Pro-Israel views get NGO in Iraq defunded by Catholic charity

The Swiss section of Caritas has stopped funding Wadi, a successful German aid organisation operating in Irak, because it is too pro-Israel. Yet another example of double standards by a European NGO hostile to Israel. It is good to see that such prejudice is being exposed and denounced. Pajamas Media has the story.

See position paper on Palestinian refugees on Caritas website (in English). The Awareness Raising in Switzerland section is worth reading.

"(...) According to the account given by Caritas, the termination notice was provoked by a series of blog entries by Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, the managing director of Wadi and the driving force behind the organization. According to Caritas, Osten-Sacken is supposed to have advocated a military strike against Iran in the event that the Iranian regime could not otherwise be prevented from building a nuclear weapon. Osten-Sacken claims, on the contrary, that he precisely warned against a military intervention. What is true, however, is that the Wadi managing director has persistently condemned the rule of the mullahs in Iran and warned that the regime has long been engaged in a "war" against the West that cannot simply be ignored.
.
Osten-Sacken has also criticized the idea of a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and opposed calls for a boycott of Israel. According to Norbert Kieliger, the head of the "international cooperation" division of Caritas Switzerland, Osten-Sacken thereby took positions that are incompatible with continued support from the aid agency. "We reject all forms of violence," he says. "Political partisanship puts our mission at risk."
.
The Swiss division of Caritas likes to present itself as an apolitical organization, which helps refugees, feeds children, and takes a principled stand in support of the needy and disadvantaged. In reality, Osten-Sacken charges in a written response to the termination letter, Caritas is anything but neutral. Vis-à-vis Palestinian groups that deny Israel’s right to exist and justify terrorist attacks, for example, Caritas displays none of the scruples that it has shown toward Wadi. (The exchange of letters is available in German here.)
.
Osten-Sacken points, in particular, to the involvement of Caritas in the "Forum on Human Rights in Israel and Palestine," a Swiss umbrella group that also includes Amnesty International, the Protestant aid agency HEKS, and several Swiss-based Palestinian organizations. Officially, the "Forum" pursues strictly humanitarian aims. In reality, however, the aims are eminently political. Thus, a core item on its agenda is the "right of return": namely, of Palestinians whose ancestors were expelled from their homes sixty years ago. In light of demographic developments in the meanwhile, what in theory may appear a just demand would in practice represent the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
.
The most important local partner of the Swiss "Forum" is the Palestinian organization Badil, which also receives financing from the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. Watchdog groups sympathetic to Israel, like the NGO-Monitor, accuse Badil of harboring thinly-veiled extremist tendencies. On their account, Badil has defended suicide bombings and demanded a complete boycott of Israel - a boycott that is supposed to extend even to cultural exchanges. EU states have thus declined to work with Badil.
.
Up to now, Caritas has not taken any official position on calls for a boycott of Israel. But in light of the historical precedent represented by the "Don’t Buy from Jews" slogan, this silence is itself a kind of statement. Officially, Caritas - like most NGOs - condemns all forms of violence. But - as in the case of Colombia and the FARC - in practice the NGOs place a democratically-elected Israeli government on the same level as terrorist organizations. And when it is a mater of condemning concrete human rights violations, it is always the western-oriented governments that get pilloried. (...)".

Haveil Havalim #177 - Tisha B'Av Edition by Simply Jews

This is a result of another mental meltdown. That or I am getting addicted to HH hosting as a form of... doesn't matter.

In place of introduction: no post with BO was accepted. With one exception. Please be civil about it.

So let's go!

Tisha B'Av

A reminder from Dzeni.

The text at the back of the image is a translation of the book of Lamentations. This book is traditionally read in shul on Tisha B'Av.

On this occasion, shouldn't we all be reminded again of the need for unity - the lack of which caused some of the events we think about during this day?

Poetry at the time of mourning.

So, will we ever learn the lessons of this day? I am not too sure.

Oy vey Israel.

We are definitely a nation blessed (oh well) by abundance of prophets. Here is more about prophets and losses.

Touring the past in our country is never a way to forget the present. And what would we be without our memories? She lives davka in Shiloh, she invites women there for prayer, and she is not Elkana. Well, maybe a virtual one. Er... why invite women only?

Our neighbors on the west side are busy teaching their children to hate, and our northern neighbors are going to ratify the next war. Quite a sad situation. More in this moving er... movie by colleague Elder.

On the trivial and gray mentality of a murderer.

Continued here.

Norm blog profile of Snoopy The Goon
.

And where will they bury Mahmoud Darwish?

Mahmoud Darwich considered that America was guilty of "universal despotism".

Many Arabs never tire of criticizing and loathing America, but reflexively knock at her door when they face a problem. How ironic to think that Mahmoud Darwich, the celebrated and emblematic poet and intellectual, who was thought to represent the Palestinian resistance and conscience, chose precisely to go to Texas to have cardiac surgery and died there.

From My Right Word blog:

"Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish has died after surgery at the age of 67, hospital and Palestinian Arab officials say. He suffered complications after undergoing open-heart surgery in Houston Texas.

Here are some of his thoughts in June 1982:

Shortly after noon, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish comes by the Commodore. He has written no poems about the war. "I write my silence," he says. "I need distance to be a witness, not a victim." Since words are powerless against tanks, he feels that his silence is stronger than words. Still, a poem has power. Is Palestine itself a poem? "Yes," he says. "Because a poem is an unachieved desire."

Yet, at the moment, he is "fed up with poetry and refugee camps and walls." He believes that "Beirut is our last stand. From here to the grave, or to the homeland." Then he relents a bit. "We have to save the idea before we save Beirut. Beirut is not the capital of our idea." Darwish is 40. He has been a refugee four times and has been thrown in jail. "If the Palestinians find a homeland, they may discover the same dilemma as the Jews. The Jews were great creators in the abstract. Now only their army is great. Israel is the grave of Jewish greatness."

Darwish had published a poem during the first Intifada, one which I read in an English-language Arab periodical named Al-Awdah (The Return). It's theme was:

"Leave our land and take your dead bones with you".

I guess he'll not want the same treatment for his bones, eh?"
.

Anti-Semitic T-shirt on sale in Paris shop

The EJP reports:

"A sleeveless t-shirt with anti-Semitic inscriptions was found on sale in a northern Paris shop last weekend.

The inscriptions on the t-shirt read in German "Juden Eintritt in die parkanlagen verboten" (No Entry for Jews in the Park) and in Polish "Zydome wstep do parku wzbroniony," reproducing a ban to Jews in the Lodz ghetto in 1940.

It was found and bought for 18 euros last weekend in Belleville, in Paris's 19th district, by the French National Bureau of Vigilance against anti-Semitism (BNVCA), a group monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in France.

An AFP reporter found five of the grey, sleeveless woollen tops -- labelled with the brand "Introfancy IF" -- on sale early Tuesday, but when he returned shortly afterwards they had been withdrawn.

The sales assistant said they had just been bought by a single customer.

She added that she did not know the meaning of the inscriptions."

The 'halo effect' shields NGOs from media scrutiny

Article by Naftali Balanson, managing editor of NGO Monitor in The Jerusalem Post

"A familiar scenario: A non-governmental organization (NGO) issues a report on alleged Israeli human rights violations, and it's instantly and automatically newsworthy. The Israeli and foreign media uncritically, even eagerly, promote the NGO's politicized agenda, regardless of the NGO's credibility or the veracity of the allegations.

This "halo effect," whereby the claims of human rights groups are accepted without a modicum of scrutiny, often results in Israel's vilification on the international stage for violating "international humanitarian law" or demonized as an "apartheid state" to be shunned and boycotted. By publishing these stories, the media reinforces the halo effect and becomes partner to the damage done.

The typical article on Israeli "violations" has a number of common denominators. Beyond the ubiquitous headline championing a human rights NGO and condemning Israel, the NGO's "evidence" and sensational accusations are repeated, left unchallenged by the reporter. By dint of its presumed independence and stated lofty goals, the NGO is considered more truthful than the government. The media pits universal human rights against Israel, leaving it to respond on the defensive. This might make for "good" journalism, but does it tell the whole story?

In recent weeks, local, highly political rights groups - funded by the EU and by European governments - have received worldwide coverage for their attacks on Israel. Consider the publicity afforded to Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I) when it accused the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) of denying Gazans life-saving health care in Israel unless the patients informed on family and friends. PHR-I's report was published in hundreds of major media outlets, and Israel was portrayed as cruel and inhumane, as opposed to genuinely concerned for the security of its citizens.
.

Yet, despite the importance of this story, did reporters question PHR-I's reliability? Rather, the halo effect shielded it from past mistakes. Three months ago, PHR-I reported that a cancer patient in Gaza died while awaiting a permit to receive treatment in Israel, only to admit days later that the "deceased" was still alive. The patient was attempting to evade a security check.

Even if we give PHR-I the benefit of the doubt, that it was unknowingly misled by the patient's family, surely similar self-serving "evidence" from Palestinians and provided by PHR-I should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. But it was not."

.

Read the full article here

.

Belgian newspaper Le Soir claims that Israel prefers Western immigrants

Reporting on the latest airlift of 65 Ethiopian Jewish families, Belgian newspaper Le Soir (paper edition of August 7) claims that "there are still tens of thousands of black Jews in Ethiopia, but Israel is not in a hurry to welcome them". Where the paper got such high figures remains a mystery.

Serge Dumont, the author of the article, further claims that Israeli authorities have a preference for Western immigrants, i.e. white immigrants ("les responsables privilégient désormais les immigrants occidentaux"). The journalist does not bother to substantiate this claim either but the implications are clear.

To emphasize the "racist" character of Israeli society, the newspaper goes on to quote a female Ethiopian management student, identified as Imanut B., who is said to have arrived in Israel in 1989 (note the irony she is "a student" and not a "street sweeper"):

"We would be treated much better if we were white and rich. In any case, we wouldn't be accused of spreading AIDS and of being parasites just fit to sweep the streets."

And she adds :

"Maybe white Israelis view us as better than Palestinians, but for them we remain poor negroes who are trying to be civilized."

It is also stated that Ethiopian Jews have not integrated well because they are poorly educated and find it difficult to integrate into Israeli "americanized society". Whatever that means is for anyone to decide, but is in keeping with the whole tone of the article: negative.

In a recent article, Le Soir - whose reporting on Israel is invariably hostile - made light of Barack Obama's positive remarks about Israel putting them down to his need to "court" Jewish American voters.

To find out more about the Falash Mura still living in Egypt:
-Major phase of Ethiopian aliyah ends, but advocates want more
-Bringing Falash Mura impugns the real Ethiopian Jews
-'Last' Falash Mura arrive, group slams gov't for leaving behind thousands of Jews
.

The irony of inviting Ahmadinejad to Turkey, Fresno Zionism blog

An little irony for the Turks, from Fresno Zionism blog

"Ha’aretz reports:

"Israel has officially protested against the planned visit of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Turkey next week.

Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, Gabi Levy, presented the protest to officials in Ankara, and the Turkish ambassador to Israel was summoned to Jerusalem."

"Israel is disappointed that Turkey has invited for an official visit a leader who denies publicly the Holocaust, and thus grants him legitimacy," was the message given to the Turkish ambassador to relay to his government."

Will the Turks will see the irony in being asked to shun a Holocaust denier, when they themselves officially deny that their predecessors committed genocide against the Armenians?

Israel and American Jews have been caught between a rock and a hard place in regard to the Armenian Genocide. I’ve written a number of posts on the subject.

The Turkish government has its reasons for not admitting that the Young Turks, and later the Turkish Nationalists, murdered about a million and a half Armenians during and after World War I. The Israeli government also has its reasons for not wanting to irritate the Turks. Even the US administration seems to feel that Turkey is too strategically important to annoy by using the word ‘genocide’ to describe the events. But the truth is the truth. (...)
.

Survivors sometimes feel that denial is the final stage of extermination. First the physical forms of the victims were destroyed, and then their memories are erased. Most Jews are familiar with the rage that comes over them when confronted with Holocaust denial. But — at least in the West, if not in Iran or the Arab world — deniers are marginal. After all, the present government of Germany has officially accepted responsibility for the Holocaust.

One can imagine how Armenians feel — actually, you don’t need to imagine, they will tell you — when, almost 100 years after the fact, the Turkish government still insists — against the huge preponderance of historical evidence — that while something happened to the Armenians, it wasn’t genocide, the Turks were not responsible, and it might even have been the Armenians’ fault.

Turkey wants to join the EU. It would only be fair to ask them to follow the example of Germany."

.