UN special rapporteur accuses Israel of 'Judaization'
Every time I see us accused of 'Judaization' - an accusation frequently leveled at Israel by the 'Palestinians' regarding Jerusalem - my instinctive response is "What else do you expect us to do? Encourage Arabs to settle there? It's a Jewish place in a Jewish country."
On Sunday, a UN investigator accused Israel of 'Judaization' in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Negev. Yes, the Negev. In case you're wondering what the next frontier is if the 'Palestinians' ever - God forbid - get their reichlet in Judea and Samaria (with Jerusalem as its capital).
In any event, here's the story of the UN special rapporteur. Israeli activity against Negev Beduin and Palestinians in both east Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank “are the new frontiers of dispossession of the traditional inhabitants and the implementation of a strategy of Judaization and control of the territory,” said Raquel Rolnik, a special UN rapporteur on adequate housing.
...
In addition, the Beduin and Palestinians suffer from discriminatory practices, including land expropriation, she said.
In east Jerusalem, Palestinians can apply for building permits on only 13% of the area, Rolnik said.
“The number of permits issued is grossly inadequate to housing needs, leading many Palestinians to build without obtaining a permit,” she said.
As a result, tens of thousands of Palestinians’ homes are at risk of being demolished, she added.
More than 70% of the demolitions in Jerusalem are carried out against Palestinian residents, even though they make up only 20% of the infractions, Rolnik said.
Wow does she sound confused. Does that mean Jews can't get building permits either? (Answer - yes).
In the West Bank, security and administrative measures result in the demolition of Palestinian homes, she said, and also limit Palestinian growth and access to livelihood and services.
Rolnik said she was concerned by plans to forcibly relocate the Jahalin Beduin who live in the area near Ma’aleh Adumim.
Last year, Israel demolished 622 Palestinian structures, including 222 that were family homes [What were the rest? CiJ], she said, and 1,094 people were displaced. “This is almost double the number from 2010,” she said.
The largest number of demolitions occurred in the Jordan Valley, she said.
She also took issue with plans by Palestinians to construct a new city in the West Bank, called Rawabi, because it will not provide affordable housing to “numerous communities living in inadequate conditions.”
Rawabi is Israel's first racist city. No Jews allowed. In fact,
some Jewish contractors aren't allowed either.
But here's the coup de grace:
The Foreign Ministry, which assisted Rolnik during her visit, took issue with her comments.
Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said her statements “manifest such a profound misunderstanding of basic realities that one really feels obliged to request the honorable rapporteur to go back to square one and do her homework properly.”
Why did the Foreign Ministry 'help' her? Her 'conclusions' were entirely predictable before she stepped off the plane!(By the way, the part of the article I omitted blames the Israeli government's land policies for the high price of housing here - a problem that mostly affects the Jewish community but she didn't mention that).
NGO Monitor has
called for Rolnik to resign:
In response to the use of an antisemitic slur by Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor today demanded her immediate resignation. Rolnik utilized the term "Judaization" to describe Israeli government housing policy in the Negev, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. NGO Monitor notes that the term originated with Arab rejectionists and has been promoted by fringe non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that falsely claim the mantle of human rights.
"'Judaization' is an anti-Jewish racist term which suggests that the presence of Jews is alien and unacceptable," says Anne Herzberg, legal advisor for NGO Monitor. "This immoral rhetoric is part of the broader delegitimization campaign that is counterproductive to fostering peace in the region. As with the false 'apartheid' analogy, it is invoked with the same goal to demonize. It is the latest manifestation of the 1975 UN 'Zionism is racism' resolution and the 2001 Durban Conference NGO Forum declaration."
NGO Monitor notes that Article 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination "condemn[s] all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form..."
NGO Monitor also notes that it is immoral for human rights organizations and UN officials to use phrases such as "Judaization," which explicitly endorses ethnically-based exclusion.
"The term Judaization is immoral and employed for antisemitic goals; we expect that it would not be invoked by a UN Special Rapporteur claiming to operate with a human rights framework," Herzberg adds. "Raquel Rolnik's use of it makes peace more difficult to achieve, and in light of this she should resign immediately."
Well, yeah, but don't hold your breaths waiting for it to happen.
Labels: housing crisis, Judaization, NGO Monitor, Palestinian, Rawabi, United Nations
'Palestinians' create facts on the ground, World is silent
Last week, Israel was castigated by the 'international community' for announcing the construction of 1,100 housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Israel was accused of changing the status of the disputed territories, and was condemned by the United States, the European Union, the Middle East Quartet, and just about everyone else you can think of.
But over the past four years, the 'Palestinians' have
added more than 180,000 new housing units in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and no one complains about these facts on the ground changing the status of the disputed territories. Not even Israel.
The number of housing units in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is expected to reach a total of 884,385 in 2011, an increase of about 26% compared with 2007, according to projections by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), which released the statistics to mark Arab Housing Day, observed by the League of Arab States on the first Monday of every October.
This year, the Palestinians are expected to complete 33,822 dwelling units, according to the PCBS. By comparison, Israel completed 33,128 units in 2010, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
“There is a huge need for construction since there is a deficit of more than 70,000 housing units,” Mohammad Shtayyeh, a former Palestinian minister of public works and housing, told The Media Line.
While settlement building in the West Bank has received the world’s attention, much more residential construction is being done by Palestinians, as foreign assistance creates jobs and put money into people’s pockets. The economy of the West Bank grew 8% in 2010, although the pace of growth slowed in the first half of this year as foreign aid dried up – a development that could slow new construction as well.
In the meantime however, so much building is going one that Palestinians are forsaking private homes for apartment life. For the first time, more Palestinians live in apartments (50%) than in a house (48%), mainly due to a shortage of land but also due to their growing urbanization, particularly in the cities of Ramallah and Nablus.
“Ramallah is different, because of the government and ministries and private sector and the NGOs [non-government organizations], so it has to have public buildings and office buildings. There are some 25,000 people commuting to jobs in Ramallah every day,” said Shtayyeh, who served as minister from 2004 until 2006 and again in 2009 and 2010.
The Palestinians are also currently constructing an $800 million planned city called Rawabi, north of Ramallah, which is projected to house 40,000 people in affordable apartments. But in outlying cities such as Hebron and Jenin, construction is more sporadic and of poorer quality.
The bulk of the 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank (according to US Central Intelligence Agency figures) reside in the PA, which controls some 38% of the territories. With a 4% population growth, there is enormous pressure for new housing. The PCBS estimates that 72% of households will be in need for new housing units to be built in the next decade.
The rest of the article is a sob story about how crowded the 'Palestinians' are, but it's based on the number of rooms and, as anyone who has ever lived in Manhattan knows, what's much more important is room size. In Israel, to be eligible for a government-backed mortgage, you either have to own no real estate in Israel, or you have to have less than 10 square meters per person in living space. Oh - and their average rent is $210 per month. Today, I saw a 3-bedroom apartment in my non-center city neighborhood of Jerusalem advertised for NIS 4,200 per month 'flexible.' With the current exchange rate at approximately NIS 3.7 to the dollar, that comes to about $1135 per month for an apartment that's probably less than 100 square meters.
Labels: housing crisis, Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, Rawabi
Uri Davis and I agree: The JNF should not be donating trees to 'Palestinians'
More than a year ago, I reported that the Fatah was upset over a donation of 3,000 trees by the
Jewish National Fund to the new 'Palestinian' city of Rawabi (you know - the one that is
boycotting 'settlement' products and labor). Fatah wasn't upset about taking the donation - only that it had been publicized. I wrote that I was upset that the Jewish National Fund was donating trees to the 'Palestinians' at all.
Uri Davis, a Jew who is a member of the 'Palestine National Council' (we have all types here), has now criticized the 'Palestinian Authority' for accepting the trees. He's now calling Rawabi a '
Zionist project.'
As the Convener of the Fatah Revolutionary Council Committee on Resistance to the Settlements, the Apartheid Wall and the Ethnic Cleansing it is my responsibility to ensure that damage already done in the construction of Rawabi city is minimized.
My concern hinges on the acceptance of a donation of thousands of tree saplings from the Jewish National Fund by Rawabi city developers, planted on lands sequestered by the Palestinian Authority from neighboring villages, for a private and commercial venture.
Billed as a new Palestinian city, nine kilometers north of Ramallah with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean and only 70 kms from Amman, Rawabi has been adopted as a project of national importance and the symbol of the Palestinian right to build.
The 850 dunum hilltop development (seen in the map above, photo 2) was approved by the Palestinian Authority Higher Planning Council in October 2008 for construction in three stages. It includes the commercial center and a range of public facilities and has the potential to accommodate a population of up to 20,000.
...
The bulk of the Rawabi development site was private land purchased by developers from the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company. The remainder, however, was sequestered by Presidential Decree.
On 15 November 2009, Abbas signed the decree, taking approximately 1,537 dunum of lands from the neighboring village of Ajjul, 122 dunum from Attara and 118 dunum from Abwin.
It remains a matter of debate as to whether a project designed to fetch a possible windfall profit for a private corporation should qualify for support as a "national project."
But worse, it seems unless public measures are taken by Masri and Bayti, the continued construction of Rawabi places the PA in a position of complicity with one of World Zionist Organizations and Israel’s ugliest apartheid instruments, the Jewish National Fund, a body that "greenwashed" the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and 1967.
...
In 2009, Masri accepted a donation of some 3,000 tree saplings from the JNF, and allowed the organization arrange to plant the trees on Rawabi lands as a "green" contribution. A portion of the trees were planted on the lands sequestered from nearby villages.
The mission of the JNF is the "redemption" of lands in "Eretz Israel," including Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza and beyond for Jewish settlement. In the wake of the 1948 Nakba, the JNF planted mainly pine trees and other conifers over some 500 ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages.
To add insult to injury, rather than plant indigenous arboreta, notably olive tree saplings, the tree saplings planted by the JNF in the area designated for the Rawabi projects are typically political-Zionist pinera (conifers), the most common tree planted by the JNF in the forests and recreational centers on the lands and over the ruins of Palestinian-Arab villages ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army.
In its support for the city of Rawabi, designated a Palestinian national project, the PNA has implicated itself in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine alongside the JNF and the Israeli army.
I don't know where to begin. If you can stand it,
read the whole thing.
Labels: Fatah, Jewish National Fund, moonbats, Palestinian Authority, Rawabi
Israeli companies forced to boycott Israeli Jews
Starting today, I'll be writing occasional posts for the Right to Exist blog on David Horowitz's NewsReal blog. You can find my first post, which deals with how Israeli companies are 'coping' with the special rules for being able to build in the city of Rawabi ('Palestinian Authority'),
here. (Hint: They're not coping. They're submitting).
Labels: BDS, NewsReal, Politics, Rawabi, Right to Exist, World Politics
Ytong denies boycott
Ytong, a manufacturer of concrete blocks that was
named on Monday as working on the 'Palestinian' city of Rawabi, has admitted that it is working on the project, but
denies that it has agreed to boycott the Jewish cities and towns in Judea and Samaria.
Ytong, which manufactures concrete blocks, said that it was in fact servicing Rawabi.
In its statement to the media Ytong said that it had been asked by the Palestinians where its facilities were, and it had answered, “Ashkelon and Pardes Hana.” Ytong said it “never imagined that this innocent answer would link its name to the infamous boycott on settlements products.
“Ytong is not a partner to this boycott or any other,” it said. The company added that it would continue to deliver its products to any place within Israel, including the settlements.
Teldor Cables told the Post that it had no comment on the Army Radio story.
I would suggest that if they want to remove suspicion, they should sanitize the numbers out of the contract and make it (or as much of it as is possible) public. Otherwise, no one can or should believe them in light of the 'Palestinians' statement.
And I suspect that some of the other stories (like Teldor) are a lot less innocent.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Rawabi, settlement product boycott, YTong
Israeli companies boycotting Israel for money
You will recall that Israeli companies that wish to participate in the construction of the 'Palestinian' city of Rawabi must
boycott the Jewish cities and towns of Judea and Samaria by not using any goods produced in those cities and towns (and presumably by not hiring their residents). When I wrote the post linked above, there were 10-12 companies that were already complying with the 'Palestinians' rules. Now, there are 20, and two of them had their names read out on Army Radio this morning:
The companies named so far are:
Ytong denies they signed the contract with the anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic/Apartheid clause in it, but they are working in Rawabi (either directly or through contractors).
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority stated that no Israeli company working in Rawabi is allowed to work there without having signed the contract. (Who do you believe?)
More details
here.
Labels: BDS, Palestinian economy, Palestinian employment in Jewish towns, Rawabi, Teldor, YTong
Israel goes along with 'Palestinian' double standard
There are two headlines in Tuesday's Haaretz and Wednesday's JPost, which look very bizarre when compared with each other.
On Tuesday, Haaretz reported that the 'Palestinians' were (sensibly)
easing their ban on employment of 'Palestinians' by 'settlements' in order to ease their unemployment problem.
The Palestinian Authority has reconsidered a proposal that would have barred Palestinian laborers from working in West Bank Jewish settlements.
Although several PA officials, notably Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh and Prime Minister Salad Fayyad, came out in favor of such a move at the beginning of the year, it appears the PA has decided not to push for legislation on the issue because it is unable to offer the workers alternative employment.
...
According to Israeli figures from September 2009 that were provided to the PA's donor countries, 22,000 Palestinians were working with Israeli permission in the settlements, including the settlements' industrial zones.
Non-governmental organizations have said, however, that about 10,000 other Palestinians are working in the settlements without formal permission, mainly in seasonal agricultural work.
It also appears that since September 2009, the number of Palestinians employed in the settlements has increased to nearly 35,000. These workers support a Palestinian population of more than 200,000, and PA legislation barring employment in the settlements would be an economic blow to Palestinians in the West Bank following a rise in Palestinian living standards there.
But when it comes to building the 'new Palestinian city' of Rawabi, Israeli companies participating in the project are
required to practice BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) along with everyone else participating in the project.
Right-wing politicians and attorneys attempted on Tuesday to stop Israeli companies that boycott settlement products – such as those helping to build the new Palestinian city of Rawabi – from working on government-funded projects.
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asked the attorney- general and the Finance Ministry to amend the law regulating governmental tenders, so that companies boycotting settlement products would be banned from bidding for government projects.
MK Arye Eldad (National Union), with the support of the Knesset Land of Israel lobby group, penned a bill to the same effect, which he hopes to file in the Knesset this week.
The attorneys and politicians stepped up their battle against settlement boycotts after Army Radio ran a story that Israeli companies working at Rawabi, which lies north of Ramallah, had agreed not to use settlement products there.
A clause to this effect was included in the contract Israeli companies signed with the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, which is developing Rawabi.
The clause reads, “the Seller is prohibited from using and/or employing goods and/or services and/or resources manufactured and/or originating from Israeli settlements towards achieving any of the objectives of this Agreement, or in relation thereto.”
It includes east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in its definition of settlements.
Companies that violate this clause risk the annulment of the contract, loss of pay and financial penalties.
Bashar Masri, chairman of Massar International, which co-owns Bayti, told The Jerusalem Post that settlement products had been banned in the construction of Rawabi since work on the city began in 2009.
10-12 Israeli companies (including - presumably - some of our largest infrastructure companies) are working on Rawabi now, and more than 20 are expected to do so in the future.
So it's okay for the 'Palestinians' to work in the 'settlements,' but it's also okay for the 'Palestinians' to require Israeli (and other) companies that are participating in the 'Palestinians' largest infrastructure project not to use the goods produced by the 'Palestinians' working in the 'settlements.'
Sounds like a double standard to me.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: BDS, Palestinian economy, Palestinian employment in Jewish towns, Rawabi
