Sunday, November 16, 2014
Israeli Government To Refuse Entry to UN Team Investigating War Crimes in Gaza
'It's business as usual,' says critic, for Netanyahu government 'to
commit severe human rights violations and war crimes and refuse to be
held accountable.'
Israel announced Wednesday it will refuse entry to United Nations human rights investigators who seek to probe potential war crimes committed in the latest 50-day military assault on Gaza.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council in July approved the inquiry into "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Gaza Strip in the context of military operations conducted since mid June," focusing on the actions of Israel as well as Hamas. Twenty-nine nations voted in favor of the investigation, with the U.S. issuing the sole "no" vote.
Read more
Israel announced Wednesday it will refuse entry to United Nations human rights investigators who seek to probe potential war crimes committed in the latest 50-day military assault on Gaza.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council in July approved the inquiry into "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Gaza Strip in the context of military operations conducted since mid June," focusing on the actions of Israel as well as Hamas. Twenty-nine nations voted in favor of the investigation, with the U.S. issuing the sole "no" vote.
Read more
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Police spray putrid water on Palestinian homes, schools
Two new videos catch a police ‘skunk’ truck spraying East Jerusalem neighborhoods with foul-smelling liquid. The smell was so bad that 4,500 students had to stay home from school.
The “skunk” trucks drives slowly through the neighborhood. It is evening, and there is no evidence of clashes in the area. The truck proceeds slowly, sprays putrid-smelling water on a nearby building, continues on and shoots once again. When it’s all over, the truck has tainted schools, homes, streets – entire neighborhoods – with its unbearable stink. Just like that.
Read more
Hollywood supports mass murder. "Action stars Arnold, Sly chip in for the IDF"
Hollywood movie stars like to be associated with worthy causes. So with this in mind, what better cause than a fundraiser for the “brave warriors” of the IDF?
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have enjoyed long and successful careers in Hollywood playing characters in movies that kill people ruthlessly and indiscriminately. The Israel Defense Force likewise kills people ruthlessly and indiscriminately; only unlike Arnold and Sly Stallone they do it for real. However in a part of the world where the line separating fact and fiction is often blurred such differences are a trifling matter when compared to the ties that bind action stars and an institution whose crimes would shame all the devils in hell.
Read more
Israel bans renowned doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life
Israel has banned Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life.
Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North Norway, where he has worked since 1976, earned international renown for his philanthropic work in late 2008, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an attack that, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, killed roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of whom were children.
Read more
Israel has banned Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life.
Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North Norway,
where he has worked since 1976, earned international renown for his
philanthropic work in late 2008, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an
attack that, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, killed roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of whom were children.
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/11/renowned-activist-entering#sthash.l4BacXk8.dpuf
Israel has banned Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life.
Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North Norway,
where he has worked since 1976, earned international renown for his
philanthropic work in late 2008, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an
attack that, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, killed roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of whom were children.
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/11/renowned-activist-entering#sthash.l4BacXk8.dpufShlomo Sand to secular Jews: I'm not Jewish and neither are you
In his new book, the controversial historian challenges secular and anti-Zionist Jews to define their identity.
Haaretz
Perhaps the most telling passage in Shlomo Sand’s new book – “How I Stopped Being a Jew” (Verso Books, 112 pages, $16.95/£10) – comes about halfway through, when he mentions the famous meeting in 1952 between Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (known by his followers as the Hazon Ish), at the time one of the most influential ultra-Orthodox rabbis. According to one version of what happened at that meeting, Rabbi Karelitz lectured Ben-Gurion that, in collisions between religion and state, the rabbis must prevail. To back this up, he cited the talmudic case of two carts blocking each other on a narrow road. The ruling is that the empty cart must give way to the full one. The inferred analogy – that secular Jews are the empty cart, devoid of heritage and learning, while only the Orthodox have any authentic Jewish culture, has been an enduring insult ever since to many Israelis.
But Sand, the controversial and iconoclastic Tel Aviv University historian, whose previous books “The Invention of the Land of Israel” and “The Invention of the Jewish People” caused furor within and outside academic circles, and who takes pride in being a total atheist, is on the rabbi’s side. Not only, he argues, is there no Jewish culture that is not derived from religiosity, but the very notion of secular Judaism is indeed an empty one, since no such thing exists. His new book, actually a moderately long essay, should instead have been called “Why I Never Was a Jew,” since Sand is emphatic that nothing he has ever believed in has really been Jewish. His entire life, or as much of it as comes to light in what is also an abbreviated autobiography, led up to the moment he realized his total lack of a Jewish identity.
Read more
Haaretz
Perhaps the most telling passage in Shlomo Sand’s new book – “How I Stopped Being a Jew” (Verso Books, 112 pages, $16.95/£10) – comes about halfway through, when he mentions the famous meeting in 1952 between Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (known by his followers as the Hazon Ish), at the time one of the most influential ultra-Orthodox rabbis. According to one version of what happened at that meeting, Rabbi Karelitz lectured Ben-Gurion that, in collisions between religion and state, the rabbis must prevail. To back this up, he cited the talmudic case of two carts blocking each other on a narrow road. The ruling is that the empty cart must give way to the full one. The inferred analogy – that secular Jews are the empty cart, devoid of heritage and learning, while only the Orthodox have any authentic Jewish culture, has been an enduring insult ever since to many Israelis.
But Sand, the controversial and iconoclastic Tel Aviv University historian, whose previous books “The Invention of the Land of Israel” and “The Invention of the Jewish People” caused furor within and outside academic circles, and who takes pride in being a total atheist, is on the rabbi’s side. Not only, he argues, is there no Jewish culture that is not derived from religiosity, but the very notion of secular Judaism is indeed an empty one, since no such thing exists. His new book, actually a moderately long essay, should instead have been called “Why I Never Was a Jew,” since Sand is emphatic that nothing he has ever believed in has really been Jewish. His entire life, or as much of it as comes to light in what is also an abbreviated autobiography, led up to the moment he realized his total lack of a Jewish identity.
Read more