Showing posts with label Israeli-occupied territories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israeli-occupied territories. Show all posts

Jan 3, 2018

Donald Trump Rides with Bike Palestine

This is my wishOur President could Enjoy the beauty and the hospitality of the palestinian people
the jordan river the food the resorts   this is something we dont often see on the news
jewish voices for peace and j street offer reasonable ideas
from newsweek and yahoo

World

Israel Has 'Declared War' on Palestinians With New Law on Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas Said

 Chantal Da Silva,Newsweek 17 hours ago 
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of “declaring war” on Palestinian people after its parliament approved a law that would make it harder to divide Jerusalem.
The amendment, which passed on Tuesday, requires a supermajority in order to cede control over any part of the Middle Eastern city. It means Israel’s government would need the approval of at least 80 of the legislature’s 120 members in order to give up any power.
Sixty-four Knesset members voted in favor of the bill, backed by Israel’s ruling right-wing coalition, while 52 voted against, according to Israel's newspaper Haaretz.
The law would further complicate the possible division of the city in any future peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. The amendment on the division of Jerusalem can be overturned with a simple majority vote, which makes the new law largely symbolic. However, Abbas said the new legislation is “tantamount to declaring war on the Palestinian people.”
Palestinian protestersA Palestinian demonstrator throws stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on December 29, 2017 Getty
“This vote clearly indicates that the Israeli side has officially declared the end of the so-called political process and has already begun to impose dictatorial and de facto policies,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
Hamas Spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum lambasted Knesset's decision to approve the law, adding that "[it is] a continuation of a series of assaults on the holy city, a targeting of the Palestinian presence and a falsification of history," according to The Jerusalem Post. The Palestine Liberation Organization announced that it will reconvene one of its top entities, the PLO Central Council, on January 14 to address the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and other matters, the publication cited. 
President Donald Trump stoked tensions last month after acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, parting with decades of U.S. policy maintaining that the city’s status should be defined in peace negotiations. The move prompted widespread outrage, with protests breaking out around the world, including in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a non-binding resolution, however, the United Nations General Assembly deemed Trump's declaration "null and void." In December, Trump threatened to ax financial aid to countries that voted in favor of the measure, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley announced a $285 million cut for the organization's biennial budget during the 2018-2019 fiscal year. 
Israel has claimed all of Jerusalem as its capital, while Palestinians want control of east Jerusalem, a part of the city that was captured in the 1967 war.
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May 4, 2017

Palestinians Want Tourists 

to Spend Time on the 

West Bank

A bid to boost commerce, but Israeli occupation 
makes it tough.
by 
Jonathan Ferziger
 and 
Fadwa Hodali
From    Reprints
The Walled Off Hotel.
 Photographer: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images
And now a message from the Palestinian Authority: Walk in the footsteps of Jesus, enjoy some savory hummus and stuffed grape leaves, and please, please, please spend the night. If you squint, you might not see the watchtowers, barbed wire, and rifle-toting Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinian government is making a push to attract tourists to Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron, and other historic religious sites—going so far as to call Jesus “the first Palestinian.” While tourism to Israel has steadily increased in recent years, Palestinian-controlled lands—which include many of the major Biblical sites—have seen scant benefit as Israel maintains a tight military grip over the West Bank.
Sure, there’s an annual rush to Bethlehem at Christmas. But even then, most visitors come on day trips to check out Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity, spending little time—or cash. Archaeological jewels such as the Khirbet Bal’ama water tunnel near Jenin and the Sebastia Roman colonnade outside Nablus get scarce traffic. And the new, white-marble Yasser Arafat museum in Ramallah? On a recent weekday afternoon, it had just three visitors. Although political tensions make it tough to attract tourists, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, envisions sunbathing and spas on the Dead Sea, bike trails through the Jordan Valley, and Christians flocking to Bethlehem year-round. “If we had an independent state, it would be magnificent,” he says.
Tourism in the Palestinian territories rebounded slightly in 2016, to 2.4 million foreign visitors, up from 2.2 million the previous year, but below the 2.5 million in 2014, government data show. Few, though, remain for the night. Palestinian hotels registered 906,000 stays by foreign visitors in 2016, down from 1.1 million in 2014. In Israel, by contrast, foreigners logged 8.5 million nights in hotels last year. While government figures show Israel got more than $6 billion from tourism in 2016, the Palestinian lands registered less than $1.1 billion in 2014, the most recent data available.
Just as problematic for the Palestinians, the vast majority of visitors arrive via Israel, so Israeli tour operators and hotels get first crack at serving them. Responding to frustrated hoteliers, the PLO issued a report last year on the “annexation of tourism,” charging that Israelis had rebranded some of the most popular West Bank sites as being in the “Holy Land” to obscure their Palestinian identity. Yossi Fatael, head of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, barely disputes the complaint. “All tourists go through our system,” he says. Palestinian areas “are an extension of our product.”
The Palestinians’ ambitions, though, run smack into an infrastructure nightmare. While Jerusalem and surrounding Israeli-controlled towns have European-quality roads, restaurants, and hotels, beyond the walls and fences in the West Bank the potholes grow, and the accommodations suffer. Bethlehem’s Jacir Palace, the only five-star hotel in the area, boasts a grand lobby in the century-old residence of a former mayor, but the paint is peeling, the carpets are worn, and the heat doesn’t always work. While Jerusalem’s Old City is a dense web of narrow lanes dating back millennia, with historic sites such as the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where Jesus is said to have risen), Bethlehem has little to offer strolling tourists. Manger Square is a barren expanse surrounded by souvenir shops selling cheap olive wood renderings of the Madonna and Child, pearl-inlaid boxes, and T-shirts saying, “I Love Palestine.” Beyond the square, the small old town can be explored in an hour or two, and it pretty much shuts down at sunset. “An odd sense of oppression” pervades the city, says Mary Starkey, a 62-year-old retiree visiting from Britain, after passing through an Israeli checkpoint.
Starkey’s view may have been colored by her lodging: the Walled Off Hotel, which advertises “floor-to-ceiling views of graffiti-strewn concrete.” Recently opened by the London street artist Banksy, the three-story guesthouse stands across a narrow alleyway from a 26-foot-high wall that divides much of the West Bank from areas settled by Jews. “We hope to raise international awareness of how ugly this wall is and in that way contribute to peace,” says hotel manager Wissam Salsaa.
Israel has done a better job of nurturing tourism in a conflict zone. Tel Aviv has cultivated a young, hip vibe with cafe-lined boulevards and surfing on its beaches. There are a growing number of ecotourism ventures in the southern desert and wine trails in the Galilee. And visitors flocking to Jerusalem don’t seem put off by security measures such as armed guards restricting entrance to the Dome of the Rock or off-duty Israeli soldiers roaming the streets with machine guns. “I had mixed feelings when I passed through the checkpoints,” says Leonardo Governatori, a 40-year-old engineer from Italy visiting Bethlehem. “But it’s an experience to see how people live here.”
The bottom line: While tourism to Israel has surged recently, the West Bank hasn’t benefited much. The Palestinian Authority aims to change that.


copied from Bloomberg.com

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May 3, 2017

Shelly Altman from Jewish Voices for Peace Talks Human Rights Abuses in Palestine


Letter to the Editor: ‘When the human rights abuses end, BDS will end’

POSTED:  | 
0 COMMENTS
Having just this month bicycled the length of the West Bank in Palestine from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south, I feel no need to play “they say, I say” with the arguments put forth by the writers from the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council. Rather, I choose to honor the hundreds of enterprising, decent, welcoming folks I met and spoke with as we pedaled over sharp hills from town to town. They spoke of entire lives spent under military occupation and terror by Israel. Of homes and lives destroyed. Of people burned to death in their own home. I met the owner of a brewery struggling to conduct a viable business, but sabotaged by Israeli diversion of water from her town to illegal settlements; of product going bad while waiting to go to port through a commercial checkpoint closed for long periods and unjustifiable reasons. How can you brew beer without water? In spite of it all, they dance debka, they play the oud, they write poetry, they welcome strangers, Jewish strangers, into their homes.

The “conflict” is not a conflict, and it is not complex. 

It is a massive violent presence by a military significantly funded by our own American tax dollars, and a ceaseless and courageous resistance to that presence by a civilian population. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement arose 12 years ago from this resistance and will continue until the abuses end. When the human rights abuses end, BDS will end. Omar Barghouti made this very clear in his talk at Yale recently. He can’t wait for it to end. He looks forward to fulfilling the other passions in his life: philosophy and choreography. We honor Omar for his dedication to the struggle for human rights, and look forward to dancing with him when, not if, that struggle succeeds.
Chairman of Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven



copied from the New Haven Register--

here is a link to the page:

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Apr 29, 2017

Israelis And Palestinians Set Aside Their Differences To Save Animals In Need: The anguspost.com on @theronniere

Love this story….on a recent trip to Palestine as we were biking through the beautiful countryside and enjoying the food and the hospitality of the people I could not help but notice the countless dogs and cats that just seemed to be wandering around on their own. As I asked our tour guide about the welfare of the animals I immediately realized the ridiculous nature of my question as he indicated the folks in Palestine are having enough trouble just surviving with the water shortage and all of the rules and regulations imposed by the Israeli government. This lady is doing a good job in a difficult situation–she has a good heart–best wishes and prayers for her facility, not to mention it shines a light on the situation and the suffering, in general.

 Shining a light on the suffering in Palestine--dogs and people, too--what about the children.

from the anguspost.com:

Israelis And Palestinians

Set Aside Their Differences To 

Save 

Animals In Need

by 

"This is not about politics this is not religious, this is pure human ethics.”



The war between the Israelis and Palestinians is timeless, and one known all too well by most of the general population. The thought of the two groups working together seems decades away from now. However, a recent situation involving shelter animals has struck the hearts of thousands of readers. The safety and well-being of stray dogs has convinced this community to finally work together.
Just east of Bethlehem, in a town called Beit Sahur, the only Palestinian-run animal shelter in the West Bank was in danger of shutting down last week. A crowd-funding campaign was created through Headstart, in which they were asking for NIS 50,000 in order to keep the shelter running. As of Sunday, August 28th, more than NIS 74,000 had been raised. The most incredible part of all of this is that over 400 of the backers were Israeli.

Thanks to hundreds of Israeli donations, it appears [the shelter] will continue its mission of protecting dogs and cats.
The campaign was started and is hosted by Preserving the Rights of Animals (PTROA), an Israeli organization, which will collect funds, and distribute the money to the Beit Sahur shelter. There are currently 60 dogs within their care.
There are currently 60 dogs at the small Palestinian-run shelter.

The shelter in Beit Sahur is run by a 38-year-old woman named Diana Babish. Before opening the shelter, Diana Babish was the regional branch manager of the Jordan Commercial Bank. She also has a Masters Degree in international cooperation and development from Bethlehem University.
Babish opened the shelter one year ago, in hopes of aiding the homeless animal population of Bethlehem, as the numbers have risen drastically throughout the years of war.
In an interview with Jerusalem Post, Babish described the reason why she believed an animal shelter was necessary for Bethlehem and surrounding areas.

The idea for a shelter came when I saw how dogs are being treated. Dogs are not a priority animal here and municipalities poison them.
Babish searched for a plot of land to build an animal shelter, but was turned down at every opportunity. Eventually, she was able to convince the Beit Sahur Municipality to provide a small piece of land, where she began construction of the animal shelter.
She paid for the construction out of her own pocket.
Preserving the Rights of Animals helped raise enough money to keep the shelter open.

President of Preserving the Rights of Animals, Yoram Erez, stated that Babish “didn’t know what kind of trouble she was getting into,” as the epidemic of homeless animals began to overflow her small shelter.
Within months, she was over $3,000 in debt to contractors, and forced to pay daily for the upkeep of the facility.
Though Diana Babish has been able to cut costs by feeding dogs chicken and rice from wedding services, she is still overburdened with expensive medical bills.
Babish often takes in dogs who are injured or sick, and many are in need of greater care than she can give them. Dogs in need of medical treatment are sent to Israeli veterinarians, where the medical bills add up quickly. One dog’s medical bill was over NIS 45,000. Thankfully, PTROA helped cover the cost.
After aiding Babish with her veterinarian care, they aimed to assist her further by creating the crowd-funding campaign. Yoram Erez believes that Babish is headed in the right direction.

The situation is not good for many dogs and cats in the Palestinian Authority, but I think Diana is the point that we need to start from to make a change.
Yoram Erez and PTROA hope that they will be able to raise enough money to open a larger, more modern animal shelter in place of the one Babish has created. They hope to have an open door policy, where both Israelis and Palestinians will have equal access.
For now, they are working in the field to help homeless animals, while raising money to keep Babish’s shelter afloat.

Animals, whether they are in Palestine or in Israel, have to be helped. This is not about politics, this is not religious, this is pure human ethics. I thank all the people for their love and support.


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