Israeli and Palestinian peace activists organize a voluntary day work in Hebron
Tip of the hat to Jewish Voice for Peace for their weekly newsletter/roundup of highlighted stories in the media about Israel and Palestine:
Israeli and Palestinian peace activists organize a voluntary day work in Hebron
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – Saturday, 20 May 2006, 13:21
Peace activists of Taayush organization (Arab – Jewish Partnership) and the Israeli Peace Now Movement, along with Palestinian farmers from the West Bank city of Hebron, organized on Saturday voluntary day work near Karmi Nsor settlement, built over the farmers’ annexed lands.
The action comes in protest to Israel’s annexation Wall and the confiscation of Palestinian pr chards in order to build the wall, a source in Taayush reported.
The Israeli peace activist helped the Palestinian farmers to arrive to their land which was annexed by the Israeli for wall construction around the city, and for settlement expantion.
Meanwhile, troops intensified their presence in the area of the action, while settlers of right wing extremist groups were also there and were chanting anti-Palestinian slogans and words of hatred against the Israeli activists, local sources reported.
Recently, soldiers issued several military orders to grab more than 450 Dunams of Palestinian farmland that belongs to local farmers from the Hebron district. The annexed land will be used for Wall construction and settlement expansion.
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ah! this is such a nice idea, but did the joint israeli-palestinian work day have to be on a saturday? anyone else have a problem with this???
i have a big problem with it and keep raising it to everyone i speak to on the issue. they’re alienating religious jews who want to help. yet they consistently seem to have no problem with this.
From the link: “Tell Your Congressional representatives and the President that Americans do not wish to cause innocent Palestinians to suffer because our government is unhappy with the outcome of the Palestinians’ democratic election. ”
Democratic elections are no excuse. When Israel was on the same path toward electing an ‘extremist’ party to the knesset, the same knesset immediately barred that party from running.
The lesson? Democracy can be screwed over when it suits certain people. The PA should have done the same. Cut off the aid, in fact, cut off everything. Electing hamas was a declaration of war. Let them suffer the consequences.
P.S.: Can you gues which party I was referring to above?
“Tell Your Congressional representatives and the President that Americans do not wish to cause innocent Palestinians to suffer because our government is unhappy with the outcome of the Palestinians’ democratic election. â€
Presumably the set of people who support this does not overlap with the set of people who supported an Israeli boycott based on the actions of Israel’s … democratic election.
I am surprised to see people portraying this action as a reaction of Palestinian elections. It isn’t — it’s a reaction to the policies of the Palestinian government.
I’m not pleased with the election of Hamas, but your parallel fails. If the extremist Israeli party to which you refer had carried the level of popular support that Hamas did, the Israeli government wouldn’t have dared to ban it. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s how the calculus of power politics plays out. The PA simply did not have the power to bar Hamas from running.
But a few questions: do you imagine that the cut off of aid will somehow lead Paletinians to abandon Hamas, rather than to rally all more militantly around them? When you glibly say, “Let them suffer the consequences,” do you recognize that you’re calling for humanitarian and medical crises? Do you imagine that this will somehow target only those who voted for Hamas?
As a US resident, I certainly hope that no one glibly calls for all people in the country to “suffer the consequences” of electing George Bush…
ditto the shabbat issue.
Goat wrote:
As a US resident, I certainly hope that no one glibly calls for all people in the country to “suffer the consequences†of electing George Bush…
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
… yet the reality is that ALL Americans are affected by any geopolitical moves taken in response to this administration’s policies (same for any administration). The country has just one face to the world.
So the argument that concern for the “nice” Pali minority (which nobody has ever identified yet) should somehow determine policy falls apart. That’s simply not how geopolitics works.
Hamas was elected – by a very large margin of voters who knew their previous track record and current platform. Now they are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, and Pali policy.
In the geopolitical game, the decision to cut off funding is a valid response to a Pali leadership that explicitly rejects the basis on which the funding was provided, and explicitly embraces terror.
… yet the reality is that ALL Americans are affected by any geopolitical moves taken in response to this administration’s policies (same for any administration). The country has just one face to the world.
But Ben-David, do you really think the two are comparable? Those of us in the US are completely insulated by our status as a superpower. And US citizens certainly don’t take collective responsibility for things done by our national leadership–we don’t even want people to take individual resonsibility, as evidenced by our objection to the international criminal court, our double-standards on torture, etc.
So the argument that concern for the “nice†Pali minority (which nobody has ever identified yet) should somehow determine policy falls apart.
Well, “nice” is your term. The discussion was about support for Hamas, not about who is “nice.” A large chunk of Palestinian voters did not support Hamas. And many of those who did supported them because Fatah is corrupt, or because they got help from a Hamas-funded social service agency, or because they haven’t seen their lives get better under Fatah in the previous 12 years.
I’ll also add that if you don’t think that any Palestinians are “nice” or want peace, you haven’t been paying attention to some posts on this very blog. And I have to say–an assertion like that is pretty racist.
Hamas was elected – by a very large margin of voters
I have to object to that factually. Hamas won 45% of the votes, and Fatah won 42%. There are essays on how the voting system gave Hamas a disproportionately large majority in the legislature.
That’s simply not how geopolitics works.
Geopolitics is also about policies to achieve a particular goal. I don’t see how deepending humanitarian crises in Gaza and the West Bank helps achieve geopolitical goals. If you want Hamas out, why allow them to rally support as a government under outside seige? The US has been trying that approach with Cuba for a long time now–it hasn’t exactly weakened Castro!