WELCOMING THE STRANGER IN ISRAEL, UNLESS THEY ARE BLACK

May 5, 2013 at 10:23 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Oppression, Racism)

The Torah, (not the King’s Edition) clearly states in Deuteronomy 10: 19 ‘You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.’ Those that read only hatred in the Torah are not only destroying it, but are destroying the Jewish people as well.
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The State of Israel does not provide these people homeless shelters, which is particularly problematic for women, since sex is sometimes a precondition for being taken into an apartment.The bitter irony here is, of course, that we might have expected that a nation shaped by the refugee experience would find humane ways to deal with today’s displaced people.

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Israel’s Heartbreaking Policy to African Asylum-Seekers

Nation Founded by Refugees Now Turns Its Back on Them

Unwelcome: Few refugees in Israel are granted official refugee status and asylum.

GETTY IMAGES
Unwelcome: Few refugees in Israel are granted official refugee status and asylum.

By Leonard Fein

Meet Omer Olivier. Mr. Olivier is an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has been living in Israel for the last seventeen years without official status. Although he has filed a request to be recognized as a refugee, his lack of recognized status means he cannot work legally nor get medical services.

And so, typically, it goes for those who claim refugee status in Israel. In recent years, there have been 4,322 applications for refugee status; according to Physicians for Human Rights, three have been processed and approved. (The figures are murky. A different report estimates between 35,000 and 38,000 asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom, knowing how slim are the odds that they will actually be processed, let alone approved as “legitimate” refugees, have not applied for asylum. Of those who have applied, less than one percent have been processed and accepted as refugees.)

The stumbling block is Israel’s refusal to examine people who claim refugee status on a case-by-case basis. By Israel’s preferred definition, asylum seekers are in fact infiltrators. So much for being gracious to the stranger.

I met some of these “infiltrators” in a day-care center in Tel Aviv in mid-April. They are stateless people, unable to return to Eritrea for fear of arrest and worse, unable to establish legal residence in Israel. The ones I met were four years old. Thousands more, children and adults, are housed at a massive detention facility in the Negev, which I plan to visit on my next trip to Israel.

Often, the argument put forward in defense of Israel’s restrictive policy is demographic: Israel would be overrun were its doors to be opened. Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu has inexplicably asserted that these people are “a threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel.”

One obvious problem with this argument is that Israel is today a country with a population of more than eight million, and nowhere near the verge of being overrun, still less so were there a more thoughtful path to legal status.

Instead, Israel has determined that Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, the main asylum seekers, are simply not eligible for Refuge Status Determination, as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of Refugees, which Israel ratified on October 1, 1954. And when the terms of reference of that Convention were broadened in 1967, Israel ratified that, too, on June 14, 1968.

The Knesset Information Center acknowledges that Israel is the only developed country that uses temporary collective protection as an alternative to granting asylum on an individual basis, even though the guidelines of the UN High Commission on Refugees clearly state that granting collective protection does not relieve a country of its responsibility to guarantee basic social and economic rights to asylum seekers.

The collective “protection” currently imposed on Eritreans and Sudanese is, in effect, a deferred deportation order; those who are “protected” by it lack work permits, health insurance and welfare benefits. That means that Israel must somehow deal with the 60,000 asylum seekers in Israel who have survived the trek through Sinai, where many have been repeatedly raped or otherwise abused. Once in Israel, they congregate in poor neighborhoods where two-way resentment festers.

The problem: Israel makes the conferral of basic social rights contingent on at least legal residence. The unprocessed asylum seekers lack legal residence, hence lack access to health and social services, are cut off from all local social service frameworks, are barred from legal employment. This drives very many of them into an existence of indigency and want, renders them dependent on charity and non-profit social assistance organizations. Some women find their way to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which reports that many require gynecological attention in the wake of their experience of rape and abuse.

This is not the case in many other countries, where legal status and social benefits are de-linked. While awaiting a ruling on their legal status, asylum seekers in most developed countries enjoy many or all the social rights due a citizen. That is definitively not the case in Israel. After being detained for months or even years, they are given a document that explicitly states that they lack the legal right to work. Lacking the legal right to work, they enter the unregulated job market, where they are often underpaid and overworked and not protected by labor laws and where they are dependent on a network of volunteers for health care.

Plus: The State of Israel does not provide these people homeless shelters, which is particularly problematic for women, since sex is sometimes a precondition for being taken into an apartment.

The bitter irony here is, of course, that we might have expected that a nation shaped by the refugee experience would find humane ways to deal with today’s displaced people. Israel is easy to love — but too often it breaks your heart.

Source

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website

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LEGAL VOICE OF BLACK ACTIVISM SILENCED BY DEATH

April 28, 2013 at 10:27 (Activism, Civil Rights, History, In Memoriam, Racism)

“He could perform in a courtroom in a trial, and then he could write an excellent brief. Then he could do transactional work. Many lawyers can do one but not the others.”
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Leo Branton Jr., Activists’ Lawyer, Dies at 91

Associated Press

Leo Branton Jr. with Angela Davis during her 1972 trial on murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges. She was acquitted.

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

Leo Branton Jr., a California lawyer whose moving closing argument in a racially and politically charged murder trial in 1972 helped persuade an all-white jury to acquit a black communist, the activist and academic Angela Davis, died on April 19 in Los Angeles. He was 91.

His death was confirmed by Howard Moore Jr., another lawyer who represented Ms. Davis.

Mr. Branton, a black veteran of World War II who served in a segregated Army unit, represented prominent black performers, including Nat King Cole and Dorothy Dandridge, argued cases on behalf of the Black Panthers and the Communist Party, and filed numerous cases alleging police abuse. But the case with which he was most closely associated was that of Ms. Davis.

“Friends of mine said we couldn’t get a fair trial here in Santa Clara County,” Mr. Branton told jurors in his final remarks, on June 1, 1972, in a courtroom in San Jose, Calif. “They said that we could not get 12 white people who would be fair to a black woman charged with the crimes that are charged in this case.”

Ms. Davis, a 28-year-old former instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles, was accused of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1970 death of a state judge who was shot with one of several weapons she had bought. The year before, Ms. Davis had lost her teaching job after she expressed support for the Communist Party. After the charges were filed, she became a fugitive, one of the F.B.I.’s 10 most wanted. She said the weapons had been stolen from her.

Her flight had been an important part of the prosecution’s case. But Mr. Branton, who had argued numerous cases of police abuse in the 1950s, urged jurors to view her behavior in the context of centuries of slavery, racism and abuse against blacks.

At one point he showed jurors a drawing of Ms. Davis bound in chains. Then he removed the drawing to reveal another showing her freed.

“Pull away these chains,” he said, “as I have pulled away that piece of paper.“

Some jurors cried, and after she was acquitted, so did Ms. Davis. She also hugged the jurors.

“Angela Davis Found Not Guilty by White Jury on All Charges,” said a headline in The New York Times on June 5, 1972.

Decades later, Mr. Branton said the case stood out to him not just because of the verdict or the distinctiveness of his final appeal, but also because of the defense’s preparations. During jury selection, defense lawyers hired psychologists to help them determine who in the jury pool might favor their arguments, an uncommon practice at the time, he said. They also hired experts who undermined the reliability of eyewitness accounts, which were important to the prosecution.

Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and defense lawyer who met Ms. Davis in 1970 when she was being detained before trial and he was an undergraduate at Stanford, said in an interview on Friday that Mr. Branton had emphasized to the jury “who she was as a person.”

“He didn’t want her convicted because of her race or her politics,” he said.

Mr. Branton was born on Feb. 17, 1922, in Pine Bluff, Ark., the oldest of five children. He received a bachelor’s degree from Tennessee State University in 1942 before serving in the Army. He earned his law degree at Northwestern University in 1948 and soon moved to California.

In 1952, Mr. Branton represented 14 members of the California Communist Party who were accused of advocating the overthrow of the government through force. They were convicted in lower courts, but the convictions were vacated by the United States Supreme Court in 1957.

His survivors include three sons, Leo L. Branton III, Tony Nicholas and Paul Nicholas; a brother; a sister; and five grandchildren. Geraldine Pate Nicholas, his wife of more than 50 years, died in 2006.

Mr. Branton began representing Nat King Cole in 1958 and eventually helped him secure ownership of his master recordings from Capitol Records, said Mr. Moore, his fellow lawyer in the Davis case. Many years later, Mr. Branton represented the estate of Jimi Hendrix until he and others were sued by members of the Hendrix family. The suit was dropped in 1995.

Mr. Moore said he first met Mr. Branton when they represented different clients in civil rights cases in Mississippi in the 1960s. Mr. Branton was already well known for his work in Hollywood and before the Supreme Court.

“Leo was good in his seat and on his feet,” Mr. Moore said. “He could perform in a courtroom in a trial, and then he could write an excellent brief. Then he could do transactional work. Many lawyers can do one but not the others.”

From

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MEDICAL RACISM IN ISRAEL

April 28, 2013 at 09:30 (Ethnic Cleansing, Health Crisis, Human Rights, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Racism)

It’s a “problem” that too many babies are being born to parents from Africa, a leading Israeli medical official has told lawmakers at the Israeli parliament.
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Medical racism: Israel hospital director complains that too many African babies are being born

 by Ali Abunimah
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Israelis chant “Sudanese Back To Sudan” during a right-wing demonstration against African refugees in south Tel Aviv, 30 May 2012.

 (Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

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It’s a “problem” that too many babies are being born to parents from Africa, a leading Israeli medical official has told lawmakers at the Israeli parliament.

Israel’s Maariv reported yesterday the official’s comments in Hebrew:

“In Tel Aviv, today, there live approximately 80 thousand infiltrators from Africa, who constitute about 15 percent of the city’s population. In the last year about 700 babies were born to Eritrean and Sudanese mothers, and we currently have an average of about two births a day,” thus reported today Professor Gaby Barabash, director of the Ichilov Medical Center, in a hearing the Knesset held by the lobby for returning the infiltrators.

“The problem is that they closed down the fence, but they did not close down the natural growth, and the number of Eritreans born here rises from year to year,” said Barabash.

Barabash’s use of the term “infiltrators” as a general term for Africans marks his comments as part of the long-standing campaign of racist incitement by Israeli leaders and officials that has resulted in horrifying demonstrations and pogroms targeting Africans in Israel, many of whom arrive as refugees.

In December, David Sheen profiled Israel’s “racist ringleaders,” the political leaders and public figures most responsible for racist incitement.

Barabash’s comments are also in keeping with the general outlook in Israel where it is socially acceptable to define the births of non-Jewish babies as undesirable or as a “demographic threat” to the so-called “Jewish and democratic state.”

Even more disturbing, Barabash played on common racist tropes of Africans and people of color as bearers of diseases, recognizable from racist discourses in other places and times, including traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric:

Professor Barabash reported high percentages of intrauterine deaths, and also contagious viral diseases among the delivering mothers: tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS. The African population constitutes one third of the new cases of AIDS carriers [sic] diagnosed in Israel, and half of the cases of malaria carriers.

All of this testimony was taken at a parliamentary hearing organized by members who voice vocal support for mass expulsions of Africans and for the construction of a desert prison camp to hold them.

Recently, women of Ethiopian origin have accused Israeli officials of forcing them to take long-term contraceptives, allegations that came to light following an investigation into the precipitous drop in births to Ethiopian women in Israel in recent years.

A long tradition of Israeli baby-hatred

Barabash’s shocking comments also recall those made by Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, a senior researcher at the Israeli government’s Armaments Development Authority at the Herzliya Conference in 2003, who called for Israel to “implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its Muslim population.”

Ravid added: “the delivery rooms in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba,” an area with a large Bedouin population, “have turned into a factory for the production of a backward population” (“Herzliya conference sees verbal attacks on Israeli Arabs,” Haaretz, 18 December 2003).

Palestine’s indigenous Bedouin population has long been the target of Israeli forced removal from their lands and other racist practices.

And as David Hirst wrote of Prime Minister Golda Meir in his classic book The Gun and the Olive Branch, “The Palestinians’ birth-rate was so much higher than the Jews’ that her sleep was often disturbed, she would say, at the thought of how many Arab babies had been born in the night.”

With thanks to Dena Shunra for translation and analysis.

 

 

Written FOR

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50 YEARS LATER ~~ FROM THE GHETTOS OF BIRMINGHAM TO THE GHETTOS OF PALESTINE

April 21, 2013 at 09:04 (Civil Rights, History, Palestine, Racism)

Numerous studies document an increasingly frightened, racist society: large numbers of Israeli Jews would not allow an Arab in their home, neighborhood, or children’s school, favor preference for Jews over Arabs in governmental hiring, and both societies live increasingly ghettoized lives.
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Lessons from the civil rights movement on an important anniversary

By Alice Rothchild

 

Martin Luther King Jr.
A few months after writing the “Letter from Birmingham jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. (File photo) 

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the protests against Southern segregation in Birmingham and celebrate today’s anniversary of Martin Luther King’s penning of his fiery “Letter from Birmingham jail,” we are challenged by King’s deeds and  voice.

King wrote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He talked about the importance of grappling with the underlying causes of popular resistance; the powerful role of nonviolent direct action “to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”

King was not only deeply committed to nonviolence, to fighting “the triple evils” of racism, materialism and militarism, but toward the end of his life, he also turned his passion to opposing the Vietnam war, thus entering the international realm and the struggle for human rights for all oppressed peoples.

 

Now, 44 years after his assassination and decades of unity between African-American and Jewish communities fighting racism and anti-Semitism, a new challenge is arising. African-Americans are feeling growing pressure to stand with their Jewish brothers and sisters, despite mounting distress over the policies of the Israeli government towards Palestinians. At the same time, the U.S. Jewish community is increasingly agonized and fractured over criticism of Israeli policies and the growing Jewish voice, from activist organizations to campuses, for an end to the occupation and for boycott, divestment, and sanctions towards Israel until there is a just resolution to the conflict.

What can we learn from King’s legacy about this contentious issue?

 

In October 2012, under the leadership of the Dorothy Cotton Institute, a delegation of African-American civil rights leaders, theologians, scholars and activists, (many of whom are Jewish), traveled to Israel and the West Bank to see for themselves. Informed by our experiences and knowledge of the segregated South, sit-ins, bus boycotts and nonviolent marches, many were unprepared for the striking parallels we faced.

“Why didn’t I know?” was a common, disturbing question.

 

While Israel is usually presented as a vibrant, productive, democratic society, the delegates learned about a reality that is usually hidden from public discourse. We learned that from 1948 to 1966, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship lived under military rule with checkpoints and permits to travel within their own country. There are now more than 35 laws that explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews. Approximately 93 percent of Israeli land is in actuality for use by Jews only through the work of the Jewish National Fund and various state agencies. There are Jewish towns and Arab towns with major discrepancies in funding, infrastructure and schools, not to mention unrecognized Palestinian villages within Israel that receive no services whatsoever.

Numerous studies document an increasingly frightened, racist society: large numbers of Israeli Jews would not allow an Arab in their home, neighborhood, or children’s school, favor preference for Jews over Arabs in governmental hiring, and both societies live increasingly ghettoized lives.

 

Our experiences within East Jerusalem and the West Bank were even more troublesome; whether it was the aggressive Judaization of old Arab neighborhoods in the Holy City or the efforts by Israeli authorities to make it increasingly difficult for East Jerusalemites to retain their IDs. We witnessed the extensive systems of bypass roads (intended for Jewish settlers only), separate bus systems, the rapid growth of Jewish settlements, much on private Palestinian land, the crushing checkpoint system for Palestinians and the separation wall snaking through the West Bank.

Jewish settlers in the West Bank live under Israeli civil law, Palestinians under military law. Settlements receive ample water, electricity and infrastructure; Palestinian villages are marked by their scarcity.

In Hebron where militant Jewish settlers, guarded by heavily armed soldiers, have established an enclave in the middle of the Old City, there are streets that are “Arab-rein” (“clean of Arabs”) and a high level of daily harassment by well-armed settlers toward the local Palestinian population.

 

Given Israel’s reputation as the victim of Palestinian intransigence and terrorism, the other surprise for some members of the DCI delegation was meeting Palestinians deeply committed to nonviolent activism, well-versed in the teachings of King and Gandhi, placing their bodies on the line Friday after Friday in the villages of Bi’ilin, Budrus, Nabi Saleh and others. We learned of years of boycotts and nonviolent marches, campus actions, Freedom Rides and a growing commitment to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

 

Just as King wrote, “Where do we go from here?” today’s African-Americans and American Jews are struggling with the terrible consequences for a society that was once a source of pride and comfort, but is now more publicly reaping the cost of privileging one group of people over another. Discrimination, racism and segregation are the prevailing reality and what leaders from Jimmy Carter to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu have compared to apartheid.

 

Clearly, powerful forces within our own society, from Christians Zionists to AIPAC to our government-backed global military industrial complex make this all possible. This is further reinforced by a corporate news media frequently parroting the voices of the Israeli government rather than investigating the human rights concerns of Palestinians. But grassroots activists, joining together as part of an international movement, are developing a new discourse which is human rights-based, rather than focused on Jewish victimhood and exceptionalism at the expense of the Palestinian population.

Perhaps this can unite African-Americans steeped in the civil rights struggle and US Jews who feel Judaism has been hijacked by the increasingly isolated and dangerous policies of the Israeli state.

 

Alice Rothchild is a Boston-based physician, author, and filmmaker who is active in the US Jewish peace movement. 

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BELLA CIAO TO ISLAMOPHOBIA

April 12, 2013 at 10:56 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Editorial, International Solidarity, Islamophobia, Israel, Palestine, Racism)

New Version from Iran (Thanks to Redpossum)
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It’s been a bad month for zionism and Islamophobia …. a great month for humanity!
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First this ….. Canadian Students Back Boycott Israel Movement 
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Then this ….. The Jimmy Carter Protests that Weren’t  
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And now this ….. Pamela Geller Speech Cancelled At New York Synagogue 
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Here’s the full report FROM …. it claims that the synagogue failed to take a stand, but I’m satisfied with the cancellation!
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Bella Ciao To Islamophobia!!
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Shul Cancels Pamela Geller — But Fails To Take Stand

By Nechama Liss-Levinson

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It was after 11 p.m. yesterday that I first heard the news that my synagogue, the Great Neck Synagogue, had announced the cancellation of a speaking engagement by Pamela Geller, founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), described as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I breathed a great sigh of relief. I quickly stopped writing the piece I was working on about how my heart was broken by the intransigence of the synagogue and its leadership in confronting a moral challenge.

Despite the cancellation, I am still filled with pain. When the synagogue announced its decision to cancel Geller’s talk, originally set for April 14, it cited “security concerns,” particularly for member families and their children. This indeed may be the reason that the executive board of the synagogue cancelled the event.


In my heart, I hope it was not the only reason. I hope the leadership was (at least unconsciously) influenced by the virtual flood of phone calls, emails, and private conversations in which Great Neck Synagogue members, as well as others, made the point that even though Geller has the right to speak, the synagogue does not have an obligation to offer her its pulpit.

I wish my synagogue had spoken of the moral question. I wish the leaders had stood up and said, “We didn’t initially realize what Geller represents. Now that we do know, we will stand proudly against hate speech.” I wish that they had noticed that Geller’s concerns about radical Islam often morph into a vilification of all Muslims and the Islamic faith. Her language encourages denigration and dehumanization, rather than constructive discussion and cooperation.

What is even more distressing to me is the reaction that the cancellation has engendered. The commentary on the blogosphere, including a statement posted on Geller’s website, now denigrates the synagogue and its leaders. The vitriol and hatred in these postings are frightening. Both sides in this conflict feel that they are right, that they own the moral high ground, and that an evil is being perpetrated. But a quick survey of these postings will find that the supporters of Geller have totally lost the capacity for civil discourse.

I had planned to use two quotes from Elie Wiesel in my original post about the Geller invitation. His most famous one is: “Indifference to evil is evil.” And then, just days ago, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a young friend posted this, also from Wiesel: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.”

I feel that these quotes give me added strength to do what I think is right. And then I read scores of quotes online from supporters of Geller,also using the example of the Holocaust as a reason that she should be permitted to speak. Most used the phrase, “Never again.” Who knew that even the Holocaust can be used to justify such disparate viewpoints?

When I got into my car this morning at 8:00 a.m., a radio newscast informed me that Geller had declared that her talk was cancelled due to “relentless intimidation, bullying and threats.” In fact, she said, “leftist thugs, pushed and prodded by Islamist supremacist…… threatened a march on the shul.”

I sat in the car stunned. What was true was that my husband and I had petitioned the Village of Great Neck for permission for a peaceful demonstration, which would have taken place across the street from the synagogue on the Sunday morning of Geller’s talk. It was clearly written in the petition that the demonstrators would be “polite and law abiding.” There were no microphones or speeches planned for our event, just placards with messages like “Say NO to Religious Bigotry” or “Great Neck Synagogue Members Support Religious Tolerance.”

The organizers were all members of Great Neck Synagogue, parents and grandparents, community leaders and community activists. We wanted to show that not all members of the synagogue agreed with the decision to invite Geller. We wanted to be able to stand proudly. We wanted, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, wrote, “to pray with our feet.” As of yesterday, we were the only group to file a petition to assemble on the day of Geller’s speech. I have been called many things, but this was the first time I have been branded a “leftist thug.”

Why did we plan to protest? We want our synagogue to be known for the many extraordinary programs in which we’ve participated: sending busloads of demonstrators to Washington D.C. to protest the genocide in Darfur; organizing a 25-person relief mission to rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; sending food for the holidays to impoverished Jewish families as well as to the food pantry sponsored by a local church; and being home base for a Women’s Tefila group, which offers meaningful rituals for many of the developmental milestones that Jewish girls and women face. And so it seemed untenable that this synagogue would be stuck in such a terrible morass, getting attention for offering a platform to hatred and bigotry.

I am thrilled that the Great Neck Synagogue has cancelled the event for Geller. I remain brokenhearted for the underlying anxieties, fears and hatreds that it exposed.

 

 

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ISRAELI HATE REACHES NEW HEIGHTS ON FACEBOOK

March 23, 2013 at 17:17 (Extremism, FaceBook, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Palestine, Racism, zionist harassment)

“May you die garbage Arabs, amen!”

This is only a small selection of therepresentative and typical comments posted under the picture of the three boys in the tent.

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“Castrate them!” “Burn them!” “Bullet in the head!”: Facebook Israelis react to photo of Palestinian kids

 Ali Abunimah 
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An image of three Palestinian boys sparked an outpouring of violent and sadistic fantasies after it was reposted to an Israeli Facebook page (Original source and screenshot of context).

 (Shadi Hatem)

Having regularly documented the horrifying racism and violent fantasies frequently expressed by Israelis on Facebook or Instagram, I thought I had seen everything.

But this may be the worst yet. On Wednesday, the picture above of three Palestinian boys in a tent was posted on a popular Facebook page titled in Hebrew “We are all in favor of death to terrorists.” Under the picture is the following caption:

Arab boys in the illegal Arab outpost established near Maale Adumim. What should the Israeli army do to them?

This is an apparent reference to the peaceful “Bab al-Shams” encampment established by Palestinians near Jerusalem to protest Israel’s plans to seize more land for settlements. The protest was timed to coincide with the visit of US President Barack Obama.

“Run the tent over with a truck/Merkava tank/a bus/ whatever it takes to crush and kill these children,” suggested Facebook user Lidor Swisa.

As of Friday there were almost 200 comments under the post offering suggestions of what the Israeli army should do – the vast majority fantasizing extreme sadistic violence and murder.

What makes this even more than usually disturbing is many of the Israeli commentators appear to be high school students themselves – perhaps only a year or two from mandatory army service when they will be empowered to carry out their fantasies.

Soldiers and adults join in the virtual pogrom

Kfir Brigade sergeant Ohad Halevy believes Palestinian children peacefully protesting should be “slaughtered” (Source).

But others, such as Shlomo Levi, are clearly already army-age adults. His suggestion?

“I’d have thrown nerve gas into the tent and closed it and made them breath it until the end”

Kfir Infantry Brigade member David Kozolovski justifies violence against Palestinian children (Source).

David Kozolovski wrote, “To all those comparing Jews to Nazis, Jews did not try to kill German civilians,” thereby justifying the orgy of violent fantasies against the children.

Kozolovski’s profile pictures on Facebook include images of him in his Israeli army uniform bearing the insignia of the Kfir Infantry Brigade.

Ohad Halevy, another soldier in the Kfir Brigade simply wrote “Slaughter them!” of the three children in the photo.

“May you die garbage Arabs, amen!”

This is only a small selection of therepresentative and typical comments posted under the picture of the three boys in the tent.

A minority of users objected to these pervasive comments. Lilach Lilush, said, “Excuse me … I disagree… what do you mean ‘eliminate?’ What are we, an arm of Hamas or Hizballah? We are more enlightened. We should just return them safely where they came from.”

Even in her objection Lilush could not but stereotype Arabs as monsters compared to “enlightened” Israelis. But still, hers was a very rare sentiment amid the frenzy of bloodlust that sees the three Palestinian boys in the picture as legitimate targets for extreme violence.

Widespread incitement and racism

Again, I stress as in my previous posts, that this horrifying racism and sadism towards Arabs seems to be pervasive among Israelis who use social media and reflects the much broader phenomenon of escalating racism in Israel against Palestinians and Africans.

Haaretz noted, for instance, in a recent article that racist incitement by Israeli public figures doubled in 2012. It also reported on how the kind of crude and shocking racism seen in these comments is common among Israeli schoolchildren in Jerusalem.

Nurit Peled-Elhanan has also documented in her recent book the pervasive anti-Arab racism and stereotypes that Israeli children are exposed to at school which may contribute to this horrifying phenomenon.

It is also notable that the “We are all in favor of death to terrorists” Facebook group has more than 41,000 “Likes” and images of Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis deemed traitorous “leftists” are frequently posted attracting similarly vile comments.

In his speech in Jerusalem this week, President Obama also observed that “Israelis are so active on social media that every day seemed to bring a different Facebook campaign about where I should give this speech.”

The violence is not just virtual

In at least one case we know of, an Israeli soldier, Maxim Vinogradov, announced on Facebook his intention to assist in the “annihilation” of Arabs just days before he went out and shot father of two Ziad Jilani at a checkpoint in Jerusalem for no known reason in 2010.

An example of the Israeli army’s routine brutality against children was on display on the very day Obama landed when dozens of children as young as eight were abused and kidnapped by Israeli soldiers as they were on their way to school in Hebron  a harrowing scene caught on video.

 

Written FOR

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FACEBOOK OR ‘HATEBOOK’?

March 16, 2013 at 18:24 (Extremism, FaceBook, Hasbara, Israel, Palestine, Racism, zionism)

 FaceBook has become the zionists’ newest forum for spreading their hatred as can be seen in the following …
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Golani Brigade soldier: “May all Arabs die … I am a proud racist.”
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“May all Arabs die!” Israelis on Facebook express joy at Jordan bus crash that killed Palestinian pilgrims

 by Ali Abunima
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Israelis, including at least one person identifying himself as a soldier, reacted with genocidal joy on Facebook to the horrifying news this morning that 17 Palestinians returning from a pilgrimage had been killed in a bus accident in Jordan and dozens more injured. Early reports had put the number of dead at 14.

According to The Jordan Times, the accident occurred as the bus descended toward the Jordan Valley “and slammed into a passenger vehicle causing it to overturn. The bus then slammed into a truck and the two vehicles crashed resulting in the deaths and the high number of injuries.”

Israelis overjoyed at horrifying deaths

“I couldn’t ask for a better morning than this,” wrote Facebook user Kobi Yaacov Saroussiunder an item about the accident on the Facebook page of Israel’s Channel 2, “Shame there isn’t another zero at the end [of the number of victims].”

Kobi Yaacov Saroussi is disappointed there weren’t ten times as many deaths.

There were dozens more similar comments. Facebook user Demri Alice wrote “Finally it’s possible to ‘Like’ something,” to which she added a smiley face.

In horrifying deaths of Palestinians, Demri Alice finally find something to “Like” on Facebook.

Many were brief. Tomer Reuven simply commented “Very good.”

“Great! Let’s hope everyone on the bus was an Arab!” said Eitan Wolfer Eifergan.

“I’ve never tolerated Arabs,” wrote Kobi Noga, “I’m an extreme rightist. We should kill them all.”

Kobi Noga, self-described “extreme rightist,” thinks all Arabs should be killed.

Shenhav Sharbit, using the perjorative term “arboushim” – roughly the equivalent of the N-word – said Arabs could “all die” and that was “all good.”

Shenhav Sharbit uses a racist epithet for Arabs to express her joy at their deaths.

Golani Brigade soldier: “May all Arabs die … I am a proud racist.”

In a screenshot from his Facebook page, Chen Shaptiban is seen in a uniform bearing the tree symbol indicating that he is a member of the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade.

Among the most horrifying of the many horrifying comments were those of Chen Shaptiban who, based on a photo on his Facebook page, appears to be a member of the Israeli army’s notorious “Golani brigade” which was recently in the news because some of its members have posted shocking photographs on Instagram. One of Shaptiban’s reactions to the road accident was this:

May all Arabs die. There is no place for Arabs in the land of Israel. Maybe it sounds terrible to some people in north Tel Aviv, but they too do not deserve to live in this state, and yes, I am a proud racist, proud of my state and the soldiers guarding it!

Objections to racism shut down with more racist abuse

Some Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jews objected to the pervasive racism. Facebook user Marwan Momo, for example, wrote, “You keep crying Holocaust Holocaust but look how you talk!”

Gilad Kapeliuk wrote, “The sickening racism does not surprise me …. I’m ashamed to be part of this nation.”

But Avigail Mishaiv replied to Kapeliuk, “Gaza is waiting for you with open arms. You can go and be proud over there.

Golani soldier Shaptiban also retorted, “Gilad, you leftists are the cancer in the state, traitors to the state, the garbage of Israeli society.”

Regev Cohen, responding to another Facebook user, whom he addressed with a homophobic epithet, wrote, “All the terrorists in the world, all the fucking martyrs, who are they? Arabs and Muslims” before referring to Arabs as “barbarians” and “human waste.”

Ori Avraham reacted to criticism of the racist statements from a user called “Irit” by telling her, “Do you know what the biggest dream of the Muslims is? To exterminate all the Jews by any means, so be quiet.”

Not an isolated incident

It is important to emphasize that the racist comments in this incident were not rare or exceptional, but numerous and pervasive.

While the comments above were collected from the Facebook page of Israel’s Channel 2, many similar racist comments could be seen just as frequently under the news item about the crash on the Facebook page of Walla! News, another major Israeli media outlet.

At Walla! for example, Elior Mizrahi commented, “Sabbath morning, a beautiful day!” and added a smiley face. Shai Hadad expressed the sentiment, “14 is too few, shame it wasn’t more.”

Nor is this an isolated incident. The Electronic Intifada has previously documented numerous examples of Israelis expressing shocking racism and calls for racist and genocidal violence on Facebook.

Today’s disgusting comments are also reminiscent of what happened when some Israelis expressed delight after a number of Palestinian children were killed in a bus accident in February last year.

It is also notable that while the habitual expressions of joy by Israelis at the deaths and suffering of Palestinians go largely unremarked, an Egyptian activist, Samira Ibrahim, was the focus of worldwide condemnation recently after her nomination for a White House award was withdrawn when it came to light that she had expressed joy on Twitter at the deaths of Israelis in the July 2012 bombing of a bus in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas among other objectionable and racist comments.

Words lead to killing

This shocking and pervasive racism is not harmless. Many of those expressing it are members of Israeli occupation forces who hold immense power over the Palestinian population.

In at least one case we know about, an Israeli occupation “border policeman,” Maxim Vinogradov, had expressed a desire on Facebook to assist in “annihilating” Arabs just one week before he shot dead Palestinian father Ziad Jilani at a checkpoint in eastern occupied Jerusalem, a killing for which Jilani’s family continues to seek justice.

 

Written FOR

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WHAT AWAITS OBAMA IN THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM?

March 13, 2013 at 09:01 (DesertPeace Exclusive, Israel, Palestine, Racism, zionist harassment)

obama to jerusalem
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President Obama is due to arrive on a whirlwind visit to Jerusalem next week … is the following the ‘welcome’ that awaits him from many of his own citizens? …..
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Oops …. the video I wanted to present here was removed by YouTube (surprise, surprise) but has been saved on the site of What Really Happened …. You can watch it by clicking HERE. Before you watch it, bear in mind that it contains shocking rude and racist language.
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YouTube has a policy of banning any video on their site that does not show a favourable view of zionism, obviously we do not adhere to that policy.
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Keep in mind that there was not one Palestinian in that video which leads to the following question; despite the animosity shown to President Obama by zionists, what will he do for the Palestinians while visiting here? In an Op-Ed in the New York Times that question is dealt with …
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Will Obama Let the Oppression of Palestinians Continue?

Anthony Russo

 

By RASHID KHALIDI*

WHAT should Barack Obama, who is to visit Israel next Wednesday for the first time in his presidency, do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

First, he must abandon the stale conventional wisdom offered by the New York-Washington foreign-policy establishment, which clings to the crumbling remnants of a so-called peace process that, in the 34 years since the Camp David accords, has actually helped make peace less attainable than ever.

When the most recent iteration of this process began with high hopes at the Madrid peace conference in 1991, which led to the Oslo accords two years later, there were 200,000 Israelis illegally settled in the occupied Palestinian territories: today, there are more than twice as many.

During this time, under four successive presidents, the United States, purportedly acting as an honest broker, did nothing to prevent Israel from gradually gobbling up the very land the two-state solution was to be based on.

Until 1991 most Palestinians, although under Israeli military occupation, could nonetheless travel freely. Today, an entire generation of Palestinians has never been allowed to visit Jerusalem, enter Israel or cross between the West Bank and Gaza. This ghettoization of the Palestinians, along with the unrest of the second intifada of 2000-5 and the construction of seemingly permanent settlements and of an apartheid-style wall, are the tragic fruits of the so-called peace process the United States has led.

The “peace process” has consisted of indulging Israeli intransigence over Palestine in exchange for foreign-policy goals unrelated to the advancement of peace and Palestinian freedom. In the late 1970s this involved the strategic cold war prize of moving Egypt from the Soviet column to the American column.

The Camp David accord between Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar el-Sadat essentially set aside the “Palestinian question.” These constraints shaped the Oslo process, in which Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized each other, while all fundamental issues like borders, refugees, water, Israeli settlements and the status of Jerusalem were deferred.

Toward the end of his first term, Mr. Obama essentially abandoned his already modest peacemaking agenda in exchange for a lull in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign for war with Iran. Palestine was again sacrificed, this time to bribe a belligerent Israel for temporary good behavior.

The American-led “process” has ultimately strengthened the Israeli far right and made Palestinian self-determination more unattainable than ever. Continuing with the Orwellian grotesquerie that is the “peace process” is contrary to any enlightened definition of American self-interest. It has burnished the image of the United States as Israel’s uncritical defender and enabler. Furthermore, it insults the intelligence of the Palestinian people. Despite the complicity of some of their leaders in a process that has left them stateless while the unending colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues, they deserve to be more than prisoners in their own land.

If Mr. Obama decided to devote energy toward resolving the conflict – a big if – it would not be easy. The Palestinians are deeply divided between supporters of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which governs the West Bank, and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. An even bigger obstacle is Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government, hellbent on territorial expansion.

In short, if the objectives of the entire peace process are not ending the occupation, removing the settlements and providing for real Palestinian self-determination, then what is the purpose of pretending to restart it?

There are two facts Mr. Obama would do well to keep in mind.

The overwhelming dominance of Israel over the Palestinians means that the conflict is not one that demands reciprocal concessions from two equal parties. In addition, peace has to be made between Palestinians and Israelis, not between Mr. Obama and his critics in the Republican Party, the Israel lobby and Israel’s right-wing parties.

If Mr. Obama cannot face those realities, it would be far better for him to just be honest: the United States supports this intolerable reality and is willing to bear the resulting international opprobrium. People the world over realize that America for many decades has helped produce a situation where, pious invocations of support for a Palestinian state notwithstanding, there is, and for the foreseeable future will be, only one true sovereign authority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River: the state of Israel.

Only Israeli Jews are full citizens of that land, while 5 million Palestinians live in a state of subjugation or exile and 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs live in Israel as second-class citizens. A “one-state solution” based on enduring discrimination and oppression is ultimately unsustainable. Its only remaining external support comes from the United States and Europe, whose citizens are increasingly aware that such a structure is deeply at odds with their own values, as apartheid South Africa was.

For Mr. Obama, a decision is in order. He can reconcile the United States to continuing to uphold and bankroll an unjust status quo that it helped produce. Or he can begin to chart a new course based on recognition that the United States must forthrightly oppose the occupation and the settlements and support an inalienable Palestinian right to freedom, equality and statehood. There is no middle way.

*Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, is the author, most recently, of “Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.”

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IT’S OFFICIAL! ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE

March 3, 2013 at 08:42 (Apartheid, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, Racism)

The Transportation Ministry defended the plan, saying it was the result of reports and complaints saying that the buses traveling in the area were overcrowded and rife with tensions between the Jewish and Arab passengers.
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Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff
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Ministry launches ‘Palestinians only’ buses

Transportation Ministry sets up designated bus lines for Palestinian passengers in West Bank; insists lines are for general public, but only Palestinian villages have been advised of their existence

Itamar Fleishman

Racial segregation or transportation mitigation? The Transportation Ministry announced that starting Sunday it will begin operating designated lines for Palestinians in the West Bank.

The bus lines in question are meant, according to the ministry, to transport Palestinian workers from the West Bank to central Israel. The ministry alleges that the move is meant to ease the congestion felt on bus lines used by Jews in the same areas, but several bus drivers told Ynet that Palestinians who will choose to travel on the so-called “mixed” lines, will be asked to leave them.

While officially the new lines are considered “general bus lines,” Ynet learned Saturday that their existence has been made public only in Palestinian villages in the West Bank, via flyers in Arabic urging Palestinians to arrive at Eyal crossing and use the designated lines.
The Transportation Ministry defended the plan, saying it was the result of reports and complaints saying that the buses traveling in the area were overcrowded and rife with tensions between the Jewish and Arab passengers.
A ministry source said that many complaints expressed concern that the Palestinian passengers may pose a security risk, while other complaints said that the overcrowded buses cause the drivers to skip stations.
The ministry has also gotten reports of scuffles between Jews and Arab passengers, as well as between Palestinians and drivers who refused to allow them to board their bus.
The ministry reportedly considered several alternatives before deciding to opt for designated lines – knowing that the issue of so-called “Palestinian lines” would be highly controversial.

‘Buses meant to improve service’

Still, the ministry eventually decided to launch the lines, which will run from Eyal crossing – near the West Bank city of Qalqilya – to Israel.

Legally, however, there is no way to stop Palestinians from boarding “regular” lines: “We are not allowed to refuse service and we will not order anyone to get off the bus, but from what we were told, starting next week, there will be checks at the checkpoint, and Palestinians will be asked to board their own buses,” a driver with Afikim – the company that holds the routes franchise for the area – told Ynet.
The volatile nature of the decision was not lost on the driver: “Obviously, everyone will start screaming ‘apartheid’ and ‘racism’ now. This really doesn’t feel right, and maybe (the ministry) should find a different solution, but the situation right now is impossible.”
Another driver said that, “Driving a bus full of only Palestinians might turn out to be tricky. It could be unnerving and it might also create other problems. It could be a scary thing.”
The Judea and Samaria Police is reportedly gearing for the move as well, and will deploy additional forces in Eyal crossing to maintain public order.
Police sources said that it is highly unlikely that Palestinians would be excluded from riding on existing bus lines, adding that the forces would “Do their best to execute the ministry’s decision.”
Afikim issued a statement saying that, “This plan aims to ease travel for Palestinian passengers and offer a solution that counters pirate bus companies that charge exorbitant prices. As for any question about removing Palestinian passengers from buses – that has to be addressed by the enforcement and security bodies.”
The Transportation Ministry issued the following statement: “The new lines are not separate lines for Palestinians but rather two designated lines meant to improve the services offered to Palestinian workers who enter Israel through Eyal Crossing.
“The new lines will replace irregular, pirate lines that charge very high prices from Palestinian passengers. The new lines will reduce congestion and will benefit Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
According to the statement, “The Transportation Ministry is forbidden from preventing any passenger from boarding any line of public transportation, nor do we know of a directive to that effect. Instating these lines was done with the knowledge and complete agreement of the Palestinians.”
Source

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ZIONISM // COLLECTIVE BRAIN ATROPHY

February 26, 2013 at 09:29 (DesertPeace Exclusive, Ethnic Cleansing, Israel, Racism, Social Media, zionist harassment)

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Definition of ATROPHY …. (FROM)

Decrease in size or wasting away of a body part or tissue; also : arrested development or loss of a part or organ incidental to the normal development or life of an animal or plant
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Here are the manifestations of the above …. as seen on YouTube via FaceBook ….
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 Israeli mob celebrates savage beating of Palestinian man, shouts racist slogans

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Full report by Ali Abunimah can be read HERE regarding the above incident.

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PARALLELS BETWEEN US AND ISRAELI JIM CROW

February 22, 2013 at 07:20 (Apartheid, Civil Rights, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, History, Israel, Palestine, Racism, zionism)

Jim Crow in Palestine: parallels between US and Israeli racism

Curtis Bell *
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There are no shortage of parallels between oppression of blacks in the Jim Crow South and Israel’s present-day oppression of Palestinians.

 (Issam Rimawi / APA images)

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama does a good job of showing what blacks endured before the civil rights victories of the 1960s. I visited there last fall and was especially struck by one particular image — a 1926 map of the small and isolated patches of Birmingham where city zoning regulations allowed blacks to live.

What struck me was the similarity of this map to maps of the isolated patches of the West Bank including East Jerusalem where Palestinians are allowed to live. The map then made me think about other similarities between the oppression of blacks in the Jim Crow South and Israel’s present-day oppression of Palestinians.

The methods for keeping blacks within their enclaves in Birmingham were more direct and brutal than the redlining agreements among banks and realtors that maintained a de factosegregation in the North. Municipal zoning laws in Birmingham prevented sales to blacks outside designated areas, and if a black person somehow acquired a house outside the designated area, even if just across the street, the house would be blown up.

Similarly, the Israeli legal system keeps Palestinians within restricted areas of East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank. Palestinians living outside those areas have been evicted and their homes destroyed or occupied by Jewish settlers. Eighteen thousand Palestinian homes have been destroyed by Israel since 1967, according to theIsraeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

The black areas and white areas of Birmingham were very different physically. The black areas often lacked municipal amenities or services such as street lighting, paved streets, sidewalks, garbage collection and sewers that the white areas had. Similarly, the Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem often lack these same basic facilities and services, and the differences between Palestinian areas and those reserved for Israeli settlers are clear to all.

Arbitrary arrests

Suppression of the human rights of blacks in the South was maintained by both “legal” and extralegal means. State and municipal Jim Crow laws restricted residence, use of public facilities, use of public transport, interracial marriage and other aspects of life in the South. White courts and police forces enforced these laws and the whole system of segregation. Arbitrary arrests under vagrancy laws yielded large numbers of black prisoners (who were often forced to do hard labor). Nonviolent civil rights marches and protests were met with police and state National Guard violence.

Similarly, Israeli control over the lives of Palestinians is maintained by a system of laws, courts, police and Israeli military that discriminates against Palestinians. Laws restrict where Palestinians can live, where they can travel, what roads they can travel on, and whether they can live with their spouse in another part of the country. Permits to travel from the West Bank to East Jerusalem for work are tightly controlled and dependent on “good” behavior.

“Administrative detentions” have led to the indefinite incarceration of thousands of Palestinians without trials. The Israeli military meets unarmed protests against theseparation wall and the taking of Palestinian land with violence.

Black compliance with the system of segregation in the South was ensured by extralegal as well as legal means, including economic threats, harassment of various sorts, and extreme violence. More than 5,000 lynchings were recorded between 1882 and 1959, and many beatings and killings went unrecorded. Violence against blacks increased as the civil rights movement grew in strength during the 1950s and 1960s. In one year alone 30 black homes and churches were bombed in Birmingham. The white-controlled legal system only rarely prosecuted white-on-black violence.

Daily violence

Similarly, harassment and violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank including East Jerusalem occurs almost every day. The settlers try to force Palestinians off their land or to leave the region entirely. The settlers threaten or attack children on their way to school and shepherds in the fields. Palestinian land, wells and olive groves are occupied. The Israeli military protects the settlers, and the Israeli legal system only rarely prosecutes settler harassment or violence.

Blacks in the Jim Crow South had no control over the governments that oppressed them and denied them their share of common resources. The 15th Amendment of 1870 gave blacks the right to vote, but that right was progressively taken away in Southern states following the failure of reconstruction. Discriminatory registration procedures were introduced and were enforced by violence. As late as the 1960s, many counties in the South, even those with black majorities, had no registered black voters. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally changed that.

Similarly, the four million or so Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have no say in the government that in fact controls them. They cannot vote in the Israeli elections.

Palestinians did vote for a virtually powerless Palestinian government in 2006 in which a majority of seats in the parliament went to Hamas, a political party. The Hamas legislators were immediately arrested and jailed by Israel. Many were kept in prison for more than five years and the elected parliament has never been able to meet. Even if the parliament could meet, it would have only limited control over limited enclaves of the West Bank. Israel controls the water, electricity, borders, airspace, exports and imports of the enclaves, and the Israeli military enters the enclaves and arrests Palestinians at will.

Nonviolent methods such as marches, boycotts and direct actions are a critical tool for the success of any human rights movement, such as the American civil rights movement, that confronts a power structure with a monopoly on physical force. The civil rights movement in the United States maintained the practice of nonviolence to a heroic degree over many years, even in the face of violent repression from the Southern white power structure. Participants aroused the conscience of the rest of the nation and the world.

Tactics of resistance

Similar methods are now of central importance for the Palestinian rights movement. Protest marches against the separation wall, “Freedom Rides” on Israeli-only public transit, and “camp-ins” on land illegally expropriated for Israeli settlements are becoming common now in Palestine. Internationally, boycotts of all sorts and divestment from companies that maintain and profit from the occupation of Palestinian land are taking hold.

The blacks in the American civil rights movement made their appeal to the federal government for redress of wrongs committed at the lower levels of state and local governments. The federal government was already formally committed to the rights of blacks through the 14th and 15th amendments as well as various Supreme Court decisions. They also had authority and power over local governments.

The aroused conscience of the nation and of the world finally forced the United States federal government to act. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson could not continue to present the United States to the world as the land of freedom and democracy when its own citizens were being beaten for asserting their freedom and their right to vote.

Here too there are parallels between the civil rights movement in the American South and today’s movement for Palestinian rights. Israel cannot indefinitely present itself as a law-abiding, humane and democratic state when it denies the human rights of the four million or so Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The federal government of the United States shares responsibility for the continuing denial of Palestinian human rights, just as for many decades it shared responsibility for the denial of human rights to blacks in the Jim Crow South by not enforcing federal law. Now, and for many decades, United States diplomatic support has allowed Israel to violate international law with impunity.

The United States has blocked United Nations sanctions against Israel for such violations of international law as the occupation of Palestinian land, the colonization of the West Bank by placing settlers on that land, and the annexation of East Jerusalem, the historic home of Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

America breaks own law

In addition, the United States federal government provides about $3 billion in military aid to Israel every year, and may be violating its own laws in doing so, as pointed out by a recent letter to Congress from 15 leaders of major American Christian churches (“Religious leaders ask Congress to condition military aid to Israel on human rights compliance,” Presbyterian Church USA, 5 October 2012).

The letter urged an “investigation into possible violations by Israel of the US Foreign Assistance Act and the US Arms Export Control Act, which respectively prohibit assistance to any country which engages in a consistent pattern of human rights violations and limit the use of US weapons to ‘internal security’ or ‘legitimate self-defense.’” The letter cited evidence for human rights violations on the part of Israel and for Israel’s use of US arms against Palestinian civilians.

The tactics for resisting segregation brought significant changes for blacks in the South. Hopefully, with commitment and perseverance, similar methods may someday accomplish the same for Palestinians.

*Curtis Bell is a peace activist in Portland, Oregon. He is a member of the board of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, an organization that works for Palestinian rights within the Unitarian Universalist denomination.

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NOT WHITE ENOUGH TO IMMIGRATE TO ISRAEL

February 19, 2013 at 18:52 (Corrupt Politics, Israel, Racism)

Several hundred mixed-race Peruvian converts, also known as the “Jews of the Amazon,” are not being granted permission to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, despite meeting all the requirements for eligibility, Jewish Agency and Conservative Movement leaders charge.

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Peruvian converts denied permission to immigrate to Israel

Jewish Agency and Conservative movement leaders decry the Ministry of Interior’s continuing refusal to allow ‘the Jews of the Amazon’ to join relatives in Israel.

By Judy Maltz
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Peru
The Amazon River near Iquitos city where 284 Peruvian converts, descendants of Moroccan Jews, are waiting to immigrate to Israel. Photo by Reuters
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Several hundred mixed-race Peruvian converts, also known as the “Jews of the Amazon,” are not being granted permission to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, despite meeting all the requirements for eligibility, Jewish Agency and Conservative Movement leaders charge.

Jack Corcos, director of the Jewish Agency unit that approves eligibility for immigration, told a gathering in Jerusalem today that he did not understand the Ministry of Interior’s ongoing refusal to approve the requests by the converts to move to Israel. “There is no reason they should be waiting any longer,” he said during a session held by the Jewish Agency Board of Governors. “The whole story is very odd.”

Asked why the Ministry of Interior was holding up approval of these immigration requests, spokeswoman Sabine Haddad responded: “A discussion on the issue was held last week with the Jewish Agency and relevant parties from the Population and Immigration Authority. The issue awaits a decision of the senior echelon.”

The group of 284 Peruvians, who come from Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, were converted to Judaism by a Conservative rabbinical court in August 2011 after they had engaged in Jewish studies for five years. They are the descendants of Moroccan Jews who arrived in the Amazon in the 19thcentury seeking employment in the rubber industry, and who married and had children with local women.

If the Ministry of Interior ultimately decides to reject their citizenship applications, senior officials in the Jewish organizational world warn it could seriously undermine relations between the government of Israel and the world Conservative Movement.  “I can tell you that the Conservative movement leadership will not take this in stride,” said one such official. “As far as they see it, it’s an act of contempt – a total disregard for the validity of their conversions.”

Yizhar Hess, the director of the Conservative movement in Israel, who participated in this morning’s session, told Haaretz: “Hundreds of Jews are waiting today in Peru to immigrate to Israel, and their only sin is that they are Conservative.”

Most, though not all, of the Peruvian converts have declared their intention to move to Israel. The plan was for them to come gradually in several separate groups.

Hundreds of members of the Iquitos community have already immigrated to Israel in two separate waves — one in 2001 and the other in 2005. Unlike the current group, many of whose members are their relatives, they encountered no problems whatsoever in the process. Most of them live today in the city of Ramle, which is prepared to absorb the remaining members of the community. The Ministry of Interior spokeswoman did not respond to a question about why the applications of the current group were being held up, while those of the previous groups were approved promptly.

Under current immigration procedures, individuals who are not born Jewish are expected to spend nine months as active members of their local Jewish communities after they have completed the conversion process – regardless of what type of conversion they have undergone — before moving to Israel. During this time, their applications are reviewed by the Ministry of Interior. The Ministry of Interior, which does not have its own emissaries abroad, typically relies on recommendations from the Jewish Agency about the validity of conversions performed abroad.

The Jewish Agency last year notified the Ministry of Interior that it had determined the conversions performed on this group of 284 Peruvians fulfilled all the necessary criteria to make them eligible for immigrating to Israel under the Law of Return.

Based on this recommendation, they should have been able to immigrate to Israel in May 2012.

But, as Corcos reported to the Jewish Agency gathering this morning, Interior Ministry officials suddenly informed him that bringing this large a group to Israel required a special cabinet decision. When Jewish Agency officials consulted with their legal advisers, they were told that a cabinet decision is only required when the group members have not yet been converted, but rather, plan to convert in Israel, as in the case of the Falashmura from Ethiopia.

Haddad did not respond to a question about why Ministry of Interior officials insist that a cabinet decision is required for the Peruvian group to come to Israel, when Jewish Agency legal advisers have determined otherwise.

Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, was invited by Jewish Agency officials to participate in last week’s meeting with Ministry of Interior representatives because of his connections to the rabbis who performed the conversions in Peru. But as he sat down, he was asked by the Interior Ministry officials to leave the room, prompting an angry response from the Jewish Agency officials present. As Sacks stormed out of the room, he charged that the case of the Peruvians was “another example of racism in the Interior Ministry.”

Following the meeting, Sacks told Haaretz that based on his experience with converts, “when they are people of color, they are guaranteed to run into a roadblock and obfuscation in their attempts to make aliyah.” The ministry spokeswoman also declined to respond to this accusation.  

 

Source

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ISRAEL ADMITS TO RACISM VIA THE CONDOM

January 27, 2013 at 08:23 (Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Racism, zionism)

 Or even worse…
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Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots

Health Minister director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel’s four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.

By Talila Nesher
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Ethiopian women
Ethiopian women in Israel. Some have said they were coerced into taking birth control before and after arriving in Israel. Photo by Ilan Assayag

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A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera. 

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course.

The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago.

Gamzu’s letter instructs all gynecologists in the HMOs “not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”

He also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be. 

Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice. 

About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”

 

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THERE IS A FUTURE FOR ISRAEL ~~ WITHOUT PALESTINIANS

January 24, 2013 at 08:02 (Hasbara, Israel, Israeli Elections, Palestine, Racism)

If the so-called ‘left’ in Israel echos the racism of the right, it is just another indication that a ‘One State Solution’ will never work …. See my post from yesterday regarding the election results.
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A day after the Israeli general election, Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) list that won 19 seats making him the kingmaker in coalition talks, hit the ground running with a direct attack on Palestinian citizens of Israel.
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Normal racism: Election over, “centrist” kingmaker Yair Lapid shuns Palestinian citizens of Israel

Submitted by Ali Abunimah 

Israeli forces outside a polling station in Jerusalem on 22 January 2013.

 (Mahfouz Abu Turk /APA images)

A day after the Israeli general election, Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) list that won 19 seats making him the kingmaker in coalition talks, hit the ground running with a direct attack on Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Responding to talk (video in Hebrew) that Israel’s so-called “center-left” parties would join forces to block the reappointment of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, Lapid ruled out the possibility of working with Arab parties:

“I heard talk about establishing a preventative bloc – I want to take this option off the table,” Lapid said Wednesday. “We will not establish a preventative bloc with (Balad MK) Hanin Zuabi,” Lapid said, referring to the fact that if he were to try to form his own center-left government he would have to include the Arab parties.

Lapid also said Israelis had voted for “normality.” Indeed the normality he was endorsing with this statement was to continue the racist exclusion of Arab parties from political power in Israel.

Israeli Jewish public overwhelmingly supports exclusion of Arabs

Reflecting the populism that fueled his rise, Lapid was expressing mainstream sentiments. The Israeli Democracy Institute found in an October 2012 survey (PDF) that “a considerable majority of the Jewish public (64%) opposes the inclusion of Arab parties in the coalition to be formed after the elections.”

Haneen Zoabi was one of three members of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad) reelected yesterday. She has been frequently vilified, attacked and threatened by Israeli politicians for challenging their racism and calling for all citizens to have equal rights, a demand that contradicts Israel’s self-definition as a “Jewish state.”

The electoral commission initially banned Zoabi from standing because she traveled aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010, and later banned a TV election broadcast from her party, but both decisions were overturned by the high court.

While four million Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot vote in Israeli elections, 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel are eligible to vote, but because they are shunned by Zionist parties that form the government, they are almost as powerless as the rest of the Palestinian population.

Arab parties hold their ground

As Palestinian citizen of Israel face increasing hostility and racist laws many feared their turnout at the polls would fall even lower than the 53 percent it hit in 2009.

But in the event Arab parties won 12 seats in the 120 Knesset; 3 went to Balad, 4 to Hadash, the Communist Party – both unchanged from 2009, and the United Arab List gained one seat for a total of 5.

Leaders of Balad said their party had won more than 95,000 votes, an increase of 11,000 from the 2009 election and that 8,000 of those new votes were in the southern Naqab (Negev) region where the indigenous Bedouin population faces intensified ethnic cleansing by Israeli authorities and the Jewish National Fund.

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HYPOCRICY OR DEMOCRACY?

January 20, 2013 at 14:48 (Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine, Racism)

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HaAretz just can’t make up its mind where they are at. Earlier in the day I posted about a hypocritical letter it sent out to the readers of their digital edition promising to match the subscription price with the price of a tree via the racist Jewish National Fund.
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After my posting they ran an Editorial quite contradictory to the letter. The views are acceptable and in line with HaAretz’s liberal policies. Hopefully they won’t stray again into the darkness of racism.
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‘Judaization’ is racism

The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat.

Upper Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso describes his job as a national mission. “Upper Nazareth was founded to make the Galilee Jewish,” he declares. “The city’s residents and I, as their leader, overwhelmingly support the principle that Upper Nazareth must fulfill this mission.”

As part of this “mission,” Gapso has decided to block the opening of an Arab school for around 1,900 Arab pupils, children in a community making up about 20 percent of the city’s population. These children must travel daily to the neighboring Arab city of Nazareth, where the schools are having problems absorbing them all.

Upper Nazareth is a mixed city, which – like Haifa, Acre, Lod and Tel Aviv – is obligated to open schools for its minority communities. This obligation, stemming from the principle of equal rights for all Israelis, means Arabs have the right to their own schools under the Education Ministry’s aegis, not only in Arab cities but also in Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities.

Gapso, who in November asked the Interior Ministry to declare that Arab Nazareth was “hostile to the State of Israel,” doesn’t seem to recognize his obligation to supply separate educational services to his city’s Arab residents. Worse, his opposition to a school for the city’s Arab citizens is a blatant attempt to “cleanse” the city of those citizens, who, he says, “undermine” the Upper Nazareth’s national mission: to Judaize the Galilee.

The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat. These positions are apparently backed by some of our national leaders, who still haven’t bothered to condemn Gapso’s remarks.

One might expect Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to immediately use his authority to order the opening of an Arab school in Upper Nazareth. But when Gapso makes remarks that Sa’ar apparently supports, and when the interior minister, the authority over the municipality, espouses racist views himself, Israelis who oppose racism and discrimination – Arabs and Jews alike – have no choice but to vote for parties that will fight both phenomena.   

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“THIS IS WAR PROPAGANDA. YOU ARE THE TARGET”

January 9, 2013 at 14:40 (Activism, Hasbara, Islamophobia, Racism, zionist harassment)

Pamela Geller is once again conducting an underground campaign of hate. For the second time activists are giving her Islamophobic message a makeover …
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 ‘This is war propaganda, and you are the target’–latest anti-Muslim subway ads get another makeover
Alex Kane
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Subway 4
At the 50th Street subway stop in Manhattan, a Pam Geller advertisement is plastered with a “caution” sticker. It reads: “This is War Propaganda. You’re the Target”

The latest installment of anti-Muslim advertisements put out by Pamela Geller have gone up in New York City subway stations. But they have quickly received a makeover, just as the last batch did.

Activists plastered stickers over the ads that read: “This is War Propaganda, and You’re the Target.”

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A shot of a sticker at the 23rd street station in Manhattan

Another source reports that when activists were having trouble reaching the ads above the subway platform, a tall woman waiting for the train put it up for them. The activists told her it was illegal but she didn’t care–she had seen the advertisement and was offended.

Here’s another photo:

Subway 5
At the 50th Street subway stop in Manhattan, another one of Pam Geller’s ad is plastered with a “warning” sticker. It reads: “This is War Propaganda. You’re the Target”

Activists also hit another subway station, on 23rd street:

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Another sticker plastered on an anti-Muslim ad, at the 23rd street station”

Here’s a statement a source sent over explaining why activists took this action:

This evening, concerned New Yorkers came together to respond to a new set of advertisements placed in many of their city’s subway stations by the notoriously chauvinistic “American Freedom Defense Initiative” (AFDI), headed by the right-wing anti-Muslim activist, Pamela Geller. 

The new ads, in which Geller’s organization has reportedly invested about $70,000, feature a photo of the World Trade Center exploding in flames next to a quote from the Qur’an. Concerned New Yorkers engaged these ads by labeling them with stickers that resembled bright caution or warning signs reading, “This is War Propaganda, and You’re the Target”. 

One participant, who works as a filmmaker, explained, “These ads must be understood as war propaganda that target regular Americans, the public that is exposed to them.” He continued, “Yes, the ads are clearly hateful and racist. But the additional thing to realize is that by vilifying and dehumanizing Muslims, they work to conscript people into supporting the U.S. government’s ongoing covert and overt wars, and the related violence and injustices suffered by Muslims here in the United States.” 

A law student added, “Muslim communities in the United States not only endure the everyday experience of humiliating racism, but are subjected to expansive and illegitimate government surveillance, along with egregiously unjust detentions and prosecutions in U.S. prisons and courts. These new ads work as propaganda to facilitate and support violence against Muslims in the United States and abroad.” 

Another woman, who is a scholar and an artist, followed, “It’s abominable that these ads exploit the real suffering that fellow New Yorkers bore the day the twin towers burned to continue to incite more violence against more people. Rather than allow New York City’s experience of such suffering to generate empathy for the suffering of other people in other cities facing attacks, whether by U.S. drone strikes or other means, and seek to end such violence, they absurdly conjure Americans as innocent victims who have no choice but to be violent in a violent world.” 

A human rights researcher concluded, “Over the past eleven years, the U.S. government’s response to the day photographed in these ads has resulted in the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and beyond, along with tens of thousands of Americans. The United States has also threatened the Iranian people with war, and already begun a devastating campaign of sanctions against them that is effectively a war against a people by other means. … As New Yorkers we want to make clear that the particularly vulgar manifestation of vicious racism and militarism in these ads is not welcome in our city. But more broadly, we are committed to ending ongoing U.S. wars, both for the sake of people on the receiving end of American belligerence and bombs, and to secure the possibility of a meaningful democracy and livable future for us all.”

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‘FREEDOM LOVING’ ZIONISTS FUND THE HATRED ON NEW YORK’S SUBWAYS

December 20, 2012 at 12:28 (Extremism, Hasbara, Islamophobia, Israel, Racism, zionism)

Geller told me in an e-mail that “many clear-thinking and freedom-loving Jewish groups approve of my work.” 
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Who funds Pamela Geller? In 2010, it was a former Israel Project board member
 Alex Kane

Geller at 9/11 Conference
Pamela Geller speaks at a September 11, 2012 conference (AP Photo/David Karp)

The nation’s leading anti-Muslim blogger and activist is back at it again in the New York City subway system. On December 17, Pamela Geller, who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs and is the head of Stop Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative, had inflammatory ads put up in 50 subway stations at a cost of over $10,000. The ads picture the World Trade Center burning on September 11 and quote a Qu’ran verse–tying the religion of Islam to the terrorist attacks.

And in September, she put up another round of anti-Muslim advertisements at a cost of thousands of dollars. Many of them were altered and defaced by activists.

All of this begs the question: who is paying for Geller’s antics?

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The latest advertisements that went up in the subway December 17.

It remains unclear who exactly is funding the ad buys. In an e-mail to Mondoweiss, Geller said “all the money for the ads comes from supporters’ donations.” On the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s website, a donation button urges readers to “fund the fight.” But the word “supporters” is not exactly revealing. (It’s also worth noting that Geller won a $4 million divorce settlement and $5 million in life insurance.)

Tax records, though, show who partly funded Geller two years ago, when she first made a big name for herself leading the fight against the Park 51 Islamic center in lower Manhattan. These details have not been reported by other media outlets.

A foundation called the Alan and Hope Winters Foundation gave $5,000 to the American Freedom Defense Initiative in 2010, the Geller-led outfit behind the anti-Muslim advertisements. The foundation also gave money to a host of other anti-Muslim outfits that year, including the neoconservative Hudson Institute ($25,000) and David Yerushalmi’s Society of Americans for National Existence ($115,000).

Geller said that the Winters’ money went to her activism around Park 51. But the fact that a big-pocketed foundation gave cash to Geller’s group raises the question as to whether other foundations are likewise funding Geller’s ad buying spree.

Regardless of the answer to that question, the Winters donation is interesting in its own light. Hope Winters was on the board of The Israel Project in 2006 and 2007, according to 990 tax forms reviewed. It is the clearest example yet of how members of the Israel lobby are tied to Geller, a woman who told The New York Times that “a very good guide” to how she sees the world is the “prism of Israel.” Indeed, her last ads read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” And next to those words were the following: “Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

The Israel Project (TIP) is a thoroughly-mainstream and well-connected shop that seeks to put “a more positive public face of Israel” out for everyone to see. TIP works with journalists to inform–or spin– the American public about the region. The group’s influence can be seen in the fact that a number of Senators and Representatives from both parties sit on its “board of advisors.”

Currently, TIP is headed by Josh Block, a former spokesperson for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. TIP did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

So what’s a former board member with TIP doing funding Geller’s hateful crusade against an Islamic center? Winters did not respond to inquiries relayed to her through an associate who helps handle her foundation’s finances. But it’s not too hard to guess.

TIP’s and Geller’s goals converge when it comes to Israel. They both support hawkish right-wing Israeli governments bent on colonizing the West Bank. They both want aggressive U.S. or Israeli action against Iran. Geller’s whole shtick is to cast Israel as a Western outpost in a sea of Arab and Islamic barbarism–the first line of defense in the “war on terror.” More subtly, TIP sees the Middle East in that way as well.

And TIP has other links to well-known Islamophobes. As the Institute for Policy Studies’ Right Web project notes, the Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney spoke at a 2007 TIP-organized press conference about the “Iranian threat.” When Gaffney is not pushing for aggressive action against Iran, he’s pontificating about the threat of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S. government and how sharia law is slowly taking over. Crazy stuff, but TIP has no problem with it.

The explicit links between Geller and TIP are a sharp contrast to how other mainstream Jewish groups have reacted to her anti-Muslim ad buys. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Community Relations Council condemned Geller’s September ads, which conflated Muslims and Palestinians with “savages.” But these groups have themselves dabbled in explicit Islamophobia. A Dallas branch of the ADL, for instance, once held a screening for the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.”

Geller told me in an e-mail that “many clear-thinking and freedom-loving Jewish groups approve of my work.” 

While Geller remains a step too far for some groups, like the ADL, she operates within the larger context of Islamophobia that has been aided by Israel lobby groups. Think of her as the tip of the big spear pushed by more mainstream pro-Israel groups. And her links with The Israel Project bring the Geller tip that much closer to the mainstream establishment.

 

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FACEBOOK AS A VEHICLE OF HATE

December 20, 2012 at 11:46 (FaceBook, Hasbara, Israel, Racism, zionist harassment)

 Evil Facebook

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Israeli celebrity who called on Facebook for Palestinian children to “suffer” quits UNICEF post

Submitted by Ali Abunimah 

 

Israeli TV personality Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes has quit as Chair of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF after just months, stating that UNICEF officials wanted to vet her Facebook postings which notoriously included expressing a desire for Palestinian children to “suffer.”

Shalom Nir-Mozes, who is also wife of Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, has claimed that Palestinians “have it as part of their DNA to hate us” and publicly urged against a ceasefire during Israel’s November assault on Gaza which killed more than 170 people including three dozen children.

Over several months, Israeli activist Ari Remez organized a Facebook group with more than 200 members whose Hebrew name translates as “Sack Judy from UNICEF” to document, translate and inform UNICEF affiliates around the world of Shalom Nir-Mozes’ hate speech. Remez also used his Twitter feed (@AriRemez) to document Shalom Nir-Mozes’ inflammatory postings.

Earlier this month the Middle East Children’s Alliance issued an action alert urging people to demand that UNICEF remove Shalom Nir-Mozes because of her hateful statements.

UNICEF, which exists to promote the rights and well-being of children, had previously distanced itself from Shalom Nir-Mozes, stating that her lengthy compendium of violent and racist statements “do not reflect the views of UNICEF.” The Israeli Fund for UNICEF is an Israeli nongovernmental organization that raises money for UNICEF and collaborates with the UN body.

Enhancing the prestige of Israel

On Wednesday, Shalom Nir-Mozes announced on her Facebook page that she had quit, bristling at various strictures.

Shalom Nir-Mozes said she had originally accepted the invitation to head the Israeli Fund for UNICEF so she “could contribute even more to the welfare of children in Israel and around the whole world, and to enhance the prestige of Israel around the world.”

Trouble with her Facebook posts

But she felt let down by UNICEF as she explained in her statement:

I was sorry to discover very quickly that this was not how things were. UNICEF is a wondrous organization with a very important agenda, but by force of being an institution affiliated with the UN, it put in place bureaucratic, political, and other obstacles that prevented me from promoting the goals I set for myself upon entering the position. It started with my visit to Sderot, when I organized the donation of thousands of toys and treats for the children of the bombarded South during the recent military confrontation.

The organization was entirely unwilling to allow its name to be involved in this move, for political and diplomatic reasons. They also asked me to have my activities vetted by the UNICEF branch in East Jerusalem. It continued when I was asked to let the organization vet the Facebook entries in which I express my views about various issues. The climax was when I heard that in contrast with the rest of the world, where the organization is called UNICEF Colombia or UNICEF Spain, as the case may be, in Israel the organization wanted to call itself The Israeli Fund for UNICEF.

Shalom Nir-Mozes’ full statement, translated by Dena Shunra, is below.

Apparently adhering to the non-political nature of UNICEF and not making statements about how you want some children to suffer, was simply too much of an imposition on a woman – who by her own account – has dedicated her life to the needy.

UNICEF responds

UNICEF Spokesman Peter Smerdon emailed The Electronic Intifada in response to an inquiry:

We understand that Ms. Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes has tendered her resignation as Honorary Chair of the Annual General Assembly of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF [IFU]. We respect the decision made between the IFU and of Ms Shalom Nir-Mozes. Specific enquiries relating to the resignation of Ms. Shalom Nir-Mozes should be addressed to the Board of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF, a legally independent, non-governmental organization.

Statement by Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes

Facebook status posted on 19 December 2012

About two months ago I, was appointed to head the Israeli branch of UNICEF, an organization affiliated with the U.N., whose goal it is to help the children in the world whose life circumstances have brought upon them misery and difficulties.

Many people were surprised that I accepted the organization’s request to lead it, as anyone who knows me, knows that being direct and forthright is part of who I am, and that when something disturbs or touches me, I express my position directly, without diplomatic niceties. A UN-affiliated organization, I was told, would not allow me such a free hand, and would force me to act in a manner that is diplomatic, and has no bite. Despite these warnings, I accepted the organization’s invitation, as the care for needy children has always been an integral part of my very being. As a mother of five children and as chair of the Chom [warmth] Association for many years, whose goal it is to collect food and medications for needy children in Israel, I felt compelled to accept this invitation, through which I believed that I could contribute even more to the welfare of children in Israel and around the whole world, and to enhance the prestige of Israel around the world.

I was sorry to discover very quickly that this was not how things were. UNICEF is a wondrous organization with a very important agenda, but by force of being an institution affiliated with the U.N., it put in place bureaucratic, political, and other obstacles that prevented me from promoting the goals I set for myself upon entering the position. It started with my visit to Sderot, when I organized the donation of thousands of toys and treats for the children of the bombarded South during the recent military confrontation.

The organization was entirely unwilling to allow its name to be involved in this move, for political and diplomatic reasons. They also asked me to have my activities vetted by the UNICEF branch in East Jerusalem. It continued when I was asked to let the organization vet the Facebook entries in which I express my views about various issues. The climax was when I heard that in contrast with the rest of the world, where the organization is called UNICEF Colombia or UNICEF Spain, as the case may be, in Israel the organization wanted to call itself The Israeli Fund for UNICEF.

In recent days, much information was published about the sad situation of Israel’s children, many of whom live below the poverty line and suffer a severe need for the most basic living conditions that a person needs to maintain an appropriate quality of life. I was raised to think that charity begins in one’s hometown. With all of my empathy for promoting awareness of difficulties of the children of the world, wherever they may be, I am a practical person, who – at the end of the day – wants to care for the severe and immediate needs of the thousands of hungry and needy children who live in Israel today. I am less interested in creating a mere change of awareness, while forestalling practical initiatives for donation to children in Israel and attempting to tiptoe through political landmines, which – at the end of the day – castrate any activity that could make a real change in this difficult situation.

To summarize: I came in order to work and donate my time and capacities for the practical promotion of the children’s distress, and I did not feel that in this framework I was given a real opportunity to do so. I have therefore decided, in full cooperation with the organization’s directorship (which on its part found it difficult to contain my independence and my concern for the interests of Israel, in contrast with the organization’s desire to blur out the national aspect of this activity), to resign form my position as chair of UNICEF Israel (or the Israeli Fund for UNICEF, if you like), with the intent of investing my time for acting for the children of Israel, as I have done in recent years. I wish much success to the organization and invite anyone who would like to reach out to the children of Israel to join the Chom association, which is dedicated entirely to the distribution of food and medications to [Israeli] needy families.

 

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THE GRINCH THAT WOULD KILL JESUS AND MARY

December 19, 2012 at 14:52 (Hasbara, Israel, Palestine, Racism, zionist Slander)

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Photo © by Bud Korotzer
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With shame not at all and malice towards all…..
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Oh…. but wait, there was an apology
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How about removing the racist bastards that posted it in the first place!
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Israeli embassy’s Christmas message of hate: Bethlehem Palestinians would “lynch” Jesus and Mary as “Jews”

Submitted by Ali Abunimah
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Screenshot from official Facebook page of Israeli embassy in Dublin

“A thought for Christmas…If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought …”

That was the Christmas message posted today, along with a depiction of Jesus and Mary,on the official Facebook page of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin.

The message drew immediate criticism from Gary Spedding, an activist with the cross-community Alliance Party in Northern Ireland, and a student at Queens University Belfast, who demanded that the embassy should “apologize for this vile Christmas message of hate and sectarianism.”

Embedded rich on Twitter

I believe @IsraelinIreland should apologize for this vile Christmas message of hate and sectarianism - facebook.com/photo.php?fbid…

Spedding offers further analysis of the posting on his personal blog.

Israeli attacks on Christians and Christianity

The offensiveness of the message needs no further elaboration, but Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem will find it particularly galling given that it is Israel, with its wall surrounding their city, and other violent manifestations of the occupation, which has done most to strangle the home of the Nativity. Recently, Israeli settlers, with the collusion of Israeli authorities, have stepped up so-called “price tag” attacks on Christian holy sites.

Palestinian Christians living under Israeli rule also face widespread discrimination.

The idea of the modern Israeli settler-state providing “security” to Jesus is even more absurd and offensive given the contempt in which Christianity is held by some Israeli officials. Earlier this year Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben-Ari tore up a copy of the New Testament and, throwing it in the trash, claimed, “This abominable book brought about the murder of millions of Jews.”

For several years, Shimon Gapso, the notoriously racist mayor of the Israeli settlement of “Upper Nazareth” in the Galilee, has banned Christmas trees, calling them a provocation. “Nazareth Illit [Upper Nazareth] is a Jewish city and it will not happen – not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor,” Gapso said.

Finally, the notion that Palestinians would “lynch” Jesus is also a disturbing echo of the anti-Semitic “Jews killed Jesus” canard.

Unhinged

This is not the first time the Israeli embassy in Dublin has been responsible for messages that are even more unhinged than typical Israeli government propaganda.

In June, Nurit Tinari-Modai, the deputy ambassador, made headlines when she proposed a plan to personally smear Palestine solidarity activists – especially Israelis – to “humiliate and shame them” as suffering from psychological and sexual problems and imply that they work for Israel’s spy agency Mossad.

Update: Israel embassy claims hate message unauthorized

Following the outrcy over its hateful Christmas message (see above), the Israeli embassy in Dublin has deleted the message from its Facebook page and posted an apologyclaiming it was unauthorized:

To whom it may concern: An image of Jesus and Mary with a derogatory comment about Palestinians was posted without the consent of the administrator of the Facebook page. We have removed the post in question immediately. Apologies to anyone who may have been offended. Merry Christmas!

There’s something disingenuous and unbelievable about this. First of all, how did someone unauthorized get hold of the password or Facebook account of notoriously “security”-conscious Israeli officials? Perhaps there should be an investigation.

Early comments under the “apology” post indicated skepticism about the explanation.

“ ‘An image was posted without the consent of the administrator’ just doesn’t cut it. Are you running this page from a public cyber cafe?” commented Facebook user Zeeshan Shahid.

But of course the other reason the “apology” lacks credibility is that the social media accounts of the Israeli embassy in Ireland have a history of posting bigoted material.

Earlier this year, for example, the @israelinireland Twitter account made an Islamophobic comment suggesting that real Irish citizens could not be Muslims. “Ah yes… those Saladin O’Sullivans and Faisal O’Farrells… #Irish to the backbone!” the embassy tweeted to Irish Times journalist Mary Fitzgerald who had just published a story “on the fighters from Ireland who have joined the Syrian uprising.”

Embedded rich on Twitter

2 Aug 12

My story on the fighters from Ireland who have joined the Syrian uprisingirishtimes.com/newspaper/worl…

@MaryFitzgerldIT Ah yes… those Saladin O’Sullivans and Faisal O’Farrells…  to the backbone!

And, as mentioned earlier, there is the bizarre plot by deputy ambassador Nurit Tinari-Modai to malign Palestine solidarity activists as sexual deviants.

If today’s Christmas message was unauthorized, what about all the rest of the hate being spewed by Israel’s representatives in Dublin?

 

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PAMELA GELLER’s NEW ROUND OF HATRED ON THE WALLS

December 18, 2012 at 11:30 (Extremism, Hasbara, Islamophobia, Racism, zionist harassment)

Once again Pamela Geller takes her hatred to the walls of the New York subway system. Despite MTA’s disclaimer, the ads are scheduled to appear today ….
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Anti-Islam Subway Ads By Pamela Geller Feature Exploding World Trade Center, Quote From The Quran (PHOTO)

New York City’s resident Islamophobe is back with yet another anti-Islam subway ad. Pamela Geller‘s latest features a photo of the World Trade Center exploding in flames next to a quote from the Quran that reads, “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers.”

When Geller last bought ad space in the NYC underground, New Yorkers didn’t react too kindly. Nearly all of the signs– which read “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad“– werevandalized.

As a result, The Observer reports Geller doubled her ad buy this time, and that “the new ads will be plastered across at least 50 different locations.”

“I refuse to abridge my free speech so as to appease savages,” she said.

Additionally, Geller’s latest bout of vitriol will come with a MTA disclaimer:

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“A cost of opening our ad space to a variety of viewpoints on matters of public concern is that we cannot readily close that space to certain advertisements on account of their expression of divisive or even venomous messages,” the MTA stated at the time of the “savages” ad. “The answer to distasteful and uncivil speech is more, and more civilized, speech.”

 

Source    

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A new group, Jews Against Islamophobia added the following;

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Jewish Groups Condemn (Yet Again) Ads

Promoting Hate and Anti-Muslim Bigotry:

Call for Unequivocal Repudiation of Islamophobia

 

Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 The Jews Against Islamophobia (JAI) Coalition condemns the latest hate-mongering ads, sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), that are scheduled to appear in New York City subway stations today. “New York residents have already demonstrated that we don’t want such ads in our city. In a month when many people gather with their loved ones for Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and other seasonal celebrations, Jews must recommit ourselves anew to standing up against these ads and all forms of Islamophobia,” pledged JAI Coalition member and director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), Marjorie Dove Kent.

 

The ad shows a picture of the World Trade Center in flames, next to a quote from the Koran, and reads: “Soon shall we cast terror into the heart of the unbelievers.”

 

“But, of course, a bigot can play this game of selective quotation with any religion. Find a picture of horrifying violence committed by some Jews or Christians — there are a depressingly large number — and juxtapose it with one of the following quotes from scripture: “I come not to bring peace, but a sword” [Matthew 10:34] or “Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” [Deuteronomy 20:16]),” notes JAI Coalition member Alan Levine.

 

The AFDI ad—which cost about $70,000—is part of a nationwide campaign to demonize Muslim and Arab Americans. In the past six months, AFDI has funded hate ads in Westchester, New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. In each of these cases, a wide range of interfaith and civil rights groups came together to denounce the ads and to stand up for unity and solidarity. The AFDI’s Pamela Geller is co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

 

“Geller’s ads contribute to creating an even more hostile climate than already exists for the Muslim community, many of whom are already living in fear of street harassment, bullying, and other forms of verbal and physical violence,” says JAI Coalition member Jon Moscow. “We all have a responsibility to make sure this does not continue. We call on New Yorkers to respond individually and collectively to repudiate this vicious attempt to divide our city and to strongly condemn these ads.”

 

This anti-Muslim ad campaign takes place in the context of a post-9/11 atmosphere of fear, hate, and bigotry in the United States that targets Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easterners, Sikhs and other South Asians.  “While we find shocking the blatant Islamophobia in the ads and strongly condemn this vicious hate speech, we also condemn ongoing governmental policies of racial and religious profiling,” emphasized director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Rebecca Vilkomerson, whose group is also a member of the JAI Coalition. “For example, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been engaged in police surveillance of Muslims that has flagrantly violated the community’s civil and human rights. These Islamophobic acts help make possible the hate-filled atmosphere in which people like Geller thrive.” Despite the NYPD commitment of time, money, and personnel to its widespread surveillance and spying program in the Muslim community, it has not, according to the Commanding Officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division, generated a single lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.Communities have organized in response to NYPD surveillance and spying, including groups coming together to support City Council bills that would begin to hold the NYPD accountable for these actions.

 

People across New York City are once again joining the Muslim community to oppose these ads and to ensure that the rights of all our communities are fully protected and that no group is subjected to any form of harassment or racism. The JAI Coalition pledges to continue to be part of that movement for justice.

 

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