What a leader, coward since hes not the one "fighting", matter of fact he should change his speech to something like "people be ready to die in name of a country we really never had"
Israeli - Palestinian Conflict
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
What are you on about? The country was Palestine pre 1947. There are parts still classed as Palestine. The arbitrary borders were forced upon them. You need to stop posting nonsense.
I thought it was the British Mandate for Palestine?
Correct. And just before that, a swampy backwater of the Ottoman Empire. Nothing more, nothing less.
And the sad irony is that Hamas actually takes the concept of statehood off the table. Mind you, with all the foreign aid and smuggling helping the leaders drive Ferrari's why ruin a good thing with a peace agreement?
Besides, the Israeli's are never going to negotiate with a movement that has a fetish to kill Jews, let alone it's own peoples.
I'm almost 100% sure that there are Palestinians (Gazan's for that matter) who are sick and tired of the corrupt Hamas and their decades-long, insane, self-destructive politics and who just want to finally live under normal conditions but find themselves prisoners not of Israel but of their own mentalist leaders. Such a shame. And now what, they're digging tunnels, again? And then what, the IDF is going to bomb them into oblivion, again? Surely someone must be thinking what the hell is going on, stop it already, this shit just doesn't work! Unbelievable.
Part 2 to follow.Israel's unwanted African migrants
By Kathy HarcombeBBC News, Israel
- 3 February 2016
- From the sectionMagazine
For nearly a year Israel has been offering African migrants cash and the chance to go and live in what is supposed to be a safe haven in a third country - but the BBC has spoken to two men who say that they were abandoned as soon as they got off the plane. One was immediately trafficked, the other left to fend for himself without papers.
Adam was 18 when he arrived in Israel in 2011. Attackers had burned down his home in Darfur at the height of the genocide, and he had spent his teenage years in a UN refugee camp in another part of Sudan. With no prospects in the camp and no sign of an end to the conflict in Darfur, he made his way north through Egypt and the lawless Sinai peninsula to Israel.
But Israel - which has approved fewer than 1% of asylum applications since it signed the UN Refugee Convention six decades ago - has not offered asylum to a single person from Sudan. It turned down Adam's application, and last October, when he went to renew the temporary permit allowing him to stay in the country, he was summoned to a detention centre known as Holot, deep in the Negev desert.
This was no surprise for Adam. As most Sudanese and Eritreans in Israel know, it's just a matter of time before they get the call to Holot.
The government calls Holot an "open-stay centre", but it's run by the prison service and rules are strict, including a night-time curfew, which, if broken, will land you in jail.
It's in such an isolated area that there's very little to do and nowhere to go.
I talked to Adam and a group of his friends just outside the gates of Holot, where, at that time, they spent most of their day playing cards or snooker, and eating and cooking in makeshift restaurants.
They told me they took turns to make the hour-long bus ride into the nearest town, Beersheva, where they bought food. The meals served in Holot were insufficient, they said, and contained little meat or protein.
Most of the men there were young - in their 20s or early 30s. Some had been teachers, activists or students in their own countries.
"We are wasting our youth here," Adam says. "If someone lives in Holot, they have no future... You find many people here go crazy."
Since I visited Holot, those makeshift restaurants and game areas have all been demolished on the orders of the government, leaving those inside with even fewer ways to pass the time.
Image captionHolot detention centre is located close to Saharonim prison, where those who refuse to leave Israel may be held indefinitely
Adam will be held in Holot for 12 months. Then he is likely to face a stark choice:
The Israeli government has deals with two countries in Africa to host its unwanted migrants.
- Go home to Sudan
- Stay in Israel, but be imprisoned indefinitely
- Accept departure to a third country
It promises that people who take the option of "voluntary departure to third countries" will receive papers on arrival that give them legal status in the country.
As an extra incentive, they're given $3,500 (£2,435) in cash, handed over in the departure lounge of the airport in Tel Aviv.
Israel refuses to name the two African countries but the BBC has spoken to migrants who say they were sent to Rwanda and Uganda.
One is Tesfay, an Eritrean who was flown to Rwanda in March 2015, and he told me that far from being offered legal status, a home and the chance of a job in Rwanda - as he had been promised in Israel - he became a victim of trafficking.
His identity papers - a travel document and a single-entry visa to Rwanda, both issued in Israel - were immediately confiscated at Kigali airport, he says.
Then, along with nine other Eritreans, he was taken to a "guest house". None of them was allowed out. It would be dangerous without papers, they were told. Then, two days after arriving, the men were told it was time to leave.
Image captionTesfay took this picture of the guest house in Rwanda
"You are going to Uganda. But before you go, you need to pay $150," said a man who introduced himself as John. "Then from the border to Kampala you need to pay again."
Crammed into a minibus, they made the six-hour journey to the Ugandan border, where they were told to get out of the bus.
"When we crossed the border, that's when I understood that we were being smuggled," Tesfay says. "We went on foot, silently. We were being smuggled from one state to another."
As promised by "John", they had to pay another $150 to continue their journey to the Ugandan capital, Kampala.
But inevitably, having entered as illegal immigrants, they were arrested on arrival and put behind bars - after police had relieved them of about half the cash in their pockets, Tesfay says.
With what was left, Tesfay managed to post bail. He was due to appear in court five days later and having already been warned he was likely to be deported to Eritrea - the repressive authoritarian state he had fled in the first place - he decided to take no chances. He paid another smuggler to get him into Kenya, where he is now seeking asylum.
Rwanda has never confirmed that it struck a deal to host Israel's unwanted migrants. The Ugandan government, for its part, has denied outright that such a deal exists - it told the BBC it was investigating how migrants who claimed to have been sent from Israel were entering the country.
The BBC spoke to a man from Darfur who said he was flown to Uganda from Israel with seven others in 2014, before the third country policy became official.
For safety reasons, he asked to remain anonymous.
"None of the things I was promised were given to me," he said. "No documents, no passport, no assistance - nothing. (Israel) just wants to take people and dump them."
Image copyrightEPA
Image captionIsrael fenced the Egyptian border in 2013, reducing the flow of migrants into the country
In October, Israeli immigration authorities said 3,000 asylum seekers had left Israel for a third country. But the BBC has learned that only seven have registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Rwanda, all of them Eritreans, and only eight, mostly from Sudan, in Uganda.
Meanwhile, there are about 45,000 Eritreans and Sudanese in Israel. The government won't deport them - that would be a clear breach of the UN Refugee Convention, which it signed in 1954. Under the Convention, no-one can be forcibly returned to a country where they have a justified fear of persecution.
But if Israel treats them as refugees at least in this respect, why does it then refuse them asylum?
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon says the migrants threaten the security, and the identity, of the Jewish state.
"It's obvious that we live here in a situation which is rather complex and complicated. And if you add this element of migrants who come here and who want to stay here - undoubtedly because this is a rich and prosperous country - then it could become also a challenge to our identity here in Israel.
"It's not only about the 45,000 or 50,000 people that already are here in Israel, it's about the potential. Because those people tell their friends and families back home - 'Look, this is a very nice place. Do come over.'"
Image captionMigrants on a street in Tel Aviv
And, of course, in Israel there is also the ever present issue of security.
"Open borders through which migrants can pass mean also open borders through which terror organisations can penetrate Israeli territory and commit terror acts," Nahshon says.
But lawyers fighting against the Third Country policy in Israel's Supreme Court argue that the country is in breach of its obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.
"[Migrants] are stigmatised as 'infiltrators' and then have their asylum application adjudicated in sort of a conveyor-belt system which rejects everyone," says one of the lawyers, Anat Ben-Dor.
"And then the whole idea of asking them to give their 'voluntary' consent to something they do not know because this is a secret arrangement... Of course this is not voluntary because you are using the threat of putting them indefinitely in prison if they refuse to go.
"And then when they land in one of those two countries the lack of proper monitoring cannot really secure, in the necessary certainty, that those people would not end up either without [legal] status, or in prison, or - worst of all - being returned to places where they would face danger."
Sigal Rozen, from the Israeli human rights group Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, says that the failure by Israel to guarantee the migrants' security in Rwanda and Uganda means they are forced to risk their lives elsewhere.
"Some of them continue to South Sudan, others to Kenya, to Ethiopia, and many end up in Europe after they take the route through Libya and Italy. Unfortunately many others die on the way and we never hear from them again," she says.
There's a joke among the migrants, she says, that the Israeli government's departing "gift" of $3,500 is just enough money to get to Europe.
But the Israeli government is adamant that it's acting within the framework of international law and is offering a fair deal to the migrants.
But in Tesfay's opinion, he did not get a fair deal.
"The Israeli authority - it's not what they promised. I have no safety - I have no protection at all," he says.
The risk is that Adam and the other residents of Holot will experience exactly the same thing when they arrive in Africa.
Sorry, I didn't read it all, does it have anything to do with the Israeli/Palestine conflict, or are you just having a go at the Israeli Government in general?
I am not condoning their actions btw, it just would be better to stay on topic.
Better to look at Raoul's post on the previous page & comment on that, but I guess that doesn't fit your agenda.
I am not condoning their actions btw, it just would be better to stay on topic.
Better to look at Raoul's post on the previous page & comment on that, but I guess that doesn't fit your agenda.
If you haven't read it, what's the point of making assumptions?
And Mozza addressed Raoul's comment. I'll be addressing Mihalovic's later.
I know you're an auditor, but this thread doesn't need an audit, friendo.
And Mozza addressed Raoul's comment. I'll be addressing Mihalovic's later.
I know you're an auditor, but this thread doesn't need an audit, friendo.
Pretty much all of your posts are a variation on "look how mean the Israeli Government are!" and here's the proof, look at this article it proves they are mean.
I am sure you know that the Palestinian Authority are just a mean.
Most governments are mean, some worse than others, we all know that.
Just keep the thread on topic, is all I am saying.
I am sure you know that the Palestinian Authority are just a mean.
Most governments are mean, some worse than others, we all know that.
Just keep the thread on topic, is all I am saying.
So how is this off topic? If you think I'm derailing, report me, otherwise it's getting pretty tiring you saying I'm derailing this ALL THE TIME.
Mean is a bit of an understatement.
The Zionist regime is self serving and only interested in serving the Jewish / Israeli population. Even Jewish Africans are discriminated against, and Zionists do it in an overt way. Unless you look like them and follow their religion, you have no rights. Palestinian Christians are treated like dirt, and their farms around Jerusalem are being taken away. The Palestinian Arab / Muslims are, as you must know, continuously and habitually trodden upon. They have no real future and are living in ghetto prisons. It's no way to live, and it angers me that this type of state is allowed to persist. The post above about African refugees / migrants just reinforces my point. And then on top of that land, the non Zionist's land is being taken away in illegal settlements that directly breaks multiple UN resolutions. It's galling. There will be no peace in that land with a Zionist govt at the helm. Like I said, the Zionist govt is only interested in serving the Jewish Israeli population. Not African Jews, not Arab Jews, not Christians, not Muslims. I mean, can you think of another example of such an oppressive, brutal, divisive, and constitutionally racist regime in the modern world? You want to talk about other governments 'being mean', name one that's even remotely similar to this. Please enlighten me.
I know a bunch of Christians in Israel and have visited them a few times, and not once have they complained about an "oppressive, brutal and racist regime". They mostly complained about the traffic, people driving like maniacs, lack of parking spaces, rental prices and stuff like that.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes...estinian-christians-20141225193823950539.html
Your posts are quite ignorant. The one you made about Hamas earlier was very ill informed.
Being a zionist myself - and the only one remaining on the CE forum - I simply do not identify with your fashionable/monstrous one size fits all interpretation of "Zionist". You may as well label me a polar bear for all the sense it makes.
Or me call you a terrorist just because your Muslim which is both hugely ridiculous and utterly inaccurate.
Here's the equation: If you believe the Jewish people have a the same rights to a nation than any other peoples your a Zionist. Even if you believe in a 2 state solution you're technically a Zionist (which i think you agree with so you're a zionist too). Whether or not you feel that the Palestinian's got a raw deal is not the point (even though it is the point), the fact remains that any resolution has to embrace the rights of two peoples national aspirations and not warp them into some colonial/religious agenda any more than it has become.
If you want to insult Israeli politicians, be my guest - and in some instances I will totally agree with you. But please don't conflate Zionism with racism, ethnic cleansing etc. as compelling as it might be for the ignorant to conflate your faith with ISIS.
Are you joking? I mean, are you really implying that Israel has the most oppressive, brutal, divisive and constitutionally racist regime in the world?Your agenda in this thread has really become totally ridiculous.
Did you read my post?
Your agenda in this thread has really become totally ridiculous.
Here it is with some parts bolded to help with your comprehension:
"can you think of another example of such an oppressive, brutal, divisive, and constitutionally racist regime in the modern world? You want to talk about other governments 'being mean', name one that's even remotely similar to this"
So far, I've been given a video of a SAF guy talking about Israel, and the nuances of apartheid (which my post didn't even mention).
So, Kasper - why don't you give me an example? Obviously you must have some examples or a point in the discussion as you can't quite believe what I wrote, right?
Well, nearly every other regime in the region to start with. Or does a state like Saudi Arabia not count in the present age because their views are so backward?
Name them. I want you to substantiate your claim.
And on Saudi Arabia - it's easy to get citizenship there, in fact there's quite a few expats living there. They've taken in refugees. Most of the Palestinians I know whose families left due to the Nakba settled in Saudi Arabia. In the compounds, it's generally quite relaxed.
Isreal would be arming itself regardless of what Hamas are saying
Not just itself but exporting it's technology. Thanks to Hamas, Iron Dome has become a must have for Korea other countries with iffy borders. Perhaps Khaled Mashal should get some kind of commission payment seeing as he helped market it.
Yeah, SA is great. If being a Muslim and being a resident for 10 years in the country to get the citizenship equal "easy" terms for you, than ok. Prohibiting followers of other religions to practice their faith in public is definitely a sign for a less oppressing regime than Israel. Oh as well as imprisoning, hanging or whipping bloggers, journalists etc.
I think @Silva and @Danny1982 have already adressed your SA fairy tales in the Yemen thread, no need to go through all that again
What of the abuse and discrimination suffered by domestic workers (mostly women) in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere across the region? How many deaths an injuries go unaccounted for each and every year? An entrenched sexism is not of lesser importance in my view, and many of the victims are of a different ethnicity to the host country or employer.
Don't want to derail this thread, but I saw "citizenship" being discussed here, and just for the record, in Bahrain (which practically belongs to Saudi Arabia) I wouldn't be that worried about how easy it is to get citizenship, because they kind of have a bigger problem...
BCHR Report: Stateless in Bahrain
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights publishes today a report on people living in Bahrain without a nationality. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. The government of Bahrain has violated this human right for over 2,000 people including 40 Bahraini individuals who were stripped of their nationality in the last two years.
The Bahraini government uses the practice of revoking nationality as a tool to punish political opponents, not only affecting the victims themselves but their families.
Bahrain: Citizenship Rights Stripped Away
Authorities Take New Powers to Arbitrarily Revoke Nationality
July 2014 amendments to Bahrain’s citizenship laws will grant the Interior Ministry additional authority to revoke citizenship of people who fail in their “duty of loyalty” to the state, a vaguely worded provision that could be used against government critics, Human Rights Watch said. Recent amendments to Bahrain’s counterterrorism law, in tandem with the recent failure of Bahrain’s criminal justice system to provide fair trials and deliver impartial verdicts, provide a further legal pretext for the arbitrary stripping of citizenship, in clear violation of international law.
“The Bahraini authorities’ latest repressive tactic is to invest themselves with further powers to arbitrarily strip critics of their citizenship,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Bahrainis who dare speak out for change now risk not only arbitrary detention and torture but statelessness and deportation to an uncertain future.”
Bahrain revokes 31 opposition activists' citizenship
Bahrain revokes the nationality of 72 people
...
Having said that, for "some", it is very easy to get Bahraini citizenship...
What Lies Beneath: Bahrain’s “New Citizens” Fuel Unrest
If you want to know more about one of the fundamental issues at the center of Bahrain’s protest movement, it might be worth taking a look at some of the Pakistani newspapers. Today’s Tribune is running a story about a recruitment drive in Pakistan for Bahrain’s security forces. To be sure, there is nothing new about how the Gulf States import labor—from the UAE to Qatar the ratio of immigrants to citizens can be as high as three to one. Bahrain is no different. But Bahrain’s Shia majority sees something more sinister at work when it comes to bringing in Pakistani (or Jordanian, or Syrian or Yemeni) immigrants to fill the ranks of the nation’s security forces: they are all Sunnis, and they are all offered a fast track to citizenship.
Ibrahim Sharif, a parliamentarian and a human rights campaigner (and a Sunni, though he prefers not to be reduced to a sectarian identity) estimates that over the past decade, some 60,000 foreign Sunnis have been offered citizenship. An economist and statistician by training, Sharif came up with that number by examining natural growth rates and population increases. “If you look at census statistics over past twenty years the Shia population has a faster growth rate. But the make up of the population has not changed significantly,” says a Bahrain-based diplomat. “So it’s not like they are trying to bring in enough Sunnis to dominate, but they are trying to naturalize enough numbers to maintain the status quo.”
No real figures are publicly available, and other estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000, but even at the most conservative count, it would still have a significant impact on a population of half a million Bahrainis. So what is gained from this Sunnification campaign? Popular support for the royal family, which is Sunni, posits Sharif. “It means the government wants to bring in loyalty from outside. The social base of the Al Khalifa regime is thin. In order to widen it they have to import support.” And what better way to ensure loyalty than to bring in foreign labor and offer them jobs, housing, medical care and ultimately citizenship in a country whose GDP per person blows their own native per capita out of the water?
So you kind of get the drill now...
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights publishes today a report on people living in Bahrain without a nationality. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. The government of Bahrain has violated this human right for over 2,000 people including 40 Bahraini individuals who were stripped of their nationality in the last two years.
The Bahraini government uses the practice of revoking nationality as a tool to punish political opponents, not only affecting the victims themselves but their families.
Bahrain: Citizenship Rights Stripped Away
Authorities Take New Powers to Arbitrarily Revoke Nationality
July 2014 amendments to Bahrain’s citizenship laws will grant the Interior Ministry additional authority to revoke citizenship of people who fail in their “duty of loyalty” to the state, a vaguely worded provision that could be used against government critics, Human Rights Watch said. Recent amendments to Bahrain’s counterterrorism law, in tandem with the recent failure of Bahrain’s criminal justice system to provide fair trials and deliver impartial verdicts, provide a further legal pretext for the arbitrary stripping of citizenship, in clear violation of international law.
“The Bahraini authorities’ latest repressive tactic is to invest themselves with further powers to arbitrarily strip critics of their citizenship,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Bahrainis who dare speak out for change now risk not only arbitrary detention and torture but statelessness and deportation to an uncertain future.”
Bahrain revokes 31 opposition activists' citizenship
Bahrain revokes the nationality of 72 people
...
Having said that, for "some", it is very easy to get Bahraini citizenship...
What Lies Beneath: Bahrain’s “New Citizens” Fuel Unrest
If you want to know more about one of the fundamental issues at the center of Bahrain’s protest movement, it might be worth taking a look at some of the Pakistani newspapers. Today’s Tribune is running a story about a recruitment drive in Pakistan for Bahrain’s security forces. To be sure, there is nothing new about how the Gulf States import labor—from the UAE to Qatar the ratio of immigrants to citizens can be as high as three to one. Bahrain is no different. But Bahrain’s Shia majority sees something more sinister at work when it comes to bringing in Pakistani (or Jordanian, or Syrian or Yemeni) immigrants to fill the ranks of the nation’s security forces: they are all Sunnis, and they are all offered a fast track to citizenship.
Ibrahim Sharif, a parliamentarian and a human rights campaigner (and a Sunni, though he prefers not to be reduced to a sectarian identity) estimates that over the past decade, some 60,000 foreign Sunnis have been offered citizenship. An economist and statistician by training, Sharif came up with that number by examining natural growth rates and population increases. “If you look at census statistics over past twenty years the Shia population has a faster growth rate. But the make up of the population has not changed significantly,” says a Bahrain-based diplomat. “So it’s not like they are trying to bring in enough Sunnis to dominate, but they are trying to naturalize enough numbers to maintain the status quo.”
No real figures are publicly available, and other estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000, but even at the most conservative count, it would still have a significant impact on a population of half a million Bahrainis. So what is gained from this Sunnification campaign? Popular support for the royal family, which is Sunni, posits Sharif. “It means the government wants to bring in loyalty from outside. The social base of the Al Khalifa regime is thin. In order to widen it they have to import support.” And what better way to ensure loyalty than to bring in foreign labor and offer them jobs, housing, medical care and ultimately citizenship in a country whose GDP per person blows their own native per capita out of the water?
So you kind of get the drill now...
It's not just in SA, but in other Gulf countries as well. There is an Arab mindset to treat Western educated people like royalty, but treat those from the Asian sub continent and the Phillipines as lower class. From their perspective, they're getting cheap labour for menial jobs. It's not right, but it's a social thing...but having said that I don't find it comparable to the treatment of Palestinian people by Israelis. To have abuses of human rights, you have to have human rights in the first place, something the occupied Palestinians don't. By in large, expats in compounds do live a very cushty life. If you ever do travel to Riyadh or Jeddah you'll see for yourself.
Edit: Read this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/be...-Arabia-is-more-fun-than-you-might-think.html
Actually, you're wrong (about citizenship). But anyway, it's not a point that's really relevant. The underlying fact is that people are FREE to move there to work and FREE to leave. They are NOT occupied. Their food, water, electricity IS NOT regulated or controlled by an OCCUPYING force. The resident people can apply for residences and build and move freely throughout the country. This is not the case for the Palestinian people in Israel. Not sure why that would annoy you per se. In fact, in Hebron, Palestinians aren't allowed to walk down Shahada street. It boggles the mind.
And on the similarities between Israel, and SA, there are many. There's a reason why Israel and the al Saud family are bed fellows.
Are you conflating Qatar with SA?
You're from Pakistan (IIRC), you know better
SA specifically is trying to stop foreign workers coming in:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/29/saudi-arabia-foreign-labour-crackdown-migrants
All visitors to Saudi Arabia must have a sponsor, which is usually arranged months in advance.[26] Unlike countries which recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(which declares in part "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own")[27] Saudi Arabia requires foreign workers to have their sponsor's permission to enter and leave the country, and denies exit to those with work disputes pending in court. Sponsors generally confiscate passports while workers are in the country; sometimes employers also hold passports of workers' family members.[26] Foreign workers must be free of infectious disease, including HIV.[26]
And that reason is Iran.
That law was reformed in Oct. It's why Wiki isn't a good barometer of relevant information.
Also - I'd like to add, my employer (a global prof. services firm) sends 100s of employees there and we never encounter a problem. The problem lies with corrupt individuals who prey on people who come in.
A policy years in the making.
C'mon - that's not what Zionism is and we both know it. Don't take me for a fool.
The equation is that you believe that you have a divine (or otherwise), elitist, right to that land, just because you are Jewish. The 'same rights to a nation than any other people' is completely false (and I know you know that too).
Do you think then that Israel is really confiscated Muslim land in the religious sense, and if so, why?
So stop acting like one in this thread then!
I think the land is Palestinian land, illegally taken from them and illegally kept.
If you want to discuss the religious basis behind the 'claim' to the land for the Jewish people, I'm happy to do so but via PM.
What is your contribution to the discussion?
You know thats not what I asked...and besides, it's only fair that all aspects of the conflict be openly addressed including the big religious elephant in the room. The illusion of it just being about land mass cannot be maintained.
Seeing as your not an Arab, I'm safely assuming that you'd be less interested and passionate about this conflict if you weren't Muslim?
Hamas murders one of its own commanders
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/07/world/middleeast/ap-ml-gaza-hamas.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/07/world/middleeast/ap-ml-gaza-hamas.html?_r=0
I think that's pretty obvious.