Palestinian Arab struggle against Arabs

[RFS_Br]

See how eagerly the Indo-Jewish know-nothings are quick to empathize with Palestinians when so doing doesn't reflect badly on Israel. You are low-life, Solomon -- exploiting people's plight to divert attention from Israel's behavior. Needless to say, there'd be no Palestinian refugees, had Israel not expelled almost 1 million Palestinian from their homes, annexed their properties and confiscated their money and bank accounts. If you care so much about Palestine, Solomon, begin by giving back to them the part of their properties that you've been given by the thuggish, thieving state of Israel.

About the video, it's important to emphasize the following: the restrictions on Palestinian rights is mainly a Lebanese thing. And in Lebanon -- the most liberal country in the Arab world! -- those who most oppose Palestinian rights are the Christians (the most Westernized sect of the country, and also the one with a history of anti-Arab and pro-Israel activism). Muslims, independently of sect, are more accepting of Palestinians (there's polling evidence of that which I can adduce here). Outside of Lebanon, such restrictions are but non-existent. In Jordan, all of the Palestinian refugees of '48 and '67 have been given citizenship -- in fact, most Jordanian citizens nowadays are of Palestinian origin. In Syria, Palestinians have not been given citizenship, but have not faced restrictions in the labor market or in acess to government services either. Same in Iraq, where, under Saddam, Palestinians were not only respected by the government but were a privileged minority as well (something that earned them the resentment of the oppressed Shias).

Lebanon's "exceptionalism" in this respected is due to the country's particular conditions: the confessionalism of its parliamentary system and its very small territory (limited space, resources).

Still, neither in Lebanon or in any other Arab states are Palestinians mobilizing to demand citizenship. By and large, they accept their condition as guests in their host countries.

The Economist says on this matter:

[T]he Palestinians, for instance, do not want a new nationality because it would erase their right of return. More than six decades on, grandchildren proudly display the keys to their families’ former houses.

No country in the world is forced to give citizenship to refugees. Jordan only did so because the Hashemite dynasty had in the past some pan-Jordanian ambitions that would see Jordan expanding and taking up lands from neighboring states, including those of the UN-proposed Palestinian state.

If Solomon thinks Arab countries have to shoulder the burden of the refugee crisis that Israel created, why doesn't he ask Israel to accept persecuted Africans in Israel as citizens? Why doesn't he protest Israel's mass deportation of Ethiopians, Eritreans and Sudanese back to countries where they risk being persecuted?

You see, Solomon -- Palestinians themselves don't think it's their Arab brethren's responsibility to absorb them. Stop using their plight for your propagandistic purposes. Arab countries are already poor as they are, suffering from mass youth unemployment, monetary crises and other sorts of economic malaise. They don't need at this moment to tend for an additional amount of poor people. You who think Israel is so much, should instead insist that your country give back to Palestinians what it's stolen from them all these years.

 

[Solomon2]

Hamas Arrests 'Collaborators' Following Amnesty Period
Hamas forces in Gaza have begun arresting suspected "collaborators" with Israel following a month-long period of amnesty.

By Arutz Sheva staff
First Publish: 4/14/2013, 10:01 AM

Hamas flags at Salamiya's funeral
Flash 90

Hamas forces in Gaza have begun arresting suspected "collaborators" with Israel following a month-long period of amnesty, a Hamas official said on Saturday.

"Since yesterday (Friday), we arrested several collaborators with the Israeli occupation," interior ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP, declining to give a number.

On Thursday, Hamas leaders claimed success in the month-long campaign, which began on March 12, for collaborators to turn themselves in as a means of being granted leniency.

"The campaign to combat espionage achieved a number of goals, and from this evening the deadline for Israeli collaborators to turn themselves in has ended," said interior ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan, according to AFP.

"Successes were achieved," he said, adding that the number of people now believed to be working on behalf of Israel was "low."

Shahwan said that some people had surrendered during the amnesty but did not give details on their likely treatment.

Under Palestinian Authority law, collaboration with Israel, including sharing information on planned terrorist attacks, is punishable by death.

All executions must be approved by the PA chairman before they can be carried out, but Hamas no longer recognizes the legitimacy of incumbent Mahmoud Abbas, whose four-year term ended in 2009.

A Gaza official said that five or six suspects fled to Israel before they could be apprehended.

During the recent November conflict, at least seven people were gunned down by Hamas after being accused of being collaborators.

The bodies of six were dragged behind vehicles through the streets of Gaza City.

The killings were claimed by Hamas militants from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in notes pinned to their bodies, which accused them of being traitors.

New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the terror organization on Thursday for failing to investigate the killings.
"Hamas's inability or unwillingness to investigate the brazen murders of seven men makes a mockery of its claims that it is upholding the rule of law in Gaza," HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

The Islamist movement is blacklisted as a terror group by both the European Union and the United States.

 

[Solomon2]

Friday, May 03, 2013
Egypt to Palestinian Syrian refugees: "Drop Dead"

More details on a story about anti-Palestinian Syrian discrimination in Arab countries I posted April 28:

Fatemah El-Taweel, 31, left war torn Syria where she was born and raised for Egypt. Yet when she attempted to send her three children to school here she met with an unexpected response.

“A Palestinian, and you want to enroll your children for education here?” asked an employee of the ministry of education whose shocked face made it clear he thought her request audacious. 
“I told him yes, I do,” says Fatemah. “Just like Syrian refugees who are given these rights in Egypt.”

A presidential decree issued last September grants exceptional rights to Syrian refugees in Egypt, including access to government schools. It did not, however, make any mention of Palestinians who had fled Syria..

Under the threat of missiles, bombardment from tanks and trigger-happy snipers Fatemah’s family fled to Egypt last December. They have since been joined by 1,900 families, an estimated 10,000 Palestinians who moved from Syria to Egypt to escape the conflict.

None are given residency permits. The Palestinian embassy doesn’t follow their cases, monitor their arrival or seek to register them.

The luckiest receive short term tourist visas. Scores are turned away at Cairo airport. If they are between the age of 18 and 40 and traveling alone they are sent back to Damascus, returned to the life threatening situation they had sought to escape but faced with the added burden of the suspicion of the Syrian authorities towards asylum seekers rejected by Egypt.


Denied refugee rights Syrian Palestinians must grapple with a bureaucracy that either doesn’t recognize them or lacks the flexibility to do so and negotiate a decades long mentality that considers them a threat to national security. 


Very few managed to flee with their savings. Most didn’t have time to take anything. Lacking any support in a country they barely know, they are left to battle for healthcare, education and housing. Those who did manage to bring money find it soon runs out.

The constant threat of deportation is unsettling. They face an uncertain future in the absence of any institutional support.


“I'm fighting and struggling to be recognized as a refugee,” Abdeljabar Bilal, a 42-year-old Palestinian lawyer who moved to Cairo from Syria last October with his family, told Ahram. “I’m not a tourist.”

They are demanding equal status with Syrian refugees in Egypt, who not only have educational and health rights but the option of registration with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, which provides financial assistance, educational grants, food coupons, protection from deportation, health care and counseling. But this can only happen if Egypt – the host country – gives UNCHR permission to work with Syrian-Palestinians.

According to a UNHCR source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the commission has repeatedly applied for the necessary permission from the ministry of foreign affairs only to be turned down.

...In Egypt, unlike Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank where refugee camps were built especially for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA only operates a liaison office.

The level and the nature of relief provided by UNRWA elsewhere cannot be replicated in Egypt without a change in its mandate here. And that requires both Egypt’s approval and a vote by the UN General Assembly. Yet Cairo’s position is that only UNRWA, and not the UNHCR, is authorized to address the problems facing Palestinian refugees coming from Syria.

Officially, Egypt is maintaining its commitment to preserve Palestinian identity so long as there is Israeli occupation, preventing the “erosion” of that identity by refusing to allow the refugees to be registered by UNHCR which does not distinguish Palestinians from the rest of the world’s refugees.

The most significant difference between other refugees and Palestinians, as per UN resolution 194, is that descendants of Palestinians keep their refugee status, giving them the right to return to their homeland. [That is not in UNGA 194 - EoZ}

But technically, registering with UNHCR would not strip Palestinian refugees of their inalienable rights to their homeland. And given the limitations of what UNRWA’s liaison office can do in Egypt, temporary registration with UNHCR would offer the fastest and most practical, albeit partial, solution to the problems facing Syrian Palestinians in Egypt.

Critics argue that Egypt’s logic of preserving the Palestinian identity is being abused to justify political, racist and security motivated practices against refugees.​

There is a lot more there, including the fact that Mahmoud Abbas is also ignoring the problem.

Outside of the UNHCR, I cannot find any mention of this severe discrimination in Egypt against Palestinian Arabs by any human rights organizations. (HRW did mention one specific case of two men being sent back to Syria in January, but is silent about Egypt's refusal to let UNHRC help the Palestinian Syrian refugees.) For some reason, Palestinian Arabs aren't nearly as important when they are being abused by other Arabs.

 

[Controlled Pair]

Arabs treat other Arabs like dogs.

I include the 'palestinians' in that. The 'palestinians' are also guilty of their treatment of their neighbours. The destruction they brought on Lebanon. The attempt at a coup in Jordan, supporting Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and terror activities on Egyptian soil.

 

[Solomon2]

Sunday May 12, 2013

VIDEO: Lebanese TV shows Gaza luxury, slams Hamas (EoZ exclusive)

Lebanon's OTV is owned by a Christian party that is allied with Hezbollah, so this very interesting video shows Iran's displeasure at Hamas' non-support of Bashir Assad's regime in Syria.

The report apparently aired May 9. It was publicized in anti-Hamas Palestinian Arab media.

Reporter: Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that it has Movenpick, Rotana, and other expensive hotels. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that Western Union, Money Express and other financial and banking services are available for Gazans on every street. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that some fishermen have changed the flags from those of Palestine to those of Qatar. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that the price of some apartments in the Rimal neighborhood are the same as the price of an apartment in the Rauche neighborhood in Beirut (an upscale neighborhood in Beirut).

Woman in car: They came/returned from Syria and Lebanon.

Reporter: Here all pre-conceived notions are gone.

Reporter to worker: Where are those goods from?
Worker: Israel.
Reporter: You mean from occupied Palestine.
Worker: Yes, occupied Palestine.
Reporter: What are those goods?
Worker: Poultry.
Reporter: How does it arrive? Is it brought by Palestinian, “Palestinians of ‘48” [Israeli Arabs] or what?
Worker: No, directly from the Jews.
Reporter: Maybe they poisoned it.
Worker: No, no, no.
Reporter: What guarantees that they didn’t poison it?
Worker: We checked it.
Reporter: You "checked it” (sarcastic)

Reporter: Their cars, currency, their food and much of the things they need come from the factories of the Israeli occupier enemy, and they don’t object, and they don’t have a choice.

Reporter: You use shekels only?
Man: Yes. That’s what is used.

Reporter: Those who haven’t visited Gaza which is ruled by Hamas, haven’t seen the “shahids” and the people killed who died in Syria fighting the regime which protected, embraced and provided weapons to and helped Hamas previously. The Syrian regime has become a target which (Hamas) fights, while it promised the (Muslim)Brothers of Egypts to uphold the ceasefire with Israel.​

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Solomon2 note: This story is posted in this section because IMO it's more about inter-Arab frictions than about Israel. The there-is-no-such-state-as-Israel idea is still there - indeed, I'm not sure Lebanese can officially refer to Israel as a state at all nowadays - but in addition to being absurd and aggressive, the idea is clearly tiring, for the video records Gazans on the street as unwilling to use it.

 

[Solomon2]

Saab Erekat, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, claims 1,400 Palestinians killed in Syria - but the Palestinian Authority is trying to distance itself from the conflict.

 

[Archdemon]

They will be thrown into the see, rootless people. As I always say, USA will decline one day, until then no one will come for their help.

Do you have crystal ball? evidently inside of your skull instead of a brain.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Jews Racism Against Jews in Israel

By Danna Harman Associated Press,

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Ethiopian immigrants in flowing white robes climbed off a bus to catch a first glimpse of their new home in Israel -- a trailer park on a windswept hill outside Jerusalem.

Activists of the 60,000-strong Ethiopian community complain of systematic discrimination by established Israelis and say the government is not moving fast enough to move immigrants from transit camps to real homes.

...Critics said while Israel is great on ideas -- two dramatic airlifts in 1985 and 1991 saved thousands of Ethiopian Jews from starvation and civil war -- it is not doing well on helping them get settled.

``It is as if the government feels they have finished their job by just bringing us here, but clearly the suffering is not over,'' said Adisso Massala, the sole member of Parliament from the Ethiopian community.

Ethiopian activists say other immigrant groups, especially newcomers from the former Soviet Union, get better housing, education and work opportunities.

The anger of the Ethiopian community exploded in riots two years ago when it was revealed that Israeli blood banks were secretly discarding their donations, fearing the blood might be tainted with AIDS.

The government says it has granted Ethiopians unprecedented aid. More than half the Ethiopian families in Israel have bought homes with government grants of up to $120,000 for families, far more aid than available to other immigrants.

But Ethiopian youth also have the lowest high school graduation rate of any group in Israel -- a guarantee of a future as low-paid unskilled laborers.

The government wavered for years over whether to allow thousands of Falashmura to come to Israel to join their relatives.

Some Israelis fear that more and more people in the developing world will look at the example of the Ethiopians and try to immigrate to the now relatively prosperous Jewish state by claiming Jewish roots.

Despite these concerns, the government decided to allow the immigration, and in recent weeks the pace of arrivals has quickened.

``But we still want more,'' he said. ``We do not want to create a new Ethiopia here. We came to be like everyone else.''

 

[Desert Fox]

It was Hitler who struck the deal of mass exporting Jews to Palestine, have their wealth deposited in a special bank account and use it to purchase and supply German made farm and construction machine to the newly emigrated Jews in Palestine.

It didn't matter to Hitler where the Jews would emigrate to, as long as they left Germany it was fine with him.

However, this would change once WW2 broke out and the Germans planned to deport all Jews to Madagascar. Including this who emigrated to British occupied Palestine.


BTW, to those cursing israel for deporting Palestinians from their own land, don't forget, Arabs themselves played a major role in the creation of the State of Israel.

israel is the reflection of what Arab leaders did to their own people. Thus, as the saying goes 'if you don't like your reflection, then don't break the mirror, break your face'.

 

[Pyre]

It's just a semitic thing. I'm half semitic (arab) and i've observed this since i was a baby. Both jews and arabs do it equally. Try to jump over their own kind, for the sake of ego and pride. It's what happens when a people who have been tribal for thousands of years immediately get thrown into individualist societies, they can't handle it and go overboard with the wealth accumulation and greed. **** happens.

 

[Conspirator]

THE ZIONIST ENTITY IS BREATHING ITS LAST DAYS

 

[Solomon2]

THE ZIONIST ENTITY IS BREATHING ITS LAST DAYS

What pushed your button? Taking your frustrations out on Zionists, I guess.

Jews Racism Against Jews in Israel...

Off-topic. I take this as an acknowledgement by you that Arabs are guilty of what this thread accuses them of and that you personally are at least an accessory if not a participant in the crime.

 

[Solomon2]

It didn't matter to Hitler where the Jews would emigrate to, as long as they left Germany it was fine with him. However, this would change once WW2 broke out and the Germans planned to deport all Jews to Madagascar.

Linky, please.

Including this who emigrated to British occupied Palestine.

Unlikely, as the Mufti, a favorite of Hitler, repeatedly traveled to Germany to urge the speedy implementation of the "Final Solution", pledging Arabs' active support. He was supposed to be prosecuted as a war criminal for his role in the Final Solution but the French and British facilitated his escape. The result is that Arabs trumpet nowadays that they were innocent of wrongdoing against Jews in the 1920s-1940s period when the opposite was true.

the saying goes 'if you don't like your reflection, then don't break the mirror, break your face'.

By contrast, I've read that Russians say, "You can't blame the mirror for an ugly mug." - that is, accept the ugliness in your life and society and deal with it, rather than pretend it isn't there or blame others.

 

[Solomon2]

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Islamist students vow to fight PA crackdown in West Bank

New campaign calls on Hamas-affiliated students to resist ‘political’ investigation summonses

By ELHANAN MILLER June 17, 2013, 5:29 pm

Palestinian supporters of Hamas attend a rally marking the 25th anniversary of the Islamist movement's foundation in the West bank town of Ramallah, December 14, 2012 (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

---

A group of Hamas-affiliated students living in the West Bank has launched a campaign calling for civil disobedience against harassment by Palestinian Authority security forces.

Titled “It Makes No Difference To Me,” and organized by the Union of Islamic Students in the West Bank, the campaign aims to fight what members say is a PA crackdown on Hamas activists across the West Bank, including repeated summonses for investigations in PA security headquarters.

Hamas has defined the harassment and political arrest of its West Bank operatives as a key issue in its ongoing reconciliation talks with rival movement Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority.

The effort is a follow-up to a campaign launched two years ago, dubbed “I’m Not Going,” Palestinian news agency Safa reported. On Monday, the campaign received the endorsement of the Islamist student bloc, which advised its activists not to turn up to summonses for investigations issued by the PA.

In a statement sent to Hamas news website Al-Resalah, the Islamic bloc said it ascribed high importance to “removing the security threat from the [Islamic] groups.”

According to data released by the Committee of Family Members of Political Prisoners in the West Bank, a grassroots organization associated with Hamas, 118 Hamas activists and supporters were arrested or interrogated by the PA from June 1 to June 13.

“Since the signing of the reconciliation agreement, we hear voices talking about implementing the reconciliation agreement… but nothing makes us optimistic about a quick end to political arrests,” Abu-Muhammad, who spent months in a PA prison, told Safa News Agency.

“We must be explicit and say ‘enough’ to the travesty of so-called political arrests,” he added.

The apparent harassment was not one-sided, however. On Monday, a Fatah spokesman announced that Hamas’s security apparatus summoned a Fatah member in Khan Younis, Muhammad Arbi’, for investigation, for the second time this month.

June 14 marked the sixth anniversary of Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

What pushed your button? Taking your frustrations out on Zionists, I guess.

Off-topic. I take this as an acknowledgement by you that Arabs are guilty of what this thread accuses them of and that you personally are at least an accessory if not a participant in the crime.

I guess you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. There is no way on earth that one could deny what the suffering of the Palestinian looked like.

By the same token there are 2nd class Jews who have been mistreated for multiple reasons.

For me both are wrong and should acknowledge their flaws.

Cheers