De Feiten Weblog van het Midden-Oosten

Eerstgeboorterecht Palestina

16 april, 2008

So, the Palestinians have noticed the success of the Birthright Israel program in getting young Jews excited in Israel and have launched their own program to “gather first-generation, western-born Palestinians (over the age of 18-years old) in their ancestral homeland, so that they can reunite and witness firsthand how their brethren are living under illegal Israeli military occupation.” According to their website (birthrightpalestine.com), the concept was created by the “Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies”. I don’t mind so much that Palestinian organizations are taking credit for the concepts that were though about by Jews and then adapted, but what I do worry about is the message that these kids will be getting. The PCNSS’s own website (pcnss.org) has in their symbol a map of a country that looks an awful lot like Israel - I’m guessing that this is the “Palestine” that they’re referring to.

So we’re going to jump to a conclusion here - these first generation non-Palestinians coming on their “Birthright” trip are NOT going to be taught about peace, tolerance and co-existence, and will likely be taught alot about “Israeli brutality”, the “illegal Israeli occupation”, etc. According to the birthrightpalestine.com website, the trip was “created to maintain Palestinian unity on an international level” and to “nurture relationships between participants of Palestinian ethnic
origin whom were born in different countries around the world”, with the hope of an exchange of ideas that will “possibly lead to a cohesive consensus on core issues of importance to the Palestinian Nation.”

Now, in the past we’ve been quite clear about our thoughts about the claim of “Palestinian Nationalism” - there is no Palestinian nation and there never was. The Arab Palestinian national movement began in the 1960s - before that, Arabs living in Palestine identified themselves as being South Syrian or simply as Arabs. In fact, before World War I, many of the Arab countries that exist now didn’t exist back then. Here’s a map:

So now, 100 years later, the Arabs who happened to live in “Palestine” when Jews began to move their, invent a nationalism that historically never existed and are using it as a cynical political tool. I expect this plan to run into some roadblocks, primarily getting people to come in the first place. To get to “Palestine”, the participants must fly into Tel Aviv, Israel, since there is no international airport in Palestine (for if there were, Israel would be in grave danger). In the FAQs on the site, the organizers site “security precautions” for not releasing a list of participants - surely the insinuation is that people participating have to be worried about their security from Israelis. They likely have a point - surely if a participant list was distributed ahead of time, Israel would get their hands on it and be able to investigate the participants before they land in Tel Aviv and deny entry to any with suspicious backgrounds.

Whatever the goal of “Birthright Palestine”, we don’t think it is going to be pushing for a two-state solution or a solution that leaves any Jewish presence in the Middle East. Surely peaceniks will love this concept, but will it bring about peace? Like everything the Palestinians do, that is unlikely.

As a follow-up to this story, we’d like to write about the “Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies”. Does anybody know anything about this organization and where it gets funding from?

World Jewish Congress Commends Prime Minister Stephen Harper for pulling out of ‘Durban II.’

January 31st, 2008

The following resolution passed unanimously today at the governing board of the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem. Please follow the link provided to read the full document: WJC Resolution on 2009 Durban Review Conference.

Shopping Spree with Foreign Aid & UN 1.6 Billion more to come

January 28th, 2008

The economy in the Arab Middle East is flourishing. The twenty wealthiest Middle East Arabs are worth more than $123 billion primarily due to the spiralling price of crude oil, according to the Middle East Times in Egypt. Seven of the top 20 are from Saudi Arabia, which contains 25 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud’s worth was estimated earlier this year at $20.3 billion. Since then, he has raised another $2.3 billion through a public issue of his holding company. Half a dozen of the richest billionaires have made money in the banking industry, with Dubai’s wealthiest banker Mashreqbank’s Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair’s worth estimated at $8 billion.Over 800,000 plus [poverty stricken] Arab Gazan refugees flooded into Egypt, emptying out stores in the border towns of Rafah and El-Arish, while visiting relatives in Egypt. In El-Arish alone, Gazans spent some $250 million over five days, according to the Egyptian daily Elbadeel which cited the local chamber of commerce. The shopping binge depleted Gaza’s dwindling cash reserves, however $1.6 billion in foreign aid is soon to come via UN & EU. Over 30 billion foreign aid has been allocated to the Palestinian Arabs in the last ten years, hence the Palestinian economy is bullish.

On the Egyptian side of Rafah, Alaa Ghoneim, who sells electric appliances, said he was able to restock his whole store three times as sales soared. Ghoneim hired a doorman for crowd control. He fought with a customer who kept coming for more and then sold Ghoneim’s goods for a higher price just a few blocks away. Gaza trader Basel Arabeed bought 20 Chinese-made motorcycles, and quickly sold 18 for $1,000 apiece - a 100 per cent profit.

Abdel-Karim al-Ashi, a Gaza distributor, was loading his trucks with electronics for the fifth time in two days which will last for the next six months. In a market in Gaza City, vendors offered their Egyptian wares. Gazans filled duffel bags with garlic cloves and cigarettes. Another sold a computer case and a webcam. Egyptians driving into Gaza bought blankets, jeans and scrap metal that had been destined for Israel but could not be shipped because of border closures.

Previously Hamas took over the estimated 150 smuggling-tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, and charged the owners $3,000 each per day. The 150 tunnels brought in a total of some $150 million annually, the value of men, weapons and other merchandise smuggled in each year totalled over a half-billion dollars not including heroin which tally’s over 1 billion annually. In the last 10 years Gaza smuggling earned revenues of over 15 billion dollars. The tunnels were run in a systematic manner, with compensation being paid to the family of a tunnel-digger who dies during the work and with judges who mediate in various disputes that arise.

The Palestinians have brought into Gaza more than 30,000 rifles during the past two years, more than six million rounds of ammunition, more than 230 tons of explosives, and scores of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Rafah was divided between Gaza and Egypt when the border was drawn according to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979. In the fall of 2005, just weeks after the last Jew was forcibly removed from Gush Katif and other areas in Gaza, Israel transferred control of the Gaza-Egyptian border to Egypt. The agreement stipulated a 750-man Egyptian border force patrolling the border line known as the Philadelphia Route.