Gaddafi ‘protects’ Palestinian rights

March 17th, 2007

Muammar GaddafiHere is a perfect example of how much the Arab nations care about the Palestinians. Gaddafi is threatening to deport Palestinians in Libya to Gaza:

Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi has decided to boycott the Arab League’s summit, set to be held in Riyadh at the end of March, in response to what he considers as the Arab leaders’ plan to “sacrifice” the refugee issue in order to please Israel.

Gaddafi is worried that in the framework of the Saudi peace initiative, Arab leaders would concede the refugees’ right of return, and agree to have them naturalized in their countries of residence, in a bid to encourage Israel’s cooperation with the peace plan.

Libyan newspaper al-Jamahiriya reported this week that Libya may begin deporting Palestinian refugees soon, in protest of the Arab plan.

“Libya will never cooperate with a concession of the refugees’ right of return, and will not allow for the settling of refugees far away from their homeland,” the paper stated.

“Libya is in negotiations to allow thousands of Palestinians who reside within its territory to move to the Gaza Strip through Egypt, before the plot to settle them in the Arab countries materializes,” it added. — YNet

So Gaddafi wants to ‘protect their rights’ by preventing them from being resettled, God forbid, in someplace other than ‘Palestine’. Apparently he actually tried to do this once before in 1995, in protest of the Oslo accords:

Hundreds of those refugees remained stranded in a refugee camp on the Libyan-Egyptian border, while hundreds others spent weeks aboard ships in the Mediterranean Sea, after both Syria and Lebanon refused to give them shelter.

Of course not, because destroying Israel and killing Jews is always top priority for the Arabs, far above the welfare of Palestinians.

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How a highly developed moral sense can make you miss the point

March 17th, 2007

By Vic Rosenthal

Ami Isseroff, a reasonable guy who is pro-Israel, recently wrote the following:

The [Palestinian] “resistance” and the Israeli inhumanity continue because, in fact, nobody really cares about them. They are both used as “issues” to attract sympathy by Palestinian terror groups and interest groups on the one hand, and by settlers and right-wing Zionists on the others. The Palestinians use the occupation, the confiscation of land and the arbitrary rights violations to delegitimize the existence of Israel. Every settler who insults a Palestinian, every IDF soldier who insults a Palestinian at a checkpoint is a victory for the Hamas. The Israel advocates use Palestinian terror as an issue to delegitimize Palestinian rights. Every suicide bombing, every Palestinian rocket that lands in Sderot is a victory for the settlers. All the issues are “excuses” but they are real excuses. They are quite useful. — Mideast Web, The Occupation is not so moral either

There are several things about this that bother me.

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The UN is on the attack again

March 16th, 2007

By Vic Rosenthal

The UN is moving to institutionalize its bias against Israel by means of yet another permanent function:

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council is looking to appoint John Dugard as a permanent investigator on Israel’s actions in the territories, which he has in the past compared to apartheid, Ambassador to the UN in Geneva [sic], Yitzhak Levanon, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Levanon said the appointment would be part of a move to create a mandate by which to permanently probe Israeli violations of international law in the territories until such time as Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 border.

A proposal to this effect has been presented to the Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference but it does not mention Dugard, who published a report on the territories in January. No decision has been taken on the matter so far. The report is slated for discussion by the council next week. — Jerusalem Post

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Why does so much of the world hate Israel?

March 16th, 2007

By Shalom Freedman

Shalom Freedman is a writer living in Jerusalem.

On March 6, 2007, the BBC published a survey taken in twenty-eight countries that rated Israel as one of the world’s most hated countries [specifically, the one most dangerous to world peace — ed.] along with Iran, North Korea and the US. Putting aside the fact that the generally hostile to Israel BBC did its survey during the Second Lebanon War, at a time when Israel’s popularity was at its lowest, it is still possible to give a certain credence to the results and ask why the Jewish State is so despised.

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Antisemitic memes suffuse society

March 15th, 2007

News item:

A South Korean publisher agreed Thursday to withdraw a best-selling children’s book from stores after meeting with a prominent anti-Semitism watchdog group that accused the author of spreading messages echoing Nazi propaganda.

The series of comic books, titled “Meon Nara, Yiwoot Nara,” or “Far Countries, Near Countries” and authored by visual arts professor Rhie Won-bok, purports to teach children about the world and has sold more than ten million copies since the first volume was published in 1987.

One of three books on the US initially published in 2004 contains a chapter claiming Jews were the driving force for the hatred that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, that they exert control over all US media and also prevent Korean-Americans from succeeding in the United States…

[Rabbi Abraham] Cooper [of the Wiesenthal Center] said the author’s responses were inadequate and that he did not expect him to play a role in resolving the issue.

“The net effect of what he’s done here is a disaster and he just doesn’t get it,” Cooper said. “I hope he will someday, but in the meantime this book’s got to go.”

Rhie could not be immediately reached for comment. However, he had earlier maintained despite the criticism that his depiction of Jews in the book was accurate and insisted he was not anti-Semitic. — AP (YNet) (my emphasis)

What is so chilling to me is the way the antisemitic “memes” spread, become part of the collective conventional wisdom of human society, and become so deeply embedded that they are no longer recognized as hateful. Scotsmen are frugal, elephants never forget, Americans are loud and rich, and Jews are devils.