Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest |
- Latest Latma
- The fake refugees of 1948
- Gazans in Jordan: "We are like the living dead"
- Tunisians greet Haniyeh: "Kill the Jews!" (updated)
- PA leader praises TV, radio for creating "culture of resistance"
- Fatah/PA leader Sha'ath: "We are not abandoning armed resistance"
- Israel-haters just make things up; their fans eat it up
| Posted: 06 Jan 2012 01:15 PM PST I like the commercial about Ilan Grapel. 
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| Posted: 06 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST In 1949, the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) held a months-long conference in Lausanne with Israelis, Arab countries and representatives of Palestinian Arabs to discuss how to solve the issues that came up from the 1948 war, including boundaries, Jerusalem and refugees. The Commission was frustrated by both the Israelis and Arabs, as the Arabs wanted the repatriation of refugees to be the prerequisite for any other discussions, while Israel wanted the problem to be solved in context of a comprehensive peace plan. The Commission, with delegates from the US, France and Turkey, often sided with the Arabs and spent much of its time trying to find formulas to allow many or most of the refugees to go to Israel. I came across a very interesting article in the Palestine Post, July 13, 1949, by Jon Kimche, regarding this Commission.  Perhaps the failure of the Commission is best indicated by its failure to have done anything about the 200,000 Arab refugees who have fled, not from Israeli occupied territory, but from Arab occupied Palestine. There was no political obstacle to their repatriation. Yet they continue to sit in camps and refugee villages without anyone lifting a finger to get them back to their homes. Next there are 200,000 destitute Arabs who are not refugees but who draw assistance form the relief funds or live in refugee camps. Their problem will not be settled by repatriation of genuine refugees. What are they waiting for? In other words almost half the total problem of the so-called refugees could have been tackled without waiting on Israeli agreement for anything. It detracts considerably from the humanitarian argument used to persuade Israel to do something quick while these conditions continue unbettered. It seems to have been well known, at least among those who followed the issue, that a significant number of "refugees" did not come from the territory controlled by Israel! This seems consistent with research that Efraim Karsh did to count the number of 1948 Arab refugees. He calculated between 583,000-609,000 refugees from Israeli territory during the war. But the UNRWA's first count of "refugees" done at the end of 1949 came up with 962,000! (I believe that they reduced that number in their second estimate to something lower than 900,000 after accounting for fraudulent claims, mostly for people who died and who didn't exist.) The first UNRWA report accepted that there were over 150,000 destitute Arabs who were seeking aid from the Agency who were not refugees, so it is unclear if they were included in that initial number - or if they ended up being included anyway. UNRWA and other organizations at the time also freely admitted that the Arabs were exaggerating their numbers. "Many of the needy are now actually in poorer circumstances than the average refugee because the latter receives food, medical care and some clothing, little of which is available to the non-refugee." I had not been previously aware of the number of "refugees" who fled from areas that ended up being in Jordan or Gaza. Perhaps they left out of fear that the Zionist forces would reach them. But it looks like many of them took advantage of the free food and medical care that UNRWA provided. I don't know if Kimche's numbers are accurate - they seem somewhat exaggerated - but it appears that a large proportion of the "refugees" in 1949 were nothing of the sort. And chances are that many of them and their descendants are still defined as "refugees" today. 
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| Gazans in Jordan: "We are like the living dead" Posted: 06 Jan 2012 08:25 AM PST Al Quds al Arabi has an article about one of the most discriminated groups of Palestinian Arabs - the Gazans of Jordan. Most of Jordan's Gazans fled there in 1967 because they or their parents didn't want to live under Israeli rule. Unlike the West Bank Palestinians who Jordan naturalized in 1949, these Palestinians from Gaza have been treated as if they don't exist. There are over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan. The article talks about Mohammed Khalil Shami, born in Aqaba in 1969, who has never left Jordan in his life. When he returned with his family on vacation in a nearby town, he was stopped at a checkpoint that other Jordanians could sail through. He was held for several hours. Instructions from Amman on how to treat Gazans at any point in time are arbitrary and secret. In this case, Shami complained about how he could be treated like foreign spies when he has lived in Jordan his whole life? People of Gazan descent in Jordan have restrictions on land ownership, business ownership and jobs. Some register their businesses under the names of Jordanian friends. Shami says that Gazans in Jordan are "the living dead." A pharmacist friend of his complains that pharmacists, among others, cannot get licenses. "We have received education in the best universities in and outside Jordan, our skills are very important but we are just ghosts - the ministries do not give us a license to practice our profession and no one wants to recognize our existence at all." Others complain about things as simple as getting cell phones, not to mention health benefits. "Is there anything more humiliating than this?" I had covered the disgraceful plight of Gazans in Jordan in 2010. I ended off asking these questions: How many times have you read about this "open-air prison?" How many human rights groups have championed the cause of Jordanian Gazans? What op-eds have ever been written, shaming the Hashemite Kingdom on how poorly they treat their Arab brethren? How many flotillas and convoys are being organized to help out the women and children? How many people are working to divest from Jordanian products because of this shameful discrimination? And the answer: Zero, zero, zero, zero and zero. (Related: Jordanian Gazans prove that Arabs don't really care about the "right to return.") (h/t Arthur) 
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| Tunisians greet Haniyeh: "Kill the Jews!" (updated) Posted: 06 Jan 2012 07:12 AM PST From Point of No Return: Cries of 'Out with the Jews!', 'Kill the Jews!' greeted the arrival at Tunis airport of the Hamas chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, StandWithUS (France) reports. CiFWatch adds that the clip also includes "Killing the Jews is a must!" (0:16) and "Chasing away the Jews is a must!" (0:20). These must be those moderate Islamists we've been hearing so much about. The YouTube comments include quite a few Tunisians who are deeply embarrassed about this. UPDATE: Translation from commenter Sammish at the Point of No Return blog: Speaker(One person):"Kick the jews: 
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| PA leader praises TV, radio for creating "culture of resistance" Posted: 06 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST Tayeb Abdel Rahim, secretary general of the PA presidency, spoke on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas at a ceremony honoring Palestinian Arab radio and television as a new cultural center opened in Ramallah.  I didn't see him praising them on telling the truth, or on objectivity, or allowing any perspectives into Palestinian Arab TV besides the government line. I didn't see any response from PA reporters, saying that their jobs are to report the news accurately and objectively, and saying that they are not simply parroting the official government positions. I also don't see the people who pretend to care so much about freedom of expression saying anything about this speech that proves (as if people didn't know) that the Palestinian Arab media are nothing but organs of propaganda and incitement. 
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| Fatah/PA leader Sha'ath: "We are not abandoning armed resistance" Posted: 06 Jan 2012 04:36 AM PST For the past several days, Fatah leader Nabil Sha'ath has been in Gaza working on unification with Hamas. In an interview there, he was asked about Hamas' position that armed resistance is still necessary. See? Unity stands a chance - as long as Fatah keeps moving closer to Hamas' positions! Don't expect the Western media to make a big deal over the fact that the "moderate" Fatah is saying pretty much what Hamas says about "armed resistance." 
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| Israel-haters just make things up; their fans eat it up Posted: 06 Jan 2012 02:24 AM PST It doesn't always take years for history to be re-written. Sometimes it takes only 19 days. From John Glaser at Anti-War.com: Israel may betray its earlier promise to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in the second phase of a prisoner swap agreement that secured the release of one captive Israeli soldier.You may recall that Israel fulfilled the second half of the Shalit deal, releasing 550 prisoners, on December 18th. Was this perhaps an older article written by Glaser in early December and somehow released yesterday? Nope. The quote from Ehud Barak is accurate and was made yesterday. As reported by AP: Israel is rethinking its policy on prisoner swaps to avoid the kind of lopsided deals that saw Israel recently trade more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a lone Israeli soldier.Glaser clearly knew that the Shalit deal was completed, because the same source that he got the Barak quote from said that Israel traded more than 1,000 prisoners for Shalit. The only conclusion is that Glaser simply made it up. And since Israel haters travel in packs, his article has already been copied without any thought on other anti-Israel sites. Glaser writes about two articles a day for the "news" section of Anti-War.com. (h/t Arnold) UPDATE: To his credit, one of the reposters corrected his post. And it appears that this site at least is not one of the mindless anti-Israel sites. UPDATE 2: The Anti-War.com post has been taken down. No correction that I could find. The headline is still on the front page at the moment, linking to an error page. (update: now gone) UPDATE 3: Anti-War did publish an apology. 
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