Category Archives: Apartheid

IRIN | 18 months on, Gaza donors still falling way short

That’s an increase of only $159 million since the last time the World Bank issued data on the donations in August 2015, and major pledgers continue to fall short: Qatar has given only 15 percent of its $1 billion pledge; Saudi Arabia 10 percent of its $500 million promise; and the UAE just 15 percent of the $200 million it pledged. Kuwait has dispursed none of its $200 million pledge.

Source: IRIN | 18 months on, Gaza donors still falling way short

The Israeli Right’s historic ties to European fascism | +972 Magazine

The ties Likud is trying to build with extremist right-wing groups in Europe is an attempt to find common ground over both’s hatred for Islam. This way, Europe’s racist right wing is no longer considered anti-Semitic, while the Israeli Right gets more support for settlement building and the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Likud, whose members often do not hesitate to label President Barack Obama an “anti-Semite,” does not think twice before it grants legitimacy to a racist political party. This is an alliance of hatred, which mocks the very idea of Israel’s war against global anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, Jewish-Israeli nationalism, as we have seen, did not shy from forming rotten alliances with the most deplorable groups. It continues to do so today. Noam Rotem is an Israeli activist, high-tech executive and author of the blog o139.org, subtitled “Godwin doesn’t live here any more.”

Source: The Israeli Right’s historic ties to European fascism | +972 Magazine

حالة التوحد العربي وايمان بلا نظافة – وكالة وطن للأنباء

حالة التوحد العربي وايمان بلا نظافة  61  0 Google +0  0 الثلاثاء | 12-04-2016 – 07:45 صباحاً كتبت نادية حرحش وصلنا اليوم بشعوبنا العربية الى حالة التوحد . وكأن اصل الكلمات تكشف لنا تماما أن ما يجمعنا لم يكن أبدا “وحدة” ,بل حالة توحد تنكرنا لها حتى استفحل المرض بنا وتعدينا حالات الانفصام التي لا تفارقنا . فننظر الى انفسنا ونرى كائنات متوحدة التكوين تنكر لها أهلها فتنكرت لأنفسها . وأصبح التوحد هو وحدة مفهوم الواقع المعاش.

Source: حالة التوحد العربي وايمان بلا نظافة – وكالة وطن للأنباء

A state of Monologue: Terror or Resistance in Palestine

I can assure that every single Palestinian has lost his faith in any possible hope from the Palestinian authority, either by believing that they are helpless, and thus they cannot do anything, or because they believe that thye are in full collaboration with Israel, and their role is nothing but to give a hand to Israeli power.

On the Israeli level of the Palestinian life, when for the whole last year, and as a consequence of the brutal burning and killing of abu Khdeir, more coercion was authorized against Palestinians? Shooting, lynching and imprisoning remarkably targeted children. When restriction increased. Violations expanded. And on top of all, if I was a young Palestinian who wants to be part of a demonstration and I know that throwing a stone will send me to a life imprisonment, I may as well try to stab. The result is always one, either death or prison.

Palestinians reach to a level where full despair made them enter a closed tunnel where they know that the end is a crash that is fatal. With full realization. It could be revenge to the weak disappointing Palestinian authority that failed to meet the minimum of peoples demands, especially in such times when the people are directly targeted and not a single statement is made properly in levels with the situation.

When the Palestinian sees his friend, his neighbor, or the scenes of lynching the bleeding bodies of youngsters with no remorse and absolute inhumanity and fascist behaviors. What does the Israel expect?

My Israeli friend was telling me yesterday: “ do you think it is fair that I will be walking with my infant in the old city and get stabbed?” suddenly for her everything Arab became a red zone and dangerous, even though she lives in abu gosh an Arab town, that she insists they are an exception. They are what stand for the good Arabs in Hillel Cohen’s book “the Good Arabs”. For her the fear of every Arab became the norm. At that instant I could but see the norm of my very own life. She wouldn’t even understand what it means to be a mother in my situation, like all those mothers who have just lost their children thinking that they went to school or colleges, living with an eternal mourning on a child who was just names a martyr for an act that no one really knows if it happened or not, and in any norm, should it have cost him his life? She doesn’t realize that the moment my daughters leave the door of my home, I leave them with a chance of the absolute hideous fate of a Palestinian living under Israeli occupation. She doesn’t understand that if my daughter for any reason made a wrong move and stopped by an Israeli could be the next Palestinian “terrorist” in her eyes.

 

Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: A state of Monologue: Terror or Resistance

Five years into ban, burqa divide widens in France | Europe | DW.COM | 10.04.2016

Roy says burqas were never popular in France. “The bulk of the Muslim population didn’t oppose the ban openly because they don’t ask for the freedom of the burqa,” Roy says. “There has been a feeling among people of Muslim origin, believers and nonbelievers, that the ban of the burqa is in fact part of pressure and attack against Islam as a religion.” France is home to the largest number of Muslims in Western Europe, with about 5 million. When the law went into effect, it was estimated that fewer than 2,000 women wore the full veil.

Source: Five years into ban, burqa divide widens in France | Europe | DW.COM | 10.04.2016

Turkey: Proposal to annul citizenship threatens fundamental rights – IFEX

In a speech on April 5, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey should counter supporters of terrorism by stripping them of Turkish citizenship. Erdoğan in recent months has accused academics, journalists, and lawyers critical of his policies of supporting terrorism and called for the legal definition of terrorism to be widened. Turkey is militarily fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the United States designates as a terrorist organization. Historically, the Turkish state has not distinguished either legally or politically between speech it considers in favor of the PKK or other terrorist organizations and actual membership in a terrorist organization. The Turkish government has also designated the Gülen movement as a terror organization.

Source: Turkey: Proposal to annul citizenship threatens fundamental rights – IFEX

Danish politician has work computer confiscated in Israel – The Local

“Leila Stockmarr and I have just come out of a two-hour security check at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. Why were you in Bethlehem? Why did you run in Palestine [they ran a 10k race supporting Palestinian independence, ed.] ? Which Palestinians do you know? Why have you been in Jordan? Who do you know in Jordan?” she wrote. “It ended with the confiscation of Leila’s computer for ‘security reasons’. Leila wrote her PhD on the Israeli weapons industry. Pure harassment. And simply so outrageous,” Schmidt-Nielsen concluded.

Source: Danish politician has work computer confiscated in Israel – The Local

The April 5: The Day that shook the South and its legacy – Groundviews {Textbook Ethno-Racism}

On the 5th April 1971 midnight the revolution began in earnest and it was confined to the areas where the Sinhalese lived. The simultaneous attacks on   police stations went in line with the plan that had been drawn up years before as part of the revolutionary strategy. Between 187-89 the JVP’s armed wing murdered left wing leaders and also trade unionists and activists. Built on a foundation of Sinhalese chauvinism it remains hostile to dissenting political opinions and even the existence of human beings within Sri Lanka of other cultures and religions. This exclusionary nationalism is deeply embedded in the JVP’s DNA, marking their political practice even today. It leaves them with the dubious and contradictory position of upholding majoritarian ethnic nationalism while at the same time adhering to a  ‘proletarian internationalism’. Their answer to the great question of post-Independence Sri Lankan politics, the rights of ethnic minorities is simply to wait for the socialist revolution.  Their political vision is untouched by the need to widen their electoral coalition, persuade voters or make any compromises with the real problems and challenges facing Sri Lankan people. Dissecting the JVP’s ideological and political articulation explains why.

Source: The April 5: The Day that shook the South and its legacy – Groundviews

 just call me deportee… no longer human or humane

Legal Nihilism Whereas Berlin and the EU are approaching open conflict with the United Nations, citizens’ initiatives also in Greece are raising strong criticism. A Greek-German appeal, for example, calls for the blockade, imposed on the refugees stranded in Greece, to be lifted. They should be promptly brought to Germany with special trains.[8] The “Train of Commemoration” initiative, in turn, has issued a statement saying that by violating “international humanitarian law” the German government, along with “the principal parliamentary and non-parliamentary supporting parties and circles” are also violating “the German constitution,” “whose historical foundation was the renunciation of the legal nihilism of its predecessor German state and its anti-humanitarian crimes of persecution. Hundreds of thousands, at the time, became refugees, wandering around the continent, in search of protection from Germany.”[9] (Read the entire text here.) Sheer Desperation Over the past few days, the protests by the refugees themselves have continued to intensify. Since the beginning of last week, there have been practically daily outbursts of collective anger. Last Thursday, in Camp Moria on Lesbos, about 50 Afghans chanted “Azandi” (which means freedom in Farsi).[10] On the Greek island of Chios, hundreds of refugees tore down a razor wire fence Friday and fled their detention “hotspot,” and marched together to the harbor. Even on the Greek mainland, protests are escalating. About 1,000 people, including many migrants and refugees, marched to the EU office in Athens Thursday, to protest against Brussels’ deportation deal with Ankara. In the north of the country, roads to Macedonia were blocked. “We expect violence,” warned on the weekend, a government spokesperson in Athens regarding the growing resistance to these illegal deportation measures. The refugees had narrowly escaped the war and are adamant in light of Berlin and the EU’s denial of protection, he admitted. “Desperate people” however “tend to resort to violence.”[11] German Deportation Personnel German personnel are also participating in the mass deportation. Thirty officers of the Federal Police were expected to arrive in Lesbos on the weekend and by Monday eight employees of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). They are tasked to assist the Expeditious Asylum Procedures in the detention “hotspots,” so that Berlin and Brussels can lend a veneer of rule of law. The BAMF is planning to dispatch 100 officials to Greece to ensure the smoothest possible implementation of the deportation deal with Turkey. For the German government this deal is of strategic importance in view of permanently sealing off the EU against refugees. It is explicitly promoting this deal as a “European solution.”[12]

Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com

Israeli Education Minister: Even if the soldier made a mistake of judgment, he is not a murderer – PNN

Liberman, in addition to Education Minister and Jewish Home leader, Naftali Bennett, both attack B’Tselem Human Rights group for publishing the video. Immediately following the release of th e video on Thursday, politicians rushed to “dance to B’Tselem’s fiddle,” Bennett told Israel Radio on Sunday morning, referring to the human rights group that released the video of the killing, Jpost reported. Bennett said that “even if the soldier made a mistake of judgment he was not a murderer.” He said that the possibility of the soldier being tried for murder “demonstrated the total loss of proportions in the matter and he would act to ensure that the soldier would receive a just trial.” When asked about the execution,  El-Or Azarya, the medic soldier who murdered Abdul-Fattah Al-Sharif said that he “did the right thing at the right time.”

Source: Israeli Education Minister: Even if the soldier made a mistake of judgment, he is not a murderer – PNN