Israel's Leftist youth do something good, but would they do it for 'settlers'?
The Jerusalem Post reports that a conglomeration of 'Zionist' youth groups has been collecting
winter clothes and blankets for Syrian refugees.
The items have been taken to a collection point, a representative
confirmed to JTA. From there, a partner aid organization is facilitating
the delivery of the goods to the refugees, who won’t know their country
of origin. The representative said the delivery date and method could
not be revealed due to the sensitive nature of the situation.
Because if the Syrians found out they were coming from the 'Zionist entity,' they'd probably burn them, even if they didn't really want to turn them away, because... 'Palestine uber alles.'
“I thought people would be reluctant to support an effort they would not
get credit for,” Gilad Perry, Dror Israel’s international
collaborations director, said in a statement. “I was amazed to see how
wrong I was. The generosity of people just caring for those who suffer
from the cold winter on the other side of the border, in an ‘enemy
country,’ overwhelmed me.”
Amazing. Leftist Israelis willing to do something for which they won't get any credit except in an article in the JPost.... Oh wait, how do you know they're Leftist? Well, if you're an Israeli, you recognize two of the three names of the groups involved, and there's a hint at the end of the article.
HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (Youth Who Work and Learn) is a sister movement
of Habonim Dror, long affiliated with the Labor Zionist movement.
So please forgive my cynicism. I'm all in favor of helping out Syrian refugees with clothes and blankets (but not with letting them unvetted into Israel, the US or any other western country). And there ought to be a lesson from the fact that Israelis are helping these poor people while they get nothing from any of the oil-rich Gulf countries.
But I have to ask another question. Suppose - just suppose - that there were Jewish revenants (known in the international media as 'settlers') who were expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, who were out in the cold and the rain today who had no warm clothing and no blankets. Would the Leftist Zionist movements be willing to take up collections for them too? They'd even say thank you. You wouldn't have to cut out all the Israeli labels for them. And you could even get credit for helping them. So would the Labor Zionist movements help them?
Sadly, I think we already know the answer to that question. This is from a post I did in May 2012, citing statistics from the summer of 2011 - six years after
the Jews of Gush Katif in Gaza were expelled from their homes. Hint: There were no Labor Zionists lining up to help the Jews of Gush Katif, with or without credit.
Perhaps this is the time to look at some statistics regarding the Jewish
refugees from Gaza, who were expelled from their homes seven years ago
this summer. This is from a United Nations report(!) from June 2011.
About 230 of the 1,450 families from Gush Katif (16 percent) have moved into permanent homes, according to a December 2010 report released by the Gush Katif “committee”.
Unemployment among former Gush Katif residents is running at about 18
percent, while under-employment is 20 percent, said the “committee”.
Before the withdrawal, unemployment was 5 percent, with 85 percent
working in Gush Katif, according to JobKatif, an NGO created to help former residents rebuild their livelihoods.
While
unemployment is much worse in Gaza, the unemployment rate among the
evacuees is about double the rate of the general Israeli population.
Children have faced adjustment issues and the divorce rate increased,
along with financial problems, say former residents. Government
compensation that was received, was lower than the value of the land and
did not allow farmers to re-establish their farms, according to the
“committee”.
Shilat Kahalani, spokesperson for the Mateh
Binyamin Regional Council which covers 42 Israeli settlements in the
West Bank (known as Judea and Samaria to Israelis), told IRIN that many
former Gush Katif residents wanted to rebuild their homes and lives in
the West Bank, but were prevented from doing so by a building
moratorium which was only lifted in September 2010, having been in
force for 10 months.
About
380 farms existed in Gushi Katif (of which 240 were operational), but
only 28 percent of the owners of agricultural land have resumed
farming. Most business owners, too, have not returned to their trade
and were not appropriately compensated, according to the “committee”.
“Disengaging a community is not something that can be rebuilt easily,
and many families never received promised full financial support,”
Kahalani said.
A June 2010 report
on the findings of the Israeli “State Commission of Inquiry into the
Handling of the Evacuees from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria by the
Authorized Authorities”, placed blame on the state of Israel.
“The State of Israel failed in its handling of the evacuees,” it said.
“Five years after, most of the evacuees are still living in temporary
caravan sites; the construction of most of the permanent housing has
not yet commenced; and the decisive majority of the public structures
in the evacuees’ new settlements have not yet been built.”
“It
was a mission of the government to settle people in Gaza,” said former
Gush Katif resident Debbie Rosen, and “there must be a solution for
every settler”. She received half the value of her home in Gush Katif,
and she and her six children are still waiting for their new house to
be built, she added.
And for those who think that the
Ulpana neighborhood is going to be 'evacuated' quietly with the soldiers
called in to do the job embracing the residents in tears, consider
this.
“People in my community are unwilling to be evacuated
because on a personal level they witnessed the awful outcomes of such a
disengagement on the lives of the Gush Katif evacuees,” Binyamin council
spokesperson Kahalani said.
That might have something to do with the violence in Amona during my last trip to the US a couple of weeks ago (violence that I did not have time to cover).
If only the Labor Zionists cared as much for their own as they do for the other....
Labels: Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Judea and Samaria, Labor party, Syrian refugees
How many Syrian refugees is too many? UPDATED
Greetings from the Big Easy, New Orleans, where I will be spending the next three days in business meetings. It's been 34 years since I was last here, and that trip lasted for less than 24 hours, so I'm looking forward to this.
Here in New Orleans, Republican Gubernatorial candidate David Vitter has said that Syrian refugees are
not welcome.
“President Obama’s plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. –
just like his statement made a day before the Paris attacks that ISIS
was ‘contained’ — is outrageous and irresponsible,” Vitter said in a
statement today. “That’s exactly how at least one, maybe more of the
Paris terrorists got there. These Syrians have already started arriving
in Louisiana. That needs to stop immediately, and I will continue to
lead that fight and protect the people of Louisiana.”
Vitter, of course, is referring to the Hayride‘s breaking report more than a week ago that Syrian refugees had began coming to New Orleans and that many more were expected to arrive in the coming months.
Vitter, who has been staunchly fighting illegal immigration and
sanctuary cities in the state like New Orleans and Lafayette Parish,
took to Facebook yesterday to say that as governor he will shut down
sanctuary cities.
So how many Syrians are there in New Orleans? According to
this blog post, 13.
Despite blog posts and social media rumors indicating that thousands
of Syrian refugees had already arrived in the New Orleans area, the U.S. State Department reported only 14 Syrian nationals have resettled in Louisiana since Jan. 1.
The State Department's Refugee Processing Center handled three cases,
settling seven refugees in Kenner, six in New Orleans and one in Baton
Rouge, a spokesperson said.
Seven Syrian refugees arrived in Louisiana in April, and another
resettled in June. Six more refugees arrived in November, according to
processing center data.
I get the locals. Why should they have responsibility for refugees from the other side of the world, many of whom may not be Syrians and might be ISIS plants.
And I have to tell you that two different people have warned me not to walk the streets alone at night. Hmmm.
UPDATE 7:55 PM NEW ORLEANS TIME
Breitbart.com reports that Republican Presidential candidate and governor
Bobby Jindal has gotten into the act.
The 2016 GOP presidential contender framed his demands in the context of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday. He wrote:
Last week, the city of New Orleans began receiving its
first wave of Syrian refugees. As with former immigration crises and
federal relocation policy, Louisiana has been kept in the dark about
those seeking refuge in the state. It is irresponsible and severely
disconcerting to place individuals, who may have ties to ISIS, in a
state without the state’s knowledge or involvement.
As Governor of Louisiana, I demand information about the Syrian
refugees being placed in Louisiana in hopes that the night of horror in
Paris is not duplicated here.
Jindal demanded information about whether “additional protections and
screenings will be put in place,” particularly following the Paris
attacks and the discovery “that some of those responsible…held Syrian
passports.”
Additionally, Jindal demands to know the level of background screening conducted on the Syrian refugees, and whether “all Syrian refugees seeking relocation in the United States will now be cleared by the Terrorist Screening Center?”
Finally, Jindal expects to receive information about the level of
monitoring of the refugees that will be conducted once they are placed
in Louisiana.
“As Americans, we embolden freedom and opportunity to the rest of the
world, but by opening up our borders and refusing to collaborate or
share information with states, you are threatening that reality,” Jindal
writes, telling the president “it would be prudent to pause the process
of refugees coming to the United States. Authorities need to
investigate what happened in Europe before this problem comes to the
United States.”
This post has been corrected - I thought Vitter was the Governor already when I wrote the original post.
Labels: New Orleans, personal stuff, Syrian refugees
Aylan's father a people smuggler?
The Australian reports that a woman who was on the boat that capsized,
drowning the wife and two children of Abdullah Kurdi was being piloted by...
Abdullah Kurdi (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News). Yes, she is claiming that Abdullah Kurdi is a people smuggler.
Zainab Abbas said Abdullah Kurdi had lied to the world after the
image of his dead three-year-old son on a Turkish beach sparked a global
outpouring of support for Syrian refugees.
“Yes, it was Abdullah Kurdi driving the boat,” Ms Abbas told Network Ten through her cousin Lara Tahseen today.
Ms Abbas also lost two children when the boat capsized shortly after leaving Bodrum for the Greek islands.
After the tragedy, Mr Kurdi told the media he took over steering the boat after the captain panicked and jumped ship.
But
Ms Abbas said Mr Kurdi was the driver of the boat, and the man she paid
to book her passage told her it would be safe because the driver was
taking his wife and two children.
“When I lost my kids, I lost my life, how can he lie to the media?” her cousin Ms Tahseen said, translating for Ms Abbas.
“He said, ‘Please don’t dob me in.’ That was in the water.”
Ms Abbas said Mr Kurdi was speeding in the overcrowded boat, which did not have enough life jackets.
She said her husband told him to be careful just before the boat capsized, reportedly killing at least 12 people.
Ms
Abbas is now in Iraq and her family has called on the federal
government to include them in the 12,000 refugees Australia has pledged
to take in.
There are a lot of opportunistic people trying to use this to leave the Middle East for the West. And some of them belong to ISIS. What could go wrong?
Labels: Iraq, Pallywood, Syria, Syrian Kurds, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising, Turkey
About those Syrian refugees
Today is a travel day....
This has to make you wonder whether many of the Syrian refugees are ISIS plants to the West preparing for a future invasion.
Hmmm.
Labels: ISIS, Islamic State, Syrian refugees
Pallywood comes to Turkey - UPDATED x2: What if Aylan Kurdi didn't drown?
Good Lord.....
There's more to it:
Was Aylan Kurdi's death not by drowning? Hmmm.
UPDATE 12:30 PM BOSTON TIME
Oh my.... Make sure to read through to the bottom.
An investigation by AGnews
has discovered that the photo of a drowned 3 year old Syrian boy whose
body was discovered washed up on a beach off Turkey, was moved for a
better photo opportunity.
The first photo can be seen here and clearly shows an officer/photographer moving the boys body.
The second photo, The one spread by western media shows 3 year old Aylan laying face down further along the beach.
...
The photos were taken by State Run media agency Anadolu Agency who did not reply when asked to comment on this story.
Aylan and his father and brother had been attempting to escape Turkey
by crossing the Mediterranean into Europe to reach Canada, when, in a
series of horrific events, he ended up drowning along with his brother.
It is believed Aylans father, had made two previous attempts to escape
to the Greek Island of Kos before his attempt to make it to
Europe. Kurdi’s father arranged a third attempt because he needed new teeth which were too expensive for him in Turkey
Update: A close up of the soles of both shoes has found they are
different boys. Although we were wrong on this occasion and quick to the
conclusion it is always good to remain vigilant and open minded.
The whole thing was staged. Wow.
Labels: Pallywood, Syrian refugees, Turkey
You call this an 'achievement'?
The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt discusses how President Hussein Obama has
lulled the American people into complacency about the ongoing tragedy in Syria (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum and many others).
Today the Islamic State is blowing up precious cultural monuments
in Palmyra, and half of all Syrians have been displaced — as if, on a
proportional basis, 160 million Americans had been made homeless. More
than a quarter-million have been killed. Yet the “Save Darfur” signs
have not given way to “Save Syria.”
One reason is that Obama —
who ran for president on the promise of restoring the United States’
moral stature — has constantly reassured Americans that doing nothing is
the smart and moral policy. He has argued, at times, that there was
nothing the United States could do, belittling the Syrian opposition as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.”
He has argued that we would only make things worse — “I am more mindful probably than most,” he told the New Republic in 2013, “of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations.”
He
has implied that because we can’t solve every problem, maybe we
shouldn’t solve any. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been
killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being
killed in the Congo?” he asked (though at the time thousands were not
being killed in Congo).
On those rare
occasions when political pressure or the horrors of Syrian suffering
threatened to overwhelm any excuse for inaction, he promised action, in
statements or White House leaks: training for the opposition, a safe
zone on the Turkish border. Once public attention moved on, the plans
were abandoned or scaled back to meaningless proportions (training 50 soldiers per year, no action on the Turkish border).
Perversely,
the worse Syria became, the more justified the president seemed for
staying aloof; steps that might have helped in 2012 seemed ineffectual
by 2013, and actions that could have saved lives in 2013 would not have
been up to the challenge presented by 2014. The fact that the woman who
wrote the book on genocide, Samantha Power, and the woman who campaigned
to bomb Sudan to save the people of Darfur, Susan Rice, could
apparently in good conscience stay on as U.N. ambassador and national
security adviser, respectively, lent further moral credibility to U.S.
abdication.
Most critically, inaction was sold not as a necessary
evil but as a notable achievement: The United States at last was
leading with the head, not the heart, and with modesty, not arrogance.
“Realists” pointed out that the United States gets into trouble when it
lets ideals or emotions rule — when it sends soldiers to feed the hungry
in Somalia, for example, only to lose them, as told in “ Black Hawk Down,” and turn tail.
...
When Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq, critics worried there
would be instability; none envisioned the emergence of a full-blown
terrorist state. When he announced in August 2011
that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” critics
worried the words might prove empty — but few imagined the extent of the
catastrophe: not just the savagery of chemical weapons and “barrel
bombs,” but also the Islamic State’s recruitment of thousands of foreign
fighters, its spread from Libya to Afghanistan, the danger to the U.S.
homeland that has alarmed U.S. intelligence officials, the refugees
destabilizing Europe.
Unfortunately, there are no longer any easy answers for Syria. Syrians are fleeing to Europe because they don't want to flee to Arab countries (looking at how the 'Palestinians' have been held hostage for more than six decades by their Arab brethren - including in Syria - they have no desire to follow suit) and because Europe is accessible and in some cases - notably Germany, but really all of them because of the Schengen visas - open. I don't expect this to end well. Germany is absorbing 800,000 Syrians, at least some of whom are likely to be
Islamic State terrorists. But even if that were not the case, the sheer number of 'refugees' would likely change the entire character of the German population.
I'm not suggesting that the United States take them in either. I don't think that any country should take in large numbers of them. Perhaps they should be dispersed all over the world, but only after ensuring that they don't include terrorists. The sad reality is that they likely do.
Obama could have stopped Assad in his tracks four years ago. He could have supported the Nusra Front before it became radicalized. He could have left US troops in Iraq (which he dogmatically - there is no other word - insisted on withdrawing despite all indications of a resulting disaster), and thus prevented the rise of ISIS on Syria's border. Instead, he
kissed up to Assad, insisting on
sending an ambassador to Syria, all in the interest of the one foreign policy goal about which Obama has been consistent:
Destroying the State of Israel. (God Forbid).
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Golan Heights, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State, Nusra Front, Obama's obsession with Israel, Robert Ford, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising
The graveyard of US credibility
As President Obama's dear friend Reverend Jeremiah Wright might say, the chickens have come home to roost. Or at least one of them has. That chicken is the
feckless policy that Obama has pursued (or more correctly not pursued) in Syria for the last four years. This is the Washington Post's Michael Gerson with a scathing indictment of Obama's inaction.
At many points during the past four years, even relatively small
actions might have reduced the pace of civilian casualties in Syria. How
hard would it have been to destroy the helicopters dropping barrel
bombs on neighborhoods? A number of options well short of major
intervention might have reduced the regime’s destructive power and/or
strengthened the capabilities of more responsible forces. All were
untaken.
This was not some humanitarian
problem distant from the center of U.S. interests. It was a crisis at
the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that
has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world.
Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama
White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable
proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for
U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.
In
the process, Syria has become the graveyard of U.S. credibility. The
chemical weapons “red line.” “The tide of war is receding.” “Don’t do
stupid [stuff].” These are global punch lines. “The analogy we use
around here sometimes,” said Obama of the Islamic State, “and I think is
accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms,
that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Now the goal to “degrade and
destroy” the Islamic State looks unachievable with the current strategy
and resources. “The time has come for President Assad to step aside,” said Obama in 2011. Yet Assad will likely outlast Obama in power.
What
explains Obama’s high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in
Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran’s proxy, propped up by billions of
dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the
prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, “reluctant to offend
the Iranians at this critical juncture.” So the effective concession of
Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the
president’s legacy nuclear agreement.
Never mind that Iran will
now have tens of billions of unfrozen assets to strengthen Assad’s
struggling military. And never mind that Assad’s atrocities are one of
the main recruiting tools for the Islamic State and other Sunni
radicals. All of which is likely to extend a war that no one can win,
which has incubated regional and global threats — and thrown a small
body in a red T-shirt against a distant shore.
I'm debating which is Obama's bigger obsession: empowering Iran or destroying Israel. Clearly, those have been the only foreign policy goals of this administration. Now, it seems that Obama is close to the first goal. In fact, he may already have 'achieved' it. It would be a crying shame if one of the two Secretaries of State who didn't stand up to those obsessions becomes the next President of the United States.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, ISIS, Islamic State, real humanitarians, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising
Why Syrians are fleeing to Europe (and not to Arab countries)
A reminder to one and all that I am in Boston, and that's why I am posting after the Sabbath started in Israel.
I'm sure all of you were touched by the picture of a Syrian boy being carried out of the water having
drowned off the coast of Turkey (reproduced above).
But many of you may be wondering why the Syrians are trying to flee by sea to Europe, rather than fleeing south via Jordan to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, where they would at least speak the language.
The answer to that lies in the 'Palestinians.'
The Syrians can see how the '
Palestinians' have been treated by their Arab brethren for the last 67 years. They are confined to '
refugee camps.' In most Arab countries, they do not hold citizenship, cannot travel, cannot hold any job that requires any kind of license and do not live in permanent housing. Instead, they are
left to languish to await the (God Forbid)
demise of the State of Israel.
Many of the Syrian refugees are likely '
Palestinians.'
As to the reason that you hear of the Syrians fleeing to many different European countries and not just to one (e.g. Germany which seems more willing than others to take them), that is because once you get to any European country, you can get a
Schengen visa.
The Schengen Visa is the representative of the collective of 26 European
countries that have mutually decided to eliminate passport and
immigration controls at their joint borders. Within the Schengen area,
concurrently, the citizens of these 26 European countries are free to
travel in and out of this zone as one single country sharing equal
international travel rights. The citizens of the Schengen zone countries
cherish the right to migrate internationally without any limitations,
the basis of free movement, one of the basic human rights.
And that's without even taking into account the general 'pleasure' of living in a Muslim country. It's no wonder the Syrians want to go to Europe and not to Arab countries.
Turkey, where that picture was taken, is not a Schengen country. The family was
trying to reach Greece after escaping by land to Turkey. Turkey is a Muslim country for all intents and purposes.
By the way, the 'Palestinian Authority' and Hamas
don't want any Syrian refugees either.
Europe can either resist or become Muslim. What could go wrong?
Labels: European Union, Palestinian refugees, Schengen visa, Syrian refugees
Guardian: #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore) but no mention of its cause
Britain's Guardian published the photo above (and another even more shocking one) of a Turkish police officer carrying a
dead Syrian boy whose body washed ashore as he attempted to flee the horrors of Syria's war (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
“The situation on the islands is dramatic in terms of the sheer
numbers flowing in, lack of shelter and ever worsening hygiene
conditions,” Ketty Kehayioy, the UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Athens told the
Guardian. “The absence of staff to conduct registrations is creating
enormous bottlenecks on Lesvos and Kos which is further exacerbating
substandard conditions, conditions themselves worsened by very limited
facilities.”
Local NGO’s and volunteers, working around-the-clock to support
insufficient state services now stretched to breaking point, described
the situation as “utterly overwhelming.”
Wednesday’s dead were part of a grim toll of some 2,500 people who
have died this summer attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe,
according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
Athens’ caretaker government, in power until elections are held on 20
September, announced emergency measures to facilitate the flow after
meeting in urgent session under the prime minister, Vassiliki Thanou.
...
“The problem is very big,” said Mouzalas, a doctor who is also a member
of the Doctors of the World aid organisation. “If the European Union
doesn’t intervene quickly to absorb the populations … if the issue isn’t
internationalised on a UN level, every so often we will be discussing
how to avoid the crisis,” he told reporters, insisting that the
thousands risking their lives to flee conflict were refugees. “There is
no migration issue, remove that – it is a refugee issue,” he said.
But while the article does mention Islamic State (ISIS), it fails to mention the fact that the other side of Syria's civil war - Bashar al-Assad - has shown equal contempt for the lives of Syria's citizens, including its children. And the article also fails to mention that the release of more than $150 billion in frozen Iranian assets as a result of the United States and Europe selling out to a nuclear armed Iran means that Assad will have even more money and weapons with which to make war on Syria's civilian population - alongside ISIS.
Yes, there is a humanitarian crisis here. And not only is Europe not solving that crisis (and it may not be able to solve it just by taking refugees in), it is making the crisis worse by financing it.
Morons.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, European Union, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, ISIS, Islamic State, Nusra Front, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising
#Caring: Lebanon slams the door on fleeing Syrians
Lebanon has
slammed the door shut on Syrians fleeing from civil war in their own country.
Lebanon has all but closed its borders to refugees fleeing Syria’s civil
war, overwhelmed by an influx of more than 1 million people displaced
by fighting, U.N. and Lebanese officials said Saturday.
Quoted
by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas
said Lebanon “no longer officially receives any displaced Syrians.”
He said exceptions were available for refugees for “humanitarian
reasons” to be judged by Lebanon’s social affairs and interior
ministries.
“We informed [the U.N. refugee agency] UNHCR that we are no longer able to receive displaced people,” he added.
Ninette Kelley, UNHCR’s representative in Lebanon, confirmed increased restrictions at the border with Syria.
“Our understanding is that people who are coming to claim refugee
status are not being permitted to enter in the way that they were
previously,” she told AFP.
“What we’ve seen over the last two
to three weeks is that there are greater restrictions ... We’ve seen
that there are fewer people approaching us for registration which is
also indicative of tightening of the border.”
Kelley said there were no precise figures on the number of refugees allowed to enter.
How brotherly....
Labels: Lebanon, Syria, Syrian refugees
Human Rights Watch wakes up, blasts Jordan, world yawns
For once, 'human rights watch' has done the right thing. They have
blasted Jordan for its treatment of 'Palestinian refugees' from Syria. Khaled Abu Toameh reports.
According to the report, Jordan, in a clear breach of its
international obligations, refuses entry to, or forcibly deports,
Palestinian refugees escaping Syria. "Jordan has officially banned entry
to Palestinians from Syria since January 2013 and has forcibly deported
over 100 who managed to enter the country since mid-2012, including
women and children," the report revealed.
The report quotes Basma, a Palestinian woman from Yarmouk refugee
camp in Syria, who describes how the Jordanians turned her and others
back. "They told us, 'You are Palestinians, you aren't allowed to
enter,'" she recounted. "They took us in a bus and dropped us on the
Syrian side of the border at 2 a.m."
Another Palestinian refugee from Damascus, 47-year-old Abdullah, was
quoted as saying: "As we were crossing, the Jordanian army started
firing at us. We all laid down flat on the ground to avoid the gunfire.
After some moments two trucks with army officers came to us, before we
knew what was happening an army officer shot five of us in our legs. We
weren't trying to flee."
During the past three years, Jordan has received millions of Syrian
refugees. But when it comes to Palestinians, the story is different.
The Jordanians are not afraid of the Syrian refugees because they
know that once the crisis is over in their country, they will return to
their homes. Unlike the Palestinians, the Syrians are not seeking
Jordanian citizenship or new lives in the kingdom. The Syrians see their
presence in Jordan as a temporary situation.
There is also no talk about transforming Jordan into a "Syrian
state," as opposed to calls for creating a homeland for the Palestinians
in the kingdom. As such, the Jordanians' problem is with Palestinians,
not Syrians or other Arabs.
Fayez Tarawneh, head of the royal court and former prime minister,
defended the anti-Palestinian measures in a meeting with Human Rights
Watch last year. He said that a large influx of Palestinians from Syria
would alter the demographic balance of the kingdom and cause
instability.
The human rights group said that as a result of the Jordanian
government's policy, many Palestinians from Syria do not have proper
residency papers in Jordan, "making them vulnerable to exploitation,
arrest, and deportation."
It continued that, "undocumented Palestinians from Syria dare not
seek protection or redress from the Jordanian government against
exploitation or other abuses."
Really, the Jordanians aren't doing anything different than any other Arab country. If anything, Jordan is the only Arab country that grants any 'Palestinians' citizenship. And the world's reaction to this kind of treatment of 'Palestinians' by their fellow Arabs?
That's right. The world doesn't give a damn how Arabs treat other Arabs. It only cares how Jews treat Arabs. Double standard par excellence.
Labels: Jordan, Jordan is Palestine, Jordanian King Abdullah, Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees
Who gives a damn about freezing Syrians? We do
While the rest of the world is allowing Syrian refugees to freeze to death in the bitter winter cold, their bitterest enemies in Israel are providing the Syrian refugees with
coats and blankets.
In a few short weeks, when thousands of Syrian
refugees receive cartons packed with warm blankets, clothes and
sleeping bags, they might well be surprised to learn that the winter
gear was collected by dozens of Israeli
students and IDF
employees at an army base in northern Israel.
Like neighboring
northern Israel, Syria can experience bitterly cold winters, with
temperatures falling to as low as -3 degrees Celsius. For refugees who
are living in makeshift accomodations or even sleeping in the rough,
keeping warm can be a challenge.
Shimshon Camp, one of the IDF's largest Ordnance Corps bases, is
also the home of the Aman-Shimshon school, attended by 125 students
from grades nine to 12, and the drive is their initiative. "Our students
include Druze, Bedouin, both Christian and Muslim Arabs, Circassians
and Jews," says school principal Nitzan Amit proudly.
We're also the only country in the region where no one would try to annihilate any of those groups.
But unfortunately, those Syrian refugees aren't going to know who sent those coats and blankets.
"They asked us to remove
all Hebrew lettering," says organizer Etti Cohen. "So we're going to
write greetings in Arabic and put them in the pockets of the clothing,
so that the Syrian refugees get a little bit of support."
I wonder if they'll figure out how the Chinese and the Koreans learned Arabic....
Labels: anti-Semitism, Syrian refugees
What if 15 'Palestinians' died of hunger and no one cared?
It was just last week that Israel
released a 'Palestinian' terrorist from jail to get him to end a 266-day hunger strike.
The terrorist, Samir Issawi, was sentenced to 26 years in prison for
terrorism in 2002, and was set free as part of the 'terrorists for Gilad
deal' in 2011. He was rearrested for engaging in terrorism again. Now,
he has been released again....
In 2002 Issawi was sentenced to 26 years in jail for terrorism, going
free after a mere 10 years in the deal to free Gilad Shalit. After
signing a promise not to return to terrorist activities, Issawi promptly
broke those conditions and was rearrested in August 2012.
After 8 months of hunger striking, Issawi was admitted to an Israeli
hospital, and offered an arrangement to stop his hunger strike and go
home after 8 more months of imprisonment. Issawi agreed to the deal, and
was subsequently freed this week to his Jerusalem home.
Issawi was released because of
international pressure brought to bear on Israel to release the terrorist.
Similarly, the 'international community' rushes to decry the 'blockade' of Gaza and to send '
flotillas' of supplies to help its 'poor, starving' people.
But when 15 'Palestinians' starve to death, you don't read about it in the New York Times or the Guardian. You have to go to Maan to read about it. Because these 15 'Palestinians' weren't in Gaza and they weren't in the 'West Bank.'
They were in Syria.
At least 15 Palestinians have died of hunger since September in a
besieged refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus, the UN agency for
Palestinian refugees told AFP on Monday.
"Reports have come in
over the weekend that at least five Palestinian refugees in the besieged
refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus have died because of malnutrition,
bringing the total number of reported cases to 15," UN Relief and Works
Agency spokesman Chris Gunness told AFP.
He warned of a
deteriorating situation in the camp, where some 20,000 Palestinians are
trapped, with limited food and medical supplies.
"Since September 2013 we have been unable to enter the area to deliver desperately needed relief supplies," Gunness said.
"The
continued presence of armed groups that entered the area at the end of
2012 and its closure by government forces have thwarted all our
humanitarian efforts."
Most of the Yarmouk camp in southern
Damascus is under the control of the armed opposition, and it has been
under a siege by troops loyal to President Bashar Assad for around a
year.
Nothing to see here.... Just Muslims killing Muslims....
Labels: al-Qaeda, Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Nusra Front, Palestinian refugees, refugee camp, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising
First Syrian refugee baby born in Israel
A Syrian refugee's
child was born in Ziv Hospital in Safed on Monday. That's yet another first for Israeli humanitarian aid.
The 20-year-old mother was in the early stages of labor when the IDF
evacuated her from Syria's Kuneitra region where there was no access to a
local hospital.
Until now, only wounded Syrians have been among
the hundreds of wounded civilians escaping the war and seeking medical
care in Israel.
The mother, who said she was herself a nurse, gave birth to a healthy, 3.2-kilo baby.
When
she realized there was no one else who could deliver her, she asked to
be taken to the border where she hoped Israeli soldiers would pick her
up and send her to an Israeli medical center, she said.
“I was
very afraid to go, but I was even more worried about giving birth at
home by myself,” she added. “I don’t feel like I am in an ‘enemy’
country. The staff are all helping me and worrying about me.”
The Syrian woman said there is a severe food shortage in her country, and that village residents are subsisting mostly on rice.
In Ziv, she was given meat and vegetables.” My baby too is getting wonderful, devoted care.”
But of course, no identifying details can be given out without endangering their lives....
Labels: humanitarian aid, Syrian refugees
Behind the 'Palestinian' silence on Syrian refugees
The 'Palestinian Authority' has been almost totally
silent about the Syrian refugees. Evelyn Gordon explains why. She says that it's significant that the 'Palestinians' have not argued that a 'Palestinian state' is necessary so that fleeing 'Palestinians' will have a place to go - the same argument that the Jews made in the 1930's and 1940's. Here's why.
Yet rather than making this argument, the PA has gone to great
lengths to ignore the Syrian crisis. As Abu Toameh noted, PA President
Mahmoud Abbas’s UN address
in September devoted a mere two sentences to the subject, without ever
even mentioning Syria by name (“This year and in the last few years,
Palestine refugees continue to pay – despite their neutrality –
the price of conflict and instability in our region. Tens of thousands
are forced to abandon their camps and to flee in another exodus
searching for new places of exile”). The rest of the speech was devoted
to attacking Israel. Hence Abbas deplored the 27 Palestinians killed “by
the bullets of the occupation,” but never mentioned the hundreds killed
in Syria during this period; he excoriated the construction of new
Jewish homes in Jerusalem, but never mentioned the wholesale destruction
of Palestinian homes in Syria.
Nor are these omissions accidental–because in fact, the PA leadership doesn’t want a state to succor its refugees. If it did, it wouldn’t still be demanding that any deal allow Palestinian refugees to relocate to Israel instead of Palestine, nor would senior PA officials be publicly declaring that the refugees will be denied citizenship in a future Palestinian state. It also wouldn’t still be insisting
on land swaps of no more than 1.9 percent, rather than the 4 to 6
percent needed to accommodate the major settlement blocs; it would view
this minor compromise, which wouldn’t even reduce the Palestinian
state’s total area, as well worth making to get a state quickly and
start absorbing its refugees–just as the Jews were willing to make much larger territorial concessions in the 1930s and 1940s due to the urgent need for a state to absorb their refugees.
The Syrian crisis remains absent from Palestinian talking points
because Palestinians are still far more intent on destroying the Jewish
state–inter alia by flooding it with millions of Palestinian
refugees–than in making the compromises needed to get a state of their
own and absorb those refugees themselves. And that’s also precisely why
peace remains impossible.
Indeed.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Middle East peace process, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees
Any volunteers?
Saying that neighboring countries are overwhelmed with refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on
non-neighboring countries to take in Syrian refugees.
"Growing numbers of Syrians are crossing the Mediterranean from Egypt
to Italy, citing increasing anxiety over their security as well as
incidents of physical assaults, verbal threats, detention and
deportation," UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news
briefing in Geneva.
Since August alone, 6,233 Syrians and Palestinians who were refugees in Syria have arrived in Italy aboard 63 boats, she said. This was against 350 Syrians who came in all of 2012.
Up
to 300 people are missing after a boat carrying as many as 500 Syrians
and Palestinians from Syria sank off the coast of Malta on Oct. 11 after
departing from Libya, Fleming said.
Survivors reported their
vessel had been fired on two hours after it left Libya's shores. Libyan
Prime Minister Ali Zeidan denied Libyan forces were involved but
promised to investigate.
A boat of 112 passengers, including 40
Syrians, sank the same night off Egypt's coast. The 100 survivors are
detained in police stations in the Alexandria region, the UNHCR said.
"Given
the ongoing and dramatic needs of Syrian refugees, which are likely to
continue and grow in the immediate future, reinforcement of capacity to
receive them in North African countries is increasingly urgent," Fleming
said. "These countries are experiencing their own internal issues."
I'd be happy to see the Europeans take in Syrian refugees, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. And as to the 'Palestinians,' I suspect that someone will wake up and realize they're taken care of by UNRWA and not UNHCR.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees, UNRWA
Where is the flotilla when we need it?
Oh wait - I forgot. Flotillas are only for Gazans, not for people who are really suffering.
Labels: flotilla of fools, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising
'Are we wild animals?'
Benny Weinthal reports from a Turkish camp full of
refugees from the Syrian civil war.
The Jerusalem Post interviewed dozens of Syrian refugees at the
Kilis refugee camp in Turkey, at another border crossing roughly a 90-minute
drive from Jarabulus.
“All of the international community is working
against us. Are we all wild animals?” asked a middle-aged Syrian man.
More
than 200 Syrians, most of them families with young children, live in a
trash-infested lot across from the refugee camp. Their names cannot be disclosed
because of fear of retribution against family members still in
Syria.
Converted shipping containers, enough to hold up to 12,000
refugees, provide crammed living quarters.
The real number of refugees in
the camp, which is run by the Turkish government and the UN high commissioner
for refugees, is thought to be between 15,000 and 17,000.
The Turkish
authorities are slated to open a second camp in Kilis to provide shelter to
refugees living outside the existing one. The newly arrived refugees, who
arrived between six weeks and 10 days ago, have endured a grueling existence
outside the camp. One asked that a “message be sent to the Turkish government to
find a way to help us.”
Of course, if they were 'Palestinian refugees' being cared for by UNRWA, they would be able to be refugees for the next four generations or more, and get millions of dollars in international assistance. Alas, no one gives a damn when Muslims kill or displace Muslims.
The world may yet live to regret this. I would bet that eventually some Islamic 'charitable' organization (along the lines of Hezbullah - the IHH would be perfect for this in Turkey) will eventually assist these people outside of the international and government NGO frameworks - and turn them into radical Islamists if they are not such already.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Hezbullah, IHH, Islamist, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising, Turkey
Saudi paper blasts Israel for trying to help Syria refugees
I have done
two posts
recently about Israelis trying to help Syrian refugees in Jordan. Daniel Greenfield reports that a Saudi newspaper has
blasted Israel for those efforts.
The more official reaction comes from a Saudi paper in London.
Syrian regime loyalists received a gift from Israeli TV
when the latter screened a short film about people labeled “activists”
who risk their lives by entering “hostile territory” in order to support
Syrian refugees.
This is more than enough for “patriots” who are out to protect Arab
rights to take advantage of the plight of Syrian refugees inside and
outside Syria in order to promote the conspiracy theory that attributes
the Syrian revolution to a Zionist/Western scheme.
Just as the column hints at the conspiracy theory that Israel really
supports Syria. Both sides in any Muslim conflict accuse the other of
being a Zionist/Western puppet.
There is a woman whose husband was attacked by Syrian
regime thugs and needs an urgent surgery or else would lose his
eyesight. When she knows that those offering her help are Israelis she
starts crying for she would rather have her husband lose his eyesight
than resort to this kind of help.
…
Is there a cheaper form of blackmail than offering to save a refugee’s eyesight provided that it is done in Israel?
Where else are Israelis supposed to arrange to provide eye surgery for Syrian refugees? Alaska?
Read the whole thing.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameyach everyone!
Labels: NGO's, our friends the Saudis, Syria, Syrian refugees
