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 هكذا يفكر دعاة السلام في اسراييل، لنعرف كيف يفكر الناس
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Gideon Levy / Let's hope Obama won't be a 'friend of Israel'
By Gideon Levy
Tags: occupation, Israel News
The march of parochialism started right away. The tears of excitement invoked by U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's wonderful speech had not yet dried, and back here people were already delving into the only real question they could think to ask: Is this good or bad for Israel? One after another, the analysts and politicians got up - all of them representing one single school of thought, of course and began prophesizing.
They spoke with the caution that the situation required, gritting their teeth as though their mouths were full of pebbles, trying to soothe all the fears and concerns. They searched and found signs in Obama: The promising appointment of the Israeli ex-patriots' son, whose father belonged to the Irgun, and maybe also Dennis Ross and Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk, who may, God willing, be included in the new administration.
But in the background, a dark cloud hovered above. Careful, danger. The black man, who had associated with Palestinian expats, who speaks of human rights, who favors diplomacy over war, who even wants to engage Iran in dialogue, who will allocate more funding for America's social needs than to weapons exports. He may not be the sort of "friend of Israel" that we have come to love in Washington, the kind of friend we have grown accustomed to.
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What's the panic all about? The truth needs to be said: At the base of all of these fears is the angst that this president will push Israel to end the occupation and move toward peace.
Well, maybe Obama will not be a "friend of Israel." May the great change he is promising not omit his country's Mideast policy. May Obama herald not only a new America, but also a new Middle East.
When we say that someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean a friend of the occupation, a believer in Israel's self-armament, a fan of its language of strength and a supporter of all its regional delusions. When we say someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean someone who will give Israel a carte blanche for any violent adventure it desires, for rejecting peace and for building in the territories.
Israel's greatest friend in the White House, outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, was someone like that. There is no other country where this man, who brought a string of disasters down upon his own nation and the world, would receive any degree of prestige and respect. Only in Israel.
Only in Israel does the prime minister place George Bush's portrait in his den, in his private home. Only in Israel does the prime minister travel to visit him in the White House.
That's because Bush was a friend of Israel. Israel's greatest friend. Bush let it embark on an unnecessary war in Lebanon. He did not prevent the construction of a single outpost. He may have encouraged Israel, in secret, to bomb Iran. He did not pressure Israel to move ahead with peace talks, he even held up negotiations with Syria, and he did not reproach Israel for its policy of targeted killings.
Bush also supported the siege on Gaza and participated in the boycott of Hamas, which was elected in a democratic election initiated by his own administration.
That's just how we like U.S. presidents. They give us a green light to do as we please. They fund, equip and arm us, and sit tight. Such is the classic friend of Israel, a friend who is an enemy, and enemy of peace and an enemy to Israel.
Let us now hope that Obama will not be like them. That he will reveal himself to be a true friend of Israel. That he will put his whole weight behind a deep American involvement in the Middle East, that he will try to solve the Iranian issue through negotiation - the only effective means. That he will help end the siege on Gaza and the boycott of Hamas, that he will push Israel and Syria to make peace, that he will spur Israel and the Palestinians to reach a settlement.
We should hope Obama will help Israel help itself, because that is how friendship is measured. That he will criticize its policy when he must, because that, too, is a test of true friendship.
Let him use his clout to end the occupation and dismantle the settlement project. Let him remember that human and civil rights also apply to the Palestinians, not only to black Americans. And apropos world peace, he needs to start with peace in the Middle East, home to the most dangerous of conflicts, which has been threatening the world for a century now, and is feeding international terrorism.
A true friend of Israel needs to remember that Israel may be "the only democracy in the Middle East," but not in its own backyard. That next to Sderot, which he visited, is Gaza. That "common values" must not include a cruel occupation. That friendship does not mean blind and automatic support.
Let him speak with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, as often as he can and with whomever is willing to talk. And let him do it before the next war, not after it. Let him remember that he has the power to do all that.
Changing the Middle East was in the power of each and every U.S. president, who could have pressured Israel and put an end to the occupation. Most of them kept their hands off as if it were a hot potato, all in the name of a wonderful friendship.
So bring us an American president who is not another dreadful "friend of Israel," an Obama who won't blindly follow the positions of the Jewish lobby and the Israeli government. You did promise change, did you not?
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Fro the Israeli Haartz
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Re: هكذا يفكر دعاة السلام في اسراييل، لنعرف كيف يفكر الناس (Re: Badreldin Ahmed Musa)
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علي عكس اعتقاد كثير من الناس، بأن مناصرة الفلسطينين مساو للعداء لليهود. الدعوة لحمايتهم و ضمان حقهم في وطن ودولة، يصب في مصلحة السلام و الاستقرار علي مستوي العالم.
هل نملك الجرأة لصياغة مطالب تساعد دعاة السلام في كل العالم للصغط علي ادارة اوباما لاتخاذ الموقف السليم تجاه الفلسطينين؟
ذلك بالتاكييد يدعم جهود السلام في السودان!!!!!!
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Re: هكذا يفكر دعاة السلام في اسراييل، لنعرف كيف يفكر الناس (Re: Badreldin Ahmed Musa)
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Amira Hass / Powerless in Gaza, residents rely on the tunnels
By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
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On Wednesday, Israel closed all crossings into Gaza and stopped the fuel supply, including industrial fuel. The Gaza power station can supply 80 megawatts a day, but needs 3.15 million liters of industrial fuel a week to do so. Starting January 17, however, Israel began reducing the supply, and the power station only gets 2.5 million liters a week.
On Sunday morning, the power station shut down one unit out of three. On Sunday night, on the assumption that the power supply would not be renewed by midnight, the station was planning on shutting down the second unit, and the third this morning. If the crossings are not opened, and Israel does not renew the fuel supply, Gaza will feel it immediately.
People here do not depend on miracles. The Tel el Hawa grocery store ran out of candles shortly after people realized their refrigerator had stopped running. Even the big supermarket in the exclusive Rimal neighborhood had no candles by the end of the morning. In the afternoon, a package of Egyptian candles came through the tunnels. A shekel a candle, but an hour and a half later, by sunset, the price had quadrupled.
A more creative solution: Use a car battery with USB cables - that gives enough electricity for a few lights in the important places in the house.
The mild weather means the demand for electricity is relatively low: 220 megawatt a day, not 240. Last week, a few days of rain and cold drove up the demand, with the outages starting right away. Even on "normal days" when the crossings are open, the power supply is only 202 megawatt per day - 65 from Gaza, 120 purchased from Israel and 17 from Egypt. Some of the latter quantity, which comes through Rafah, operates the generators in the tunnels, for digging, light and moving merchandise, coming at the expense of electricity to homes.
The gap between supply and demand means that neighborhoods must wait their turn for electricity, with breaks of a few hours in between.
This is another opportunity to bless the existence of the tunnels. Egyptian diesel fuel costs NIS 2.50 a liter, while Israeli diesel costs NIS 4. Those who have generators at home can find diesel at the gas stations (which now have one Israeli pump and one Egyptian pump).
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035732.html
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Re: هكذا يفكر دعاة السلام في اسراييل، لنعرف كيف يفكر الناس (Re: Badreldin Ahmed Musa)
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Obama, and the first Arab prime minister of Israel
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Obama, Israel News, Burston
I have been trying in the last few days to make clear to Israelis the enormity of the meaning of the presidential election in the United States.
Only one thing works.
"Imagine," I tell them, "that Israel elected an Arab prime minister."
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At first there is, without exception, a stunned silence. Then something dawns. Something unformed. And, in general - even with leftists - something deep inside that seems unable to wrap the head around the thought.
I mention, half in explanation, half in something approaching an effort to soothe agitated souls, that it took the United States 232 years before an African-American could be nominated and elected president.
I should have known this would happen. For weeks prior to election day, countless Israelis, many of them enthusiastic admirers of Barack Obama, told me with conviction that they believed that in the privacy of the polling booth, when Americans saw the actual names on the actual ballots, the voters' hands would gravitate, Ouija-like, away from Obama-Biden and over to McCain-Palin.
"He's great, but they're not going to vote for him," I heard, over and over.
At the time, I chalked it up to a certain historical tunnel-vision vis-a-vis Americans.
From this remove, though, I have begun to realize that the Israelis were saying something of significance about themselves.
A case in point: The day after Israelis learned of the Obama victory, Israel Radio aired a discussion of "the other" in Israeli politics, and why so many groups have remained so long and so completely out of the running for Israel's somewhat shopworn equivalent of the Oval Office.
Panelists, noting that Israel had been led, by and large, by a succession of male politicians of European descent, took turns listing the many kinds of "others" whom major parties had slighted or ruled out in putting forth candidates for the nation's top job.
Although, or perhaps because, Israel has had one woman prime minister and may soon have another, the litany began with women. It then moved on to Mizrachim, Jews who trace their ancestry to the Mediterranean region or the Middle East.
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union were mentioned next, then immigrants from Ethiopia. Settlers then appeared on the list, followed by the ultra-Orthodox, some of whom have yet to recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel.
Astonishingly, only after foreign workers were cited, did it occur to one of the panelists to add to the list, the nation's 1.45 million Arab citizens, more than 20 percent of the total population.
So completely has Israel's majority convinced itself that the Arab population is out of the running for the premiership - either because Israeli Jews see them as an embittered fifth column, or as a group battered into docility - that at this point, politically, they do not, they cannot, see Arabs at all.
When the time comes, and an Arab becomes prime minister of Israel, I want to be a part of the victory celebration. The racists and the far-rightists among us will please pardon me, but something tells me that on that election day, just like the one last week, I won't be able to stop smiling.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035692.html
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Re: هكذا يفكر دعاة السلام في اسراييل، لنعرف كيف يفكر الناس (Re: Badreldin Ahmed Musa)
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فوز المرشح العلماني في انتخابات بلدية القدس
فاز العلماني نير بركات في انتخابات بلدية القدس على منافسه المتدين المتشدد الحاخام مير بوروش.
وفي خطاب القاه ليل الثلاثاء - الاربعاء بعد فرز ما يكفي من الاصوات لاعلان فوزه دعا بركات منافسيه للعمل معه قائلا ان "القدس تتسع للجميع وعلى الجميع ان يجدوا مكانهم"، متعهدا ان يكون "عمدة لجميع سكان المدينة".
وافادت صحيفة جيروسالم بوست ان فرز 380 من اصل 707 مراكز اقتراع اعطت بركات فوزا بنسبة 53 بالمئة على بوروش.
وعن نسبة المشاركة قالت الصحيفة انها كانت 41 بالمئة بينما لم تتخطى 38 بالمئة خلال الانتخابات الماضية التي جرت منذ 5 اعوام.
يذكر ان الحملات الانتخابية بين العلمانيين والمتدينين الاسرائيليين كانت قد احدثت جوا من التشنج في المدينة.
وبفوز بركات تنتهي حقبة خمسة اعوام ترأس خلالها بلدية القدس اوري لوبوليانسكي المتدين المتشدد.
ويقول مراسل بي بي سي في القدس تيم فرانكس ان المرشحين ينتميان في المحصلة النهائية الى اليمين الاسرائيلي وقد وعدا بتكثيف حركة البناء في القدس الشرقية.
يذكر ان غالبية العرب الاسرائيليين والفلسطينيين الذين يشكلون ثلث سكان القدس لم يصوتوا في الانتخابات التي اجريت في المدينة التي تشكل احد اكبر المواضيع الخلافية في المفاوضات الاسرائيلية الفلسطينية، والتي احتلتها اسرائيل خلال حرب 1967.
ويعتبر الاسرائيليون القدس عاصمة لاسرائيل فيما يطمح الفلسطينيون الى جعلها عاصمة للدولة الفلسطينية بعد اعلانها.
ويقول المراسلون ان مهام رئيس البلدية المنتخب، وبالاضافة الى مواجهة التشنج السياسي في المدينة المتنازع عليها، سيكون عليه التعامل مع مستلزمات الحياة اليومية للسكان من تحسين اوضاع الطرقات والنظافة ومحاولة جذب الاستثمارات الى القدس.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/middle_east_news/newsid_7723000/7723700.stm
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Badreldin Ahmed Musa
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست