How the EU-NGO alliance destabilizes Jerusalem

It is bad enough that the EU funds a group whose leaders promote "one-state" polices and use demonizing rhetoric that incites hatred - the fact that this becomes the basis for policy is even worse. [...] If the goal of EU policy is to renew the friction, prevent the growth of peaceful cooperation and trigger renewed violence in Jerusalem, these leaked documents produced by the NGO echo chamber will help them. On the other hand, if the EU, which has more than enough problems of its own, wants to promote peace, stability and compromise, this process needs to be replaced in its entirety.

Source: Times of Israel, co-written by Gerald M. Steinberg and Naftali Balanson

Jerusalem is the most complex and sensitive issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For over 3,000 years, the Holy City has been the focus of intense religious and national importance, as well as numerous outbreaks of violent conflict that spread across the region and the world. If this history provides any lessons, it should be the need for external parties to exercise extreme caution, and to avoid casual policy pronouncements that could easily inflame an already tense situation.

Tragically, the evidence indicates that the diplomats and officials of the European Union, and some of its member states, have failed to learn any of these lessons. These officials, based primarily in east Jerusalem and Ramallah, have prepared two "policy documents" that present ill-considered analyses and very dangerous recommendations.

The EU draft documents, written between 2009 and 2011, were never presented for public debate, thus failing to follow democratic procedures that Europe preaches to others. Instead, they were strategically leaked in Haaretz, Guardian, and the European Observer.

To make matters worse, the claims that served as the foundation for the EU documents on Jerusalem were provided by a small number of political advocacy groups, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which, despite their self-identification as "non-governmental," are funded by the governments (and taxpayers) of Europe. In the EU, budgets for political NGOs, amounting to tens of millions of euros annually, are provided through entirely secretive processes, with no information on who makes these choices or the basis for their decisions.

'1938-style Jew hatred still alive in Belgium'

There are countless gatherings like these in Europe every year - and every body vows to combat anti-Semitism.  But nothing changes.  Last year, this year, next year the same ritual, the same solemn promises again and again.  One only has to look at how Europe treats the Roma population to understand that nothing will be done.

Pro-Hamas rally in Brussels (11 Jan. 2009)

'1938-style Jew hatred still alive in Belgium' By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT 29/01/2012 - Edelstein tells European dignitaries that anti-Semitism rife in Europe.

The sort of anti-Semitic attacks that took place in Europe in 1938 are occurring here today, Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein told European dignitaries and Jewish leaders on Thursday night.

“A brick hurled at a Jewish shop. A Molotov cocktail at a rabbi’s house. A Jewish girl attacked at school. These aren’t memories of Europe in 1938, but headlines in 2011,” Edelstein said in a speech at a ceremony in Belgium. Edelstein represented Israel at an event celebrating Belgium’s chairmanship of the intergovernmental Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education. Belgium will replace the Netherlands as the task force’s leader in March. Under Belgium’s chairmanship, the task force is to be transformed and renamed the International Holocaust Remembrance Organization. Some 300 people attended the ceremony in Mechelen where Edelstein spoke last week. “My concern is the escapism that occurs in these ceremonies,” Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post after his speech. “Conclusions from current incidents in Belgium, Holland and elsewhere must be drawn: Anti-Semites replace ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’ or ‘Israeli.’ They tell any blood libel and call it political debate.” 

Is there an Anti-Zionist political party? Yes. In France.

French comedian Dieudonné will be a candidate at the parliamentary elections for France's Anti-Zionist Party in June at Dreux (Eure-et-Loir).

To our knowledge, although in other European countries anti-Semitism remains a major cause for concern, France is the only country with an anti-Zionist party and where an "artist" with Dieudonné's views remains tremendously popular.

More on Dieudonné HERE.

Cannes film festival: hatred Israel meets with applause by journalists

(ANSAmed) - CANNES, MAY 17 - "I do not want my film in Israel at least until the Israelis treat the Palestinians in occupied territories better," the Egyptian director, Yousry Nasrallah, has said of his film "After the Battle", which is competition at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. The comments, which are sure to spark controversy, came as the director answered a question from an Israeli journalist, who had inquired as to whether the film would be released in Israel. Nasrallah's firm response was greeted by applause from some in the press room. "Why are you applauding?" asked Nasrallah. "I don't have anything against Israel, I have Israeli friends like Gitai, but while my people have tried to review some of their positions, the same does not seem to apply to Israel".

The French media are absolutely delighted at Nasrallah's double-standards.  When European journalists applauded  him, he pretended to be surprised and criticised them...  Nasrallah also said that Israel is not a ally of the Egyptian revolution... or Arab Spring if you prefer.

And last year at Cannes: Top antisemitic slur film director Lars von Triers wins best movie at European film awards

New French F.A. Minister deplores leniency towards Israel

Le Monde: A report on foreign policy written in 2010 by the newly appointed French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius indicates that a Socialist government will make a departure from the excessive leniency of Sarkozy's (not noted to be a great friend of Israel either) policy towards the Israel government:

"We shall break with the excessive leniency of the French government towards the Israeli leadership.  We shall tell them to move out quickly from the colonized territories."

French cultural center in Gaza will cost USD 1.3 million

The coffers are empty but ... France is building a new cultural center in Gaza at a cost of around one million euros (USD 1.3 million).  France is the only country to have such a cultural center in Gaza.  

Model of the building

Source: Consulate General of France in Jerusalem:  Nouveau Centre Culturel Français de Gaza: premier convoi de matériaux. The first convoy of building materials crossed the border on 17 January 2012. 

Plans are under way to build a new 1,000 m2 building in 2008 on Charles de Gaulle Street, a main road in Gaza City. The structure will be built on a 2,000 m2 plot of land that was given to the CCF by the Palestinian National Authority. The new building is a direct response to the increasing demand for and growing popularity of the centre's activities over the years. It will also house the consular offices for visa and passport services as well as guest quarters for French visitors and artists who will come to participate in the planning and implementation of the centre's programmes.

Belgian UN hunger expert investigates Canada

"De Schutter does not want you to know that Havana’s Communist government created his post, nor that the co-sponsors included China, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe. [...] "De Schutter has repeatedly made one-sided attacks on Israel lacking any nexus to his mandate. Last July, he issued a pre-emptive attack against his own boss, in a press release titled “UN Special Rapporteur opposes Ban Ki-Moon’s conclusions on flotilla.” De Schutter was outraged that a panel appointed by the UN chief found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, to stop Hamas importing Iranian missiles, was actually legal — contradicting what De Schutter’s human rights council had said the year before."

Source: Hillel Neuer: As much of the world starves, a UN hunger expert investigates Canada, National Post (May 4, 2012)

“There is no food and no clean water, nothing,” Mahmoud, a 12-year-old boy from Homs, Syria, told Reuters Thursday. “There is no shop open and we only have one meal a day. How can we live like that and survive?”  According to the World Food Program, half a million people don’t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.  This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” is not going to Syria.  [He is a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.  In 2006 he wrote this report for a Belgian human rights NGO: Failing the Palestinian State : The human rights impact of the economic strangulation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory ]  Instead, the UN’s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada.

That’s right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada—a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.

A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter’s mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of “failing Canadians … and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all.” The group calls instead for a “People’s Food Policy.”

I asked De Schutter if his time wouldn’t better be spent on calling attention to countries that actually have starving people.  “Globally, 1.3 billion people are overweight or obese,” he responded via his spokesperson, “and this causes a range of diseases such as certain types of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases or (especially) type-2 diabetes that are a huge burden.”  In other words, the hunger expert is not even that interested in hunger, but the opposite. Sure, we should all eat less fries, but do Canadians need a costly UN inquiry to tell us that?