I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids," Francois Bochud, director of the institute, said in the documentary.

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Bochud said the only way to confirm the findings would be to exhume Arafat's body to test it for polonium-210.

"But we have to do it quite fast because polonium is decaying, so if we wait too long, for sure, any possible proof will disappear," he told Al Jazeera.

Polonium was found to have caused the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, and he was assumed to have been deliberately poisoned.

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Arafat's widow Suha said she would ask for Arafat's body - buried in the West Bank town of Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian self-rule authority - to be exhumed.

Speaking at the end of the documentary, aired on Al Jazeera's English and Arabic channels, she said: "We have to go further and exhume Yasser Arafat's body to reveal the truth to all the Muslim and Arab world."

Arafat led the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's fight against Israel from the 1960s but signed a peace agreement with the Jewish state in 1993 establishing Palestinian self-rule areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

His mysterious death came four years into a Palestinian uprising, after years of talks with Israel failed to lead to a Palestinian state. French doctors who treated Arafat in his final days could not establish the cause of death.

French officials refused to give details of his condition, citing privacy laws, fuelling a host of rumors and theories over the nature of his illness.