יום שישי, 18 בינואר 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Hagel and Shultz

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 05:30 PM PST

One of the major reasons that pro-Israel groups are upset over the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense is his mention of the "Jewish Lobby" in the context that he, unlike his fellow senators at the time, was not beholden to those pesky Jews.

One of the best essays written that demolishes the idea of an all-powerful Israel lobby was written by George Shultz, former secretary of state in the Reagan administration, in 2007:
Israel is a free, democratic, open, and relentlessly self-analytical place. To hear harsh criticism of Israel's policies and leaders, listen to the Israelis. So questioning Israel for its actions is legitimate, but lies are something else. Throughout human history, they have been used not only to vilify but to establish a basis for cruel and inhuman acts. The catalog of lies about Jews is long and astonishingly crude, matched only by the suffering that has followed their promulgation.

Defaming the Jews by disputing their rightful place among the peoples of the world has been a long-running, well-documented, and disgraceful series of episodes across history. Again and again a time has come when legitimate criticism slips across an invisible line into what might be called the "badlands," a place where those who should be regarded as worthy adversaries in debate are turned into scapegoats, targets, all-purpose objects of blame.

In America, we protect all speech, even the most hurtful lies. We allow a virtual free-for-all by which laws are adopted, enforced, and interpreted. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent yearly to influence this process; thousands of groups vie for influence. Among these are Jewish groups that have come under renewed criticism for being part of an all-powerful "Israel lobby," most notably in a book published this week by Profs. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

Jewish groups are influential. They also largely agree that the United States should support Israel. But the notion that they have anything like a uniform agenda and that U.S. policy in Israel and the Middle East is the result of this influence is simply wrong.

One choice. Some critics seem overly impressed with the way of thinking that says to itself, "Since there is a huge Arab Islamic world out there with all the oil, and it is opposed to this tiny little Israel with no natural resources, then realistically the United States has to be on the Arab side and against Israel on every issue, and since this isn't the case, there must be some underhanded Jewish plot at work." This is a conspiracy theory, pure and simple.

Another tried and true method for damaging the well-being and security of the Jewish people and the State of Israel is a dangerously false analogy. Witness former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine—Peace Not Apartheid. Here the association on the one hand is between Israel's existentially threatened position and the measures it has taken to protect its population from terrorist attacks, driven by an ideology bent on the complete eradication of the State of Israel, and, on the other, the racist oppression of South Africa's black population by the white Boer regime.

The tendency of mind that lies behind such repulsive analogies remains and is reinforced by the former president's views, spread across his book, which come down on the anti-Israel side of every case. These false analogies stir up and lend legitimacy to more widely based movements that take the same dangerous direction.

Anyone who thinks that Jewish groups constitute a homogeneous "lobby" ought to spend some time dealing with them. For example, my decision to open a dialogue with Yasser Arafat after he met certain conditions evoked a wide spectrum of responses from the government of Israel, its political parties, and American Jewish groups who weighed in on one side or the other. Other examples in which the United States rejected Israel's view of an issue, or the view of the American Jewish community, include the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and President Reagan's decision to go to the cemetery at Bitburg, Germany.

The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just.

We are a great nation. Mostly, we make good decisions. We are not babes in the woods. We act in our own interests. And when we mistakenly conclude from time to time—as we will—that an action or policy is in America's interest, we must take responsibility for the mistake.

So, on every level, those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily—sometimes with lies—to win America's support.
The irony is that when Shultz was nominated for Secretary of State, the pro-Israel lobby was against him - especially his ties to Arab regimes through his position at Bechtel. He was replacing Alexander Haig, who was regarded as very pro-Israel, and he started off his term with some pro-Palestinian Arab statements.

Within a year, however, Shultz became very pro-Israel (a change that may have come about after the Hezbollah bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon.) His essay above shows his identification with the Jewish state. (The Arab lobby in Washington was absolutely crushed by Shultz' apparent change of heart.)

The chances that Hagel will end up with an epiphany like Shultz seem remote, unfortunately.

More likely, he will act towards Israel like the fellow Bechtel appointee and Secretary of Defense under Reagan, Caspar Weinberger.

Jordanian columnist uses "The Onion" as his news source

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 02:00 PM PST

From the Ammon News (Jordan), by Jafar M Ramini:
Is the whole world under Zionist occupation? This might sound cynical, if not outright provocative but please bear with me.

I am sure that you are all aware of the fury of the Zionists over the appointment of Chuck Hagel as the new Secretary of State. A fury that made Mark Regef, spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, say openly that if this appointment went ahead, Israel would wield the veto that it holds over Washington. Yes, little Israel has power of veto over the mighty goliath that is the United States of America.

Where is the source for this Mark Regev quote? Why, it comes from "America's finest news source," The Onion, in this satirical piece published last week:
Top-ranking government officials in Jerusalem confirmed Tuesday that Israel would exercise its longstanding, constitutionally granted veto power over American policy if U.S. lawmakers confirmed retired congressman Chuck Hagel as the United States' next Secretary of Defense. "In light of Mr. Hagel's worrying remarks on Israeli-Palestinian relations and questionable classification of Israeli interests as 'the Jewish lobby,' we consider him a highly inappropriate choice for Defense Secretary who stands far out of line with our national priorities, and therefore we are prepared to swiftly and resolutely use our official veto power over this U.S. action," said Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev of the legal maneuver that the small Middle Eastern nation has employed to block U.S. Cabinet nominees, U.S. legislation, U.S. international relations, and U.S. domestic policy over 1,400 times in its 64-year history. "Because congress does not possess the necessary nine-tenths majority to override an Israeli veto, they'll have no choice but to head back to the drawing board and provide a Defense Secretary whom we find more suitable."
When your entire mind is already filled with hate, there leaves little room for thinking.

Thursday Linkim

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 12:45 PM PST

From Ian:
Isi Leibler: Liberal Jewish Israel bashers: Ignorant or malicious?
One becomes increasingly convinced that many Jewish liberals have closed minds and do not wish to be enlightened.
"One would wish to believe that much of the condemnation of Israel by liberal Jews, compounded by purportedly being grounded on Jewish values, is not malicious but based on ignorance. The blame for such behavior could then be directed solely toward Israel's failure to convey the reality of our situation.
Yet sadly, one becomes increasingly convinced that many Jewish liberals have closed minds and do not wish to be enlightened, because their principal motivation is to demonstrate to their "progressive" friends that they are more open-minded, universal and tolerant than their "bigoted" Israeli kinsmen."

"There is no two-state solution" says Palestinian Ambassador to Britain
The Palestinian Ambassador to the UK last night told an audience in the British Parliament that Israel cannot exist forever 'as a pariah state' and that the country 'nurtures on conflict'
"In a controversial speech hosted by the virulently anti-Israel Member of Parliament, Jeremy Corbyn, Manuel Hassassian reportedly told an audience of around 100 people that, "there is no two state solution".
The event was organised by the controversial Palestine Solidarity Campaign and hosted Labour's Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter, as well as Lib Dem MP and former government minister Sarah Teather."

Abbas needs to be replaced
"This is nothing new; in the past, Palestinians have rejected attempts to alleviate the conditions of their refugees by resettling. They kept the refugees, and millions of their descendants, as a political card. Moreover, the refugees constitute an important element in their self-propagated image of victimhood and martyrdom.Instead of helping his people in distress, Abbas, in the best Palestinian tradition, prefers to cling to the right of return – a demand that no Israeli government is ever going to accept. Moreover, most of the international community rejects this Palestinian demand, understanding that there is broad consensus in Israel against a mass influx of Palestinians that could destroy its Jewish character."

Freed Terrorist to Head Fatah in Gaza
In a surprise move, Abbas names former terrorist prisoner as secretary gen. for Gaza, angering current Fatah leaders.

50 Arabs Attack Rachel's Tomb
About 50 Arabs hurled pipe bombs, fire bombs and rocks at security forces. One soldier lightly hurt.

Israelis Safe After Road Terror in Eastern Gush Etzion
PA Arabs hurled rocks at Israeli motorists in another road terror attack on a road in eastern Gush Etzion Wednesday afternoon.

CIF Watch: Guardian readers, and Holocausts real and imagined
"The Guardian's attempt to provide a thoughtful and appropriate article about a praiseworthy attempt by UK footballers to provide schools with a serious and sensitive Holocaust educational film documenting what they learned from a trip to Auschwitz ('England's football stars feature in Holocaust educational video film for schools, Jan. 14), was quickly hijacked, as we noted earlier, by Holocaust deniers."

BBC Watch: BBC tones down Morsi's support for terrorism against all Israelis
"The BBC article states: "In the clip from Palestinian broadcaster Al-Quds TV, Mr Morsi referred to Jewish settlers as "occupiers of Palestine" and "warmongers".
He called for a "military resistance in Palestine against these Zionist criminals assaulting the land of Palestine and Palestinian"."
"Secondly, Morsi makes no reference whatsoever to "Jewish settlers" in his antisemitic, terror-glorifying rant: that phrase is an invention by the BBC. In fact, Morsi speaks of "Zionists", by which he means all Israeli Jews – regardless of whether they live on one side or the other of the 'green line' – the existence of which Morsi clearly says he does not recognize."
[UPDATE: The BBC issued a correction.]

Arabic Rapper Says U.S. and Israel to Blame for Palestinians Not Sending Man to the Moon
"Tamer Nafar of the Arabic hip hop band DAM says the group's latest album was inspired by the contrast between NASA's space exploration and the digging of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. He tells the pro-Palestinian website Electronic Intifada that the "occupation" and the U.S. are to blame for hindering Palestinian space exploration ambitions."

Rand Paul: Obama 'arrogant and presumptuous' about Israel
"That's an arrogant and presumptuous point of view and doesn't further progress on anything," the senator said, and he returned to that view throughout the call as he discussed the location of Israel's capital and Israeli settlements. Paul decried U.S. politicians who display "this flippant and arrogant" attitude about internal Israeli affairs, saying that "no one can really know as much as people in the region" about such matters. "It is not up to the U.S. to dictate" to mayors and West Bank officials where housing goes, Paul added."

Iran to deploy warships to Mediterranean in show of force
Navy commander says 24th fleet to fan out across the region and 'counter threats' to the Islamic Republic

German court convicts Holocaust-denying bishop
Richard Williams fined $2,400 for claiming Jews weren't killed in gas chambers

Google Play App Offers 'Inspiring' Hitler Quotes
"Available on Google Play, the app store for Android products, one app that goes by the name, Infamous Adolf Hitler Quotes opens with this description: "Looking for Adolf Hitler Quotes?? Then this is the App for you!"

Italian soccer players honor coach killed in Holocaust
Mayors of Milan and Bologna attend tribute to Arpad Weisz, who led squads from both cities

EU places Holocaust memorial on official calendar
Commemoration will honor the Warsaw ghetto uprising and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg

Homegrown jet defense system proves successful
Elbit says its new anti-missile system, designed for use on commercial aircraft, passed muster in tests

Meet René: The IDF's First Ever Swiss-Bedouin Medic
"Sgt. René Elhozayel is a perfect example of what the IDF calls the 'kur hituch', or melting pot. One of his parents is Bedouin, and the other a Swiss Jew — he celebrates both Eid al-Adha and Passover. One day, he hopes to become a doctor. René agreed to sit down with us and talk about his unique IDF journey. Here's his story."

In Israel, Clean Tech is Not a New Thing
"Sounding more like a clean tech venture capitalist than a head of state, David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, once said that Israel requires "the study of desalination, massive utilization of solar energy, preventing waste of useful rainwater and maximization of power from wind turbines."

Israel Daily Picture: Eureka! Pictures Beneath the Temple Mount Now Online

The Israel Antiquities Authority Pictures Taken after the 1927 Earthquake

















Also:
A Morsi moment in the media, by Simon Plosker (h/t Josh)

French ambassador to Israel: Sometimes, the use of force is necessary
...but what about when Israel does it? (h/t Yoel)

The "moderate" PA also routinely calls Jews "apes and pigs"

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 10:45 AM PST

One of the more interesting observations about the current kerfuffle over Morsi being caught calling Jews "apes and pigs" is that this rhetoric is mainstream not only in the Muslim Brotherhood - but by the so-called "moderate" Palestinian Authority.

You know, the people that the UN just overwhelmingly decided were deserving of a state.


Thanks to Palestinian Media Watch, we have tons of documentation of PA officials and PA media using that exact same terminology:

Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews) is a war of religion and faith. Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."

PA daily: "Jews, Jews! Your holiday [Passover] is the Holiday of Apes"
Source: Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Apr. 19, 2011
"The spring carnival has retained its [Palestinian] flavor in towns such as Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Ramallah... with the demonstrations of the Scouts, songs, dances, and popular Palestinian hymns about Christian-Islamic unity and internal Christian unity. These hymns carry meaningful messages, in response to the Israeli prohibition [to enter Jerusalem], as seen in the calls of the youth who lead the procession of light, waving swords and not caring if anyone accuses them of Antisemitism: ... 'Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Christ redeemed us, with his blood he bought us, and today we are joyous while the Jews are sad,' and, 'Jews, Jews! Your holiday is the Holiday of the Apes, while our holiday is the Holiday of the Christ.'"


PA cleric: The "cursed apes and pigs" [Jews] undoubtedly poisoned Arafat
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Nov. 5, 2004
Ibrahim Mudayris, PA religious official, Ministry of Religious Affairs:
"We are absolutely sure that the Zionist government is responsible for the attempt to kill the president [Arafat]. We have no doubt that it somehow poisoned him to kill him slowly. These are the cursed apes and pigs [Jews]. It is our right to pray to Allah to cure him, and to plant poison the hearts of those pigs. Have you seen them on TV embracing each other, singing and dancing, those apes, those pigs, on the news about the president's death."

PA TV: Allah describes Jews as "apes and pigs"
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Sept. 12, 2004
PA cleric, Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Maadi:
"All the weapons must be aimed at the Jews, Allah's enemies, the cursed nation in the Quran, whom Allah describes as apes and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers…Nothing will deter them except the color of blood in their filthy nation... We are waging this cruel war with the brothers of the apes and pigs, the Jews and the sons of Zion. The Jews will fight you and you will subjugate them. Until the Jew will stand behind the tree and the rock. And the tree and the rock will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

Jews are pigs and apes
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Sept. 29, 2003
Girl on phone to TV show:
Girl: "My name is Alaa, I am from Rafah, ten years old."
Host: "Yes, please, Alaa."
Girl: "Let the pigs and the apes know, and their leaders Sharon and Bush, that we shall stay on this land, our birth place and origin. And we shall be buried there, Shahids (Martyrs) for Palestine."

PA religious figure: Allah turned Jews into apes and pigs
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Nov. 1, 2002
Dr. Mahmoud Mustafa Najem, PA religious figure:
"Praise unto Allah, Who cursed our enemies; curse upon curse up to Judgment Day. And He has cursed them as well through the words of His prophets and emissaries… The Jews, however, as is their nature, and as Allah described them in His Book, [characterizing them] by conceit, pride, arrogance, rampage, disloyalty and treachery... They have a single common trait: enmity of Islam and Moslems... Note [their] deceit and cunning. Thus, it is not an exception to their nature, for which Allah transformed them to apes and pigs. [Quran] "We said to them: Be apes, despised and loathed.""
These are only some from the PA. Hamas has plenty more!

For those who try to argue that these are not representative of Palestinian Arabs as a whole, I have only one request: Find me a news story showing Arabs protesting against any single one of these expressions of Jew-hatred. Find me a columnist in a PA newspaper who criticize these broadcasts. Find me an organization in the territories that fights anti-semitism. Prove that these are the exception, and not the rule.

You can't.

(h/t EBoZ)

Sloppy "Khazar" genetic research gets publicity from AFP

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 09:00 AM PST

From AFP, in a story presumptuously titled "Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews":
Jews of European origin are a mix of ancestries, with many hailing from tribes in the Caucasus who converted to Judaism and created an empire that lasted half a millennium, according to a gene study.

The investigation, its author says, should settle a debate that has been roiling for more than two centuries.

Jews of European descent, often called Ashkenazis, account for some 90 percent of the more than 13 million Jews in the world today.
That last paragraph comes straight from the paper, and shows already how sloppy the paper is. Of course, far fewer than 90% of Jews today are Ashkenaz; the paper misquoted that statistic from an article about American Jews. Seth Frantzman in JPost showed this and other sloppiness about this study a few weeks ago.

AFP, of course, cannot be trusted to actually do any fact checking.

Seeking new light in the argument, a study published in the British journal Genome Biology and Evolution, compares the genomes of 1,287 unrelated individuals who hail from eight Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations.

Geneticist Eran Elhaik of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, trawled through this small mountain of data in search of single changes in the DNA code that are linked to a group's geographical origins.
Frantzman shows that Elhaik makes assumptions about history that are simply not true:
However, the real flaws in this new research are historical. The author claims a massive knowledge of history that has major implications for his findings.

"There are no records of Caucasus populations mass-migrating to Eastern and Central Europe prior to the fall of Khazaria."

The footnote for this is another genetic research study, but a claim like this requires historical knowledge of the Caucuses. In fact, the Caucuses were a place of great human movement from the 15th to 19th centuries. Cossacks, Circassians, Chechans, Tatars and numerous other groups roamed the region in the period, some of whom, like the Khazars, vanished to history.

The author claims that his evidence shows that "Judaized Greco-Roman male-driven migration directly to Khazaria is consistent with historical demographic migrations and could have created the observed pattern." Following in the footsteps of Tel Aviv University academic Shlomo Sand's work, The Invention of the Jewish People, Elhaik claims "no Jewish historiography was produced from the time of Josephus Flavius (1st century CE) to the 19th century."

But the source, Sand, is not an expert on Jewish history in the period – his book, like Koester's, was more a polemic.

Elhaik goes further, noting that "the religious conversion of the Khazars encompassed all the Empire's citizens and subordinate tribes and lasted for the next 400 years…the Judeo- Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and later migrated to Central Europe and admixing with the neighboring populations."

There is actually no evidence of this; the general view has been that only some of the Khazar elite converted to Judaism.

Yet Elhaik even claims to know the details of the Judeo-Khazar life. "After the decline of their Empire, the Judeo-Khazars refugees sought shelter in the emerging Polish Kingdom and other Eastern European communities, where their expertise in economics, finances, and politics were valued."

The source for much of this is Koestler, passed off as fact with no mention that Koestler simply inferred most of it from his imagination and theories. 
In other words, Elhaik uses as source material Shlomo Sand and Arthur Koestler, who are more akin to fiction writers than serious researchers!

There is evidence that Elhaik was predisposed to find Khazar connections when evidence does not support it. He started a crowdsourcing project to raise money for his paper, and called it "The Khazar DNA project."

It sounds like he reached his conclusion before he did his research.

But what do experts on European genetics think? The author of the European Genetics and Anthropology Blog is more than a little skeptical of Elhaik's claims:

I think the author fumbled the interpretation of the results.

His mistake was treating the Armenian reference sample as a Caucasus group, and also a proxy for the gene pool of the Khazar Empire. Thus, when the Jewish samples showed strong affinity to the Armenians, the author mistook this as a signal of Khazar ancestry in Jews, because the Khazar Empire included parts of the Caucasus.

But what do modern Armenians of the South Caucasus have to do with ancient Khazars of the Pontic Caspian Steppe? Not much, I'd say. Armenians aren't even a useful Caucasian reference set, in my opinion. They're better treated as an Eastern Anatolian group, due to their high affinity to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations.

Moreover, they show low North/East European input, and very little East Eurasian influence, which is actually the sort of stuff we'd want in a proxy for the inhabitants of the Khazar Empire in what is now Southern Russia.

All those looking for Khazar influence in Jews should be aware that the Eurasian steppes are part of the Northern world, and this has been the case for thousands of years. We know this from ancient DNA, from samples all the way from what is now Ukraine to South Siberia. This Northern world is separated from the Southern world by some mighty barriers to gene flow, like the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains and the deserts of Central Asia (see here).

Based on my own analyses of Jewish genomes, I'd say that Ashkenazim Jews are genetically an Eastern Mediterranean group, but with various other admixtures, like Western European, Eastern European, Eastern Anatolian, and even African and East Asian. Does that mean ancestry from the Khazar Empire? Perhaps in part, but it's hard to say for sure.

So, what could be a sure signal of Khazar influence in modern Jews? The best bet is probably the R1a-Z94 carried by many Ashkenazim Levites. This marker is very common in modern Indo-Iranian and Turkic groups, so it's not difficult to imagine its presence in ancient Khazaria. The only problem is that it's also seen in Semitic groups, like Arabs. That's why it's not possible to say at the moment if the Z94 in Jews is of Semitic, Khazar or some other origin, like, for example, Persian. Someone should look into that.
I've previously outlined my own reasons for saying that the Khazar theory is nonsense:
Some Jews are descendants of Aaron (Kohanim) and Levi (Leviim.) Kohanim and Leviim have different roles in the religion and that status gets handed down from fathers to sons. If all Jews are converts from Khazaria, how did many of them turn into Kohanim and Leviim?

Moreover, there is a continual written record of Jewish legal issues from the Mishna through the rest of the Talmud through the Geonic period, Rishonim and later. If there was an influx of a huge number of converted Jews coming out of Khazaria, it would have engendered many new questions and legal rulings regarding their status as Jews. Where are they?

Not only that, but to get to the level of expert legal knowledge required by leading rabbis is a long educational process. How could a large group of new converts gain such expertise so thoroughly that they could be accepted by the existing Jewish communities without any record of them attending any existing institutions of Jewish study? Jewish law is nothing if not complex.

Jew-hatred is the Muslim Brotherhood's official position

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 07:00 AM PST

The official Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt website noted the visit yesterday by John McCain and other senators to President Morsi, but said nothing about how Morsi claimed that his 2010 anti-semitic statements captured on video were "out of context."

This is not surprising because it is the Muslim Brotherhood itself that is inherently anti-semitic, and now it is embarrassed about it - but unable to cover it up.

For example, this article on Muslim Brotherhod website discusses how Jews have caused problems in all the lands they've lived in, in a rant worthy of the neo-Nazi Stormfront site.

The site also has a six part series on "Jewish ethics" that states at the outset:

Anyone with eyes knows that Jewish character - wherever and whenever it is found - is indistinguishable from delinquency, and has never rid itself of corruption....[Jews] never succeeded to have a normal coexistence and good relationships with humanity. It is not an exaggeration to say that they do not cease to be a source of evil and harm to all human societies, in other words: [Judaism] inherently can not ever be compatible with a community of human societies.
Morsi's statements were not anomalous - they are mainstream within his belief system. And this system now rules the most populous and influential Arab country in the world.

While it is commendable that the media and the US has brought Morsi's statements to light, they are not going to the root of the problem, which is the inherent hate that is part of the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, the rulers of Egypt.

That cannot be swept under the rug as easily as Morsi's videos are.

Which might be why we won't be seeing any condemnations about it.

UNRWA adds a works project in Gaza

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 05:30 AM PST

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced that it will provide thousands of new jobs after a one-time donation made by the European Commission for a job creation program worth 14 million euros over three years.

The director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Robert Turner, told a news conference on Thursday, "This step will contribute significantly to poverty alleviation and mitigation of the effects of the economic crisis ...in Gaza."

The program is expected to employ over 7000 unskilled workers and 4000 skilled workers in Gaza.

It was unclear what kinds of jobs these were, although Turner said that "This step will have a positive impact on the provision of services in vital sectors such as education, health and relief services and environmental health."

This makes it sound like UNRWA is the employer itself, further entrenching itself into the fabric of Palestinian Arab society rather than trying to wean it off of aid, as any decent refugee agency is supposed to.

UNRWA also announced that Saudi and Japanese projects to provide housing for "refugees" are moving forward.

Of course, this means that there is no mechanism to convert the "refugees" into regular citizens of Gaza, ensuring that Gaza and the West Bank remain the only places on the planet that people living in their "homeland" are considered "refugees."

If the EU was serious about solving the "refugee" problem, it would look into the ridiculous definition of "refugee" that UNRWA enforces. If the EU wants to create j obs in Gaza, it should do so without using it as a means to keep a "refugee" agency growing ad infiitum.

Israel ready to "apologize" to Turkey?

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 02:23 AM PST

From Hurriyet Daily News:
Israel is ready to send a letter like one Washington sent Islamabad over the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in order to mend ties with Turkey, a senior Israeli diplomat has said.

"I see some kind of improvement and opportunities," Daniel Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, told daily Hürriyet about Turkish-Israeli relations, which have been frozen since the Mavi Marmara raid that resulted in the killing of nine civilians by Israeli commandos in 2010.

When asked about the preconditions of reconciliation with Turkey, Ayalon said: "For instance, I can think of creating a way of solving this by adapting the American-Pakistani formula. Remember, recently there were 24 Pakistani soldiers killed by mistake by American forces, and the Americans sent a letter that was accepted in Pakistan. And I believe this could be a good platform to clear away the issue." When asked whether this was an apology, he said: "Yes." "If you read the text, I think that should be very clear to everyone. The American text that was sent to Pakistan, I think this is a good base to work [from]. This is what I suggest."

"Right now, we have some lower level and we have some back channels," Ayalon said, when asked about the communication they have with the Turkish side.
As far as I can tell, the statement from Hillary Clinton that may have been construed as an apology was this one:

I once again reiterated our deepest regrets for the tragic incident in Salala last November. I offered our sincere condolences to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives. Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives. We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.
This is far from a clear apology, so the formula might be an interesting one to use. Reportedly, however, the translation of the statement to Urdu was somewhat more apologetic, it is unclear if the same is possible in Turkish.
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