That Israel has become an apartheid state is so self-evident that it is impossible to put the fact back in the box. Sky News’ Sam Kiley said it a year ago, and that was almost as surprising as Kerry’s rush of honesty. A state which has hundreds of laws defining the rights and obligations of its different groups of citizens by their ethnicity, enforcing zoning and separate education and public service provisio, and even limiting the right of defined ethnic groups to live with their spouses, is a state which can be characterized by no other word than Apartheid. Israel’s claims to be a democracy exactly echo the similar claim of apartheid South Africa.
I am however delighted if the neo-con plan for a “two state” solution is now dead, because that plan was precisely the same plan that South Africa had for its “Bantustan” reserves for black people. The only difference being that Israel has been much more vicious, herded the indigenous population into much smaller and less viable areas than was allowed to the “Bantustans”, subjected them to appalling economic blockade and then continually ripped away more and more of their small amount of land on a daily basis.
The difference between apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans and the “two state solution”, is that the Israel version is, incredibly, even worse, even more evil.
As in South Africa, the ONLY acceptable solution for Israel/Palestine is freedom and majority rule. People of goodwill should never again be sidetracked into pursuing the kind of apartheid solutions being pushed by Tony Blair.
John Goss: Very funny. I don’t know what you think you’ve been ‘tried’ for, or what you think you’ve been found ‘guilty’ of. If someone objecting to/questioning a post is, in your mind, the equivalent of a Salem witch trial, then I suppose Habbakuk’s assertion that you have the same murderous mentality as the Soviet leaders is fair enough too.
But clearly, both are wild exaggerations (the latter rather more so, it must be said). Good to see you have something in common, though.
“Good to see you have something in common, though.”
Not much Technicolour. For a start I try to answer questions.
My comment was an attempted humorous extension of that from Sofia Kibo Noh 12:56 am. But, as Resident Dissident has pointed out, Sofia is inimitable.
Stephen Pollard the JC editor must be on holiday.
Board of Deputies treasurer ‘shocked’ by visit to West Bank
By Simon Rocker, May 2, 2014
Board of Deputies treasurer Laurence Brass has said he was horrified at what he witnessed during a visit to a West Bank village, describing it as an “eye-opener”.
Mr Brass, who was spending Pesach in Israel, took part in a private capacity in a one-day trip organised by Yachad UK and led by a guide from the anti-occupation Israeli army veterans’ group, Breaking the Silence.
/..
http://www.thejc.com/node/117732
Ho ho ho. It’s not actually that funny, though, sounding like a ‘them’ ist. Even if you didn’t mean to. Watch out for that abyss, mate.
Mr Goss
“Not much Technicolour. For a start I try to answer questions.”
_____________________
Except when you find them too tough. Which is presumably why you stalked out of the room on the pretext that you wouldn’t debate with someone who “implicitly approved of torture”….and then became an enthusiatic advocate for “Habbabreak” (which meant that you wouldn’t even see my questions).
50,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel live in poverty
Over 1,000 die every month; new statistics paint stark picture of their lives.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.586970
Technicolour
“50,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel live in poverty
Over 1,000 die every month; new statistics paint stark picture of their lives.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.586970”
_______________________
I tried to read more on your link but there’s a paywall or whatever’s it’s called.
Firstly, I too have heard that many of the survivors do not receive (at least not in full) the various monies intended for them, whether by donations or compensation paid by Germany – NOT through the fault of the donors or Germany, of course.
Secondly, on the figures: the bit of the article one can read for free says that there are about 193.000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel. Assume that to qualify as a Holocaust survivor you should have been born no later than in the last year of the war: this means that we are talking about people who are at least 79 years old today. Many will of course be older.
Now you will be aware that since the 19th century average life expectancy has been increasing from generation to generation. Let us assume that average life expectancy for people born in the 1930s and 1940s period is (on a generous measure)around 80. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that 10.000 or so people aged at least 80 (out of 193.000 should die every year, is it?
At that rate, in theory, the last of the 193.000 survivors will have died in 19,3 years from now, aged 79 + 19,3 = 98.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My conclusion is as follows : your headline summary of the Haaretz article conflates two important but separate issues and so gives the impression that poverty is somehow responsible for a death rate which itself seems entirely normal. Was it your intention when posting to merely draw attention to a series of facts, or were you attempting to make an anti-Israel point?
“I tried to read more on your link but there’s a paywall or whatever’s it’s called.”
Come on Habby, you tight-arse, with all that dosh you keep bragging about. 🙂
If you had not been such a contentious person who perpetually asks questions without answering them there would have been no need to develop Habbabreak.
Your comment above about holocaust survivors is perfectly reasonable and others would be happy to discuss, and perhaps even agree with you, but for the fact that so many other of your comments are specifically designed to antagonise and you rarely answer any questions, which prompts those of us who have given you our valuable time to taunt you with not knowing whether or not you support torture or whether or not you are a Freemason. Or are you ashamed of your answers?
Habbakuk: yep, know that it’s conflating two points, and agree that unfortunately deaths in that age group would not be uncommon – but that was the headline. The piece was sent to me in full. I linked to the url but didn’t realise it was behind a paywall. I’ll post the most salient bits below. I think, by the way, that it is clearly not ‘anti-Israel’ – but quite possibly is a devastating critique of Israeli government priorities – and also very sad. Moves are afoot to try and improve the situation but still:
“The foundation conducted a survey of the condition of Holocaust survivors in early April, finding that half of them say they feel lonely, one in every five has had to do without food or medicine over the past two years due to financial difficulty, and 60 percent are worried about what their situation will be in the future. Forty-three percent said they feared the Holocaust could be repeated. Also, 55 percent of the survivors reported that they were not satisfied with the way the government has dealt with them. Sixty-one percent said that they felt no improvement or change in the government’s treatment of survivors over the past year.
The part of the survey conducted among the general public found that roughly half of the general public believes Holocaust survivors live in poverty. Only 10 percent said the situation of most Holocaust survivors was good or reasonable. Eighty-four percent said the state and government did not treat them well. Fifty-six percent said there had been no change in the past year in the survivors’ treatment. In a statistic similar to that of the survivors themselves, 40 percent of the public said they feared the Holocaust could recur.”
“Your comment above about holocaust survivors is perfectly reasonable and others would be happy to discuss, and perhaps even agree with you, but for the fact that so many other of your comments are specifically designed to antagonise and you rarely answer any questions, which prompts those of us who have given you our valuable time to taunt you with not knowing whether or not you support torture or whether or not you are a Freemason. Or are you ashamed of your answers?”
That’s the crux, John. Hab waxes and wanes between reasonable comments and outright flaming diatribe with little point other than narcissism and ridicule.
That’s the schizoid personality making us all think H. is more than one person.
Of course the reasonableness is just a trap for his enablers.
Technicolour
Thanks for the reply.
Firstly, if your conflating headline was in fact Haaretz’s, then the last sentence of my conclusion is without object and can be withdrawn.
Secondly : it is in fact 10.000 deaths a month, and not a year (as I wrote). While that does not invalidate my main point – which was that high mortality at the age of 79 or above is perfectly normal for the generation born in the 1930s and 1940s – this does mean that you should disregard the last two lines of the main body of my comment.
More generally on the main features of the Haaretz survey you’ve posted as an addition: I don’t dispute those findings but would just point out that the feelings reported (in the first four lines especially, but also others further down in the extract) would probably be similar to the feelings of people of that age in most developed countries (loneliness, financial difficulties, etc..).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As far as Goss’s and Ben’s comments are concerned, I don’t propose to reply. As Goss said, time is valuable and my own is too valuable to permit me to reply to slanderers and Californian gadflies who wouldn’t know what a discussion was if it smacked them in their face.
“As far as Goss’s and Ben’s comments are concerned”
One of the only consistencies observed….’natch !
This is a review of a new book about Palestinian Christians. In exile, their struggle to return and their homes and villages excised from the map. A version of ‘It never happened….’
Palestinian Christian struggle mapped in new book
Joe Catron
30 April 2014
In Mapping Exile and Return: Palestinian Dispossession and a Political Theology for a Shared Future, American Mennonite theologian and aid worker Alain Epp Weaver explores a legacy of Palestinian Christian exile, and struggle for return. The book’s terrain ranges from the ethnically-cleansed villages of the Galilee to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-christian-struggle-mapped-new-book/13355
What kind of country throws a teen out of an IDF jeep?
Without money, a phone or identity papers, Fadel Tamimi’s 14-year-old son was thrown out of an Israeli army jeep, in the dead of night, 15 kilometers away from home, after being interrogated.
Mohammed Tamimi. His father went to the army base where he had first been taken, but was chased off. ‘What do we care about your… / Photo by Alex Levac
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.588490?v=7D5AD540E9C4ECB255CC4BD9BE37BFDD
The whole article is published on the link. Disgusting, heartless and cruel.
The new Israeli apartheid: Poll reveals widespread Jewish support for policy of discrimination against Arab minority
47 per cent of respondents would like to see Israel’s Arab citizens stripped of their citizenship rights
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-israeli-apartheid-poll-reveals-widespread-jewish-support-for-policy-of-discrimination-against-arab-minority-8223548.html
Israeli Group Commemorates ‘Nakba Day’ with New App Documenting Palestinian Dispossession
May 06, 2014
As Israelis commemorated ‘Memorial Day’ on Monday, and began a series of events to lead up to ‘Independence Day’ on May 15th, one Israeli group launched a smartphone app called ‘iNakba’ to allow users to find the locations of Palestinian villages that were destroyed or expropriated during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
/..
http://www.imemc.org/article/67722
Well done Zochrot.
They “kinda miss” the Geneva Convention don’t they !
Ah well, they need not worry. There will be no intervention there.
The spotlight moves to the Ukraine !
Now there “may be” intervention there.
No idea why….if we take the Israeli model.
John Goss, I am one of those who didn’t read your original post stating “not all Jews..” as being anti-semitic. It was perfectly clear what you meant despite the imperfection of the wording.
But on this blog, as you have now experienced, people will, and one particular person will almost always, rephrase your comments to explicitly state something you did not say nor even mean. This one person has an inability to distinguish actual statements from imaginary ones and to give the benefit of any doubt to you because it denies her the opportunity of making a display of her superior moral character. For some reason, expressing moral outrage makes some people feel superior. I wonder if it is an unconscious effort to compensate for personal deficiencies and low self-esteem.
Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility has been sponsoring delegations to Gaza since 1993. In 2009, we began offering medical service work to the people of Gaza and today we returned to Gaza with our sixth delegation. We are honored to again visit these loving, resilient and courageous people!
Diary with photographs April 4th – April 14th 2014
http://www.larryjohnsononline.com/
IAON] article accepted in IJERPH -Gaza reproductive health
Specific Association of Teratogen and Toxicant Metals in Hair of Newborns with Congenital Birth Defects or Developmentally Premature Birth in a Cohort of Couples with Documented Parental Exposure to Military Attacks: Observational Study at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza, Palestine
Paola Manduca 1,*, Awny Naim 2,† and Simona Signoriello 3,†
Abstract: This study was undertaken in Gaza, Palestine, in a cohort of babies born in 2011. Hair samples of newborns were analyzed for metal load by DRC-ICP-MS. We report specific level of contamination by teratogen/toxicants metals of newborn babies, environmentally unexposed, according to their phenotypes at birth: normal full term babies, birth defects or developmentally premature. The occurrence of birth defects was previously shown to be correlated in this cohort to documented exposure of parents to weapons containing metal contaminants, during attacks in 2009. We detect, in significantly higher amounts than in normal babies, different specific teratogen or toxicant elements, known weapons’ components, characteristic for each of birth defect or premature babies. This is the first attempt to our knowledge to directly link a phenotype at birth with the in utero presence of specific teratogen and/or toxicant metals in a cohort with known episodes of acute exposure of parents to environmental contamination by these same metals, in this case delivered by weaponry. The babies were conceived 20–25 months after the major known parental exposure; the specific link of newborn phenotypes to war-remnant metal contaminants, suggests that mothers’ contamination persists in time, and that the exposure may have a long term effect.
—
Paola Manduca, Prof. Genetics
DISTAV, University of Genoa, Italy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My note – The Professor refers to Cast Lead of course as the cause of the exposure.
‘There are currently 95 detainees on hunger strike in Ofer, Megiddo and Naqab prisons. It should be noted that Ofer and Megiddo prisons are provided services by the British-Danish company G4S, which is responsible for the installation cameras and surveillance equipment used to control the Palestinian prisoners.
According to one hunger striker, who spoke with Addameer lawyer Mahmoud Hassan, the detainees in the Naqab Prison have all been transferred to an isolated section, separate from the other prisoners.
The cells are covered in sand.
The prisoners have been ill-treated; suffering from daily cell searches and being permitted to change their undergarments only twice since the beginning of the strike. They are bound and handcuffed in their cells for ten hours a day.
Three of the hunger strikers in Naqab prison, Fadi Hammad, Fadi Omar and Soufian Bahar, are now in solitary confinement and one detainee, Ahmad Abu Ras, was transferred to an undisclosed location.
Furthermore, the IPS has been denying the hunger strikers salt for the last two weeks. Prisoners who engage in hunger strikes still take liquids and salt, as they are essential for survival.
Denial of salt is a continuation of punishments against hunger strikers and, despite the grave danger it imposes on the lives of the detainees, has been institutionalized by the Israeli Supreme Court. In 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court denied a petition by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several other Palestinian and Israeli NGOs that demanded the IPS provide salt on a daily basis to hunger-striking prisoners, as its denial breaches the constitutional rights of the prisoner.
The hunger strikers will face even harsher punishments if the IPS’s most recent proposed bill to legalize force-feeding passes in the Knesset. The memorandum is currently up for public critique. ‘
Addameer: Administrative Detainees Put in Solitary Confinement, Denied Salt Supplements
Friday May 09
http://www.imemc.org/article/67750