EU says Gaza reconstruction won't happen under Hamas rule

Welcome and long overdue clarity from the European Commission

"A senior European Union official said Monday that she expected humanitarian aid to Gaza to flow quickly, but signaled that reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure would only begin when the EU has an acceptable Palestinian partner.

Visiting EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner did not explicitly single out Hamas, but she strongly hinted that it would be difficult to rebuild Gaza as long as the Islamic movement remains opposed to international peace efforts.

"For reconstruction you also need on the other side an interlocutor, so how will this be done? Is there a reconciliation process in the meantime? What will be done? All that is open," she said
She also said that Hamas's confrontation with Israel was hindering prospects for a better life for the people of Gaza.

"We don't want to go on to reconstruct Gaza every I-don't-know-how-many-years," she said. "This is not what we want. What we would like to see is a clear sustainable peace."

Ferrero-Waldner's assessment came a day after Israel halted its three-week military offensive in Gaza aimed at ending years of Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel. A massive Israeli bombardment from land, sea and air left damage to homes, public buildings and utility lines valued by Palestinian surveyors at more than $1.4 billion.

Europe has traditionally been a leading contributor of aid to the Palestinians. But Ferrero-Waldner urged the Palestinian public to demand peace from its leaders.

"We have been at the side of the Palestinian population always and we will be at their side, but at the same time it's also for the Palestinian population on both sides to say, 'We want this peace,"' she said.

"We know that many people have been killed and we felt terribly sorry. We don't want to see civilians killed but at the same time the population has to decide if it wants to go to peace."
Ferrero-Waldner spoke a day after European leaders visited Egypt and Israel to pledge support for measures to stop Hamas from rearming and to turn a fragile cease-fire into a durable peace.

She suggested a rapprochement that returns Fatah to Gaza could be key to arranging international help. (...)"

Source: TJP

German court prohibits calls to murder Israelis at demonstrations, but allows ...

Fantastic good news/fantastic progress : a German court prohibits calls to murder Israelis (Jews ?) at the demonstrations. But allows use pro-Hamas paraphernalia and "Jewish pigs" insults.

"A court in the German capital struck down an administrative ban on Hamas flags, clothing and banners on Friday, but left in place the ban on invoking Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar's call to murder Israeli children worldwide.

The decision paved the way for supporters of the Islamist movement to march in anti-Israeli rallies on Saturday with pro-Hamas paraphernalia.

The German Peace Council and the Palestinian community in Berlin prevailed in their effort to revoke the administrative order issued by Ehrhart Körting, the Social Democratic Party commissioner for security in Berlin, that banned use of Hamas flags.

However, the court prohibited calls to murder Israelis at the demonstrations.

Körting told the Berlin Morgenpost daily "that because of their terrorist attacks, and especially their constant rocket attacks on Israeli citizens, Hamas has been on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations since September 2003. Support for Hamas in Germany through demonstrations justifies the rocket attacks on Israel and encourages Hamas to undertake further rocket attacks."

Körting added that if a court permits support for "verifiably anti-constitutional and anti-Semitic organizations" due to freedom of speech protections, other ways must be found to restrict pro-Hamas activity.

Anti-Israeli demonstrations across Germany have been marked by calls to "kill, kill Israelis" and "kill, kill Jews", as well as "Jews out" of Germany and Israel.

A political commentator in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger wrote a column titled "About looking away and forgetting" that "blatant anti-Semitism is blossoming. Germany is currently experiencing perhaps the largest anti-Jewish manifestations since World War II. Jews are called child-murderers, and Israel is compared with the Third Reich."

A handful of critics have bemoaned German political and societal indifference to the widespread loathing of the Jewish state at the mass demonstrations in German cities. In Kassel, in Hesse state, protesters were greeted by cheers as they attacked a solidarity stand for Israel and attempted to tear down Israeli flags and banners on Saturday.

Police departments in Duisburg and Düsseldorf banned Israeli flags and pro-Israeli solidarity activity at rallies over the last two weeks. In Mainz, people waving Israeli flags at an angry pro-Palestinian demonstration over a week ago were forced to seek refuge in the Kaufhof department store. Aggressive protesters screamed "Jewish pigs" and motioned toward the Israel supporters who found shelter in Kaufhof. According to the pro-Israeli activists, consumers in Kaufhof said, "We do not need people like you here."

Kai Süssenbach, a police spokesman in Mainz, told a local television station that "a group of people were provokingly waving Israeli flags."

Süssenbach added that since the activists were not Israelis, it could be assumed they were provocateurs. The Kaufhof department store issued an order banning the pro-Israeli group from the store's premises.

Ironically, the Nazis stripped the Jewish owner of Kaufhof, Leonhard Tietz, of his property in 1933 and "aryanized" the store."

Source: article by Benjamin Weinthal in TJP

Europe Reimports Jew Hatred, by Daniel Schwammenthal

EU parliament resolution on Gaza is ‘balanced’, says EJC

"By avoiding a one-sided position, the European Parliament resolution enables the EU to remain a key interlocutor in the political dialogue that the EJC hopes will resume between Israel and Hamas."

"The European Jewish Congress (EJC) said a resolution on the Gaza conflict adopted by the European Parliament on Thursday is “balanced” and "identifies with the suffering of civilian populations on both sides of the conflict."

The EU parliament resolution, voted by a large majority of MEPs during the plenary session in Strasbourg, calls for an "immediate and permanent ceasefire" in the Gaza strip.

It also calls on Hamas "to end rocket attacks and to assume its own responsibilities by committing itself to a political process aimed at restoring inter-Palestinian dialogue and contributing to the ongoing process of negotiation."

"By avoiding a one-sided position, the European Parliament resolution enables the EU to remain a key interlocutor in the political dialogue that the EJC hopes will resume between Israel and Hamas," the European Jewish Congress said in statement.

Based in Paris, the EJC is a political umbrella organization that represents 42 European Jewish communities.

The EJC said it has been actively lobbying in Strasbourg for a parliamentary resolution that takes into account Hamas’ provocations and rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

The EJC also urged the European institutions, in particular the EU Parliament, to pass a separate resolution that openly condemns the recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks that have been taking place throughout Europe.

"European authorities have a responsibility to speak out against the alarming recrudescence of anti-Semitism and condemn all anti-Semitic acts of violence and vandalism," the Jewish group said. "

Source: EJP

EU, Israel call 'time out' in upgrade talks
ECI stands by Czech EU presidency in supporting Israel’s right to self defense

Pallywood Alert: Bruno Stevens on the Gaza Beat

Source: Augean Stables

"Rudi Roth writes from Belgium that Bruno Stevens is in Gaza. In a comment to an article in HLN.BE on anti-semitic graffiti on a French synagogue, Anti Volkenmoordenaars, Tervuren writes:

"Bruno Stevens, is fully occupied in Gaza. He’s the only journalist who can get in despite the fact that the Jews [sic] tried to hide the truth by blocking the journalists. [Note, no comment about why the Egyptians have blocked them.] His first messages and photos can be seen in HNB. Soon also in NW, PM, and Stern!!"

Rudi writes:

"That is the same guy who took the photo of the never shot F16 above Lebanon …

and "knows" everything about Al Dura, just everything.

We can expect a lot of pallywood with that guy ...

I am ashamed that such a man has my nationality."

I’ve discussed Bruno’s work and his analysis in the Lebanon War, also available in French.

Keep an eye for his photos."

Europe Reimports Jew Hatred, by Daniel Schwammenthal

The mythical Arab Street now reaches deep into Paris, London, Berlin and Madrid.

"Give Giancarlo Desiderati credit for his unintellectual honesty. While most left-wing detractors of Israel claim their animosity toward the Jewish state has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, the head of a small Italian union, Flaica-Uniti-Cub, wasted no time with such sophism. Having long called for a boycott of Israeli goods, Mr. Desiderati last week made the logical next step. "Do not buy anything from businesses run by the Jewish community," his group's Web site urged Italians.

Jews around Europe are increasingly under attack since Israel decided two weeks ago to defend itself after years of rocket fire at its civilian population. There have been arson attempts on synagogues in Britain, Belgium and Germany. Police last week arrested Muslim protesters who wanted to enter the Jewish quarter in Antwerp. Several Danish schools with large Muslim student bodies say they won't enroll Jewish kids because they can't guarantee the children's safety. In France, a group of teenagers attacked a 14-year-old girl last week, calling her "dirty Jew" while kicking her.

At rallies in Germany and the Netherlands over the past two weeks, protesters shouted, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas." In Amsterdam, Socialist lawmaker Harry van Bommel and Greta Duisenberg, widow of the first European Central Bank president, marched at the front of one such "peace" demonstration. They didn't join in the background chorus calling for another Holocaust. Instead, they chanted, "Intifada, Intifada, Free Palestine." Mr. Van Bommel later insisted this wasn't a call for Jewish blood but for "civil disobedience" -- a laughable defense given that terrorists during the last intifada murdered more than 1,000 Israelis.

Most of the anti-Jewish violence and protests in Europe come from immigrants. In what may have been a Freudian recognition of the changing face of Europe, CNN two weeks ago used footage of anti-Israeli protesters in London in a report about the growing anger in the "Arab and Muslim world." The mythical Arab Street now reaches deep into Paris, London, Berlin and Madrid.

After a burning car was rammed into a gate outside a synagogue in Toulouse last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement that was as morally confused as his judgment of Israel's Gaza offensive. Mr. Sarkozy, who condemned both Hamas terror and Israel's attempt to stop it, also blurred the distinction between the victims and perpetrators of anti-Semitism in France.

His country "will not tolerate international tensions mutating into intercommunity violence," he warned, suggesting that the violence in France comes not only from French Muslims but Jews as well. Mr. Sarkozy's comments also suggest that the fighting in Gaza is the cause for attacks on Jews in France -- that is, that the Mideast conflict is fueling anti-Semitism in Europe. It is exactly the other way around.

The rage against the Jews that is exploding in Europe has been carefully nurtured; it is not spontaneous sympathy for fellow Muslims in Gaza. How else to explain the silence when Muslims in other conflicts, from Darfur to Chechnya, are being killed?

The depth of anti-Semitic propaganda in Palestinian and other Muslim societies is one of the most underreported facts about the Middle East. It is this anti-Semitism that predisposes Muslims in Europe to attack Jews and fuels the Mideast conflict. The hatred predates Israel's creation. To illustrate this point: The Palestinian leader during World War II, Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, conspired with Hitler to bring the Holocaust to Palestine. Luckily, the British stopped the German troops in Africa. The Mufti spent the war years in Berlin and was later indicted for war crimes but with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood escaped to Egypt. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas and other Islamists continue what the Mufti had helped to start: a blend of European anti-Semitism and Islam-inspired Jew hatred. The rejection of Israel's right to exist is what drives their attacks. The media, though, largely ignores Hamas's ideology and its crimes of hiding its leaders and weapons among its own civilian population, and demonizes Israel's attempt to protect its citizens.

Hamas and other Islamists are not even trying to hide their ideology. Just read the Hamas charter or check out Hamas TV, including children's programs, for a nauseating dose of murderous anti-Semitism. Last week, the French broadcasting authorities banned Hamas TV for inciting violence and hatred. Unfortunately, just like Hezbollah TV, which is also banned in Europe for its anti-Semitic and jihadi content, audiences here can still receive these programs due to Saudi Arabia's Arabsat and Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat.

The Islamist variation of Jew hatred is now being reimported to Europe. Muslims in Europe, watching Hamas and Hezbollah TV with their satellite dishes, are being fed the same diet of anti-Semitism and jihadi ideology that Palestinians and much of the Middle East consume.

This brings a unique challenge to the difficult integration of Muslims in Europe. When it comes to issues like Shariah law and terrorism, one can expect a true "clash of civilizations." There is no Western tradition that would justify "honor killings." Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is not alien to Europe's culture -- to the contrary, the Continent once excelled at it and many still share the feeling.

A Pew study from September shows 25% of Germans and 20% of French are still affected by this virus. In Spain, 46% have unfavorable views of Jews. Is there really no connection between this statistic and the fact that the Spanish media and government are among Europe's most hostile toward the Jewish state? Is it just a coincidence that Europe's largest anti-Israel demonstration took place Sunday in Spain, with more than 100,000 protesters?

A 2006 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution based on the survey in 10 European countries suggests otherwise. Yale University's Edward H. Kaplan and Charles A. Small found "that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-Semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-Semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed."

With little hope that the media coverage will become more balanced and the incitement of the growing Muslim community will abate, the Jews in Europe are facing uncertain times."

.

Source: EJP

Photo: "Israel my favorite terrorists", anti-Israel demonstration in Brussels, 31/12/2008

Daniel Schwammenthal edits the State of the Union column in the Wall Street Journal. This article appeared first in the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Europe: exploitation of children in anti-Israeli demonstrations

ESISC has issued a press release expressing concern about the way children had been exploitated during an anti-Israeli demonstration held in Brussels on 11 January, which gathered over 30,000 protesters :

"[The demonstration] gave rise to the most shocking exploitation of children:

- From the start of the demonstration, dozens of children were grouped at the head of the march, surrounded by adults and forced to repeat slogans that it was obvious some of them did not understand.

- Certain children carried banners or placards containing explicit calls to hatred, while others waved flags of terrorist organizations such as the Hezbollah.

- A group of children was allowed by the supervisors to set fire to an Israeli flag and then to trample on it to the cries of "Allahu Akhbar".

- At the end of the demonstration, the children were made to lie on the ground to perform a macabre "die in" meant to symbolize the children victims of Gaza.

The ESISC questions the compatibility of this manipulation of children with articles 19 and 29 (paragraphs B and C) of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and more generally, with the values of a democracy such as Belgium."

(Translated by P.)
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Oslo: 'Children used as shields'

"A group of children with t-shirts and hands painted to look bloody went first in the demonstration procession from the Parliament to Israel's embassy yesterday. This was, among other things, to help prevent the demonstration from becoming violent, according to the organizers.

When the demonstrators got to the embassy the children were first in line and called out slogans, while the other were held back by the organizer's own guards.

It quickly turned out that the children unfortunately didn't contribute to the demonstration from being peaceful. A firecracker was thrown at the police which exploded right by the small children, who were very frightened and had to be led away." (more here)

Source: Islam in Europe

France halts Hamas broadcasts to Europe

"Al-Aqsa TV is notorious for its incitement to antisemitism, demonstrated in a speech last week by senior Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Zahrar, who claimed that the Israeli operation in Gaza justifies Muslims murdering Jewish children worldwide," the Simon Wiesenthal Centre complained in a letter to French regulators.

"Hamas's television channel was taken off the air in Europe less than 24 hours after it was added to a satellite network, industry officials said Friday.

Hamas announced on Monday that Europeans would be able to see its Al-Aqsa service -- best known in the Middle East for its virulent anti-Israeli content -- via the French firm Eutelsat's satellites.

Al-Aqsa is Hamas' official mouthpiece, and became notorious outside the Palestinian territories for a show in which a man-sized pink rabbit named Assud urged children to embrace martyrdom and threatened to eat Jews.

Alerted by industry sources, the ‘Higher Audiovisual Council’ (CSA), the French broadcasting regulator, this week wrote to Eutelsat and warned that much of Hamas' programming contravenes laws against inciting hatred and violence, the government body said.

A Eutelsat official said the company had never had a contract with Hamas but that it had rented space on one of its satellites to Noorsat, a Bahrein-based provider, which had in turn begun showing Al-Aqsa.

Noorsat was warned to respect French law, and the broadcast has halted.

“Al-Aqsa TV is notorious for its incitement to antisemitism, demonstrated in a speech last week by senior Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Zahrar, who claimed that the Israeli operation in Gaza justifies Muslims murdering Jewish children worldwide,” the Simon Wiesenthal Centre complained in a letter to French regulators.

The group worried that Arabic-speaking Europeans could "be exposed to Jihadist calls for attacks on their Jewish neighbours and to revulsion for European values of secularism, multiculturalism and tolerance."

In May 2005, France's highest judicial body the Council of State ordered Eutelsat to halt re-broadcasting of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia's Al-Manar station because of the anti-Semitic content of its programming.

The Wiesenthal Centre expressed the hope that Muslim leaders across Europe will join this appeal to protect their youth from the Hamas' Al-Aqsa channel of hate."

Source: EJP
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The website of the viciously anti-Semitic European Arab League (AEL) - based in Belgium - has finally been suspended (for how long?). The AEL a front organisation for the Hezbollah in Europe.