MUNICH - AND A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING

Jordan's women in no man's land

2009-11-30T09:35:00.002-06:00

ALL POWER TO THEM!!!

By Nisreen El-Shamayleh in Mafraq, northern Jordan

There are 136,000 mines along Jordan's northern border with Syria, military data shows [NPA]

Jordan has stood at the front-line of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948, and in the six decades since has been de-mining battlefields where opposing armies once roamed.

Many of the country's land mines date back to the 1948 partition of Palestine, the 1967 Six Day War, and hostilities with Syria in the 1970's.

A peace treaty with Israel in 1994 allowed Jordan to speed up its de-mining efforts; 73,000 Israeli mines have been removed from the Wadi Araba border area.

In 1999, Jordan ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, which prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

The task for the Jordanians now is to remove some 136,000 mines from a 104-km belt along the northern border with Syria by 2012, a measure stipulated by the treaty, and they have pioneered a new approach that challenges social norms.

In October 2008, a group of 10 women from the province of Mafraq, where mines pose the biggest threat to some half a million Jordanians, became the first all-female de-mining team in the Middle East.

Rima al-Lahem, a divorced mother of four, says she faced social barriers when she first took up the job. "This [Mafraq] is a conservative Bedouin area, where defying the norms is forbidden and women who do so are looked down on in our culture," she says.

In the small northern border villages where unemployment is about 40 per cent, women have few job opportunities, let alone ones that are meant for men. Though they were taunted by men in their neighbourhoods, the women de-miners did not give up on what they say is a humanitarian challenge.

"At the beginning we didn't find the encouragement and support from our community, but when everyone started hearing about our achievements in freeing contaminated [mined] land, they started to support and respect us," al-Lahem says.

Trained by the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), an NGO working as the contracted implementing partner for Jordan's Northern Border De-mining project, the women are fully qualified to detect, recover, diffuse and dispose of mines.

Humanitarian necessity

Eman, another member of the female de-mining team, whose father also works as a de-miner, says she joined the effort because "lots of people living here have become victims of land mines. Some ended up with amputated arms and legs, so the goal to join the team is humanitarian more so than it is financial."

The job is anything but easy, and the women have shown immense resilience. De-miner Haya al-Andali says the job tests her fitness limits and aptitude under extreme weather conditions, and even at times, her self-esteem, as she excels in a vocation previously dominated by men.

Technicians say military maps do not show the exact location of mines in Jordan, and erratic mine-laying patterns have also made the de-miners' mission more difficult.

According to NPA, de-mining statistics throughout the world have shown that while female de-miners may be slower than their male counterparts, their work is actually more thorough. Because they are naturally meticulous and cautious when it comes to safety measures, the women also suffer less accidents while on the dangerous job.

Lina Ghazi, the NPA co-ordination and communication manager, explains that women empowerment is one of the pillars of the NGO's work worldwide. One of their strategies is to have women involved in all of the sectors of the de-mining process.

"It's a very foreign concept to begin with. But NPA has tried it all over the world and it has worked out perfectly. We have had no problems in terms of having female de-miners as opposed to male de-miners, and if women around the world can do it, so can Jordanian women," she says.

The women on the team are university graduates, higher education students and homemakers.

Jordan has 10 female deminers working in the north [Courtesy: NPA]

Regional demining initiatives

According to Jordanian military estimates, some 305,000 anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines were planted in the country in the past 60 years.

The presence of these mines acts as a contaminant, blocking access to valuable agricultural land, cultivation and grazing. It also delays irrigation and hydroelectric projects, restricts housing and construction and isolates historic and cultural heritage sites.

Mohammad Breikat, the national director of the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation (NCDR), says signing the Mine Ban Treaty is proof that Jordan is trying to seek peace in the region and that successive wars have adversely affected far too many people in the Middle East. "We are trying to call for peace in this country," he says.

Although Jordan's de-mining project will come to an end in 2012, the NCDR plans to keep the country involved in other de-mining activities around the world.

"We are trying to establish a regional or international training centre for de-mining in Jordan. We've already trained 30 participants from 20 different countries on how to manage war and unexploded ordnance waste," Breikat told Al Jazeera.

"There also may be an attempt to establish a Jordanian company specialised in de-mining to help neighbouring countries affected by mines."

Despite the progress made over the past decade, land mines are still present in 70 countries and kill around 6,000 people a year, according to global land mine reports.

But for Jordan, 2012 will mean a safer passage in Mafraq, improved social and economic development in the area, and no more amputations due to land mine injuries.
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EID AL ADHA ...

2009-11-26T13:42:00.004-06:00

EID MUBARAK

TO ALL MY MUSLIM BROTHERS

AND SISTERS

AROUND THE GLOBE!

Gaza woman's struggle to go on Hajj

2009-11-26T13:33:00.003-06:00

Safia al-Shrafi from the Gaza Strip is fulfilling a lifelong dream: to perform the Hajj in Mecca.

But her pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city has been a long struggle, full of grief. She and her husband had saved money and planned the trip together, but during Israel's war on Gaza last winter, he was killed.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

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2009-11-24T20:51:00.007-06:00

HAPPY

TURKEY DAY

EVERYONE !!

BEAUTIFUL !!

2009-11-23T12:55:00.012-06:00

Have Israeli spies infiltrated international airports?

2009-11-23T09:02:00.002-06:00

Nazareth – South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israeli intelligence agents had infiltrated Johannesburg's airport in an effort to gather information on citizens, particularly black and Muslim travelers.

The move by the South African government came after an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter being interrogated by an official with El Al, Israel's national carrier, in a public area of OR Tambo International Airport.

The program also featured testimony from Jonathan Garb, a former El Al guard, who claimed that the airline had been a front for the Shin Bet, Israel's intelligence agency, in South Africa for many years.

Over footage of the undercover reporter's questioning, he commented, "Here is a secret service operating above the law in South Africa. We pull the wool over everyone's eyes. We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry reportedly sent a team to South Africa to try to defuse the diplomatic crisis after the government in Johannesburg threatened to deport all of El Al's security staff.

Garb's accusations have been supported by an investigation by the regulator for South Africa's private security industries.

They have also been affirmed by human rights groups in Israel, which report that Israeli security staff routinely carry out racial profiling at many airports around the world, apparently out of sight of local authorities.

Concern in South Africa about the activities of El Al staff has been growing since August, when South Africa's leading investigative news show, Carte Blanche, went undercover to test Garb's allegations.

A hidden camera captured an El Al official in the departure hall claiming to be from "airport security" and demanding that the undercover reporter hand over his passport or ID as part of "airport regulations." When the reporter protested that he was not flying but waiting for a friend, El Al's security manager, identified as Golan Rice, arrived to interrogate him further. Rice then warned him that he was in a restricted area and would have to leave.

Garb commented on the show: "What we are trained is to look for the immediate threat – the Muslim guy. You can think he is a suicide bomber, he is collecting information. The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically and even on religious grounds. This is what we do."

Garb went public after he was dismissed over a campaign he led for better pay and medical benefits for El Al staff.

He and two other fired workers have told the South African media that Shin Bet agents routinely detain Muslim and black passengers, a claim that has ignited controversy in a society still suffering with the legacy of decades of apartheid rule.

Suspect individuals, the former workers say, are held in an annex room, where they are interrogated, often on matters unrelated to airport security, and can be subjected to strip searches while their luggage is taken apart. Clandestine searches of their belongings and laptops are also carried out to identify useful documents and information, they say.

But all of these practices would be in violation of South African law, which authorizes only the police, armed forces or personnel appointed by the transport minister to carry out searches.

The former staff also accuse El Al of smuggling weapons – licensed to the local Israeli embassy – into the airport for use by the secret agents.

A South African Jew, Garb said he was recruited 19 years ago by the Shin Bet. "We were trained at a secret camp [in Israel] where they train Israeli special forces and they train you how to use handguns, submachine guns and in unarmed combat."

Garb added that he was assigned to "armed security" in the early 1990s. "Armed security is being undercover, carrying a weapon, a handgun and at that time as well, sounds crazy but we carried Samsonite briefcases with an Uzi submachine gun in it."

He claimed to have profiled 40,000 people for Israel over the past 20 years, including recently Virginia Tilley, a Middle East expert and chief researcher at South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council. The think tank recently published a report accusing Israel of apartheid and colonialism in the Palestinian territories.

"The decision was she should be checked in the harshest way because of her connections," Garb said.

Tilley confirmed that she had been detained at the airport by El Al staff and separated from her luggage. Garb said that during this period an agent "photocopied all [her] documentation and then he forwarded it on to Israel" – Garb believes for use by the Shin Bet.

Israeli officials have refused to comment on the allegations. A letter produced by Garb – signed by Roz Bukris, El Al's general manager in South Africa – suggests that he was employed by the Shin Bet rather than the airline. Bukris, according to the program, refused to confirm or deny the letter's validity.

The Israeli Embassy in South Africa declined to discuss evidence that it, rather than El Al, had licensed guns issued to the airline's security managers. Questioned last week by Ynet, Israel's largest news website, about the deportation of the airline official, Yossi Levy, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said he could not "comment on security matters."

A report published in 2007 by two Israeli human rights organisations, the Nazareth-based Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, found that Israeli airline staff used racial profiling at most major airports around the world, subjecting Arab and Muslim passengers to discriminatory and degrading treatment in violation both of international law and the host country's laws.

"Our research showed that the checks conducted by El Al at foreign airports had all the hallmarks of Shin Bet interrogations," said Mohammed Zeidan, the director of the Human Rights Association. "Usually the questions were less about the safety of the flight and more aimed at gathering information on the political activities or sympathies of the passengers."

The human rights groups approached four international airports – in New York, Paris, Vienna and Geneva – where passengers said they had been subjected to discriminatory treatment, to ask under what authority the Israeli security services were operating. The first two airports refused to respond, while Vienna and Geneva said it was not possible to oversee El Al's procedures.

"It is remarkable that these countries make no effort to supervise the actions of Israeli security personnel present on their territory, particularly in light of the discriminatory and humiliating procedures they apply," the report states.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi. It is reprinted here with permission.
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Combating Israeli settlements in the supermarkets

2009-11-21T08:25:00.012-06:00

By Nour Odeh in Middle East
on November 19th, 2009.

They are illegal, a contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention,
"dangerous",
"concerning"; they are Israel's illegal settlements, built forcefully on occupied and mostly privately-owned Palestinian land.

The Israeli settlement regime has occupied forty per cent and counting of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Successive Israeli governments have offered Israeli settlers financial, logistical, and security support to create this reality that has now driven Palestinians to the brink of despair.

Over half a million Israelis now live in approximately 200 Israeli settlements in Palestinians' midst, prospering and ever-growing while Palestinians suffer increasing restrictions to protect these settlements.

These restrictions include banning thousands of Palestinian farmers from accessing their farms and lands because of their proximity to the settlements; confiscating lands and property privately owned by Palestinians; banning Palestinians from travelling on what became Israeli-only roads; and according to the UN, the list goes on.

Settlements: Grabbing land, and Palestinian market share

Aside from taking Palestinian land, these settlements also house factories and agricultural industries.

Their products are ending up on Palestinian shelves and Palestinians are inadvertently contributing to the growth of these industries and the settlements.

But the Palestinian government is striking back at these industries, which it says sustain the Israeli settlement enterprise and perpetuate the occupation.

Settlement products sneaking in:

I spent three hours in one of Ramallah’s supermarkets trying to figure out which of the hundreds of Israeli products are settlement products.

I spoke to some customers, like Khaled, who told me: "You have to really be careful and investigate to know whether a product was produced inside Israel or in a settlement."

Others, like Rima, had no idea. She started inspecting the groceries in her basket when I asked her she could have settlement products there.
"I had no idea she said; this is so ironic."

The ministry of economy has announced it will aggressively pursue an already existing law that criminalises trading in settlement products.

The government has decided to activate an already existing law that criminalizes trading in settlement products, trying offenders in a military court for what the law considers a threat to Palestinian national security.

Dr Hasan Abu Libdeh, the minister of national economy told me: "The ministry will have to play the most substantial role in making sure that we do not play a part in the economic sustainability of the settlements. We think the Palestinian market should be clean totally from settlement activity in terms of the economy."

Reports suggest that Israeli settlement products enjoy an estimated 15 per cent share of the Palestinian market. Palestinians now say this is unacceptable and must change.

The Palestinian government says it has no plans to ban products produced inside Israel proper, even though Israel has made the entry of Palestinian products into the Israeli market extremely difficult.

But they believe this undertaking, to actually get rid of settlement products from the shelves, will take time and require awareness among Palestinian consumers.

But through this boycott, which is gaining international support especially in Europe, Palestinians say, they are now striking back at the illegal settlements – product by product.

Settlement Freeze: Obligation and peace prerequisite

Palestinians say settlements constitute the single most important obstacle to peace in the region.

They are demanding that Israel comply with its obligations, spelled out in the international roadmap, which include a complete freeze of all settlement activity, including so-called natural growth. In 2003, the Security Council endorsed the roadmap, initially introduced in 2002, in resolution 1515.

Palestinians say that without such compliance, engaging in negotiations would simply be useless.

This is a conflict over land, Palestinians say, so negotiating on how to end it cannot bear fruit if the land negotiated over is being grabbed in the meantime.

But so far, Palestinians have been disappointed by the lack of international pressure on Israel.

Responding to Israel's approval of the construction of 900 new additional houses in the Israeli of settlement of Gilo, the American administration said it was "dismayed" and the European Union said they were "concerned', and urged Israel to refrain from taking such steps.

Less than 24 hours after this international expression of "concern", Israel demolished six Palestinian-owned homes and buildings, displacing 55 Palestinians, including 34 children.

Meanwhile, an Israeli parliamentarian from the prime minister's Likud Party inaugurated a new settlement in the Middle of a Palestinian neighbourhood.

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Majority of UN member countries call on Israel to abide by resolutions on the occupied Syrian Golan

2009-11-21T08:12:00.003-06:00

New York, (SANA)

The majority of the United Nations member countries called on Israel to abide by resolutions related to the occupied Syrian Golan, particularly the UN Security Council resolution 497 which considers the Israeli decision to impose its laws and procedures on Golan as null and void.

The fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly (The Special Political and Decolonization Committee) adopted Thursday a draft resolution entitled 'the occupied Syrian Golan' with 165 countries voting for the resolution.Only Israel voted against the draft resolution and the US abstained.

The resolution called on Israel to cancel its decision of annexing the Golan, considering the Israeli administrative and legislative procedures to change the Syrian Golan identity as null and void as well as a flagrant violation of the international law and Geneva Convention.

It also demanded Israel to stop imposing the Israeli nationality and the Israeli identity cards on the Syrians in Golan and halt the repressive measures against the Syrian citizens, condemning Israel's violations of Geneva Convention on protecting civilians.

The Committee urged the UN member countries not to recognize any of the Israeli procedures that contradict the international law.

Mazen Eyon
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Who Will deliver the Palestinian State?

2009-11-21T07:53:00.001-06:00

The is a guest note by Fadi Elsalameen, publisher of the Palestine Note.

For the past several years Palestine Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's name on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza has become synonymous with the words credibility, honesty, and transparency.

His hard work on building and reforming Palestinian institutions has paid off: Palestinians see him as a serious leader that can deliver to his people with or without the Israelis.

He has raised the bar of leadership so high that officials in the Fatah movement are feeling extremely uncomfortable and challenged. A senior Fatah leader and member of its central committee told me, last week, while the Brooking Institutions' Saban Forum was taking place in Jerusalem "everyone comes to Ramallah to see Fayyad; they add us and Abu Mazen on their programs just as an excuse."

The Fatah official was almost right: the Saban Forum did send a delegation to Ramallah, but they didn't add him or Abu Mazen on the schedule, they only met with Prime Minister Fayyad.

This is the right approach: if the Palestinian politicians remain in internal political quagmire, the world should pay attention to those who are building in Palestine and help them build.

The international community should deal directly with the new style of leadership that is emerging in Palestine. It is the wish of the Palestinian people. The cult of self-appointed personalities that have done nothing for the Palestinians other than use their cause to create prestige for themselves and their families should be ousted. Everyone on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza will agree.

Why can't they retire from political life, join universities in Palestine, and write books for the next generation to learn from their mistakes? Jibril Rijoub is one example of a Fatah politician that changed his useless political existence into a popular and productive head of sports. He is successfully building sports teams, and stadiums and giving sports a whole new meaning in Palestine.

When Arafat passed away, he took with him his style of leadership, and left the people with Abu Mazen and the personalities surrounding him as the figures of the transition period that followed.

That is why soon after people voted for Hamas. They did it for two reasons: to punish Fatah for its corruption, and out of a deep desire for change and improvement they wanted to see if Hamas could deliver what Fatah couldn't.

Alas, to most Palestinians, Hamas and Fatah are both incompetent at this point. Nothing has been accomplished by either party to advance the cause of the Palestinians. In fact, the Palestinians are years behind.

Their PA and Fatah leadership enjoys traveling and shopping on trips abroad.

Meanwhile, Hamas is implementing Talibani backward policies such as Hijab in schools, and demanding women judges to cover in courts. Both Fatah and Hamas supporters are dismayed with their party leadership.

We must take note of an important change that is occurring in Palestine. Anyone on the streets will tell you Salam Fayyad is always visiting us, while Abbas and his people spend more days outside Palestine than inside.

Salam Fayyad represents the new Palestinian style of leadership that will deliver the Palestinian State. He is in touch with his people. He has visited almost every town in the West Bank. He puts on his shorts and runs in marathons for the handicapped, and when tragic personal events strike simple people in Palestine he calls them on the phone to elevate their spirits, promises to visit them personally, and then he actually does visit.

Fayyad's is a promising example of leadership. The world owes it to the Palestinian people -- who have yet to see a bright day in their lives -- to support this kind of leadership and give it a chance to succeed. The people are ready to elect it and give it a mandate to implement its vision, and the world, especially the Arab world, must come through and help it deliver.

-- Fadi Elsalameen

Found @ The Washington Note
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What does Israel have against a Palestinian stadium?

2009-11-20T06:23:00.006-06:00

By Amira Hass

A friendly game between an Arab soccer team and a Palestinian team was supposed to inaugurate the new stadium being built in the eastern part of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, at the end of the year. "Supposed to" because the Civil Administration, an arm of the Defense Ministry, has ordered that the work be halted and is threatening demolition.

FIFA, the international soccer federation, financed the stadium as part of a larger program to promote Palestinian soccer. The stadium covers 11 dunams (2.75 acres) and will hold 8,000 seats. An Israeli contractor, in partnership with a Dutch company and a Palestinian subcontractor, constructed the field.

In October 2008, when the field was ready, FIFA president Joseph Blatter and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad laid the cornerstone for the stadium. The governments of France and Germany are paying for the construction of stands. The outer wall, the lighting and the scoreboard are being financed by the Al-Bireh municipality, which owns the land and within whose jurisdiction the stadium is located.

In 1973, the municipality submitted for the approval of the IDF a detailed plan for the area where the stadium is now located. It received final approval from Israel's National Planning and Building Council and Supreme Planning Council in 1981. Nevertheless, on October 11 of this year, Israeli soldiers and representatives of the Civil Administration showed up at the site. They arrived via the neighboring Jewish settlement of Psagot, which overlooks Palestinian neighborhoods and was built on Al-Bireh land. They delivered a stop-work order from the administration to one of the workers (whose name was handwritten, in Hebrew, on it).

On November 1, the municipality received a "final" stop-work order - addressed anonymously to "the holder," from "the Supreme Planning Council's building inspection subcommittee," and issued by "Assaf."

The document claims that work on the stadium's stands is being carried out "without a license," and contains other standard admonitions: "You were given an opportunity to appear before the inspection subcommittee to state your case. The subcommittee has concluded that the aforementioned work was carried out without proper permission ... You are hereby obligated, in accordance with section .... of the 1966 City, Village and Buildings Planning Law, to cease activity upon and use of said land, and to raze the building ... and to restore the location to its previous state within 7 days ... If you do not act as required, all legal means will be taken against you, including demolition of the structure and any means required to restore the situation to its prior state, at your expense."

A German source has told Haaretz: "This could become a major diplomatic issue between Germany and Israel. Just imagine: A German-financed project being torn down. It would definitely be a political scandal."

Blots on the landscape

Why is the Civil Administration concerned with a soccer stadium located within Al-Bireh's municipal boundaries, which the IDF itself approved nearly 30 years ago?

It emerges that some of the land in question, which the municipality designated for a school and other public buildings in the early 1970s, had the misfortune to later be defined as being in Area C (see box). Amid the 11,000 dunams (2,750 acres) that fall within the city's bounds, there are several such Area C "blotches" - for the most part, in areas close to where the settlements of Psagot and Beit El, as well as IDF and Civil Administration bases, were built, on the lands of Al-Bireh and Ramallah. The headquarters of Jawal (the Palestinian cell-phone company) is located in Area C, as is the house of Dr. Samih Al-Abed, who heads the Palestinian team at the territory and border negotiation committee. Even part of the residence of PA President Mahmoud Abbas is in Area C.

The Al-Bireh municipality has not, however, received any maps from Israel demarcating the exact location of the parts of the town defined as Area C. Their location has been surmised, based on the tabu (Land Registry) documents submitted to the municipality, as per the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement: The lots for which the Civil Administration did not submit documents to the city are understood to belong to Area C. But Area C is not a planning designation, per se.

"[It is] a political designation, which was supposed to be temporary - to last just 18 months," explained Al-Abed, an architect and city planner, and a former senior official in the Palestinian Planning Ministry.

"It is unjust, unreasonable and unfair to have to request and to wait for an Israeli license to build within the blotches of Area C that are within approved and recognized municipal areas," he said this week, pointing out that, "It is Al-Bireh that provides all services to the citizenry, including those bits of Area C that are in the municipal area: cleaning, garbage collection, maintenance, renovations, construction."

Musa Jwayyed, the Al-Bireh city engineer, says that over the years, various structures have been built in areas within the municipal borders that are apparently part of Area C, and that the city has also carried out the necessary infrastructure work in those areas, including preparation of a sewerage network, and the paving of roads and sidewalks - without requesting licenses from the Civil Administration.

Jwayyed: "Al-Bireh has another 18,000 dunams [4,500 acres] outside the municipal boundaries. Settlements sit on some of them, and the rest are private lands or our own land reserves. There I know I must have Israeli approval and coordination: such as for the renovation of the slaughterhouse, for reaching the municipal garbage-disposal site, for construction of a water-purification plant. But the stadium is located within the municipal boundaries that the IDF approved."

The question is: Why, all of a sudden, more than three years after construction of the entire project began and 10 months after construction of the stands started, has the Civil Administration decided to halt the work?

Ziv Nishri, the Israeli contractor who built the field, said in a telephone conversation: "The army knew about the project because it's impossible to do anything without the Civil Administration's approval. FIFA is the body dealing with the foreign minister. Without the umbrella of the Foreign Ministry, the army and the Civil Administration, nothing would be happening here."

When Nishri heard about the stop-work order this week, he was very surprised. "The plans for the stands are at least two years old. Even before we started on the project, I had the general plans for the stands, because we designed the field to fit them."

Officials at Al-Bireh city hall see a connection between the stop-work order, and the Palestinian refusal to return to the negotiating table as long as Israel does not freeze construction in the settlements, as well as the recent announcement by Prime Minister Fayyad of the planned consolidation of various Palestinian state institutions. The officials and local activists agree with Samih al-Abed when he says: "This is a typical kind of Israeli pressure, which means: 'Either you go back to negotiations or we'll punish you. We'll do whatever we can to upset your lives.'"

The coordinator of government activities in the territories responded to Haaretz: "Recently, there have been meetings and discussions between representatives of the Civil Administration and Palestinians at the very highest level, with the goal of resolving the issue of the construction of the Al-Bireh stadium. This has been in the wake of the official measures taken against the construction that was undertaken without the proper permits and in an illegal location. The Civil Administration is working with the civil-affairs ministry of the Palestinian Authority to prepare and submit an amendment to the existing zoning plan, and following that, the possibility of a permit, in principal, for the continuation of construction will be considered."

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Pro-Israel lobby group bankrolling Tories, film claims

2009-11-19T09:51:00.007-06:00

Channel 4's film alleges that William Hague faced threats of a withdrawal of funding from CFI after he described a retaliatory attack by Israel on Lebanon in 2006 as 'disproportionate'. Photograph: Martin Godwin

Pro-Israeli organisations in Britain look set to see their influence increase if the Conservatives win the next election, a film scrutinising the activities of a powerful but little-known lobby warns today.

At least half of the shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), according to a Dispatches programme being screened on Channel 4. The programme-makers describe the CFI as "beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups".

Inside Britain's Israel Lobby claims that donations to the Conservative party "from all CFI members and their businesses add up to well over £10m over the last eight years". CFI has disputed the figure and called the film "deeply flawed".

The programme also describes how David Cameron allegedly accepted a £15,000 donation from Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish billionaire who chairs Bicom (the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). Zabludowizc, the film reveals, has business interests in an illegal West Bank settlement. He also gave £50,000 to Conservative Central Office. Zabludowicz says his contributions "are a matter of public record".

William Hague allegedly accepted personal donations from CFI board members totalling tens of thousands of pounds after being appointed shadow foreign secretary. More than £30,000 from CFI supporters went to the campaign funds of members of Cameron's team who were first elected in 2005, the film claims, using publicly available information.

The programme-makers say that while this is legal, it is not well-known.

The CFI director, Stuart Polak, told the Guardian the figure of more than £10m is not supported by any facts. "It is fictitious, misleading and damaging to the reputation of CFI and its supporters," he said.

"CFI as an organisation has donated only £30,000 since 2005. Each of these donations has been made transparently and publicly registered. In addition to this £30,000, it is undoubtedly the case that some of our supporters have also chosen, separately, to donate to the party as individuals."

Two years ago a controversial study by American academics Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer explored the influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy. But Britain's pro-Israel organisations have been subjected to far less scrutiny.

"The pro-Israel lobby … is the most powerful political lobby," Michael Mates, a Conservative MP and privy councillor, told the film-makers. "There's nothing to touch them."

Hague fell out with CFI after describing Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon – in retaliation for a Hezbollah raid – as "disproportionate" and allegedly faced threats to withdraw funding from Lord Kalms, a major Tory donor and CFI member, the film reports.

Cameron later gave an undertaking not to use the word again, the programme claims. At a CFI dinner this June the party leader made no mention of the death toll in the Gaza war – 1,370 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Instead he commended Israel because "it strives to protect innocent life".

Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem and ambassador to Libya and Iran, said: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes these contributions come with no strings attached."

Labour Friends of Israel, another key group, is described as being "less unquestioning in its support of the Israeli government than CFI". But it has taken more MPs on free trips to Israel than any other group – more than 60 since 2001.

CFI has also flown over 30 Tory parliamentary candidates to Israel on free trips in the last three years.

Dispatches describes how when the presenter Jonathan Dimbleby criticised a pro-Israel campaign against the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, Dimbleby was the subject of a complaint and, according to the programme, is now under investigation by the BBC. This point was denied in a statement later from the BBC's press office: "Any suggestion that Jonathan Dimbleby is the subject of an investigation by the BBC is incorrect."

Bicom, like the party-affiliated groups, organises briefings and trips to Israel for journalists, including Guardian staff. It sought to dismiss the significance of Zabludowicz's interest in a shopping mall in Ma'aleh Adumim, a settlement built on territory occupied in the 1967 war and which Israel would hope to retain.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has rebuffed demands by Barack Obama for a settlement freeze.

Bicom's chief executive, Lorna Fitzsimons, said: "The private business interests of any of our funders – including our chairman – have absolutely no impact on Bicom's work.

"We are an independent organisation and we guard our reputation fiercely. We work with journalists to help them better understand the Middle East.

"We show Israel, warts and all, from the left to the right and we have a strict policy that on every journalist trip we go to the Palestinian Authority to give journalists unfettered access to Palestinian voices."

• This article was updated on 16 November 2009 to include a BBC denial issued later in the day about Dispatches' assertion that Jonathan Dimbleby was under investigation.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

... AND HERE IS THE HA'ARETZ REPORT ON THIS TOPIC
~

Pro-Israel lobby group bankrolling Tories, film claims

2009-11-19T09:51:00.000-06:00

Pro-Israeli organisations in Britain look set to see their influence increase if the Conservatives win the next election, a film scrutinising the activities of a powerful but little-known lobby warns today.

At least half of the shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), according to a Dispatches programme being screened on Channel 4. The programme-makers describe the CFI as "beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups".

Inside Britain's Israel Lobby claims that donations to the Conservative party "from all CFI members and their businesses add up to well over £10m over the last eight years". CFI has disputed the figure and called the film "deeply flawed".

The programme also describes how David Cameron allegedly accepted a £15,000 donation from Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish billionaire who chairs Bicom (the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). Zabludowizc, the film reveals, has business interests in an illegal West Bank settlement. He also gave £50,000 to Conservative Central Office. Zabludowicz says his contributions "are a matter of public record".

William Hague allegedly accepted personal donations from CFI board members totalling tens of thousands of pounds after being appointed shadow foreign secretary. More than £30,000 from CFI supporters went to the campaign funds of members of Cameron's team who were first elected in 2005, the film claims, using publicly available information.

The programme-makers say that while this is legal, it is not well-known.

The CFI director, Stuart Polak, told the Guardian the figure of more than £10m is not supported by any facts. "It is fictitious, misleading and damaging to the reputation of CFI and its supporters," he said.

"CFI as an organisation has donated only £30,000 since 2005. Each of these donations has been made transparently and publicly registered. In addition to this £30,000, it is undoubtedly the case that some of our supporters have also chosen, separately, to donate to the party as individuals."

Two years ago a controversial study by American academics Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer explored the influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy. But Britain's pro-Israel organisations have been subjected to far less scrutiny.

"The pro-Israel lobby … is the most powerful political lobby," Michael Mates, a Conservative MP and privy councillor, told the film-makers. "There's nothing to touch them."

Hague fell out with CFI after describing Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon – in retaliation for a Hezbollah raid – as "disproportionate" and allegedly faced threats to withdraw funding from Lord Kalms, a major Tory donor and CFI member, the film reports.

Cameron later gave an undertaking not to use the word again, the programme claims. At a CFI dinner this June the party leader made no mention of the death toll in the Gaza war – 1,370 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Instead he commended Israel because "it strives to protect innocent life".

Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem and ambassador to Libya and Iran, said: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes these contributions come with no strings attached."

Labour Friends of Israel, another key group, is described as being "less unquestioning in its support of the Israeli government than CFI". But it has taken more MPs on free trips to Israel than any other group – more than 60 since 2001.

CFI has also flown over 30 Tory parliamentary candidates to Israel on free trips in the last three years.

Dispatches describes how when the presenter Jonathan Dimbleby criticised a pro-Israel campaign against the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, Dimbleby was the subject of a complaint and, according to the programme, is now under investigation by the BBC. This point was denied in a statement later from the BBC's press office: "Any suggestion that Jonathan Dimbleby is the subject of an investigation by the BBC is incorrect."

Bicom, like the party-affiliated groups, organises briefings and trips to Israel for journalists, including Guardian staff. It sought to dismiss the significance of Zabludowicz's interest in a shopping mall in Ma'aleh Adumim, a settlement built on territory occupied in the 1967 war and which Israel would hope to retain.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has rebuffed demands by Barack Obama for a settlement freeze.

Bicom's chief executive, Lorna Fitzsimons, said: "The private business interests of any of our funders – including our chairman – have absolutely no impact on Bicom's work.

"We are an independent organisation and we guard our reputation fiercely. We work with journalists to help them better understand the Middle East.

"We show Israel, warts and all, from the left to the right and we have a strict policy that on every journalist trip we go to the Palestinian Authority to give journalists unfettered access to Palestinian voices."

• This article was updated on 16 November 2009 to include a BBC denial issued later in the day about Dispatches' assertion that Jonathan Dimbleby was under investigation.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

"CFI" - Britain's "Conservative Friends of Israel"

2009-11-19T09:00:00.009-06:00

TAKE 8:37 MINUTES OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME AND GET A CLUE OF HOW THEY OPERATE !

(If anyone of you is lucky enough to find where the FULL version is still available - please let me know)
~
AND DON'T MISS THE (short) CLIP OF WHICH I POSTED THE LINK AT THE END ...
~
November 17, 2009

"This clip from a Channel Four 'Dispatches' documentary on the insidious interference with democracy and free speech in Britain by the pro-Israel lobbyists was immediately blocked in the UK within minutes of my posting it.

I (TAofMoridura) have posted about 150 video clips from political documentaries and news programmes - all technically in breach of copyright - and none have ever been blocked by YouTube. Fortunately, the full documentary is available on the Channel Four site, at least until the Israel lobby thought police get round to it. "

~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37y2mivMb4
~

Israeli army arrests Palestinian woman for refusing to strip

2009-11-18T22:24:00.004-06:00

TO ALL WOMEN: WOULD YOU STRIP IF A STRANGER TELLS YOU TO??

Hebron – Ma’an – A woman who refused to remove her clothes in front of Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in Hebron was detained and taken to an Israeli prison facility Tuesday afternoon, local sources said.

Umm Wisam Dovch approached the Martyrs street checkpoint in central Hebron, and was asked to remove layers of her clothing so soldiers could search her person after she passed through metal detectors at the military post. When the middle-age woman refused to remove her clothing she was struck several times by one of the soldiers and forced into a military vehicle.

The woman was at the checkpoint on her way home to Tel Ar-Rumeda, south west of the Old City. The street is closed to Palestinian vehicles and residents must pass two Israeli checkpoints and several trailers settler families whenever they leave or return to their homes.

Israeli media sources reported that the woman was suspected to be concealing a weapon in the shoulder of her coat.
~
SOURCE

Rabbi who endorses killing babies has an unexpected donor

2009-11-17T06:36:00.003-06:00

I HOPE YOU HAVE ENOUGH ANTI-EMETIC MEDICATION WITHIN REACH WHEN YOU READ THIS ... I MEAN - HOW PERVERSE CAN IT POSSIBLY GET ??????

Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov "Jack" Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other "political/ideological" murderers.

True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them.

The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.

Is that so? Not really.

For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies "because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us ... it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly ... we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents."

Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.

The Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.

Their spiritual leader stated in his book, "Torat Hamelekh" that "a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them."

A brochure distributed in Judean and Samarian communities stated that "needless to say that nowhere in the book does it state that these remarks are aimed only at gentiles in ancient times."

The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible," wrote the rabbi and adds, "and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect."

Not long ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications.

The minister surely has reservations about the rabbi's publications.

He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
~
SOURCE
~

My recent experience with "EXPEDIA.COM" ...

2009-11-15T21:28:00.015-06:00

... there is something I want to share with you, something which made my blood boil yesterday late in the evening!

I am here in gorgeous Albuquerque now for some three months and as it happens, it becomes necessary to fly back to Nebraska for a few short days to get some paperstuff taken care of, visit some folks and run some unavoidable errands. After three months that's just the way it is and so I thought, lets get it done and book a flight ASAP.

I sat here at my laptop after work, that is after a 12-hour (or make it better 13) shift, tired but determined to find what I wanted: a reasonably priced ticket to Omaha and back. A colleague had warmly recommended to go to EXPEDIA and do the booking through them ... he said he always takes advantage of their services and never ever encountered a problem. Well, he's a very respectable person with lots of experience with domestic flights and so I did what he suggested, anticipating I would more or less whizz through the whole thing and have a pleasant experience - and go to sleep. I never expected what followed ...

It was the first time for me that I booked a ticket online ... either I went to a travel-agency and had them take care of everything or I did it by phone. Each flight, anywhere ... never had a problem.

So encouraged by his words I started off right away with EXPEDIA website and found a flight for two-hundred-I-guess-seventy-something dollars - and was a happy camper! A fantastic price I thought ... but when I tried to figure out how to go about, I was a bit unsure - and decided to call them and ask for assist. A guy answered the phone, I suppose he is from India. I am NOT judging whatsoever - I travelled India and love the Indian people dearly - all I am doing is stating a fact. He was impatient from start and when I told him, I was interested in this particular flight, he briefly searched and told me, the price was wrong. I insisted I saw it right in front of me, on EXPEDIA website but he kept on repeating it wouldn't exist. He even told me I should refresh the site and even shut down the computer and restart it ... well, to make a long story short - he tested my patience to the very limit. He told me, the actual price would be some one hundred dollars more ... I wasn't convinced. If this price was listed, I said, even though possibly accidentally - the flight should be sold for this amount. It was misleading potential customers.

The agent asked me if I would book this more expensive flight and I told him NO, I was not interested and didn't understand why EXPEDIA as well-known company didn't honor their ads ... and suddenly I heard a CLICK in the phone - imagine - the guy hung up on me in the middle of my sentence!! What a buffalo I thought ( which almost constitutes an insult for the four-legged buffalos!) .... but as giving up is not an expression that exists in my vocabulary so I called back - and got a young woman at the other end of the line. I told her what had just happened to me and that I was very upset about his conduct and consider it the epitome of rudeness ... well, maybe she didn't understand what an epitome is, who knows ...

In the meantime I had indeed refreshed the website (just to be on the safe side) and guess what? The low flight price was still listed and damned, I WANTED it! I told her it was not feasable that one price which didn't exist, was still listed but she gave me the same story as her impudent collegue and after a short few minutes and again the question if I wold book the more expensive flight and with the same answer from my side - she became very short and unfriendly and terminated the call by snarling what I wanted was not available and the usual "thank you for calling EXPEDIA and have a nice evening" - yea right!! By then the low fare was still officially available on their site and I looked straight at it! Image this audacity!!! I was furious! Needless to say, EXPEDIA will NOT see nor hear from me again.

Then I checked all possibilities I could think of and finally called FRONTIER Airlines hoping, even though I had almost lost my hope already, that ANYONE in the airline industry would be friendlier and more considerate and helpful ... and was almost shocked at the courtesy and patience, the kindness and professionalism! I didn't like the fares though and finally ended up booking the flight through PRICELINE ... very reasonable in price, smooth sailing through the process and without any rude word. It shows it is possible!

I would show those rude EXPEDIA travel-agents the door and tell them to close it from outside!~
~~

10 principles for Peace of Mind..

2009-11-15T21:24:00.001-06:00

Got that from a friend ... it is SO TRUE!!!

1. Do Not Interfere In Others' Business Unless Asked.

Most of us create our own problems by interfering too often in others' affairs. We do so because somehow we have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way, our logic is the perfect logic and those who do not conform to our thinking must be criticized and steered to the right direction, our direction. This thinking denies the existence of individuality and consequently the existence of God.. God has created each one of us in a unique way. No two human beings can think or act in exactly the same way. All men or women act the way they do because God within them prompts them that way. Mind your own business and you will keep your peace.

2. Forgive And Forget:

This is the most powerful aid to peace of mind. We often develop ill feelings inside our heart for the person who insults us or harms us. We nurture grievances. This in turn results in loss of sleep, development of stomach ulcers, and high blood pressure. This insult or injury was done once, but nourishing of grievance goes on forever by constantly remembering it. Get over this bad habit. Life is too short to waste in such trifles. Forgive,20Forget, and march on. Love flourishes in giving and forgiving.

3. Do Not Crave For Recognition:

This world is full of selfish people. They seldom praise anybody without selfish motives. They may praise you today because you are in power, but no sooner than you are powerless, they will forget your achievement and will start finding faults in you. Why do you wish to kill yours lf in striving for their recognition? Their recognition is not worth the aggravation. Do your duties ethically and sincerely.

4. Do Not Be Jealous:

We all have experienced how jealousy can disturb our peace of mind. You know that you work harder than your colleagues in the office, but sometimes they get promotions; you do not. You started a business several years ago, but you are not as successful as your neighbor whose business is only one year old. There are several examples like these in everyday life. Should you be jealous? No. Remember everybody's life is shaped by his/her destiny, which has now become his/her reality. If you are destined to be rich, nothing in the world can stop you. If you are not so destined, no one can help you either. Nothing will be gained by blaming others for your misfortune. Jealousy will not get you anywhere; it will only take away your peace of mind.

5. Change Yourself According To The Environment:

If you try to change the environment single-handedly, the chances are you will fail. Instead, change yourself to suit your environment. As you do this, even the environment, which has been unfriendly to you, will mysteriously change and seem congenial and harmonious.

6. Endure What Cannot Be Cured:

This is the best way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Every day we face numerous inconveniences, ailments, irritations, and accidents that are beyond our control... If we cannot control them or change them, we must learn to put up with these things. We must learn to endure them cheerfully. Believe in yourself and you will gain in terms of patience, inner strength and will power.

7. Do Not Bite Off More Than You Can Chew:

This maxim needs to be remembered constantly. We often tend to take more responsibilities than we are capable of carrying out. This is done to satisfy our ego. Know your limitations. . Why take on additional loads that may create more worries? You cannot gain peace of mind by expanding your external activities. Reduce your material engagements and spend time in prayer, introspection and meditation. This will reduce those thoughts in your mind that make you restless. Uncluttered mind will produce greater peace of mind.

8. Meditate Regularly:

Meditation calms the mind and gets rid of disturbing thoughts. This is the highest state of peace of mind. Try and experience it yourself. If you meditate earnestly for half an hour everyday, your mind will tend to become peaceful during the remaining twenty-three and half-hours. Your mind will not be easily disturbed as it was before. You would benefit by gradually increasing the period of daily meditation. You may think that this will interfere with your daily work. On the contrary, this will increase your efficiency and you will be able to produce better results in less time.

9. Never Leave The Mind Vacant:

An empty mind is the devil's workshop. All evil actions start in the vacant mind. Keep your mind occupied in something positive, something worthwhile . Actively follow a hobby. Do something that holds your interest. You must decide what you value more: money or peace of mind. Your hobby, like social work or religious work, may not always earn you more money, but you will have a sense of fulfillment and achievement. Even when you are resting physically, occupy yourself in healthy reading or mental chanting of God's name.

10. Do Not Procrastinate And Never Regret:

Do not waste time in protracted wondering " Should I or shouldn't I?" Days, weeks, months, and years may be wasted in that futile mental debating. You can never plan enough because you can never anticipate all future happenings. Value your time and do the things that need to be done. It does not matter if you fail the first time. You can learn from your mistakes and succeed the next time. Sitting back and worrying will lead to nothing. Learn from your mistakes, but do not brood over the past. DO NOT REGRET. Whatever happened was destined to happen only that way. Why cry over spilt milk?
~

Bees provide pain relief in beleaguered Gaza

2009-11-14T21:39:00.002-06:00

Rateb Samur, a Palestinian agronomist turned healer, gets a bee to sting a patient under the ear lobe for healing purposes on November 4 at his private clinic in Gaza City (AFP photo)

By Mai Yaghi
Agence France-Presse

GAZA CITY - In a clinic in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, Ratib Samur makes his way from one patient to the next armed with little more than a small box filled with enraged bees.

He uses the bees to sting those who have come to him for help - and amid the territory's deepening isolation, his clinic has been transformed into a hive of activity.

Since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007 the coastal enclave has been sealed off from all but vital aid by both Israel and Egypt, limiting the ability of Gazans to seek medical care abroad.

It has meant growing demand for Samur's bee venom treatment.

"The bee stings are really great," says Mohammed Al Dayya, paralysed from the waist down because of muscular atrophy.

The 25-year-old used to be treated in Egypt, but has had to resort to the bees because of the closures. Confined to Gaza, he wheels himself into Samur's clinic each week to get stung, which he says has stabilised his condition.

"I no longer have this pain that used to keep me from sleeping," he said during a recent session. "This treatment made my condition stable and now it won't get worse before I am able to travel." Most claims of apitherapy - the medical use of bee venom - are anecdotal and have not been proved to the satisfaction of scientists, although believers say it helps relieve pain from multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and certain other ailments.

Bee stings, however, also entail risks of serious allergic reactions, and of course the process of getting stung is not one most people would enjoy - at Samur's clinic, patients often get four to six stings a time.

Samur admits his treatment is no substitute for advanced medical care.

"I cannot help him walk again, but my treatment basically focuses on easing the pain and preventing his condition from deteriorating further," said Samur, who studied agricultural engineering in Egypt.

When the 53-year-old opened the clinic in 2003 after testing out bee venom treatments on his family and friends, he was greeted with scepticism.

"It became more acceptable when I got brilliant results from the treatment with a number of patients, and it increased even more after the Israeli siege," he said.

Israel generally allows people to leave Gaza for emergencies but grants only a limited number of permits for medical treatment abroad.

The lack of medical options and the economic crisis gripping the territory has sent hundreds of men, women and children flocking to Samur's clinic, where he pricks them with bees raised in dozens of backyard hives.

A course of three injections costs just $2.5.

Many of his patients suffer from wounds inflicted during Israel's assault on Gaza at the turn of the year aimed at halting Palestinian rocket attacks. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed before the fighting ended on January 18.

Ismail Matar has been receiving bee stings to treat the shock he suffered when a friend was killed before his eyes by an Israeli air strike.

"My friend was torn apart right in front of me by shrapnel from an Israeli missile," the 23-year-old said.

"I was in psychological shock. I was not strong enough to move my legs, I could barely see, and none of the drugs worked. But now, after seven months of treatment with bee stings, I am much better. I can walk again."

The natural remedy, which contains large amounts of the anti-inflammatory agent melittin, has been used in other nations to treat multiple sclerosis and arthritis, but there is little experimental evidence of its effectiveness.

"The bee venom treatment is a complement to medicine," Samur says. "I don't diagnose the illness, but rely entirely on the opinion of the doctor." He also refuses to treat people with heart disease, diabetes or cancer.

Patients such as Nivine Ajur, a 32-year-old mother of six who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, swear by the treatment.

"I have been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis for five years and nothing helped because there is no treatment for this disease in Gaza," she said as a bee plunged its stinger into her wrist.

"I could not climb stairs at all but now, after five months of treatment, I can climb them six times a day."

In another corner of the clinic 10-year-old Mohammad Barud does not flinch even as bees gather on his ear lobe just below his hearing aid.

"I'm used to this, and I am not afraid," he said.

"My hearing gets better every week and I will keep coming here until I can take out this hearing aid. The doctor told me I would have to wear it my whole life."
~
SOURCE
~

West Bank rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel

2009-11-12T21:33:00.004-06:00

THAT MAKES ME SO SICK TO MY STOMACH ... WHAT RABBIS? THEY ARE NOT EVEN HUMAN BEINGS - THEY'RE FULL-FLEDGED MONSTERS!!!

By Haaretz Service

Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book "The King's Torah" that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.

Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs.

"It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation," he wrote, adding: "If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments (TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE THERE ARE 12 AND NOT 7 ...) - because we care about the commandments (OH YEA???) - there is nothing wrong with the murder." (... READ THIS AGAIN: "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE MURDER!!!")

Several prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Yithak Ginzburg and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, have recommended the book to their students and followers.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126890.html

GOD ALLMIGHTY ... I HAVE NO WORDS ANYMORE!

RADICALS DEMAND ISLAMIC BRITAIN !!

2009-11-12T15:44:00.004-06:00

Outrageous, inciting unrest and even violence, spitting in the faces of moderate and law-abiding Muslims worldwide, provocative - and totally irresponsible!!

For soccer-fans .. FASTEST GOAL IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

2009-11-11T07:44:00.002-06:00

... TWO SECONDS!!!!!!!!!!

Belly dancing political activism

2009-11-10T13:23:00.003-06:00

Iqbal - thank you so much for almost making me fall from the chair from laughing! Needless to say, I wholeheartedly agree to your statement!

Posted by Iqbal Tamimi on November 10, 2009 at 7:00pm

View Iqbal Tamimi's blog

Activism is a wonderful form of solidarity; different people passionate about certain human rights' issues are willing to express their support in every possible way.

Some hold placards and march in the streets, others express their political stand by writing, and some paint the most wonderful works of art, or donate money to buy some aid.

But I have found after a number of gatherings I have been invited to that there are activists who are not there for the cause. Some enjoy being considered rebels and going against the flow, and they contest about almost everything. It takes all kind of people. But things started to get annoying lately for some Palestinians like myself when I found out that some come to such activities for other reasons, like taking their weekly shot of inflating their ego. Others promote their films and records, and many mix activism with musical talents that have nothing to do with the theme. All that is fine as long as they allow Palestinians to express themselves. But they don't. One wonders if such forms of activism are a sign of a severely inflamed society, i.e., a reflection of individuals suffering oppression themselves, causing them to vent their anger and frustration through different platforms of activism; or is it a mere misunderstanding of what activism mean for different people of different backgrounds?

The majority are sincere about their efforts, but I have been invited to few events which show that the organizers know very little about us Palestinians. How can someone send an invitation to the Muslim community requesting their presence at an event that is supposed to be in support of the hungry in Gaza using a Western method of advertising? The invitation reads, ‘there is plenty of wine and belly dancing'. I thought, are they serious? Don't they know that the majority of Palestinians are Muslims, and that this is not their cup of tea? The moment I read the invitation which shows a half naked woman wearing the patriotic belly dancing costume and bending like she is suffering a tummy ache, immediately I experienced a 7-scale Richter shock which was so hard that it almost blew off my Hijab. I thought that the dancer was so passionate about the Palestinian cause that she had leapt from the screen and was about to liberate Palestine and feed all the famishing people of Gaza.

Dear belly dancing activists... have mercy on our souls. In our part of the world dancing is performed on happy occasions, and happy events in Palestine do not involve the belly -- or kidneys for that matter, since we don't trust taking our kidneys with us anywhere any more. Some kidneys in Palestine lost their way in the crowds and never came back. We only stamp our feet hard to make sure that the land hears us and open its arms for us to dig our roots further, the trunk of our bodies standing stiff like the trunk of the olive tree, and we spread our hands towards the sky since it is our only escape for freedom...until further notice.

No one dances where there are pools of blood, and I am not talking here about dry cleaning reasons. How can one celebrate by belly dancing, even if it was for a good cause? I tried to find excuses for those people who want to mix activism with pleasure. I thought maybe the dancer was an impressionist, and her belly button symbolized our sinking morals, or she wanted to show us how the underprivileged people of Gaza can't afford to buy clothes. I even thought of donating my spare curtain to cover the dancer's bare body, since it is almost December and she might catch cold. But on the other hand, I thought, the price of the sequins stitched on her activism belt can probably buy her more than a big Mac.

Well, belly dancers and alcohol drinkers, thank you for your efforts, but we Palestinians need sober, healthy supporters. Donations are accepted from those who are doing better than the Gaza people and have enough clothes to cover their cold bodies. Pleeeease do not misunderstand my words. I am grateful. I do appreciate people's kind efforts. But please do not use our plight to have fun. We like to participate in any activist's event that is done in the name of our country. Surely you do not expect us to strip or get drunk to feed the orphans of Gaza. And from my humble point of view, serving mountains of food to fund some aid for starving children is bad taste, I would say.
~
Iqbal Tamimi is an exiled Palestinian journalist, living in the UK. She has worked in news TV production, broadcasting and print journalism for almost 17 years and is the founder and organizer of the Palestinian Mothers' network for human rights.

~

THERE'S NO FAIRNESS IF ONE DOESN'T HEAR BOTH SIDES !!

2009-11-10T09:41:00.003-06:00

Steve Clemons Interviews Khaled Meshal @ October 17, 2009

The Long Path Out of Denial: Zionism, Heartache, and a New Vision of Israel and Palestine

2009-11-10T07:54:00.004-06:00

Sam says ...

This is a long (but moving) article, thus, I will provide the link only. It is a must read for my Jewish subscribers.

By Kim Chernin http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/nov_dec_09_chernin

Kim Chernin, Ph.D., a feminist writer and psychotherapist who practices in Berkeley, has won acclaim for her numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This article is adapted from her new book, Everywhere a Guest, Nowhere at Home: A New Vision of Israel and Palestine.

They are seeing the light, one by one ...
Sam
~

Another Divisive Wall

2009-11-10T07:33:00.002-06:00

Queen Rania of Jordan

Queen of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Posted: November 9, 2009 07:40 AM

The fall of the Berlin Wall: what a testament to the power of peaceful revolution. Even as a high school student in Kuwait, it was impossible not to be swept up in the emotion, as I watched people clamber to freedom, family and friends for the first time.

And yet, for me, and for so many other people in the Middle East, and around the world, the anniversary is bittersweet. It is a reminder, as if one was necessary, of another divisive wall that we are desperate to tear down and consign to the annals of history: the ugly expanse of concrete and barbed wire that runs through the West Bank, most notably splicing Jerusalem and mutating its cherished and sacred history.

As the people of Germany celebrate a wall coming down, the people of Palestine are overwrought by a wall going up.

According to the Israeli government, their "Separation Barrier" is meant to divide Israel from Palestine, and protect Israelis from attacks. But to 'protect' illegal Israeli settlements, the wall snakes deep into Palestinian land, cleaving families from friends, homes from schools and universities, and workers from their land and their jobs. Innocent Palestinians, suffocated. A nation, imprisoned.

According to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, the wall cuts off half a million Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank. Communities are being forcibly torn apart. Not 20 years ago, but today.

It has been five years since the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel should cease construction, dismantle the wall, and pay reparations to affected Palestinians. But the "Separation Barrier" is now 400 km, double its length at the time of the court ruling. Israel continues to ignore this legal ruling and construct the barrier which, they claim, is only two-thirds complete.

I know this wall is only the symptom of a greater division - the figurative wall of hate, fear, and mistrust that divides the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. But that does not justify - legally or morally - what is happening in Palestine. It is an affront to human freedom, an assault on human dignity, a scar on our collective well-being. Until the barriers, blockades, and barbed wire are history, Palestine's history will be irreconcilable.

Today, we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall; next year, we will celebrate the end of Apartheid in South Africa. These two events taught us that when barriers are removed - whether physical barriers, legal barriers, or the walls people build in their hearts - the ground is laid for progress, peace, and development for both sides. The people of my region yearn as well for justice and reconciliation.

What better way to honour these anniversaries than to tear down another wall?
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