Sometimes I don't have time to write an update for two or three weeks, and then stuff piles up. This week, despite having last written five days ago, the shit has piled up so thick on the ground, I'ma need two separate posts just to cover the main bases. For a review of the "now we're allowed to talk about" Anat Kamm "espionage" (i.e. whistle-blowing) case, you'll have to wait a coupla hours. For the rest of the news - This is WHU flight 041110, taking you to the land of coverups, corruption and cleansing of the ethnic kind - just in time for holocaust day. Please fasten your seatbelts, as the captain has turned on the accelerated downward spiral sign.
Israel intends to begin deporting tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank as of the day after tomorrow, claiming that those targeted are "infiltrators" who snuck in from Gaza, through marriage with local residents, those having dual citizenship, or that they used to be local residents but their residency "expired" (residents of the occupied territories who stay abroad too long lose their right to live in their homes, unlike an Israeli citizen, who can move abroad, come back after 30 years and resume living here like nothing happened), and finally nationals of other Arab countries, including ones Israel has ties with, and who are perfectly welcome in the sovereignty and dignity-lacking laughing stock that is the Palestinian Authority. Just read the thing, and remember this is being reported on the eve of Israel's "Holocaust Day", and will be implemented the day after said memorial. Just saying. Oh, edited to add - this should comprehensively give the lie to Israel's claim to want the creation of a Palestinian state in which Palestinian rights can be secured and where Palestinian "right of return" can be fulfilled. If Israel really wanted that, why would it be deporting Palestinians FROM the West Bank?
In addition to the persecuted whistle-blower case, we've had another major case break this weekend: Turns out a real estate project worth tens of millions of dollars in Jerusalem was pushed through with massive bribes, which helped overcome the fact that said project is an ugly motherfucking eyesore which no-one could understand how it got approved in the first place. Well, turns out that green is a salve for the eyes. Also turns out that the main suspect still at large in the case is none other than former PM Ehud Olmert, who was Mayor of Jerusalem at the time, and who pushed the project through very aggressively, mainly by claiming that the city really, really needs all the hotel rooms that would be part of the deal. Guess how many hotel rooms the project eventually included? Sold! To the clever folks who bid a nice, round donut. Olmert, by the way, is on a private pleasure tour of Europe, where he took in some fine Spanish soccer, including the Classico last night between Barcelona (aka Forces of Light) and Real Madrid (aka Franco's Favorites. Light won 2-0). Olmert seemed in no hurry to get back home to face the music, and fled the reporters like some 3rd rate perp. A day later he claimed to be surprised by the allegations and to have nothing to do with the whole affair. His lawyer claims he is not expected to be arrested upon return. We'll see.
Another nice tidbit just in time for Holocaust Day: An Arab janitor was removed from his job at the gym where the aforementioned Olmert works out (when he's not hiding abroad from prosecution, that is) following a "recommendation" from the General Security Service (aka Shabak, which sounds a lot like the infamous Shah-era Iranian Savak...). But, they reassure us, the unfortunate-in-birth janitor did not lose his job. The cleaning services company was merely instructed to move him to another facility they contract to sweep up at...
Another little issue that was summarily ignored in the wake of the two big scandals - the spy mystery and the corruption case - was President Obama's purported new peace plan, which whispers have it he intends to force down the throats of both sides. Then again, the near silence with which this issue was treated may simply indicate that people in charge here are tired of even pretending that they intend to make any motions towards anything resembling peace (see mass deportations of Palestinians from areas meant to serve as the Palestinian "state", above), as also exemplified by the respect accorded to the "sovereignty" of the Palestinian Authority.
Another li'l tidbit: Israel, it appears, is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money, collected in the West Bank, and not spending it on the West Bank. This is of course a clear violation of international law, which prohibits the removal of the economic product of an occupied area. Then again, Israel has a red-white-and-blue "get out of jail card", so why should it care?
A new survey shows a rise in antisemitism over the past year, including a very sharp spike immediately following operation "Jump In The Polls", aka "Cast Lead". Apparently the murder of civilians and children in the name of "we wanna butcher our enemies without any of us getting scratched" causes people, in a totally unreasonable manner, to react unfavorably.
Quick detour to Eastern Europe: Anyone who believes that the Polish President's aircraft just happened to crash en route to arriving uninvited at a memorial service for the Katin massacre, please raise your hand...Not all at once, please. Oh, we got one, yes, you with the hand in the air, care to buy a bridge? Just askin'.
Back to the regular crazy skies and finally for this wrapup, fresh off the virtual presses today, in ink tomorrow, Israel's largest book chain, "The Book Junction", has announced that it is caving in to pressure from the right wing, and will no longer carry the "national left" manifesto, a little booklet of milquetoast drivel, about as leftist as the DLC, or your local blue-dog Democratic congressman. This is the State of Israhell: Where even middle of the road, militaristic and self-effacing "left" is considered too controversial. To paraphrase our mendacious PM, The year is 1933, Jerusalem is Weimar.
And on that little historical note, the pilot will now return you to your own imperfect realities, which should nonetheless be looking much better right about now. If not, we would seriously advise you to consider relocation. We are. WHU airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your luggage and check your comments and thumbs. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.
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Israel should know that if they ever betray the United States, not only will we raise a Jewish Division, but deploy it to kill the survivors of the three Tridents we unload on them.
Lily Tomlin
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1. The new military order was signed 6 months ago.
2. There are no changes to the repatriation system or the authority/means to repatriate illegal residents in Judea and Samaria. The only difference is that now the process includes a judiciary review.
3. The decision to establish a judiciary committee to review the administrative process of repatriation was taken in response to the Israeli High Court of Justice (בג"ץ) decision that there should be judicial oversight.
4. Any illegal resident who stands to be repatriated will be brought before the judicial committee within 8 days of receiving the order, they will have the right to legal council, and will be able to appeal the judicial decision to the high court.
5. When making decisions about whether or not to repatriate an individual, the administrative and the judicial committees consider family ties.
6. Currently there are very few illegal Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria - over the past several years, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government has approved an amnesty for nearly all of the 32,000 illegal residents whose names were submitted to the population registry by the Palestinian authorities.
7. Since the beginning of 2010, there have only been 5 Gazans who have been repatriated to Gaza.
8. The current system allows Israeli authorities to arrest, detain and deport illegal residents (specifically those who came in on a tourist visa and decided to stay) - these are the same powers that every sovereign nation in the world possess. The establishment of the Judicial Committee to oversee the process is the only change.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/04/israel-is-not-deporting-tens-of.html
So I guess my question is: if this has always been about planned mass expulsions, what's been stopping them all this time?
1. The new military order was signed 6 months ago.
- True. It came into *effect* this week. This is made clear in the first paragraph of the article I linked to.
2. There are no changes to the repatriation system or the authority/means to repatriate illegal residents in Judea and Samaria. The only difference is that now the process includes a judiciary review.
- Wrong. The process always included a judicial review. The difference now is that it is a *military* tribunal rather than a civilian court. In other words, what Elderofzion is trying to paint as an improvement is in fact the opposite.
3. The decision to establish a judiciary committee to review the administrative process of repatriation was taken in response to the Israeli High Court of Justice (בג"ץ) decision that there should be judicial oversight.
- Again, wrong.
4. Any illegal resident who stands to be repatriated will be brought before the judicial committee within 8 days of receiving the order, they will have the right to legal council, and will be able to appeal the judicial decision to the high court.
- Um, not what I read. The new order denies them access to the civilian courts and enables the army to deport them within 72 hours. This is quoted directly from the orders in the article I linked to.
5. When making decisions about whether or not to repatriate an individual, the administrative and the judicial committees consider family ties.
- And yet the new order applies to people living in the territories under family unification.
6. Currently there are very few illegal Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria - over the past several years, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government has approved an amnesty for nearly all of the 32,000 illegal residents whose names were submitted to the population registry by the Palestinian authorities.
This is simply not true. At the risk of repeating myself, read the article.
7. Since the beginning of 2010, there have only been 5 Gazans who have been repatriated to Gaza.
2010 hasn't begun that long ago, and again, the order enabling the army to do this without going through the civilian "leftist" courts only went into effect.
8. The current system allows Israeli authorities to arrest, detain and deport illegal residents (specifically those who came in on a tourist visa and decided to stay) - these are the same powers that every sovereign nation in the world possess. The establishment of the Judicial Committee to oversee the process is the only change.
A) Israel is not the sovereign in the territories. It has agreements with the Palestinian Authority which this military order violates. Read the article I linked to. Elderofzion is basing his comments on material granted anonymously from a "senior IDF official". Which, of course, would be an impartial source...
If you want to believe that 10 different organizations which appealed to Defense Minister Barak to rescind this order are all misinformed (as well as Haaretz) but Elder and his secret source are telling the truth, I can't stop you...
And again I ask: If Israel is sincere in its aims for a Palestinian state in which the Palestinian right of return can be met, what interest on earth would it have in deporting people from those territories?
A) I see no such intention expressed in the article in any way attributable to any Israeli authority. (And, no, Avigdor Lieberman's wet dreams don't count). B) To get to a "whole percentage point" population shift, here, Israel would need to find a way to expel thirty thousand Palestinians from the territories. On the one hand, that seems a pretty tall order. On the other, what possible strategic value could Israelis gain by reducing a population of 3,000,000 to a population of 2,970,000?
Look, there are plenty of sound ethical reasons to oppose this order, and you name a few of them (unwarrented restriction on Palestinians' freedom of mobility, the doubtful authority Israel has in the territories, etc.). Coughing up hysterical demonizer bait like "ethnic cleansing" and "deporting tens of thousands" in the absence of any evidence that any such thing as actually happening or even being prepared isn't going to help.
As for the language issue - The removal of the native population from an occupied territory is ethnic cleansing. It has the effect of reducing the number the native population. What good would it do to reduce from 3 million to 2.97? Um, as Chairman Mao is reputed to have said, even a thousand mile journey begins with one step... Or, as an idiot American-Jewish uber-Zionist on Twitter whom I follow to keep abreast of the opposition put it, "it's a good start".
Instead of quibbling over language, just oppose the measure. If the measure gets killed, the language debate is moot.
Jonathan, the question is where would you get your jollies. You read me, I don't read you (this due also, though not solely, to the fact that you don't write shit and only leave your droppings in the blogs of others...).
Independence Day post up tomorrow. For those who wish for a better Israel - Happy Holiday.
Sorry, I can't agree here. Language matters; it has real effect in the real world outside the blogiverse, as Bill Clinton noted just this weekend int the context of the anniversary of Oklahoma City. Even if the measure gets killed, the hysteria being generated by the more irresponsible voices in opposition will continue to reverberate. And I certainly feel constrained to point that out if you're going to go the extra mile and imply that Israel is secretly planning to pursue deportations on a scale well beyond what even Amira Hass is willing to contemplate -- taking your cues from Chairman Mao and some American "Ueber-Zionist" -- neither of whom, I might also point out, has any actual decision-making responsibilities in Israel.
Kill the action and the language will have no foothold. Not among the intelligent, anyway.
Contrary to what Jonnie boy in Tel Aviv would have you believe, I am just as quick to mock the lies of Pallywood as I am those of the IDF spokesman (who, as the age-old saying has it, is lying as usual).
"The idea in ethnic cleansing is "to get people to move, and the means used to this end range from the legal to the semi-legal."[3]"
It's not necessarily the intelligent I'm worried about.
http://open.salon.com/blog/danshapiro/2010/04/20/kill_jews
"Contrary to what Jonnie boy in Tel Aviv would have you believe, I am just as quick to mock the lies of Pallywood as I am those of the IDF spokesman (who, as the age-old saying has it, is lying as usual)."
I know you are. It's why I take you seriously as a close observer of the situation there. And it's also why I think you're better than a semi-hysterical rant that eventually culminates with a reference to Chairman Mao would otherwise suggest.
That would have been April 12. Did anything like that happen then, or since? Of course not. RickyB was just having another of his lying fits.
But never mind that. Your country and mine just walked into the most transparent trap in recent recorded history. Do enjoy the fallout.