Ed. note: This is part 2 and 3 of the series. Click here to read part 1.
Continuing his tour into the heart of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, Mr. Luria guided the AFSI contingent in to Beit Wittenberg, now owned by Ateret Cohanim. Originally purchased by Moshe Wittenberg in the 1880s in a deal brokered by Eliezer Ben Yehuda (the father of the modern Hebrew language), it was discovered that the building was once the famous Mediterranean Hotel where Mark Twain stayed in Jerusalem when he visited in 1867. “One hundred years after this property was purchased by the Wittenberg family, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bought it in the 1980s. Because he thought it was important for Jews to be able to live anywhere in Jerusalem, he made his residence here,” said Mr. Luria.
The port of Oktyabrsk is situated on the left bank of the Bug River, 58 km. north of the entry to the Black Sea. Close to the city of Nikolayev, this anonymous Ukrainian port could not seem further from the strife-torn Middle East.
Yet in the last year, Oktyabrsk has played a key role in the international structure that enables the survival of the Assad dictatorship in Syria. It is the main point from which ships bearing the Russian arms that underwrite the Assad regime’s survival set off undisturbed on their journey to the Syrian coast.
“All of the world knows what happened here in 1948,’ Daoud Abu Lebdeh says, while leaning against a table in a coffee shop on the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus.
“The Israeli soldiers or the Israeli militias like the Hagana, Kahane, the Irgun and Lehi came here and they [kicked] the people outside from their homes.”
Daoud is a nondescript man of 24 from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz. A correspondent and blogger with the Palestinian website the Middle East Post, Daoud has come highly recommended as an expert on the Nakba, the “catastrophe” of the birth of the State of Israel, and concurrently, the start of the Palestinian refugee problem, by Fatah Youth activist and Jerusalemite Mousa Abassi.
Ed. note: This is part 1 of the series. Click here to read part 2 and 3.
As the semi-annual Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI) Chizuk Mission to Israel drew to a conclusion on May 1st, the tour participants told the media that, “Our beloved brethren living on settlements slated to be dismantled by the Israeli government are not alone. We stand with them and our mission will never cease until every Jew has the right to live in any part of Eretz Yisroel.” Having distinguished itself from other tours of Israel that focus exclusively on sights of historic interest, AFSI conducts a thorough exploration of the entire settlement movement; providing emotional and material support to these beleaguered communities.
Since the 1990s, Hizballah has defined itself along a number of parallel lines, each of which prior to 2011 appeared to support the other. The movement was simultaneously a sectarian representative of the Lebanese Shi’a, a regional ally of Iran and Syria, a defender of the Lebanese against the supposed aggressive intentions of Israel, and a leader of a more generically defined Arab and Muslim “resistance” against Israel and the West. As a result of the events of 2011, most important the revolt against the Asad regime in Syria, these various lines, which seemed mutually supportive, began to contradict one another. This has diminished Hizballah’s position, though it remains physically unassailable for as long as the Asad regime in Syria survives.
In October 2011 an extraordinary opportunity to apprehend the ill-defined “Middle East” conflict was offered in the form of a play within the play. Discourse was disabled by flesh and blood images acting out the drama with exquisite unity and perfect casting. Playing the role of Israel, Gilad Shalit, courageous survivor of five years of unspeakable deprivation, emerged frail, pale but gloriously resistant. The little that we know of the conditions of his imprisonment is already too much. Kidnapped at the age of 19 near the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel (two IDF soldiers were killed in the cross-border attack), held in some sort of dungeon, starved of human company, starved of daylight, undernourished, not even given eyeglasses with which to see the ugly contours of his constricted world, Gilad stood before us, a miraculous survivor. The celestial light of dignity suffused his flesh and bones with metaphysical force.
What decent human being would not have misgivings about the release, in exchange for Shalit, of 1027 murderers, thieves, and thugs determined to use their liberation as a license to renew the persecution of Israeli Jews? And who could not feel, seeing the first images of Gilad roughly handled by Hamas and Egyptian intermediaries, that no price was too dear for the release of one single human being from the tomb in which he was jailed and left to slowly extinguish like a flame without oxygen.
Responsible airlines like Air France, Easyjet, Jet2.com, and Lufthansa have cooperated with Israel to keep “pro-Palestinian” rabble-rousers (hypocrites) from flying into Ben-Gurion airport to cause who-knows-what kind of mayhem in the Jewish state:
More than 60 percent of the 1,500 pro-Palestinian activists due to arrive in Israel on Sunday to take part in a fly-in protest have received notifications from airlines that their flights were canceled, the spokesman for the “Welcome to Palestine” protest told Haaretz on Saturday. …
For the bigoted trash that do make it into Israel, the Jewish state’s government has prepared a reality check to be presented to them upon arrival — a the-truth-hurts message that the haters probably won’t even understand:
In a surprise move, Jordan has decided to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinian Authority and PLO officials, sources in Amman disclosed Wednesday. …
The move coincides with a new electoral law in Jordan that seeks to limit Palestinian representation in parliament. …
In recent years the Jordanians have stripped thousands of Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship in an apparent response to calls to establish a Palestinian state in Jordan. Nearly half the kingdom’s 6 million people are of Palestinian origin. …
Sounds like Arab-against-Arab apartheid to me, not “Arab Unity” or an “Arab Spring.” Let’s be clear: The Hashemite Bedouin regime ruling Jordan, led by King Abdullah II, is not “Palestinian.” Remember that in 1970, Abdullah’s father:
… King Hussein decided it was time to act. Throughout September the Jordanian military launched attacks to push the PLO [Palestinian Liberation organization] out of Jordan, attacks now called “Black September” by the PLO. Casualty reports are uncertain, but hundreds or perhaps thousands of PLO fadayeen were killed in the fighting and large numbers of Palestinian Arab civilians died as well. Arafat retreated to northern Jordan, close to his Syrian sponsors. Within 10 months the PLO were driven out of Jordan completely, and re-established themselves in Lebanon, a choice that led to eventual disaster for Lebanon.
… one boycotts totalitarian regimes, not democracies. One can boycott Sudan, guilty of the extermination of part of the population of Darfur. One can boycott China, guilty of massive violations of human rights in Tibet and elsewhere. One can and should boycott the Iran of Sakineh and Jafar Panahi, whose leaders have become deaf to the language of common sense and compromise. One can even imagine, as we once did with regard to the fascist generals’ Argentina or Brezhnev’s USSR, boycotting those Arab regimes whose citizens’ freedom of expression is forbidden and punished, if necessary, in blood. One does not boycott the only society in the Middle East where Arabs read a free press, demonstrate when they wish to do so, send freely elected representatives to parliament, and enjoy their rights as citizens. …
By Yoram Ettinger Israel Hayom Newsletter, April 06, 2012
Israeli leaders are able to repel President Obama’s relentless pressure to refrain from pre-empting Iran, Hizballah and Hamas; to freeze Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria; to retreat to the 1949 cease fire lines, including the repartitioning of Jerusalem; and to placate Mahmoud Abbas, while ignoring the PA hate-education, non-compliance and terrorism.
In contrast to the ironclad US public and congressional support of Israel, presidential pressure has always been part of US-Israel relations.
Therefore, contemporary Israeli leaders should emulate Israeli prime ministers who served from 1948 (Ben Gurion) to 1992 (Shamir). While they rejected — in most cases — presidential prescriptions for Israel’s national security, bilateral strategic cooperation surged unprecedentedly in spite off, and probably due to, their steadfastness.
On Thursday evening, March 22nd, tension filled the air at the Student Activities Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey as two Israeli reservists addressed an audience of both pro-Israel supporters and ardent Israeli detractors. The evening called “StandWithUs’ Israeli Soldiers Stories: Real Israelis - Real Stories” was co-sponsored by StandWithUs, (a pro-Israel student advocacy organization), Rutgers Hillel and the Israel Center. Amid the din of conversation, audience members filed in to the center lounge and, according to one member of Rutgers Hillel who chose to remain anonymous, “Judging by the large number of Muslim students here, we can expect some kind of protest or walk out.”
Thanks to HonestReporting, you can easily speak your mind to the UN and sign the “We demand the dismissal of Khulood Badawi” petition (click on this link):
Dear Head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
We, the undersigned, demand that the UN immediately terminate its association with Khulood Badawi, an employee at the OCHA.
Badawi has proven unreliable as a source of information by using her Twitter account to spread false and harmful information about Israel. She has refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing or apologize for spreading propaganda. It is inappropriate for a UN employee to engage in political activism and the UN must disassociate itself from her immediately.
TAKE ACTION NOW: Write to the UN and urge it to summarily dismiss Badawi. You can use this sample text: “Ms. Khulood Badawi must be immediately dismissed from employment at the UN. She has acted in an unethical manner, possibly inciting violence, and committed libel against the nation of Israel. She falsely tweeted an image of a 2006 Reuters photo of a Palestinian girl who died in a playground or car accident, not as a result of anything done by Israel. This type of conduct violates all professional and civilized standards. The UN, claiming to represent all world nations, must be held to the highest of standards.” But I urge you to use your own words and keep it civil. Click on this link to send your message:
Can Arabs, who make up one-fifth of Israel’s population, be loyal citizens of the Jewish state?
With this question in mind, I recently visited several Arab-inhabited regions of Israel (Jaffa, Baqa al-Gharbiya, Umm al-Fahm, Haifa, Acre, Nazareth, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem) and held discussions with mainstream Arab and Jewish Israelis.
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