[ At last some sense out of the UK Conservative party on the issue of Israel and Palestine. ]
Mr Bercow, who has previously visited the area with Conservative Friends of Israel, said he fully understood Israeli security concerns.
However, he said: "We would all say that the current stance of the Israeli government is unfair and will not produce peace."
Mr Bercow added: "The current treatment of people in the West Bank and Gaza by the Israeli government is not justified."
full story @ ananova
This arrived in the ol' mailbox today from one my many mailing lists, it is a review of a book writen by a former Israeli soldier, who served for three years in the Gaza Strip.
I note that I can find nothing on the internet at large about this book or the author, except on sites which also display this story. The fact that I cannot find this book for sale on any of the usual online booksellers makes me deeply suspicious that the message is a hoax.
Do you believe this?
“ I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I’d never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn’t see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab…who was crying softly to himself.“His face was right on my flak Jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and Saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, We stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.”
“One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny. I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I’d expected. They shouted that I was totally crazy, and they laughed…and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy.”
It was originally posted on the www.palestine-info.co.uk website. Updates here if I get more news.
or, Did you know what a semite actually is?
[ original source tracked down to Al-Ahram Weekly Online ]
I received an interesting article today via email from the Palestine Info mailing list, which was about how the Israeli right has twisted the definition of anti-semitism, and stands guilty of more than hypocrisy when they accuse others of being anti-Semitic. Ibrahim Nafie writes:
Israel and Zionist organisations are becoming increasingly dependent upon the charge of "anti- Semitism" as a political weapon. Individuals and organisations, indeed entire nations and societies, have found themselves so besmirched.
Anti-Semitism has a very precise definition. It refers to remarks or acts targeting the ethnic group termed Semites, which comprises both Jews and Arabs. Israeli and Zionist media and political forces have warped this definition in several ways. Above all they have manipulated the concept of Semitic ethnicity so as to apply to Jews alone, thereby enabling them to level the allegation of anti-Semitism against the Arabs in spite of the fact that they constitute the majority of the Semitic peoples. In addition, they have stretched the definition of anti-Semitism to include any criticism of Israel and Israeli policy. Thus, anyone who speaks out against the aggression and inhumane practices inflicted against the Palestinian people by Israeli occupation forces risks being branded "anti-Semitic".
"Radical Jewish settlers claim the the hilltops above the Arab village of Ain Abbus as their own. Palestinians say the settlers have resorted to both threats and violence to prevent them from picking their olives. The settlers say God has called on them to settle there."
So who rushes to the aid of these people? Suprisingly enough, it is a group of rabbis. "Rabbis for Human Rights" that intervenes to help the Palestinians.
The rabbis believe that they must uphold the Jewish tradition of human rights and teach moral responsibility and biblical concern for the "stranger in your midst".
This week it would appear that the rabbis and their local volunteers went to help with the olive picking, only to find hundreds of olive trees had been hacked apart by the Jewish Settlers. (On the word of god no doubt.. )
Why?
Read the complete story:
I like to think I keep an open mind on many things, and tried very hard to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from both points of view.
However, what in the name of Nebuchenezzer does Hamas think it is trying to achieve by trying to derail the peace process with it's huge suicide bomb yesterday, and todays threat to "turn the Zionist entity's state into rubble".
Don't they realise that they are playing directly into the hands of Ariel Sharon, who agreed to the peace plan only under extreme pressure from Washington, and who visited Aqaba last week only under pressure from Washington.
Mr Sharon is just itching for an excuse to continue military action, and to have the peace process derailed, and be able to blame it on the palestinian side. Don't forget this "man of peace" was responsible for the massacre of hundreds of palestinians in 1982.
Could someone explain to me what the hell they think they are trying to achieve?
I don't want that crap about how the Palestinians have been mercilessly persecuted by the Israeli's. I know all about the human rights abuses perpetrated over the years on this front. I want to know why, when they were this -> <- close to getting the peace plan back on track they have to fuck it up so spectacularly.
