Brazil angers US and Israel with its pro-Palestine move
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- Written by Adrian Blomfield - Sydney Morning Herald Adrian Blomfield - Sydney Morning Herald
- Published: 06 December 2010 06 December 2010
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Mr Lula da Silva. Photo: Reuters
JERUSALEM: Brazil has been accused of undermining the Middle East peace process after it formally recognised Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in his last month as Brazil's President, caused anger in Israel and the US by officially acknowledging Palestinian sovereignty over territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
By breaking ranks with his South American allies, Mr Lula da Silva appeared to be consolidating his legacy as the leader that turned Brazil into a major force on the world stage. But the move was denounced by Israel as a unilateral attempt to bypass the peace process that would ''harm trust'' between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships.
US politicians condemned Brazil's ''severely misguided'' and ''regrettable'' decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
Brazil's decision ''is regrettable and will only serve to undermine peace and security in the Middle East,'' said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Ms Ros-Lehtinen will chair the panel from January when the new Congress sits. She said ''responsible nations'' should wait until Palestinians return to direct talks with Israel and recognise its ''right to exist as a Jewish state'', before taking such a step.
A Democrat, Eliot Engel, chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing relations with Latin America, condemned Brazil's move.
''Brazil's decision to recognise Palestine is severely misguided and represents a last gasp by a Lula-led foreign policy which was already substantially off track,'' Mr Engel said. ''Brazil is sending a message to the Palestinians that they need not make peace to gain recognition as a sovereign state.''
Mr Lula da Silva's decision, announced in a public letter to Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, is the latest evidence of Brazil's growing interest in the politics of the Middle East.
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Twilight Zone / Of fences and neighbors in the Jordan Valley
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- Written by Gideon Levy Gideon Levy
- Published: 04 December 2010 04 December 2010
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The ongoing saga of a Jordan Valley moshav and the barrier it is trying to erect on lands abutting - and encroaching on - the encampment of 170 beleaguered Palestinians.
On the one side lies the Jordan Valley settlement of Massua with its greenery and blossoms, electricity, water, hothouses and an abundance of land. On on the other, a tent encampment of 170 souls without any of those things. There, among sheep, dogs, chickens, donkeys and swarms of flies, children in rags live in a small collection of tents, after the Civil Administration last week destroyed the pitiful tin shacks that had housed the villagers.
We had planned to go to neighboring Khirbet Yarza, where Israel last week demolished a mosque, but were prevented from doing so by soldiers at the roadblock; telephone calls also did not help. So we made our way instead to the Abu al-Ajaj compound, which neighboring settlers have surrounded with a fence. The 70 members of the families of the three Adais brothers now live here in a tent encampment, with a few other families. The Adais clan owns 1,500 sheep, their sole source of income.
The collection of tents is situated a few hundred meters west of the Jordan Valley road. Massua - which started as an outpost of the Nahal paramilitary brigade in 1969 and became a moshav affiliated with Haoved Hatzioni - lies further west.
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The big fat national conversation could actually start w/ California divestment initiative
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- Written by Annie Annie
- Published: 02 December 2010 02 December 2010
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IDC is the acronym for California Divestment Initiative. To fully understand the importance of this initiative please hear me out.
The Israel Divestment Campaign (IDC) is the first citizens' effort in the country to appeal directly to voters to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law and human rights.
Do you know what this means for us? Finally we will have a real conversation about what's happening in kansas Israel. That's right, out in the open on the airwaves and exactly the kind of conversation the PTB do not want us to have, especially not out in public. We need this people, we need to take our support for equality and justice in Palestine directly to the people. We need a national conversation about this and it's never going to happen until it's on the ballot. Do you know why? Because both houses overwhelming support Israel 24/7. Is that what we look like as a country? Do we look and sound like we all support this occupation? I don't think so!
Face it, those of us who support concrete resolutions to bring about desperately needed change in the region have virtually zilch representation in congress. zilch nada finito not happening forget about it!
Denounced as a traitor: the Holocaust survivor who rents rooms to Israeli-Arabs
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- Written by Harriet Sherwood Safed, Galilee Harriet Sherwood Safed, Galilee
- Published: 02 December 2010 02 December 2010
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Tension as holy city's chief rabbi leads campaign to drive out 89-year-old's tenants
Eli Tzvieli Eli Zvieli, 89, has come under fire from neighbours in the holy city of Safed for renting rooms to Arab students. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum
Amid the winding, cobbled streets and art galleries of the holy city of Safed, an ancient stone house has become the centre of a seething tension that some say threatens to open up a new front in the conflict between Jews and Arabs.
In this house lives 89-year-old Eli Tzvieli – Holocaust survivor, former social worker and now scourge of the religious Jewish community around him. Next door lives Shmuel Eliyahu, the town's chief rabbi and leader of a campaign to drive out Tzvieli's tenants.
The old man rents rooms to three Israeli-Arab students. He has been threatened with having his home burned down, and notices have been pinned to his front door denouncing him as a traitor to Judaism.
Eliyahu, son of a former chief rabbi of Israel, advocates the expulsion of all Arabs from land he says God gave to the Jewish people. Now an Israeli cabinet minister is calling for Eliyahu to be removed from his post. Avishay Braverman, the minister for minority affairs, last week lodged a formal complaint with the justice ministry, saying Eliyahu's "continual incitement against the Arabs in the Galilee harms the fabric of relations between Jews and Arabs and does not serve the interests of the state".
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Israel can't be a democracy with two classes of citizens
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- Written by Haaretz Editorial Haaretz Editorial
- Published: 02 December 2010 02 December 2010
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About a fifth of Israel's citizens, the Arabs, are citizens with equal rights, and a democracy's mission is, first and foremost, to defend its minorities.
Haaretz Editorial
Cracks are emerging in Israel's democracy. A comprehensive survey compiled by the Israel Democracy Institute and reported in yesterday's Haaretz paints a gloomy, worrisome picture whose gist is a lack of understanding of the basic principles of Israel's political system.
Almost all the survey's findings point to this trend. A majority of the public supports predicating voting rights on a declaration of loyalty to the state; only 17% of the public believes the state's self-definition as a democracy should take precedence over its self-definition as Jewish; an absolute majority believes that only Jews should be involved in decisions crucial to the state; a majority supports allocating more resources to Jews than Arabs; a third of Jewish citizens support putting Arab citizens in detention camps in wartime; and about two-thirds think Arabs should not become ministers.
These findings follow campaigns of hatred and incitement by rabbis and politicians against Israel's Arab citizens. They also follow anti-democratic bills that have been discussed, and in some cases even passed, by the Knesset. And all this happened without the voices of the prime minister, education minister and leader of the opposition being heard.
The survey results are therefore not surprising, but they are extremely disturbing. At their root lies the twisted belief that democracy means the tyranny of the majority, and that equal rights for all the state's citizens is not an integral part of the democratic system.
The survey must spark resolute action. The leadership of the state and all its organs, but especially the education system and the Knesset, must now mobilize to inculcate true democratic values among the public that holds such beliefs and opinions. All the relevant bodies have an obligation to take action against the ignorance and nationalism reflected in the survey.
It must be reiterated at every opportunity that about a fifth of Israel's citizens, the Arabs, are citizens with equal rights, and a democracy's mission is, first and foremost, to defend its minorities. It must also be reiterated that a democracy cannot have two classes of citizens, first-class and second-class. And, most importantly, the next generation of Israelis must be taught these lessons.
The importance of this effort cannot be overstated: What is at stake is the very nature of Israel's society and political system. Cracks in either will endanger Israel's future no less than any external threat. The kind of society reflected by this survey will not be able to preserve democracy - or even a veneer thereof.