9 febr 2011
Palestinian FM: Holland can help make peace
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki told his Dutch counterpart Wednesday that Holland must play a serious role in peacemaking, and urged the leader to seize the current opportunity of American impasse.
With a recent track record of positive relations with Israel, Al-Maliki asked Minister Uri Rosenthal to help realize the end of Israel's occupation of Palestine by pressing the issue of a settlement construction freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
US efforts to secure a freeze on construction in Palestinian areas fell flat in December, following the end of a partial moratorium that ended on 2 September 2010. Reports said American officials offered excessive guarantees to Israel as well as weapons, in exchange for the freeze, but were ultimately rebuffed.
On an official visit in Ramallah, Rosenthal, who met with President Mahmoud Abbas the day earlier, said Dutch his country firmly supported the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 967 borders. He called the continued construction of settlements "illigitemate" and described settlements as an "obstacle to peace."
"As a friend of the Israeli government, I must criticize the decision to continue building, and will push for a construction freeze," he said, but added that he was in full support of a Quartet statement which failed to mention the issue of settlements, and urged Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table.
Palestinian negotiators have said that the continued construction of Jewish-only homes on lands designated for a Palestinian state, Israel has shown itself to be a dishonest negotiator. Officials have demanded that before talks resume, that construction halt.
http://bit.ly/fEfMF4
18 febr 2011
In Whose Name Are You Speaking?
A Response to Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal
In recent weeks and months, a number of Latin American countries have publicly expressed their recognition of Palestinian statehood. Given that a Palestinian state doesn't yet exist, this recognition also amounts to supporting the Palestinian right to statehood. Both to Israel and to defenders of its policies around the world, the "snowball effect" of nations recognizing this right is, unsurprisingly, unnerving.
One such defender is the Dutch Foreign Minister, Uri Rosenthal. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, http://fwd4.me/04VO Mr. Rosenthal argues why he believes international support for a Palestinian declaration of statehood "does no good." But what strikes me most about the interview is not the straightforwardness of his opposition. Rather, I am struck by what his opposition barely manages to mask: the hypocrisy of his rhetoric on "negotiations" and "democratic values;" a repressive attitude toward what he characterizes as "inflammatory language regarding Israel" within the EU; and, ultimately, a betrayal both of the Netherlands' strong record of commitment to international law and of his responsibilities as their representative.
It is important not only for Palestinians and Israelis to know exactly what Mr. Rosenthal is defending (inequality, systematic human rights violations, restrictions of free speech and press, the moral bankruptcy of an apartheid state). It is also important for all citizens of the Netherlands to know what their own Foreign Minister is saying and doing in their name.
With this in mind, I'd like to examine a number of the statements made by Mr. Rosenthal in his interview with the Jerusalem Post, as well as the contextual remarks provided by Herb Keinon, his interviewer.
Mr. Rosenthal asserts, "on the one hand, steps should be taken" to advance the diplomatic peace process, but international recognition of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood "does not do any good whatsoever" to "bring the Middle East process to a higher level." According to the article, "Rosenthal's comments came before an afternoon meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, during which Netanyahu stressed that a unilateralist track would ‘kill negotiations with the Palestinians.'"
Part of what Mr. Rosenthal clearly opposes is a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. But he doesn't utter a word of objection to the unilateral steps taken by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), which are internationally recognized as such. Israel has illegally annexed East Jerusalem, confiscated vast amounts of Palestinian land to build its apartheid wall and protect terrain for illegal settlements, built and encouraged people to inhabit those settlements (which have eaten away at more than 40% of the West Bank), practiced brutal detention policies, restricted freedom of movement and other fundamental liberties, tried children in military courts, put the Gaza Strip under a state of permanent siege, and killed over 1,400 Gazans in a total bombardment in late 2008/early 2009 (mostly civilians, including over 300 children).
The list of unilateral acts – the list of crimes – goes on and on. Mr. Rosenthal claims to oppose decisions taken by governments without balanced, negotiated political processes. But if this were really true, he would understand the need to bring Israel before the Hague instead of defending it in the Jerusalem Post.
As for the "negotiations with the Palestinians" in danger of being "killed," according to Netanyahu, they have taken place for twenty years and accomplished virtually nothing. Perhaps it is such negotiations – tired, redundant, increasingly irrelevant as Israel creates more and more facts on the ground – that must die in order for a just peace to come alive in our region.
The interview informs us that "the Dutch parliament recently passed a resolution calling on the government to work against EU recognition of a Palestinian state…."
Let's translate. The Dutch government (including Mr. Rosenthal) doesn't want to take positive steps toward stopping the bloodshed – positive steps in the form of granting Palestinians their inalienable rights as stipulated by numerous UN resolutions and tenets of international law. That would be "unilateral"! That would be wrong. Instead, the Dutch government would rather decide (unilaterally, by the way) to prolong inequality and suffering by prohibiting other nations from taking a positive, proactive, and peaceful stance on ending the conflict altogether.
This is the language of hypocrisy, not of justice.
The article mentions, "Rosenthal, who is Jewish and married to an Israeli, was characterized recently by Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwartzenberg as one of the two most active supporters of Israel among EU foreign ministers." And he defines himself as "among the ones" in the EU who ‘regularly try to warn against unnecessary inflammatory language' on Israel, and says his government has actively worked against efforts to "bash" and "delegitimize" Israel partly through the use and "disproportionate" application of such "inflammatory" language.
The passages quoted above constitute an exercise in euphemisms. Within the Dutch context, Rosenthal's role is not simply a "supporter" of Israel, one who tries to "warn" against "unnecessary inflammatory language" that aims to "delegitimize" the Israeli state. Rather, it is the role of a censor, a repressor of criticism, and a political blacklister, supported by and supporting the work of Zionist lobbies like NGO Monitor http://fwd4.me/04VQ and CIDI1 http://fwd4.me/04VR . Mr. Rosenthal's rhetoric and policies go hand-in-hand with those of such organizations, which terrorize NGOs exposing the truth of the Israeli occupation and bully the Dutch public out of hearing it.
For instance, NGO Monitor recently slammed ICCO, a Dutch aid organization, for financing the Electronic Intifada http://fwd4.me/04VS , an independent news source focused on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. (ICCO is also under fire from CIDI for supporting the Olive Tree Campaign, "Keep Hope Alive," http://fwd4.me/04VT realized by the YMCA/YWCA JAI.) NGO Monitor vilified the Electronic Intifada http://fwd4.me/04VS and condemned ICCO by association. Rosenthal's response? "I will look into the matter personally," he said. If ICCO's funding proves to be true, "it will have a serious problem with me."
Is this the really level that Mr. Rosenthal – not to mention the lobbies who share his tactics of finger-pointing, threats, and repression – has stooped to? Persecuting organizations and publications that support human rights and social justice for Palestinians as "delegitimizing" and "anti-Semitic," publicly smearing them, and seeking to sabotage not only their work but also their rights to free speech and free press? This is an appalling position for any human being to have. It is all the more appalling to see it in a democratic representative, ostensibly part of an apparatus designed to uphold those rights in the first place.
It is important for Mr. Rosenthal to be confronted by Jewish and Israeli human rights organizations and activists, of which there are many; he must be told "not in our name." It is equally important for these organizations and activists to condemn NGO Monitor, CIDI, and other repressive lobbies: to remind them that their tactics serve only to prolong the damage done to both Israelis and Palestinians, that everyone suffers when rights are denied and governments are given a blank check to inflict harm without monitoring or criticism.
Mr. Rosenthal says, "We have seen over the last few months some events where some of the EU partners were eager to engage in straightforward initiatives, and I was among those who said ‘Let's keep a little bit more restrained attitude, and look especially at whether this will be conducive to the Middle East peace process at large." Later, he denies portrayals of Israel's image within the EU as "the lowest it has been in decades," replying, "I think this is an exaggeration. When you look at the conclusions of a series of council of foreign affairs ministers' meetings, you will see balanced conclusions vis-à-vis the Middle East peace process."
Mr. Rosenthal advocates being "restrained" in responding to policies that flagrantly violate international law and human rights – a "restraint" that seeks to prohibit other EU countries from taking positive initiatives that might bring the conflict closer to an end. Even worse, he defends these violations through public office, and thus makes his own country a partner in their perpetuation. The Dutch people are well-admired throughout the world as prioritizing human rights and international law; they, then, are being damaged and degraded by Mr. Rosenthal's audacity. Likewise, his praise for "balanced" views in an utterly imbalanced situation serve to make the EU complicit in Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians. The Dutch people must know that their Foreign Minister is sacrificing the image of the Netherlands for the sake of Israel – that he is working hard to represent Israel's interests while tarnishing those of his own country – and they should reject this insult, this injury.
He asserts, "If you take a positive stance toward Israel you might expect from Israel something in return. I'm happy to say that in the last few months Israel has taken an open attitude toward the requests made by the Dutch government to be more lenient on exports and goods from Gaza. That is a subtle game."
It is not subtle, and it is not a game. Economic "leniency," the mere relaxation of commercial restrictions imposed on Palestinians, solves nothing. The last 43 years have proven to Palestinians that economic band-aids will only prolong our occupation, will only intensify the destructive dependency of the Palestinian economy on the Israeli one, will distract the international community into thinking Israel is taking concrete steps toward meaningful change – when in reality it allows Israel to get away with taking none at all.
As we have read, Mr. Rosenthal urges taking a "positive stance" toward Israel. But showing a "positive stance" toward Israel should never mean sacrificing one's own principles of justice and dignity, nor should it involve sacrificing Palestinians' human rights. I urge Mr. Rosenthal to adopt a "positive stance" toward Israel that respects these values – because Israel certainly has not adopted one of its own.
The Israeli state is responsible for the deaths of 352 Palestinian children during its 2008/2009 attack on Gaza; between 26 March 2010 and 18 January 2011, its military shot 24 children while collecting gravel near the border between Gaza and Israel; it has demolished Al-Araqib, a Bedouin village in the Naqab (Negev) Desert, 18 times in the past several months; the state continues to build illegal settlements on confiscated land in the oPt, including East Jerusalem.
Is this openness? Is this positive? This is devastation; this is violence; these are policies that seek to crush, control, and erase. The only truly "positive stance" toward Israel is one that insists that these crimes must end.
"Rosenthal also dismissed reports that the US was interested in the EU taking a tough stand on Israel, since domestic political constraints prevented Washington from doing so itself – a kind of good cop/bad cop arrangement. ‘I hear that story over and over again,' he said. ‘I would not like to be placed in the position of the bad cop; I don't think Europeans like to be placed in the position of bad cops.'"
Mr. Rosenthal may not like to be placed in the position of the bad cop, but he is undeniably putting both the Netherlands and the EU in the position of the bad friend – to Israel. Israel needs good friends to remind her that its treatment of Palestinians, its behavior at home and on the international stage, cannot go on forever. To really understand this, we need only to look toward Egypt: the Mubarak regime, a dictatorship supported by the US and many European countries for the past 30 years, was brought down in a mere 18 days by the nation's youth and peaceful means.
The young people of Egypt managed to do, in 18 days and with tremendous integrity and clarity, what three decades of "positive engagement" by the US and the EU (trying to "convince the regime" of taking democratic steps while continuing to fund its dictator) failed to do. We Palestinians are going to do the same against our occupation – with the support of the EU or without it.
• "Rosenthal diplomatically declined to weigh in on the debate whether it was ‘undemocratic' for the Knesset to establish a committee to investigate where certain NGOs were getting their funds, saying this was ‘for the Knesset to decide.'" With respect to the Knesset panel, he added, "There is no reason to hide anything. I am in favor of transparency," and "a vivid and lively civil society, where NGOs are a part of it, is very important."
The contradictions continue. Is it not the role of the Dutch Parliament to also investigate the funding sources of, say, CIDI? How can Rosenthal claim to support transparency, not to mention the vividness and liveliness of civil society, while only acting repressively against groups and individuals he disagrees with? How can he say, free of irony, that the presence of NGOs in civil society is "very important," when he supports a smear campaign against NGOs in his own civil society? And how can he praise the ideals of civil society in the first place while simultaneously practicing another campaign – silence – when it comes to Israel's repression of the NGOs whose existence he finds so valuable in abstract?
FM Rosenthal's pronouncements on the Israeli government are so blind, so brazen, hypocritical, and so unjust that I am sometimes surprised he can utter them comfortably in his own name. But when we consider his vocal and prominent role in the parliament of his own country, and in the political arena of others', it is especially important for all communities and individuals he attempts to represent (Jewish, Israeli, Dutch, European, etc.) to say, loud and clear:
"Not in ours."
http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=1056 21 dec 2010, 20:56 , Respect-
Maria 26 febr 2011
Israel's Little Hitler
A few years ago Eldad suggested that non-Jews were not true human beings. He was quoted as saying during a protest against the eviction by the Israeli army of a small settler outpost in the West Bank that "it was sad that the army was treating real human beings as if they were Arabs."
There is always fresh evidence justifying the Israeli-Nazi analogy. In recent days and weeks, a number of Israeli officials and lawmakers proposed "draft laws" that would effectively formalize Israel's de facto racism and seriously restrict the human and civil rights of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens.
One of the proposals being discussed would criminalize the commemoration of Nakba by Palestinians holding the Israeli citizenship. Predictably, the brazenly racist proposal has infuriated Israel’s 1.5-million-strong Palestinian community.
One Israeli Palestinian parliamentarian compared the proposed law with an imagined promulgation by Germany of a law banning all Jewish activities commemorating the holocaust.
The lawmaker's remarks are not far-fetched. After all, the Nakba or catastrophe is the Palestinian holocaust, whether we like or not. True, the scope may not be identical in both cases. However, it is also true that Zionists have wrested the Palestinian people historical homeland form its rightful native inhabitants, destroyed their homes and towns, and expelled them to the four corners of the globe.
More to the point, the Palestinians are the longest-suffering people in modern history. They are still being haphazardly killed in the hundreds and thousands by a Gestapo-like army which claims to be the "most moral army in the world." Palestinian homes are still being demolished, Palestinian land is still being stolen on a daily basis, and millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and especially Gaza Strip are still being hounded, starved, tormented, savaged and terrorized by the very country that shamelessly claims to be the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Aryeh Eldad
One of the most thuggish Israeli leaders who has been promoting Israel's manifestly racist discourse against non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular is Aryeh Eldad of the Nazi-like Ichud Leumi, or National Union.
This party holds more or less the same ideas and perceptions toward the Palestinian people that the German Nazis held against the Jews and other “Untermenschen.” It advocates genocide, ethnic cleansing, discriminatory treatment of non-Jews as well as wanton home demolitions and land confiscation of land owned by Palestinians.
Some of the party's associates have called for "wiping off the goyim (non-Jews) from the Land of Israel pursuant Biblical methods."
The term "Biblical methods" refer to the genocidal wars the ancient Israelites waged against the Canaanite tribes in Palestine as recorded in the Bible.
A few days ago, Eldad proposed that Jordan be "transformed" into a Palestinian state and that Palestinians in the West Bank be granted the Jordanian citizenship.
The proposal would impose the Israeli sovereignty on "all mandatory Palestine" from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean and prepare the psychological and legal grounds for the ultimate deportation of the estimated 5.1 million Palestinians from their ancestral homeland.
Interestingly, many Israeli leaders from various political parties have expressed keen interest in the diabolical proposal. Indeed, those who voiced reservations about the proposal did so on the ground that it was "unrealistic” and “impractical” not immoral and criminal.
In fact, even Labor party lawmakers in the Likud-led government voted in favor of referring the proposal to further discussion by the Knesset.
Eldad has a long history of making bluntly fascist and racist provocations against the Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line as well as against Islam and Muslims.
Nearly six months ago, he hosted in West Jerusalem a virulently anti-Islam "seminar" in which a number of fascist-minded speakers from Israel and abroad took part.
The one-day seminar was addressed by notorious Islamophobes such as Daniel Pipes, an American-Jewish supremacist, Dutch Legislator Greet (Geert) Wilders and Eldad himself.
After making characteristically venomous remarks against Islam, the Quran and Muslims, Wilders received a standing ovation.
A few years ago Eldad suggested that non-Jews were not true human beings.
He was quoted as saying during a protest against the eviction by the Israeli army of a small settler outpost in the West Bank that "it was sad that the army was treating real human beings as if they were Arabs."
Eldad has also been a focal advocate of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem where successive Israeli governments have been trying to besiege Arab demographic presence while actively encouraging Jewish settlement activities in and around the occupied Arab city. (lees verder/ read more http://bit.ly/h8sjn4 )
Petition: http://bit.ly/eSwBCi
"Citizenship is only for Jews" http://bit.ly/dSADD3
'Israel's little Hitler' petitie aan Jordaanse koning
A few years ago Eldad suggested that non-Jews were not true human beings. He was quoted as saying during a protest against the eviction by the Israeli army of a small settler outpost in the West Bank that "it was sad that the army was treating real human beings as if they were Arabs."
Per email werd ik door een lezer op de hoogte gebracht van een petitie http://bit.ly/eSwBCi van het ultrarechtse racistische parlementslid - en vriend van Geert Wilders - Aryeh Eldad. De petitie roept de koning van Jordanië op om van zijn land DE Palestijnse staat te maken. In een begeleidend schrijven (.doc) lezen we o.a. weer dezelfde nonsens over de 'rechten' van joden op Palestijns land; dat Palestijnen (meestal aangeduid als "the Arabs") niet deugen, geen vrede willen, en alleen tot doel hebben alle joden uit te roeien; en ook een waarschuwing aan de Jordaanse koning: wanneer hij de Palestijnse vluchtelingen nu niet opneemt zullen ze later heel Jordanië veroveren. De "Arabs" die in Israël willen blijven wonen, mogen dat, maar ze zullen geen burgerrechten krijgen:
"Citizenship is only for Jews". http://bit.ly/dSADD3
De ideeën van Eldad - http://bit.ly/h2Nh3j en zijn ideologiegenoot Geert Wilders - bewijzen weer eens dat deze extremisten gevaarlijk dicht tegen de ideeën van de nazi's in de vorige eeuw aanchurken, met dien verschil dat het Nicht für Juden is veranderd in Allein für Juden. Een andere richting, maar uit dezelfde hoek, namelijk het antisemitisme, dat aan joden een aparte status toedicht, die anders behandeld moeten worden als andere mensen. Of dat verboden of privileges betreft maakt in wezen niet uit.
Zo zijn er op de Westelijke Jordaanoever hele Allein für Juden ghetto's verrezen, al dan niet met geweld veroverd. En de wegen die het gebied doorkruisen om deze nederzettingen met elkaar te verbinden zijn ook Allein für Juden. De autochtonen, die minder waard zijn dan joden, mogen er geen gebruik van maken, en moeten soms uren omrijden, al dan niet getreiterd en vernederd bij diverse willekeurige checkpoints van het bezettingsleger.
http://bit.ly/hqPv8r
In whose name does Dutch FM Rosenthal speak?
Appointed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad with Uri Rosenthal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, February 2011.
In recent months, a number of Latin American countries have publicly expressed their recognition of Palestinian statehood. Given that a Palestinian state doesn’t yet exist, this recognition also amounts to supporting the Palestinian right to statehood. For Israel and defenders of its policies around the world, the “snowball effect” of nations recognizing this right is, unsurprisingly, unnerving.
One such defender is Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. In an 8 February interview with The Jerusalem Post, Rosenthal argued why he believes international support for a Palestinian declaration of statehood “does no good” (“Dutch FM: Recognition of Palestinian state does no good”).
But what strikes me most about the interview is not the straightforwardness of his opposition. Rather, I am struck by what his opposition barely manages to mask: the hypocrisy of his rhetoric on “negotiations” and “democratic values;” a repressive attitude toward what he characterizes as “inflammatory language regarding Israel” within the EU; a betrayal both of the Netherlands’ strong record of commitment to international law and of his responsibilities as the representative of that commitment; and, ultimately, a glimpse of the hypocritical and increasingly repressive policies seen in the EU toward victims and critics of the State of Israel.
Part of what Rosenthal clearly opposes is a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Dutch policy is also changing along these lines: the Dutch parliament recently passed a resolution that calls for the government to oppose EU recognition of a Palestinian state. But Rosenthal doesn’t utter a word of objection to the unilateral steps taken by Israel.
Israel has illegally annexed East Jerusalem, demolished Palestinian homes there and elsewhere (and even entire towns — the military recently destroyed the Bedouin village of al-Araqib for the 18th time). It has confiscated vast amounts of Palestinian land to build its apartheid wall — the route of which was illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice in The Hague — and to protect terrain for illegal settlements. In violation of international law, it encourages its civilian population to inhabit those settlements (which have eaten away at more than 40 percent of the West Bank), practiced brutal detention policies, restricted freedom of movement and other fundamental liberties, tried children in military courts, put the Gaza Strip under a state of permanent siege and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza (including 352 children) during its winter 2008-09 bombardment.
The list of unilateral acts — the list of crimes —- goes on and on. Rosenthal claims to oppose decisions taken by governments without balanced, negotiated political processes. But if this were really true, he would understand the need to bring Israeli officials and military officers responsible for such crimes to the International Criminal Court in The Hague instead of defending Israel’s actions in The Jerusalem Post.
Yet Rosenthal not only defends Israel in the Israeli press; he is also doing so under the auspices of, and with the responsibilities endowed to him by, his own parliament. Indeed, as The Jerusalem Post states, “Rosenthal, who is Jewish and married to an Israeli, was characterized recently by Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwartzenberg as one of the two most active supporters of Israel among EU foreign ministers.” And he defines himself as “among the ones” in the EU who “regularly try to warn against unnecessary inflammatory language” and its “disproportionate” application to Israel. He recommends a “restrained attitude” to his EU partners when it comes to potential initiatives regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; he staunchly disagrees with the suggestion that Israel’s image within the EU is “the lowest it has been in decades,” saying that there are many “balanced conclusions vis-a-vis the Middle East peace process.”
Such “restraint” not only condones policies that flagrantly violate international law and human rights, then, but also seeks to prohibit other EU countries from engaging in positive, proactive initiatives that might bring the conflict closer to an end. He is an influential proponent of the increasingly hypocritical EU stance on the Israeli occupation. This stance praises the meaningless concessions wrung out of diplomatic efforts (as Rosenthal praises Israel for becoming more “lenient” with respect to goods from Gaza, at the urging of the Dutch government) without recognizing that these band-aids only serve to prolong our occupation and subjugation.
Moreover, by defending Israel’s injustices through public office, Rosenthal thus makes his own country a partner in their perpetuation. The Dutch people are well-admired throughout the world as prioritizing human rights and international law; they, then, are being damaged and degraded by Rosenthal’s audacity. The Dutch people must know that their foreign minister is sacrificing the image of The Netherlands for the sake of Israel — that he is working hard to represent Israel’s interests while tarnishing those of his own country — and they should reject this insult, this injury.
While Rosenthal describes part of his work as to “warn” against “unnecessary inflammatory language” toward the Israeli state, this actually amounts to a justification of the government’s right to censor, repress criticism and create political blacklists. Rosenthal’s rhetoric and policies go hand-in-hand with those of Zionist lobbies like NGO Monitor and CIDI (The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel), which bully, harass and defame civil society groups exposing the truth about the Israeli occupation and human rights abuses. (It is worth mentioning that a CIDI board member, Doron Livnat, is the director of Riwal, a European company that produces access equipment and rents large-scale cranes for construction sites, and which has assisted in building the wall and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Riwal’s headquarters in Dordrecht, Netherlands, was raided and searched by the Dutch National Crime Squad after Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, levied criminal complaints against its activities.)
For instance, NGO Monitor recently slammed ICCO, a Dutch international development organization, for financing The Electronic Intifada. (ICCO is also under fire from CIDI for supporting the Olive Tree Campaign “Keep Hope Alive,” realized by the YMCA/YWCA Joint Advocacy Initiative. NGO Monitor vilified The Electronic Intifada and condemned ICCO by association. Rosenthal’s response? “I will look into the matter personally,” he said. If ICCO’s funding proves to be true, “it will have a serious problem with me,” he warned.
Is this the level that Rosenthal — not to mention the lobbies who share his tactics of finger-pointing, threats and repression — has stooped to? Persecuting organizations and publications that support human rights and social justice for Palestinians as “delegitimizing” and “anti-Semitic,” publicly smearing them and seeking to sabotage not only their work but also their rights to free speech and free press? This is an appalling position for a democratic representative to have, ostensibly part of an apparatus designed to uphold those rights in the first place.
These targeted campaigns led by European lobbies against Palestinian and Israeli nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), publications and advocacy groups are particularly chilling in light of similar campaigns being initiated in the Israeli Knesset: specifically, its moves to establish a committee for investigating the funding sources of certain (politically targeted) NGOs. In his interview with The Jerusalem Post, Rosenthal declined to comment on whether this initiative was “undemocratic,” saying “There is no reason to hide anything. I am in favor of transparency,” and “a vivid and lively civil society, where NGOs are a part of it, is very important.”
Rosenthal’s ongoing contradictions, and their echo within the policies of European governments, are astonishing. He claims to support transparency, not to mention the vividness and liveliness of civil society, while only acting repressively against groups and individuals he disagrees with. He says, free of irony, that the presence of NGOs in civil society is “very important,” when he supports a smear campaign against NGOs in his own civil society. And he praises the ideals of civil society itself while simultaneously practicing another campaign — silence — when it comes to Israel’s repression of the NGOs whose existence he finds so valuable in abstract.
Foreign Minister Rosenthal’s pronouncements on the Israeli government are so blind, so brazen, so hypocritical and so unjust that I am sometimes surprised he can utter them comfortably in his own name. But when we consider his vocal and prominent role in the parliament of his own country, and in the political arena of others’, it is especially important for all communities and individuals he attempts to represent (Jewish, Israeli, Dutch, European, etc.) to say loud and clear: “Not in our name.”
Rifat Kassis is International President of Defence for Children International (DCI) and General Director of its section in Palestine. He is also Coordinator and Spokesperson of Kairos Palestine - A Moment of Truth.
http://fwd4.me/0Cyi
17 apr 2011
Haaretz WikiLeaks exclusive / Dutch FM 'dismayed' by Lieberman's behavior in Hague visit
Maxime Verhagen said Lieberman was 'pessimistic and cynical' about the Palestinians, including PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
American diplomats in The Hague described Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's visit in the Netherlands in November 2009 as "a demonstration of how to irritate people and lose friends."
Details of Lieberman's visit appear in WikiLeaks documents regarding Israel now being published in Haaretz.
Dutch officials were said to be "flabbergasted" and "dismayed" by Lieberman's behavior. At a meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, Lieberman spoke for 20 minutes nonstop without giving the Dutch minister a chance to conduct a dialogue or exchange opinions, according to a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in The Hague.
Finally Verhagen told him "you need friends," and emphasized his friendship, but noted that the Netherlands "cannot go on defending Israel without helpful actions by the Israelis."
Verhagen was also surprised that Lieberman did not bother to tell him - either during his visit or in a thank you call afterward - of the plan to build new housing units in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood.
"Lieberman made no movement on peace settlement issues, was pessimistic and cynical about every Palestinian, including [PA chairman Mahmoud] Abbas, and asserted the ball was in the Palestinians' court because 'the problem was not with us.'"
http://fwd4.me/00Fa