The Tenth Zionist Tv channel just said that a 3-floor-building in Ashkelon city has collapsed. I'm not sure if that is right or not.
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict (45 Viewers)
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Out of Palestine
Solidarity with a displaced people
Elizabeth G. Burr | America Magazine | FEBRUARY 27, 2012
Recently I asked Dominique Najjar, a Palestinian Christian who lives with his wife and children in Minneapolis, why so many Palestinians are leaving Palestine. He told me the story of how he and two of his three brothers, all aspiring professionals, immigrated to the United States from East Jerusalem out of “economic necessity,” starting in the early 1970s. “My parents needed support,” he said, explaining that economic advancement was impossible under Israeli control. This took place within the first decade of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, which began after the 1967 war and is illegal under international law.
But there is more to Mr. Najjar’s story. He and one of his brothers did not intend to emigrate permanently from their homeland. After they had moved to the United States, however, Israel revoked their Jerusalem residency status. Now they are given 90-day tourist visas when they return to their hometown, where their 89-year-old mother lives alone. Since none of her seven adult children enjoys residency status in Jerusalem any longer, none can do more than visit her. She receives daily “compassion and attention” from her Muslim neighbors next door. Najjar remarked that the revocation of his residency status is “all part of the Israeli effort to minimize the number of non-Jews in Jerusalem.”
It is difficult for citizens of other countries to appreciate what the occupation means for Palestinians who are not citizens of the country that rules them (unlike Israeli Palestinians who live in the recognized State of Israel). A reading of the 30 articles of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reveals that very few of these rights are applied to occupied Palestinians. Directly relevant to Mr. Najjar’s story, for example, Article 13 (2) states, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” People of conscience are faced with the oppression of an indigenous population in their own homeland, and Christians worldwide must confront the truth that Palestinian Christians are walking down a long Via Dolorosa from which, without international intervention, the only exit is exile.
Indigenous Christians have lived in Palestine since the origins of Christianity about 2,000 years ago. Over the centuries other Christians immigrated to Palestine. Palestinian Christians comprised at least 15 percent of the Palestinian population in the late 19th century, under Ottoman Muslim rule, and about 7.5 percent by 1944, in the final years of the British Mandate. During the 1948 war, which resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel in much of historic Palestine, more than a third of Palestinian Christians were among the 750,000 to 800,000 refugees forced to flee their homes in Palestine. The Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has described Israel’s “war of independence,” which Palestinians call the nakba (catastrophe), as “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine” in his book by that title published in 2006.
The Lydda Death March
Audeh Rantisi, a Palestinian Christian, has written in The Link, a journal published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, about his family’s expulsion from Lydda, near Tel Aviv, in July 1948, along with that of thousands of other residents. An 11-year-old at the time, Rantisi witnessed: an infant being crushed to death by a cart after his mother lost hold of him, an Israeli soldier shooting to death a newly married young man who would not hand over his money, people dying of thirst and many more horrors. He reports that “scores of women miscarried, their babies left for jackals to eat.” On the fourth day of the “Lydda death march,” his 13-member family reached Ramallah, in the West Bank, “carrying nothing but the clothes we wore.” His father also took with him the key to their house. Generations of the Rantisi family had lived in Lydda for some 1,600 years.
Mr. Pappé is not alone among scholars who have identified a Zionist ideology of exclusion as the engine driving the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 or who have interpreted Israeli policy since then as a continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing. By 2011 the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip had reached its 44th year. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the occupation has brought the construction of scores of “settlements” in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which currently house at least half a million Israeli settlers. Five years ago Israel had already expropriated 87 percent of East Jerusalem and 75 percent of the West Bank for settlements, parks and military areas. Thus less and less Palestinian land is available for Palestinian housing, agriculture or other uses. Human rights abuses of Palestinians abound under the occupation, which appears designed to make their lives so unbearable that they will “voluntarily” leave.
The emigration of Palestinian Christians from the occupied territories to the West since 1967 has also reduced their number to the point where Christians currently account for less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population under occupation. And the rate of population growth for Palestinian Christians in the West Bank amounts to just half of their emigration rate. Without a stabilization or reversal of the net decline, the extinction of Palestinian Christians in the territories is conceivable. Even in 2006 only about 50,000 Palestinian Christians were living in the West Bank and Gaza.
What explains the ongoing exodus of Christians from Palestine? Some attempts at an explanation are misleading. In line with the Islamophobia notable in Europe and in the United States, Israeli propaganda points to tension and conflict with Palestinian Muslims, who comprise more than 98 percent of the Palestinian population under occupation, as the key reason for Palestinian Christian emigration. Israel has long encouraged political and religious division among Palestinians. Yet when I interviewed the Christian Palestinian secretary general of the East Jerusalem Y.W.C.A. in June 2009, she said that relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians have been and remain largely positive. In her view “religious extremism” has been fostered by the environment of stress, chaos and conflict produced by the Israeli occupation. Indeed, there is a long history of good relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Palestinians of both faiths experienced the catastrophe of 1948 together, and since 1967 those in the West Bank and Gaza have experienced the catastrophe of the Israeli occupation together.
'Pull’ and 'Push’ Factors
Palestinian Christians have tended to be well educated, relatively advantaged economically and more likely than their Muslim counterparts to have contacts in the West. Those could be considered “pull” factors behind the Palestinian Christian exodus. The “push” factors are the economic, political and social consequences of the Israeli occupation, with its “apartheid wall,” checkpoints and segregated road system; its ever-expanding settlements, destruction of Palestinian agriculture and demolition of Palestinian homes; its lawless, weapon-toting settlers; and its incarceration, with systematic torture, of thousands of Palestinians.
A 2006 survey of Palestinian Christians conducted by the Palestinian Christian peace organization Sabeel confirms the decisive influence of these “push” factors. Romell Soudah, a faculty member in business administration at Bethlehem University, a Catholic institution, writes that “the continuous confiscation of land...coupled with restrictions on mobility and access, give the impression that people are living in a cage, dehumanized, with little hope for freedom and normal living. This situation...is the primary factor…forcing Christian Palestinians to leave.” These Israeli actions, plus water confiscation and economic strangulation, which drive unemployment and poverty levels upward, are seen as calculated means of emptying the land of Palestinians. Thus Christian Palestinian emigration is the most visible effect of Israel’s deliberate, if gradual, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Why Care?
Why should Americans care if Palestinian Christians in the West Bank are leaving their homeland twice as fast as their population there is growing? The erasure of native Christians from Palestine should be unthinkable. Palestine is where Christianity originated, and Palestinian Christians have a unique status in the worldwide Christian community. Americans should be outraged that U.S. policy, buttressed by generous funding from their tax dollars, makes possible the Israeli occupation and its discriminatory policies.
These policies include a campaign to revoke the time-honored tax-exempt status of Christian churches and other Christian institutions, like the Lutheran Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, and prohibition of access to holy sites (for example, barring West Bank Christians from visiting the Holy Sepulcher, traditionally regarded as the burial place of Jesus, in Jerusalem’s Old City). Orthodox Jewish harassment of Christian clergy in the Old City is commonplace. Hanan Chehata, a journalist, reports that “numerous churches have been destroyed during Israeli military incursions, divided from their congregations by the wall, and exposed to dilapidation.” Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity suffered physical damage during the Israeli incursion and siege of 2002. The wall now encircles Bethlehem, separating it from nearby Jerusalem; residents of Bethlehem are prevented from entering Jerusalem and vice versa. A majority of Bethlehem’s Christians hold Israel responsible for the departure of record numbers of Palestinian Christians from their city.
Yet Western Christians often fail to recognize the imperiled existence of their Palestinian co- religionists. Moreover, there are millions of Christian Zionists whose interpretation of New Testament prophecies allies them with Israeli Zionism and against the Christians of Palestine. They imagine that there is serious division between Palestinian Muslims and Christians, whereas the far more prevalent tension is between Palestinian Christians and some Israeli Jews (settlers, military and government leaders or those who represent them). The continued presence of Palestinian Christians in Palestine offsets the misperception that the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” is really about relig ion—a conflict between Muslims and Jews, rather than one about land, human rights and international law.
A Palestinian Christian friend wrote to me recently regarding the typical pattern of Muslims and Christians working together cooperatively and harmoniously within Palestinian institutions and organizations. Among the examples she mentioned is the Rawdat El-Zuhur (Garden of Flowers) elementary school in East Jerusalem, which has a Christian principal, a Muslim accountant, a mixed teaching staff and a mixed student body. Rawdat El-Zuhur, she wrote, “serves the community irrespective of [the members’] faith.” Likewise at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah, the president is Muslim and the chairman of the board is Christian; the board members are mixed, as are the staff and the student body.
To their credit, Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, are prominent among church leaders who have advocated worldwide Christian solidarity with Palestinian Christians. Informed American Christians committed to peace with justice are called to stand up both to Christian Zionism and to U.S. government underwriting of the illegal Israeli military occupation that is driving Palestinians, and disproportionately Christian Palestinians, out of their native country. In the prophetic words of the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Elizabeth G. Burr, who teaches part-time at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minn, has been concerned with the Israel-Palestine issue for more than 40 years.
SOURCE: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=13275
Out of Palestine
Solidarity with a displaced people
Elizabeth G. Burr | America Magazine | FEBRUARY 27, 2012
Recently I asked Dominique Najjar, a Palestinian Christian who lives with his wife and children in Minneapolis, why so many Palestinians are leaving Palestine. He told me the story of how he and two of his three brothers, all aspiring professionals, immigrated to the United States from East Jerusalem out of “economic necessity,” starting in the early 1970s. “My parents needed support,” he said, explaining that economic advancement was impossible under Israeli control. This took place within the first decade of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, which began after the 1967 war and is illegal under international law.
But there is more to Mr. Najjar’s story. He and one of his brothers did not intend to emigrate permanently from their homeland. After they had moved to the United States, however, Israel revoked their Jerusalem residency status. Now they are given 90-day tourist visas when they return to their hometown, where their 89-year-old mother lives alone. Since none of her seven adult children enjoys residency status in Jerusalem any longer, none can do more than visit her. She receives daily “compassion and attention” from her Muslim neighbors next door. Najjar remarked that the revocation of his residency status is “all part of the Israeli effort to minimize the number of non-Jews in Jerusalem.”
It is difficult for citizens of other countries to appreciate what the occupation means for Palestinians who are not citizens of the country that rules them (unlike Israeli Palestinians who live in the recognized State of Israel). A reading of the 30 articles of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reveals that very few of these rights are applied to occupied Palestinians. Directly relevant to Mr. Najjar’s story, for example, Article 13 (2) states, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” People of conscience are faced with the oppression of an indigenous population in their own homeland, and Christians worldwide must confront the truth that Palestinian Christians are walking down a long Via Dolorosa from which, without international intervention, the only exit is exile.
Indigenous Christians have lived in Palestine since the origins of Christianity about 2,000 years ago. Over the centuries other Christians immigrated to Palestine. Palestinian Christians comprised at least 15 percent of the Palestinian population in the late 19th century, under Ottoman Muslim rule, and about 7.5 percent by 1944, in the final years of the British Mandate. During the 1948 war, which resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel in much of historic Palestine, more than a third of Palestinian Christians were among the 750,000 to 800,000 refugees forced to flee their homes in Palestine. The Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has described Israel’s “war of independence,” which Palestinians call the nakba (catastrophe), as “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine” in his book by that title published in 2006.
The Lydda Death March
Audeh Rantisi, a Palestinian Christian, has written in The Link, a journal published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, about his family’s expulsion from Lydda, near Tel Aviv, in July 1948, along with that of thousands of other residents. An 11-year-old at the time, Rantisi witnessed: an infant being crushed to death by a cart after his mother lost hold of him, an Israeli soldier shooting to death a newly married young man who would not hand over his money, people dying of thirst and many more horrors. He reports that “scores of women miscarried, their babies left for jackals to eat.” On the fourth day of the “Lydda death march,” his 13-member family reached Ramallah, in the West Bank, “carrying nothing but the clothes we wore.” His father also took with him the key to their house. Generations of the Rantisi family had lived in Lydda for some 1,600 years.
Mr. Pappé is not alone among scholars who have identified a Zionist ideology of exclusion as the engine driving the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 or who have interpreted Israeli policy since then as a continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing. By 2011 the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip had reached its 44th year. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the occupation has brought the construction of scores of “settlements” in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which currently house at least half a million Israeli settlers. Five years ago Israel had already expropriated 87 percent of East Jerusalem and 75 percent of the West Bank for settlements, parks and military areas. Thus less and less Palestinian land is available for Palestinian housing, agriculture or other uses. Human rights abuses of Palestinians abound under the occupation, which appears designed to make their lives so unbearable that they will “voluntarily” leave.
The emigration of Palestinian Christians from the occupied territories to the West since 1967 has also reduced their number to the point where Christians currently account for less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population under occupation. And the rate of population growth for Palestinian Christians in the West Bank amounts to just half of their emigration rate. Without a stabilization or reversal of the net decline, the extinction of Palestinian Christians in the territories is conceivable. Even in 2006 only about 50,000 Palestinian Christians were living in the West Bank and Gaza.
What explains the ongoing exodus of Christians from Palestine? Some attempts at an explanation are misleading. In line with the Islamophobia notable in Europe and in the United States, Israeli propaganda points to tension and conflict with Palestinian Muslims, who comprise more than 98 percent of the Palestinian population under occupation, as the key reason for Palestinian Christian emigration. Israel has long encouraged political and religious division among Palestinians. Yet when I interviewed the Christian Palestinian secretary general of the East Jerusalem Y.W.C.A. in June 2009, she said that relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians have been and remain largely positive. In her view “religious extremism” has been fostered by the environment of stress, chaos and conflict produced by the Israeli occupation. Indeed, there is a long history of good relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Palestinians of both faiths experienced the catastrophe of 1948 together, and since 1967 those in the West Bank and Gaza have experienced the catastrophe of the Israeli occupation together.
'Pull’ and 'Push’ Factors
Palestinian Christians have tended to be well educated, relatively advantaged economically and more likely than their Muslim counterparts to have contacts in the West. Those could be considered “pull” factors behind the Palestinian Christian exodus. The “push” factors are the economic, political and social consequences of the Israeli occupation, with its “apartheid wall,” checkpoints and segregated road system; its ever-expanding settlements, destruction of Palestinian agriculture and demolition of Palestinian homes; its lawless, weapon-toting settlers; and its incarceration, with systematic torture, of thousands of Palestinians.
A 2006 survey of Palestinian Christians conducted by the Palestinian Christian peace organization Sabeel confirms the decisive influence of these “push” factors. Romell Soudah, a faculty member in business administration at Bethlehem University, a Catholic institution, writes that “the continuous confiscation of land...coupled with restrictions on mobility and access, give the impression that people are living in a cage, dehumanized, with little hope for freedom and normal living. This situation...is the primary factor…forcing Christian Palestinians to leave.” These Israeli actions, plus water confiscation and economic strangulation, which drive unemployment and poverty levels upward, are seen as calculated means of emptying the land of Palestinians. Thus Christian Palestinian emigration is the most visible effect of Israel’s deliberate, if gradual, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Why Care?
Why should Americans care if Palestinian Christians in the West Bank are leaving their homeland twice as fast as their population there is growing? The erasure of native Christians from Palestine should be unthinkable. Palestine is where Christianity originated, and Palestinian Christians have a unique status in the worldwide Christian community. Americans should be outraged that U.S. policy, buttressed by generous funding from their tax dollars, makes possible the Israeli occupation and its discriminatory policies.
These policies include a campaign to revoke the time-honored tax-exempt status of Christian churches and other Christian institutions, like the Lutheran Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, and prohibition of access to holy sites (for example, barring West Bank Christians from visiting the Holy Sepulcher, traditionally regarded as the burial place of Jesus, in Jerusalem’s Old City). Orthodox Jewish harassment of Christian clergy in the Old City is commonplace. Hanan Chehata, a journalist, reports that “numerous churches have been destroyed during Israeli military incursions, divided from their congregations by the wall, and exposed to dilapidation.” Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity suffered physical damage during the Israeli incursion and siege of 2002. The wall now encircles Bethlehem, separating it from nearby Jerusalem; residents of Bethlehem are prevented from entering Jerusalem and vice versa. A majority of Bethlehem’s Christians hold Israel responsible for the departure of record numbers of Palestinian Christians from their city.
Yet Western Christians often fail to recognize the imperiled existence of their Palestinian co- religionists. Moreover, there are millions of Christian Zionists whose interpretation of New Testament prophecies allies them with Israeli Zionism and against the Christians of Palestine. They imagine that there is serious division between Palestinian Muslims and Christians, whereas the far more prevalent tension is between Palestinian Christians and some Israeli Jews (settlers, military and government leaders or those who represent them). The continued presence of Palestinian Christians in Palestine offsets the misperception that the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” is really about relig ion—a conflict between Muslims and Jews, rather than one about land, human rights and international law.
A Palestinian Christian friend wrote to me recently regarding the typical pattern of Muslims and Christians working together cooperatively and harmoniously within Palestinian institutions and organizations. Among the examples she mentioned is the Rawdat El-Zuhur (Garden of Flowers) elementary school in East Jerusalem, which has a Christian principal, a Muslim accountant, a mixed teaching staff and a mixed student body. Rawdat El-Zuhur, she wrote, “serves the community irrespective of [the members’] faith.” Likewise at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah, the president is Muslim and the chairman of the board is Christian; the board members are mixed, as are the staff and the student body.
To their credit, Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, are prominent among church leaders who have advocated worldwide Christian solidarity with Palestinian Christians. Informed American Christians committed to peace with justice are called to stand up both to Christian Zionism and to U.S. government underwriting of the illegal Israeli military occupation that is driving Palestinians, and disproportionately Christian Palestinians, out of their native country. In the prophetic words of the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Elizabeth G. Burr, who teaches part-time at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minn, has been concerned with the Israel-Palestine issue for more than 40 years.
SOURCE: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=13275
Didn't know where to post this, but thought it would be relevant here as it shows how most Arabs still believe that the Palestinian cause is an Arab cause and not just a Palestinian one. It also shows that most Arabs are against diplomatic relations with the occupation, or what is called as "Israel". Another interesting finding is that the vast majority thought the US and "Israel" were bigger threats than Iran.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gauging Arab public opinion
A new, comprehensive poll illuminates Arabs' opinions on democracy, corruption, Palestine/Israel, and the US
The first of its kind - a poll conducted in 12 Arab countries, representing 84 per cent of the population of the Arab world, in an attempt to gauge the region's political mood - has arrived at some interesting results.
Organised by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), face-to-face interviews by Arab surveyors with 16,731 individuals in the first half of 2011 revealed majority support for the goals of the Arab revolutions and notably, for a democratic system of government.
The countries surveyed included Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, with the help of local institutions and research centres.
While people seem generally split on the question of separation of state and religion, a majority supports the non-interference of religious authorities in politics.
And by a 15-1 ratio, Israel and the US are seen as more threatening than Iran. However, this ratio is lower among those living in proximity to Iran.
Opinions differ on certain issues from country to country and region to region, but there's clearly a trans-national, trans-border public consensus when it comes to questions of identity and national priorities.
The data generated by the poll, the largest conducted so far in the region, is a treasure trove for those looking to better understand the political environment in the Arab world.
Main conclusions
Awaiting the publication of the report in English, here are the poll's main conclusions:
- A majority describe themselves as religious, but they mostly don't support the interference of religious authorities in citizens' political choices.
-71 per cent say they don't distinguish between religious and non-religious people in their economic and social relations.
- 77 per cent trust their military, half trust their police, 47 per cent trust their governments and 36 per cent trust their local councils before the revolutions.
- A high 83 per cent believe corruption is widespread in their countries.
- Only 19 per cent see their states implement the law equally among its citizens.
- Three quarters of those polled believe that Arab states should take measures to bring their nations closer. An equal percentage believes that states should lift restrictions on free travel and 67 per cent are not satisfied with Arab-Arab co-operation.
- Contrary to mainstream global media coverage, 73 per cent of those polled see Israel and the US as the two most threatening countries. Five per cent see Iran as the most threatening, a percentage that varies between countries and regions.
- A high 84 per cent believe the Palestinian question is the cause of all Arabs and not the Palestinians only.
- A high 84 per cent reject the notion of their state's recognition of Israel and only 21 per cent support, to a certain degree, the peace agreement signed between Egypt, Jordan and the PLO with Israel. Less than a third agree with their government's foreign policy.
- When it comes to WMD, 55 per cent support a region free of nuclear weapons and 55 per cent see Israel's possession of nuclear weapons as justifying there possession by other countries in the region.
Moreover, a majority of Arabs support the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and believe revolution came about because of corruption, dictatorship and lack of justice and equality. A majority also believe they belong to one Arab nation.
Nuances and caveats
The majority doesn't approach democracy as merely a Western notion. Rather, it provides a clear definition of a democratic system that includes political plurality, freedom of expression, rule of law, et cetera.
When it comes to specifics, a rather slim majority of 57 per cent supports the rule of a political party they disagree with.
While people are generally supportive of democracy, a minority doesn't truly understand or accept its main tenets.
A relatively high 36 per cent wouldn't support those they disagree with in their political platform to take power, a percentage that doesn't bode well for democracy.
This shows that while there is an intention to move towards pluralism among most people, there is resistance to pluralism and diversity among a certain minority.
A high majority in Egypt and Tunisia are optimistic that their countries will fare better in three years than during the rule of Mubarak and Ben Ali.
It remains to be seen to what degree the opinions expressed in the poll are a reflection of excitement about the revolutions, and how far people are ready to go to establish democratic systems.
But that's precisely why an annual sequel to this poll, as promised by ACRPS, is indispensable for better understanding of Arab thinking beyond mood swings and abrupt changes.
Polls have originally been the tools used to gauge consumerist tendencies, priorities in Western societies and business. They were developed into advanced tools to monitor the public's political mood, required for certain political confidence, societal openness and stability.
To what degree Arab respondents express their minds freely and without any fear remains to be seen. However, for the first time in decades, people seem more willing and able to share their political sentiments, thanks to the revolutions.
The substantial size of the poll certainly helps obtain better results. But it's not only quantitative.
The methodology used by ACPRS pollsters - a 40-minute face-to-face interview with each respondent - allows for more accurate results than the usual quick phone interviews.
The approach here contrasts sharply with Western-type polls in the Arab world that project Western, not Arab, priorities, and/or are centered around slogans and clichés.
This is not a poll that asks people whether they feel Muslim or Arab, or whether they support the women's veil or democracy.
The poll, the first to be conducted after the Arab upheavals, shows a people in tune with the change that swept the Arab region.
But how does the poll square with the election results in various Arab nations where Islamists have made serious advances - such as Egypt, where conservative and ultra-conservative Islamist parties won 70 per cent of the vote?
The two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the polls discussed give a better and deeper explanation of the vote patterns and of the opinions of those who thus far have remained silent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/20123793355501965.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gauging Arab public opinion
A new, comprehensive poll illuminates Arabs' opinions on democracy, corruption, Palestine/Israel, and the US
The first of its kind - a poll conducted in 12 Arab countries, representing 84 per cent of the population of the Arab world, in an attempt to gauge the region's political mood - has arrived at some interesting results.
Organised by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), face-to-face interviews by Arab surveyors with 16,731 individuals in the first half of 2011 revealed majority support for the goals of the Arab revolutions and notably, for a democratic system of government.
The countries surveyed included Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, with the help of local institutions and research centres.
While people seem generally split on the question of separation of state and religion, a majority supports the non-interference of religious authorities in politics.
And by a 15-1 ratio, Israel and the US are seen as more threatening than Iran. However, this ratio is lower among those living in proximity to Iran.
Opinions differ on certain issues from country to country and region to region, but there's clearly a trans-national, trans-border public consensus when it comes to questions of identity and national priorities.
The data generated by the poll, the largest conducted so far in the region, is a treasure trove for those looking to better understand the political environment in the Arab world.
Main conclusions
Awaiting the publication of the report in English, here are the poll's main conclusions:
- A majority describe themselves as religious, but they mostly don't support the interference of religious authorities in citizens' political choices.
-71 per cent say they don't distinguish between religious and non-religious people in their economic and social relations.
- 77 per cent trust their military, half trust their police, 47 per cent trust their governments and 36 per cent trust their local councils before the revolutions.
- A high 83 per cent believe corruption is widespread in their countries.
- Only 19 per cent see their states implement the law equally among its citizens.
- Three quarters of those polled believe that Arab states should take measures to bring their nations closer. An equal percentage believes that states should lift restrictions on free travel and 67 per cent are not satisfied with Arab-Arab co-operation.
- Contrary to mainstream global media coverage, 73 per cent of those polled see Israel and the US as the two most threatening countries. Five per cent see Iran as the most threatening, a percentage that varies between countries and regions.
- A high 84 per cent believe the Palestinian question is the cause of all Arabs and not the Palestinians only.
- A high 84 per cent reject the notion of their state's recognition of Israel and only 21 per cent support, to a certain degree, the peace agreement signed between Egypt, Jordan and the PLO with Israel. Less than a third agree with their government's foreign policy.
- When it comes to WMD, 55 per cent support a region free of nuclear weapons and 55 per cent see Israel's possession of nuclear weapons as justifying there possession by other countries in the region.
Moreover, a majority of Arabs support the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and believe revolution came about because of corruption, dictatorship and lack of justice and equality. A majority also believe they belong to one Arab nation.
Nuances and caveats
The majority doesn't approach democracy as merely a Western notion. Rather, it provides a clear definition of a democratic system that includes political plurality, freedom of expression, rule of law, et cetera.
When it comes to specifics, a rather slim majority of 57 per cent supports the rule of a political party they disagree with.
While people are generally supportive of democracy, a minority doesn't truly understand or accept its main tenets.
A relatively high 36 per cent wouldn't support those they disagree with in their political platform to take power, a percentage that doesn't bode well for democracy.
This shows that while there is an intention to move towards pluralism among most people, there is resistance to pluralism and diversity among a certain minority.
A high majority in Egypt and Tunisia are optimistic that their countries will fare better in three years than during the rule of Mubarak and Ben Ali.
It remains to be seen to what degree the opinions expressed in the poll are a reflection of excitement about the revolutions, and how far people are ready to go to establish democratic systems.
But that's precisely why an annual sequel to this poll, as promised by ACRPS, is indispensable for better understanding of Arab thinking beyond mood swings and abrupt changes.
Polls have originally been the tools used to gauge consumerist tendencies, priorities in Western societies and business. They were developed into advanced tools to monitor the public's political mood, required for certain political confidence, societal openness and stability.
To what degree Arab respondents express their minds freely and without any fear remains to be seen. However, for the first time in decades, people seem more willing and able to share their political sentiments, thanks to the revolutions.
The substantial size of the poll certainly helps obtain better results. But it's not only quantitative.
The methodology used by ACPRS pollsters - a 40-minute face-to-face interview with each respondent - allows for more accurate results than the usual quick phone interviews.
The approach here contrasts sharply with Western-type polls in the Arab world that project Western, not Arab, priorities, and/or are centered around slogans and clichés.
This is not a poll that asks people whether they feel Muslim or Arab, or whether they support the women's veil or democracy.
The poll, the first to be conducted after the Arab upheavals, shows a people in tune with the change that swept the Arab region.
But how does the poll square with the election results in various Arab nations where Islamists have made serious advances - such as Egypt, where conservative and ultra-conservative Islamist parties won 70 per cent of the vote?
The two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the polls discussed give a better and deeper explanation of the vote patterns and of the opinions of those who thus far have remained silent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/20123793355501965.html
Israeli troops open fire at the funeral procession of some of those killed last night. The angry mourners threw stones at the Israeli forces positioned east of Gaza near the Martyrs cemetery.
This comes shortly after another 2 Gazans killed by a missile fired from unmannered drone in Khanyounis southern Gaza . the death toll stands at 14 and over 20 injured so far
This comes shortly after another 2 Gazans killed by a missile fired from unmannered drone in Khanyounis southern Gaza . the death toll stands at 14 and over 20 injured so far
Nothing new here. Cancerous state, thats what it has been from the get go. Their authorities have always kept a closed eye on incidents like this, which shows that it is impossible for the Palestinians to live in a country under their administration, yet outsiders keep trying to blame the Palestinians for the lack of peace over there.
The occupation is a rogue, barbaric state that only understands the language of force. That is why i am a huge Hamas supporter.
The occupation is a rogue, barbaric state that only understands the language of force. That is why i am a huge Hamas supporter.
From Getty Images
A Palestinian baby receives treatment at the intensive care unit at a hospital where they are using generators to maintain medical support units in Gaza City on March 27, 2012. Gaza's sole power plant was shut down two days earlier for lack of fuel after using up some 450,000 litres of diesel delivered on March 23 through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Gaza's border with Israel.
A Palestinian baby receives treatment at the intensive care unit at a hospital where they are using generators to maintain medical support units in Gaza City on March 27, 2012. Gaza's sole power plant was shut down two days earlier for lack of fuel after using up some 450,000 litres of diesel delivered on March 23 through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Gaza's border with Israel.
'Welcome to Palestine’? Airlines cancel activists’ tickets on Israeli objections
Hundreds of Israeli police, many undercover, were at Ben Gurion airport on Sunday to block the arrival of activists taking part in a “Welcome to Palestine” fly-in, police said.
“We have stationed several hundred police in order to maintain order at the airport,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
Four people who arrived on a flight from Paris early Sunday were stopped for questioning, Rosenfeld said. Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said one was denied entry and the other three were allowed through. She had no information on the whereabouts of the man who had been denied entry.
Haddad said Israel had sent a list of suspected activists to international airlines, asking the carriers to block them from boarding Israel-bound flights. It warned the airlines they would have to cover the cost of the activists’ return and threatened unspecified sanctions on airlines if they did not comply, she said.
“Welcome to Palestine” campaign organizer Amira Musallam said she still expected hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters from around the world to come. Activists who had been barred from flying to Tel Aviv from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris staged an impromptu protest, she said.
“A lot of people did manage to board planes and a lot of people have been denied,” another campaign organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh said, without giving numbers.
He said they were aware of four carriers which had blocked passengers from travelling ─ Lufthansa, Air France, Jet2.com and Brussels Air. He did not mention Swiss Air.
“We are expecting 1,500 people from at least 15 countries,” he said, indicating most of them were expected to fly from Europe.
Last July, Israel blocked a similar fly-in effort by preventing dozens from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe and denied entry to 69.
The protest is meant to draw attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas.
Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports, though at any given time, hundreds of foreigners, including activists, are in the territory, which Israel occupied in 1967.
Travelers headed to Palestinian areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities.
The campaign’s organizers say they want to publicize Israel’s control of movement into and out of the occupied Palestinian territories and to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The term “flytilla” recalls earlier attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to reach the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip by boat, which have come to be known as “Freedom Flotillas.”
Airlines comply
European airlines have canceled tickets for an unspecified number of passengers planning to attend the pro-Palestinian activist gathering after Israel raised objections.
French carrier Air France and British low fares airline Jet2.com said Saturday they had joined Germany’s Lufthansa in cancelling seats on flights to Tel Aviv.
At Geneva airport a hundred pro-Palestinian activists were being prevented by Swiss police early Sunday from boarding a flight bound for Tel Aviv, the “Welcome to Palestine” campaign said.
There was a high police presence at the airport and one of the activists had their passport confiscated, campaign spokesman Anas Muhammed told AFP by phone.
At Paris’ main Charles de Gaulle airport, several dozen activists demonstrated after being prevented from boarding Lufthansa and Swiss Air flights for Tel Aviv early Sunday.
Flanked by dozens of anti-riot police, they went to the Lufthansa counter to demand an “official written statement” as to why they had not been allowed to fly.
“Our movement is totally peaceful but unfortunately we are still being treated like trouble-makers,” one of the campaign’s organizers in France, Olivier Buchotte, told AFP.
The activists, mainly from European countries, are expected to openly declare their intention to visit the Palestinian West Bank, but Israel vowed to prevent them even from arriving.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday advised activists to concentrate on solving what he called “real problems” in the region, such as Syria and Iran.
“We appreciate your choosing to make Israel the object of your humanitarian concerns,” he said in an open letter issued by the prime minister’s office.
“We know there were many other worthy choices,” he said.
“You could have chosen to protest the Syrian regime’s daily savagery against its own people, which has claimed thousands of lives.
“You could have chosen to protest the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and support of terrorism throughout the world,” he said.
“You could have chosen to protest Hamas rule in Gaza, where terror organizations commit a double war crime by firing rockets at civilians and hiding behind civilians.”
Netanyahu said Israel was “the Middle East’s sole democracy, where women are equal ... human rights organizations can operate freely, religious freedom is protected for all.
“We therefore suggest that you first solve the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience,” he said.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Jet2.com had contacted three female passengers late Friday to inform them that their seats had been canceled. They had booked a flight to Tel Aviv scheduled to leave Manchester, northwest England, at 0900 GMT on Sunday.
A company spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of affected passengers.
“Jet2.com was informed by the Israeli authorities that certain passengers booked to travel on flight LS907 would not be permitted to enter Israel,” the company said in a statement.
Lufthansa on Friday canceled dozens of tickets of pro-Palestinian activists for this weekend, saying it was complying with Israeli advice.
Air France said Saturday it had withdrawn tickets for flights Sunday from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and from Nice on the southwest coast.
“Under the Chicago Convention, Air France refuses to embark any passenger not admissible by Israel,” a spokeswoman said, while declining to say how many passengers were affected.
The “Welcome to Palestine” campaign is taking place for a third consecutive year.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/15/207839.html
Welcome to the Western democracy!
Hundreds of Israeli police, many undercover, were at Ben Gurion airport on Sunday to block the arrival of activists taking part in a “Welcome to Palestine” fly-in, police said.
“We have stationed several hundred police in order to maintain order at the airport,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
Four people who arrived on a flight from Paris early Sunday were stopped for questioning, Rosenfeld said. Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said one was denied entry and the other three were allowed through. She had no information on the whereabouts of the man who had been denied entry.
Haddad said Israel had sent a list of suspected activists to international airlines, asking the carriers to block them from boarding Israel-bound flights. It warned the airlines they would have to cover the cost of the activists’ return and threatened unspecified sanctions on airlines if they did not comply, she said.
“Welcome to Palestine” campaign organizer Amira Musallam said she still expected hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters from around the world to come. Activists who had been barred from flying to Tel Aviv from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris staged an impromptu protest, she said.
“A lot of people did manage to board planes and a lot of people have been denied,” another campaign organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh said, without giving numbers.
He said they were aware of four carriers which had blocked passengers from travelling ─ Lufthansa, Air France, Jet2.com and Brussels Air. He did not mention Swiss Air.
“We are expecting 1,500 people from at least 15 countries,” he said, indicating most of them were expected to fly from Europe.
Last July, Israel blocked a similar fly-in effort by preventing dozens from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe and denied entry to 69.
The protest is meant to draw attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas.
Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports, though at any given time, hundreds of foreigners, including activists, are in the territory, which Israel occupied in 1967.
Travelers headed to Palestinian areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities.
The campaign’s organizers say they want to publicize Israel’s control of movement into and out of the occupied Palestinian territories and to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The term “flytilla” recalls earlier attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to reach the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip by boat, which have come to be known as “Freedom Flotillas.”
Airlines comply
European airlines have canceled tickets for an unspecified number of passengers planning to attend the pro-Palestinian activist gathering after Israel raised objections.
French carrier Air France and British low fares airline Jet2.com said Saturday they had joined Germany’s Lufthansa in cancelling seats on flights to Tel Aviv.
At Geneva airport a hundred pro-Palestinian activists were being prevented by Swiss police early Sunday from boarding a flight bound for Tel Aviv, the “Welcome to Palestine” campaign said.
There was a high police presence at the airport and one of the activists had their passport confiscated, campaign spokesman Anas Muhammed told AFP by phone.
At Paris’ main Charles de Gaulle airport, several dozen activists demonstrated after being prevented from boarding Lufthansa and Swiss Air flights for Tel Aviv early Sunday.
Flanked by dozens of anti-riot police, they went to the Lufthansa counter to demand an “official written statement” as to why they had not been allowed to fly.
“Our movement is totally peaceful but unfortunately we are still being treated like trouble-makers,” one of the campaign’s organizers in France, Olivier Buchotte, told AFP.
The activists, mainly from European countries, are expected to openly declare their intention to visit the Palestinian West Bank, but Israel vowed to prevent them even from arriving.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday advised activists to concentrate on solving what he called “real problems” in the region, such as Syria and Iran.
“We appreciate your choosing to make Israel the object of your humanitarian concerns,” he said in an open letter issued by the prime minister’s office.
“We know there were many other worthy choices,” he said.
“You could have chosen to protest the Syrian regime’s daily savagery against its own people, which has claimed thousands of lives.
“You could have chosen to protest the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and support of terrorism throughout the world,” he said.
“You could have chosen to protest Hamas rule in Gaza, where terror organizations commit a double war crime by firing rockets at civilians and hiding behind civilians.”
Netanyahu said Israel was “the Middle East’s sole democracy, where women are equal ... human rights organizations can operate freely, religious freedom is protected for all.
“We therefore suggest that you first solve the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience,” he said.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Jet2.com had contacted three female passengers late Friday to inform them that their seats had been canceled. They had booked a flight to Tel Aviv scheduled to leave Manchester, northwest England, at 0900 GMT on Sunday.
A company spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of affected passengers.
“Jet2.com was informed by the Israeli authorities that certain passengers booked to travel on flight LS907 would not be permitted to enter Israel,” the company said in a statement.
Lufthansa on Friday canceled dozens of tickets of pro-Palestinian activists for this weekend, saying it was complying with Israeli advice.
Air France said Saturday it had withdrawn tickets for flights Sunday from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and from Nice on the southwest coast.
“Under the Chicago Convention, Air France refuses to embark any passenger not admissible by Israel,” a spokeswoman said, while declining to say how many passengers were affected.
The “Welcome to Palestine” campaign is taking place for a third consecutive year.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/15/207839.html
Welcome to the Western democracy!
