Negotiated Settlements Set Aside by Norway, Ireland, Spain

"Today, Ireland, Norway and Spain are announcing that we recognize the state of Palestine. Each of us will now undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision."

"There is never a wrong time to do the right thing".

"It was my government’s preferred position to recognize a two-state solution as part of a peace process to bring that about, but sadly, unfortunately, such a comprehensive peace settlement now seems, in many ways, further away than it has ever been."

"We believe you can’t say you’re in favor of a two-state solution and not recognize the very existence of two states."

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris

From left, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, Spain's President Pedro Sánchez and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre are pictured.  Getty Images/PA/Reuters

 

 

Was ever a sentence uttered that should have been corrected as 'There is never a right time to do a wrong thing'? Israel, in reacting to the tripartite statement in shock and disbelief is entirely correct in chiding these three Western democracies for their gross error in judgement, deciding between them that the 'right thing' to do is to reward terrorist groups in the Middle East for their vicious penchant to declare their intention to destroy a legally and morally constituted state on its own ancestral geography that has been challenged for possession by a group of Arab (of mostly Egyptian origin) colonizers claiming it as their own. Did the three ask themselves why it was that a negotiated settlement was further away than ever?

 

The opportunity for a two-state 'solution' was offered through the UN's partition plan, promptly and gratefully accepted by Israel, furiously rejected by those now calling themselves 'Palestinians' who preferred to wait out the intentions of surrounding Arab/Muslim countries to march on the nascent state of Israel with a view to preventing the establishment of the Jewish state. Succeeding wars failed just as the initial one did, but the Palestinian-Arab determination to wreak havoc on Israel with the ultimate aim to destroy it and murder all its population has never faded.

 

The October 7 butchery that took place in southern Israel by the terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aided and abetted by Palestinian civilians exhibiting raw savagery in the sordid, ghoulish sadistic cruelty meted out to innocent civilians has few parallels in modern history. This declaration by Palestinians both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have been polled to render 85% support to Hamas terrorism and their approval of the October 7 bestiality represents the level of civilization that Spain, Norway and Ireland are prepared to recognize and legitimize with statehood.

 

Israel is dismayed, but perhaps not completely surprised by the three countries turning their backs on the only democracy in the Middle East, distinguished from all others because it is Jewish, its origins the very land it now sits upon, along with other areas the world prepared to honour and hand over to an Arab population that has no intention, ever, of living in peace with the original inhabitants of the land. In their preparation to recognize the State of Palestine, no effort has been made by Spain, Norway and Ireland to condemn the Palestinians for their aspirations to destroy Israel.

 

Nor has any overture been made to persuade the Palestinians through their leadership to turn their ambitions toward statehood infrastructure and the merits of civilized behaviour in favour of completely foregoing its lethal hostility against Israel. Needless to say, with no expectations of Palestinians curbing and abandoning their commitment to violence against Israel, the announcements of support in the form of recognition of their ambitions to form a legitimate state with no pre-conditions sits extremely well with the Palestinian leadership -- the Palestinian Authority and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

 

Envoys of the three countries were summoned by Israel in a diplomatic expression of profound disappointment in their judgement and decision-making. The European ambassadors to Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said grimly, would be requested to witness video footage of the October 7 attack, to ensure they had intimate first-hand knowledge of what had transpired, through videos produced by the terrorists themselves as they rampaged through Israeli farming kibbutzim, raping and vandalizing, torturing children and women before murdering them.    

 

"[A Palestinian state is] a prerequisite for achieving peace in the Middle East."

"There will be no peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution."

"There can be no two-state solution without a Palestinian state."

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre

 

"This recognition is not against the people of Israel and certainly not against the Jewish people."

"It’s not in favor of Hamas."

"It’s in favor of co-existence."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez

"[Recognizing a Palestinian state would be a] reward for terror."

"This will be a terror state, which will attempt to perpetrate the onslaught of October 7 time and again, and to that we shall not agree."

"This evil must not be given a state."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

A man waves the Palestinian flag in front of the Norwegian Parliament building during a demonstration in Oslo, Oct. 28, 2023. (Frederik Ringnes/NTB via AP)

 

 

Jerusalem sheikh lectures kids on glories of martyrdom

‘Shame on you,’ says Old City passerby, trying to stop Muslim religious leader teaching group of young children about death and virgins

By Judah Ari Gross July 28, 2015, 1:12 am 

A sheikh in Jerusalem's Old City teaches children the glories of martyrdom on July 27, 2015. (Screen capture: Middle East Media Research Institute)

A Muslim sheikh was filmed in the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Temple Mount, teaching children about martyrdom and virgins in paradise on Monday. A passerby attempted to stop him, telling him “shame on you.”

In a four-minute video released by the watchdog Middle East Media Research Institute, Sheikh Khaled al-Maghrabi is seen instructing a group of children, the oldest of whom are barely adolescents, that “the martyr is absolved with the first drop of his blood.” 

The children were taking part in the so-called Al-Aqsa Mosque Summer Camp, according to MEMRI.

To the group of boys and girls, the religious leader explained, “The martyr would be married off to two virgins in paradise.”

On Judgment Day, the sheikh added, someone who dies while engaged in ribat — the Muslim concept of defending the faith, named after a fortress-like structure — would be able to save 70 members of his or her family.

After several minutes of this instruction, a passerby approached the sheikh and asked him to stop preaching to the children.

“Listen, sheikh, they do not understand what you are saying. They are children,” the man said in Arabic.

Passerby outside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City scolds sheikh for teaching children the glories of martyrdom on July 27, 2015. (Screen capture: Middle East Media Research Institute)

The sheikh attempted to quickly brush the man off, but was unsuccessful.

“You are talking to them about ribat, martyrdom, virgins of paradise,” the man told the sheikh, “Shame on you.”

The man went on, “You can teach lessons like this to adults like us, not to them. Look at what you’re planting in their minds.”

“Shame on you,” the man repeated before returning to stand with his friends.

The video ends with the same children chanting, “We shall sacrifice our souls and our blood for you, Al-Aqsa!” and “Khaybar! Khaybar! Oh, Jews! The army of Muhammad will return,” in reference to the fortress city once controlled by Jewish tribes, but later overtaken by Muslim forces.

The day before the video was filmed, dozens of masked Palestinian protesters hurled rocks, Molotov cocktails and firecrackers at police officers on the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, before being pushed back into the Al-Aqsa Mosque by security forces who were rushed to the area.

According to police, the protesters had stockpiled homemade explosives, firecrackers and wooden boards inside the mosque, with the intention of attacking thousands of Jewish worshipers gathered below for prayers at the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av, a fast and day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples.

The City of David

While in Tehran hard-line Iranian lawmakers interrogate the country's foreign minister about deviating from the Republic's official line on the Holocaust, referring to an interview that Mohammed Javad Zarif participated in with German media where he called the Holocaust a "horrifying tragedy" that should never re-occur though the regime denies it ever did, in Jerusalem an Israeli archaeologist claims the discovery of the legendary King David citadel dating to the capture of Jerusalem.

Validating in one instance, meticulous records maintained by the German Fascists in detailing the atrocities they visited upon European Jewry, and on the other the veracity of Biblical passages as a guide in identifying ancient ruins. Eli Shukron's claim has been criticized. As have been other announcements by Israeli archaeologists who have unearthed palaces of the biblical king, revered in Jewish tradition for establishing Jerusalem as Judaism's central holy city.

Eli Shukron, an archeologist formerly with Israel's Antiquities Authority, walks in the City of David archaeological site near Jerusalem's Old City on May 1, 2014. Photo by AP

 

The costly ($10-million, U.S.-funded) excavation took place within a currently Arab-dominated neighbourhood of East Jerusalem where such news runs counter to Palestinian demands that the Old City be recognized as the capital of a nascent Palestinian state. The archaeological dig was financed by an organization settling Jews in areas of East Jerusalem whose aim is prevention of dividing the ancient city.

"This is the citadel of King David, this is the Citadel of Zion, and this is what King David took from the Jebusites", said Mr. Shukron who worked on the excavation at the City of David site for almost two decades, believing that the evidence he uncovered had the effect of supporting his theory. "The whole site we can compare to the Bible perfectly."

The dig, initiated in 1995, uncovered a massive fortification comprised of five-tonne boulders stacked six metres wide. Shards of pottery were used to date the fortification walls as being 3,800 years in vintage. The fortifications represent the largest walls ever discovered in the region from the era of King Herod, and the presence of the Second Temple of Solomon, almost 2,100 years ago.

It had been built 800 years before King David would have wrested it from its then-Jebusite rulers. Mr. Shukron insists that  his discovery provides ample clues identifying this particular fortification as David's entry point into Jerusalem, conflating with the second Book of Samuel where David orders the walled city captured through entry at the location of a water shaft.

Fittingly enough, the excavation revealed a narrow shaft where spring water flowed into a carved pool, representing a place where people who lived at that time in history would gather to access their potable water. No other structure in the area of ancient Jerusalem appears a match to the biblical account naming it the "Citadel of David" and the "Citadel of Zion".

Claims that will be vociferously debunked by the Palestinian Authority and the greater Muslim world both of which discount entirely the presence of an ancient Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount over which Islam built their golden-domed Dome of the Rock where the Prophet Mohammed is held to have ascended to Heaven riding a white stallion. For Muslims that represents the third most holy site in Islam. The very concept of validating a Jewish prior presence is anathema to them.

Dome of the Rock, East Jerusalem

For Jews, the Temple Mount alongside of which remains the only portion of the fabled Temple of Solomon to have survived extant as the Wailing Wall, it is the first most holy site venerated in Judaism. A site forbidden for Jews to enter, to pray, to view, when it was under the control of Arabs when Jordan held the area. A site which is open to all under Israeli jurisdiction; Muslim, Christian, Jew.

And which Jews aspire to continue having access to, which would be denied them should the Palestinian Authority ever dominate it as their capital. Even under the protection of Israel, Muslim extremists in Israel riot violently when Jews ascend to the Temple Mount; Arabs refusing to allow Jews access to their most holy site. Israel remains sensitive to Muslim sensibilities; Muslims run roughshod over Jews'.

The Muslim proclivity for building mosques over the places of worship of other religions is legendary. The Islamist penchant for destroying sacred symbols of other religions represents the atrocious reality of fundamentalist intolerant rejection of equality in religious freedom.

European Boycotts of West Bank Products Based on Faulty Premises

by Timon Dias
March 28, 2014 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4227/european-boycott-west-bank

If the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and the "settlements" from 1967 on, are the root cause of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, then why does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO Charter call for the destruction of all of Israel?
Because Judea and Samaria had no recognized sovereign, apart from the Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal Jordanian occupation, the current Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria cannot possibly be designated as illegal.
It seems therefore that nothing Israel offers that is less than 100% of its entire land -- in other words if Israel agrees not to exist -- will affect the Palestinian Authority's willingness to make peace.

In a world ablaze, European governments and companies still see fit to boycott Israeli companies and products from the so called West Bank. The boycotting parties claim to base their actions on the fact that the West Bank is occupied territory and that the Israeli presence in the West Bank is the one true obstacle to durable peace.

It is apparently unbeknownst to them that both premises are entirely false.

In the West, the so-called "Green Line" is usually referred to when the "peace process" is being evaluated. Someone usually states that Israel should retreat behind this Green Line in order to maintain legitimacy and legality. The Green Line is allegedly synonymous with "the Borders of 1967." This is a highly misleading semantic trick. By asserting the Green Line as the borders of 1967, the case is made to sound as if this is the border from whence the Israelis started an aggressive expansion. The truth is the opposite. The Green Line is in reality the armistice line of 1949: the border where the Arab war of extermination was halted and where the Israelis finally prevented the attempted genocide of their people.

The term "occupied territories," even if not correct, is enough to nonplus the average Israel supporter and send left-wing and Muslim front groups into a twist. It is probably worthwhile to examine the legal accuracy of the term "occupied" as it is applied to the West Bank.

First, it is important to realize that the West Bank had no legally recognized sovereign prior to 1948. After the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948, which then counted a scarce 660,920 Jewish inhabitants, Israel, literally on the day of its birth, was immediately faced with a war of extermination launched by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, complemented by Saudi Arabian forces fighting under Egyptian command and a Yemeni contingent.

During this effort to obliterate the nascent state, Jordanian forces took control of the area that had, from biblical times, been known as Judea and Samaria. The Jordanians, in 1950, changed this name to the "West Bank" [of the Jordan River], apparently in an attempt to semantically strengthen their case of "occupation" by making the territory sound as if it were a legitimate part of their East Bank. The move also appears to be an attempt to delegitimize Israel's claim to the area by de-Judaizing its name[1] -- a strategy first adopted by Roman emperor Hadrian, when he changed the country's name from Judea to Palestine, after a nomadic maritime people, the Philistines, who had been in constant armed conflict with the Jews.

Moreover, only Britain, Iraq and Pakistan recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria. The rest of the world, including Jordan's Arab allies, never recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria as legitimate, let alone legal. The same goes for the Gaza Strip, only there, it was the Egyptians who ended up illegally occupying the area after the 1948 war of extermination.

During the Six Day War of 1967, Israel was faced with another war of extermination launched by its Arab neighbors. To survive yet another attempted genocide, Israeli forces conducted, in response, a war of defense in which the Israel Air Force destroyed Egyptian aircraft before enemy troops could reach Israel's fragile borders. In the process of this defensive war, the Israelis ended up expelling the Jordanians from the part of Jerusalem they occupied and the West Bank of the Jordan River: Judea and Samaria.

Because Judea and Samaria had no recognized sovereign, apart from the Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal Jordanian occupation, the current Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria cannot possibly be designated as illegal. After all, from whom are they occupying the area, save from the former Ottoman Empire? The area can only be correctly designated as "disputed" territories, just like Kashmir, the Western Sahara, Zubarah, Thumbs Island, and a lengthy parchment of other disputed territories.

It has been alleged -- originally by diplomats of the Arab and Muslim world, and later parroted by a gullible European political elite -- that to leave this dispute unresolved blocks not only the peace process but also the general stability of the region. Any impartial examination of facts, however, shows that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria has no significant relationship to either the "peace process" or regional stability. It is probably just irresistibly convenient for autocrats to keep telling diplomats to focus on Israel and the Palestinian problem to throw them -- as well as their own people -- off the scent of their own questionable governance.

If the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and the "settlements" from 1967 on, are the root cause of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, then why does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO charter call for the destruction of all of Israel? "The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty. Its responsibilities fall upon the entire Arab nation, governments and peoples, the Palestinian peoples being in the forefront. For this purpose, the Arab nation must mobilize its military, spiritual and material potentialities; specifically, it must give to the Palestinian Arab people all possible support and backing and place at its disposal all opportunities and means to enable them to perform their role in liberating their homeland."

In 1964, there was not a single Israeli in Judea and Samaria, nevertheless the PLO called for the obliteration of Israel. It is this '64 PLO mentality that has pervaded the upper echelons of Palestinian administration ever since. With the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, although PLO leader Yasser Arafat said 'yes' to peace, in the period following his actions led to the first massive wave of terror attacks, known as the "Second Intifada." In 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made Arafat an offer that shocked the world. Barak offered the PLO nearly everything it demanded, including a state with its capital in Jerusalem; control of the Temple Mount; the return of approximately 97% of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, and a $30 billion compensation package for the 1948 refugees.[2] Arafat turned this deal down. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas almost 98% of the West Bank, and again accepted nearly all Palestinian demands. Olmert too, was turned down.

It seems therefore that nothing Israel offers that is less than 100% of its entire land -- in other words, if Israel agrees not to exist -- will affect the Palestinian Authority's [PA] willingness to make peace. The Arabs rejected a plan to partition the land, they did not want peace when there were no Israelis in Gaza, the West Bank or the Jordanian-occupied eastern part Jerusalem, and have repeatedly turned down generous peace offers.

Judea and Samaria are not occupied territories, and the Israeli presence there has no relationship to the PA's willingness to make peace.

Why then would European governments and companies boycott the region? They do not boycott other comparable regions. Even more revealingly, in 2006, the EU even actively aided an occupying power, Turkey, by approving a $259 million aid package for Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus.

Anti-Israel protestors in Melbourne, Australia in June 2010. (Image source: Wikimedia/Takver)

Why these double standards and what do they tell us about the morality -- or lack thereof -- of the people who hold them?

As Thomas Friedman once wrote "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."

---

[1] Wim Kortenoeven, De Kern van de zaak

Tribal Social Mores

"My husband was under tremendous pressure. The family wanted to banish us from the West Bank and people started rumours that my husband wasn't mentally stable."
"My husband is a peaceful man and this is completely out of character but the pressure was too intense."
Laila Zeidan, Deir Al Ghusun, West Bank

"It's not clear that honour killing is on the rise, but we can say that documenting such cases has improved and police and media are more aware of them."
Surayda Hassan, general director, Women Affairs Technical Committee

But the simple facts are that a young woman, estranged from her husband, with her three children under the custody of her husband as per Palestinian cultural demands, and now living with her parents, was accused by her community of not being a chaste woman, of having extramarital relations with a married man other than her husband. There was no proof that anything untoward had occurred, suspicion was enough; it was proof.

A society based on the patriarchal notion under Islam, that a woman's behaviour must always be above and beyond suspicion. She is the property of her husband, and her children his property as well. A woman has little recourse to the kind of justice that might view her as her children's primary caregiver; she sacrifices her role as mother if she decides to leave an abusive or unhappy marriage; that is her penalty. And obviously, it is not the only penalty.

Members of Thamar Zeidan's extended family, including a Palestinian lawmaker, Abed Al-Rahman Zeidan, had made a public accusation of "disgraceful and outrageous acts", on the young woman's part, through a petition widely circulated in their home village near the West Bank town of Tulkarem. The 32-year-old woman's father, Munther, was urged by the petition to "reinstate the cultural and religious morals in his family."

The Media Line    Extended members of the Thamar Zeidan's family accused her of "disgraceful and outrageous acts" in a petition that was widely circulated in her village of Deir Al Ghusun, near the West Bank town of Tulkarem. Reacting to demands to restore the family's honour, Munther killed his daughter.

That is always doublespeak for committing an act of permanent contrition, leading to the restoration of family honour. The stain removed. In this culture of patriarchal domination of females under conservative Islam, the convention is to restore honour by taking the life of someone deemed to be unworthy to continue living. Thamar Zeidan was marked out by her extended family as possessing just such an unworthy life.

In September a man with whom Ms. Zeidan had become friendly, Iyad Na'lweh, married, but interested in marrying her as a second wife, permissible in Islamic law, made his intentions known. She reciprocated his interest but her family did not approve of him, a labourer who worked in Israel, and with a presumed drinking problem. He was one night seen outside her house, and that spurred rumours.

"People said they had been together in her room for the past three days, but that's impossible. In fact, I had been in the hospital and she spent the past three days in my room there", her mother said. Ms. Zeidan was taken to Ramallah to allow the situation in her village to cool down. And that's when the petition began its circulation. Thamar's mother thought her relatives would be pacified if they disciplined their daughter.

"I wanted my husband to discipline her. We took away her phone and limited her movement", she explained. And then, her husband drove to Ramallah to pick up their daughter and bring her back home again. At least that's what the woman's mother thought. "He told us she will be safe and he won't surrender to the family's pressure", her sister Suad said.

She wasn't safe. He did surrender her life to the permanently erasing the humiliating ignominy of false accusations that impugned the family's honour. He killed his daughter to appease the scorn and anger of the extended family who insisted that their honour had been besmirched by the unforgivably loose actions of one of their members, Thamar Zeidan.

At the news of her death, one of her aunts held a celebratory feast, family honour restored. "Thamar's sisters kicked relatives who came to pay their respects out of their house. They were angry because they believe these were the same people who helped spread gossip that led to killing Thamar", a brother-in-law said.

“Honor killing” is a social menace that occurs throughout the Middle East, though precise figures are often elusive. (File Photo: Reuters)

 

Reuters, West Bank
Wednesday, 11 December 2013 

A silvery green olive grove set in the red soil of a Palestinian village is a crime scene - testament to a practice so sensitive that it is spoken of only in whispers.

One night in late November, Rasha Abu Ara, a 32-year-old mother of five, was beaten to death and strung from a gnarled tree branch as a gruesome badge of “family honor” restored.

The woman’s alleged sin was adultery, and her killer was either her own brother or husband, security sources told Reuters. Both are behind bars while an investigation continues.

Her murder brought to 27 the number of women slain in similar circumstances in Palestinian-run areas this year, according to rights groups - more than twice last year’s victims.

The rise has led Palestinians to question hidebound laws they say are lax on killers, as well as a reluctance to name and shame in the media and society, which may contribute to a feeling of impunity among perpetrators.

“It feels like something that belongs to another time,” said one young man in Aqqaba who refused to give his name, the first hints of a beard on his chin. “But, it’s standard.”

A week after the crime, Aqqaba mayor Jamal Abu Ara, who is a member of the victim’s extended family, and his brothers, sat in their village home, smoking cigarettes and choosing their words carefully.

“This act has no religion - it comes from closed, tribal thinking left over from an age of ignorance. People here are walking around in a haze; they want to know who did it and why. Of course, it’s the first time it’s happened here,” he said.

His brother added: “Islam requires you have four witnesses to prove the act of adultery.

“It’s not right what happened. Especially since if it were a man, some would just say ‘boys will be boys’,” he said.

A representative of the slain woman’s family declined to speak to Reuters.

“Honor killing” is a social menace that occurs throughout the Middle East, though precise figures are often elusive.

In neighboring Jordan, for example, a Cambridge University survey of attitudes among young people published in June found that a third of respondents agreed with the practice.

The researchers attributed the result to low levels of education and “patriarchal and traditional world views, emphasis placed on female virtue and a more general belief that violence against others is morally justified.”

The study estimated an average of 15 to 20 such killings occur every year in Jordan, with a population of around 6.3 million, compared to around 4 million in Palestinian lands.

Some activists believe the rise in honour killings indicates social and economic problems are mounting in the territories, where Palestinians exercise limited self-rule but Israel holds ultimate sovereignty, including over commerce.

But Soraida Hussein, whose rights group Muntada tallied this year’s killings, said the practice also has deep roots.

“There is no balance in power relations between the genders. There is a patriarchal mentality...as always, the force and pressure in society is transferred from the strong to the weak,” she said.

Palestinian female participation in the labor force stands at 17 percent, a figure the World Bank called “abysmally low,” noting that employers appeared to favor men, among whom joblessness was almost a third lower in 2013.

Hussein said that most of the killings related to “the movement and the freedom of the woman, so (perpetrators) say it’s an ‘honor killing ‘... also, there’s still no clear law to discourage the practice.”

Many of the cases had economic underpinnings, such as connections to disputes over inheritance, or may have been committed to cover up incest, she added.

The passing of stricter laws on violence against women is hamstrung by the absence of a Palestinian parliament, which has not met since President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and the Islamist Hamas group fought a brief, bloody civil war in 2007.

Abbas has used his executive power to amend or cancel parts of the penal law, but has not yet changed all legislation which applies a separate status to domestic violence and has been used to justify killings and lighten prison sentences.

Palestinian Minister of Women’s Affairs Rabiha Diab saved much of her blame for violence toward women for Israel: “The Israeli occupation is the one practicing the utmost violence ... it’s the main thing keeping us from advancing.

“There’s been a deterioration, financial and psychological pressure on our society, poverty. But there are also certain backward cultural legacies that must be combated,” she said.

Unemployment and poverty both increased in 2013, with both standing at around 25 percent. Growth has slowed from boom rates averaging around 9 percent annually in 2008-2011 to just 1.8 percent in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in the first half of 2013, according to the World Bank.

Not just laws but lawmakers may be part of the problem.

Residents of the northern West Bank village of Deir al-Ghusun began muttering about Thamar Zeidan, a 32-year-old mother of two, after an apparently intoxicated man was spied leaving her home one morning, a local source told Reuters.

Elders, including a Hamas member of parliament, soon gathered and signed an announcement formally banishing her family from the larger tribe. The notice was pasted on the outer walls of homes and on the village mosque.

Days later in late September, Thamar was choked to death with a metal wire in her sleep.

Her father confessed to the deed.

The lawmaker, Abdel Rahman Zeidan, denied charges in the Palestinian media that the petition was tantamount to inciting murder, and said the banishment targeted the father, whom villagers say allowed his children too many freedoms.

“Taking the law into your own hands is wrong,” he told Reuters. “These acts are unacceptable, and laws must be passed to discourage them.

Spreading awareness on the issue can open campaigners and journalists to criticism and even threats, which may partly explain its scant airing in public, however.

Press bulletins occasionally note the discovery of a woman’s body in what are called “hazy circumstances” - a common euphemism for honor killings. Names are concealed and the news is rarely followed up on.

“When you touch such stories, you’re up against a social taboo,” said Palestinian journalist Naela Khalil, whose work focuses on women’s issues.

“Here, the family is stronger than even the security forces. I might criticize Mahmoud Abbas more easily than a father or a brother who killed a woman. Doing this may mean a struggle with a whole family or village,” she said.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Page Hacked

by Kochava Rozenbaum -- ArutzSheva 7 -- 19 August 2013

A skilled computer hacker from the Palestinian Authority, Khalil Shreateh, found a dangerous glitch in the privacy sector of Facebook. Yet, after his warnings were generally ignored by Facebook, Shreateh took matters up with the CEO of the company, Mark Zuckerberg, by breaking the rules and posting on Zuckerbergs’s wall, reported the Daily Mail.

The native Arabic speaker wrote to the Facebook security team: “My name is Khalil Shreateh. I finished school with B.A degree in Information Systems . I would like to report a bug in your main site (www.facebook.com) which i discovered it [sic]...The bug allow Facebook users to share links to other facebook users, I tested it on Sarah.Goodin wall and I got success post.”

Shreateh is referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s fellow Harvard alumnus, Sarah Goodin, whose Facebook page was used to prove the point that hackers have the ability to post information on anyone’s pages, regardless if you are “friends” with that person. 

The security team, however, responded to Shreateh saying that it "was not a bug" and did not fix the obvious issue.

That’s when Shreateh used the hacking method to write on the Facebook founder’s personal wall with this message: “First sorry for breaking your privacy and post to your wall, I has no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to Facebook team.”

The post has since been removed from Zuckerberg’s page, but the plea was answered within minutes after Shreateh contacted the founder’s Facebook.

Since Shreateh used this unorthodox method to catch Facebook’s attention in order to finally convince them of the threat, Facebook later denied him the bounty reward usually given to programmers who report holes in the site’s security.

Validated reports of glitches are usually worth $500.

“In order to qualify for a payout you must make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations and use a test account instead of a real account when investigating bugs,”’ said Matt Jones from Facebook’s security team.

By posting to Zuckerberg and Goodin’s accounts, says Jones, Shreateh violated the terms of service and will not be rewarded for his find.

Facebook said that it welcomes Shreateh to inform them of any additional glitches he may find for them in the future.

“[We] will pay out for future reports from him,’ writes Jones, “if they're found and demonstrated within these guidelines.”

Tags: Facebook ,Zuckerberg ,computer hacking

The ‘Metal Brotherhood’: Israeli and Palestinian bands rock out

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Israeli heavy-metal band 'Orphaned Land' are to tour with Palestinian rock band 'Khalas.' (File photo: AFP)

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Al Arabiya

Sharing a love for music – and head-banging – two Israeli and Palestinian rock bands have joined forces to take a “message of coexistence through rock’n’roll across Europe,” The Guardian reported on Monday.

The Israeli band “Orphaned Land” and Palestinian group “Khalas” both believe that music is above politics, religion and conflict and should bring people together.

Palestinian rock band Khalas performs for an audience in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the West Bank on August 4, 2005. (Photo courtesy: salamstock)

The groups have set a mission. They hope to prove that their “metal brotherhood” music can demonstrate religious and political tolerance by coming together and doing what they love best.
An 18-gig tour will be taking place across Europe, where both bands will perform on the same stage, as well as share a tour bus for three weeks, The Guardian newspaper reported.

“We can’t change the world, but we can give an example of how coexistence is possible,” Kobi Farhi, “Orphaned Land’s” lead singer told the newspaper.

“Sharing a stage and sharing a bus is stronger than a thousand words. We’ll show how two people from different backgrounds who live in a conflict zone can perform together,” Farhi added.

“Khalas,” translates to “enough” in Arabic. The Palestinian band’s lead guitarist, Abed Hathut, told the newspaper: “Just because we are Palestinians, people expect us to sing only about the occupation.”

"We are metal brothers before everything," Hathut said about his group's  teaming up with “Orphaned Land.”

 “Orphaned Land” use their music to express their views mostly about politics. “Our music is never about an ex-girlfriend, it’s always about politics,” Farhi said.

In the past, boycotts have been implemented by Palestinian activists who believe these joint ventures spurn the occupation of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel.

Last week in Tel Aviv, both bands performed for the second time since meeting at a radio station. During their first meet, they were able realize that what divided them was not strong enough to overpower what united them, the bands said.

“One day our children will form a band together,” Farhi said.

Tags

music, israel, palestine

Op-Ed: Archbishop Welby: a Friend of Israel?

Published: Sunday, June 23, 2013  -- Arutz Sheva

The archbishop actually has Jewish roots. He is coming to Israel on Sunday. Will he turn the tide against the Jew-bashers in the Anglican Church?

Richard Mather, View from UK  The writer, a Noahide (ben Noach), is a freelance journalist based in Manchester.

Justin Welby has been Archbishop of Canterbury for less than six months and he has already made the important gesture of visiting the Middle East. Hopefully, it is the start of a much-needed reappraisal of the Anglican Church's attitude towards the Jewish state.

Starting Sunday, Archbishop Welby will spend five days touring Israel, Jordan and Egypt, including trips to the Western Wall, the Church of the Resurrection, the Temple Mount and Yad Vashem. He is also meeting with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, patriarchs and church leaders.
His first official trip to Israel coincides with the discovery that he has Jewish ancestry, a fact that was hidden from him until recently. His father’s family were German Jewish immigrants who moved to England to escape anti-Semitism in the late 19th century. The new archbishop says he is "really pleased" to discover that he has a Jewish family, including a cousin who is a rabbi in London.

Archbishop Welby's visit is highly symbolic. It is a sign that he is willing to embrace Christianity’s (and his own) Jewish roots, which is particularly important at a time when many in the Church – especially on the Left – are distancing themselves from the biblical concept of the Jews as the people destined to reside in the land of Israel.

So is the new Archbishop an ally of Israel? Canon Andrew White, the Vicar of Baghdad, thinks so. Israel and the Jewish people, he says, have nothing to fear. Meanwhile, Ed Kessler, executive director of the Woolf Institute, says Welby is “genuinely sensitive to Jews and Judaism” and “open to Israel as a Jewish state.” And according to a report in The Jewish News, Archbishop Welby is opposed to boycotts of Israel.

This is welcome news. But Archbishop Welby still has an uphill task when it comes to moderating the intemperate (and sometimes blatantly anti-Semitic) language and behavior of some of his clergy in the Church of England, many of whom have embraced an unpleasant ideology called Christian Palestinianism, which denies any historical or theological connection between the biblical Israel, the Jewish people and the modern State of Israel.

Indeed, it is a sad fact that the Kulturkampf ("culture war") being waged against the Jewish state is spearheaded by several notable Anglicans. Retired Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu, for example, actively supports the boycott and divestment movement and has repeatedly called Israel an “apartheid” state. On a Christmas visit to Jerusalem in 1989, Tutu said “a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa.” He echoed these comments in 2002, when he spoke of “the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” Enraged by Tutu's anti-Israel posturing, US attorney Alan Dershowitz has described the retired bishop as a “racist and a bigot.”

Another Anglican bigot is Naim Ateek, former canon of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem and author of a tract called Justice, and only Justice, a Palestinian Theology of Liberation. Ateek believes there is "a great need to de-Zionize" sections of the Bible, which he considers "exclusivist." Ateek is also fond of portraying Jesus as “a Palestinian living under an occupation.” In his 2001 Easter sermon he unashamedly spoke of “crucified Palestinians,” the “Israeli crucifixion system” and Palestine as “one huge Golgotha”. Obviously, he was drawing on the old canard of Jews as Christ-killers.

In 1989, Ateek founded the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (which has spawned sister organizations in countries including the UK and the US). Sabeel promotes the idea that Zionism is based on a false interpretation of the Bible and that it stands for injustice. Critics of Sabeel claim that the organization regularly engages in anti-Israel propaganda and seeks to delegitimize the right of the Jewish state to exist. The Anti-Defamation League accuses the organization of “generating hostility towards Israel” citing “its use of theologically charged accusations.”

In the UK, the most notorious (and vile) Anglican anti-Zionist is Dr Stephen Sizer, incumbent of an Anglican parish in Surrey. According to Sizer, there is “no evidence that the apostles [of Jesus] believed that the Jewish people still had a divine right to the land, or that Jewish possession of the land would be important, let alone that Jerusalem would remain a central aspect of God’s purposes for the world.” In short, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel “have been made irrelevant to God’s redemptive purposes.”

Sizer is a regular contributor to Islamic media outlets, including Iran’s atrocious Press TV. He has been photographed with Arafat and with Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini, the daughter of the Ayatollah. He has met with – and publicly defended – Raed Salah, a Hamas fundraiser who accuses the Jews of making Passover bread with the blood of Christian children. (There are numerous photos of Sizer and Salah enjoying each other’s company.)
Some members of the Jewish community regard Sizer as a proponent of Christian anti-Semitism. British journalist Melanie Phillips has condemned him in her writings, while British Jewish historian Geoffrey Alderman has criticized Sizer for hiding his prejudice behind an "academic guise." Sizer's views have also angered many in the Christian community. The Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, who is Bishop of Manchester and Chairman of the Council of Christians and Jews, has referred to Sizer's behavior as "disgraceful and unbecoming for a clergyman." And Simon McIlwaine, the founder of Anglican Friends of Israel, has called for Sizer to be defrocked.

Despite some dissenting voices, there has been a systematic campaign inside the Church to demonize and isolate Israel. Several years ago, the synod or governing body of the Church of England voted to disinvest church funds from some companies which supply goods and services to Israel. The main target of the plan was Caterpillar Inc, which sells earth-moving vehicles to the Israel Defense Forces. (The IDF uses many Caterpillar machines such as bulldozers and excavators mainly for engineering, earthworks and building projects.)

More insidious is the Church's relationship with the Ecumenical Accompaniers Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). EAPPI's main function is to “bring international Christian volunteers to the West Bank to experience life under occupation.” EAPPI has focused exclusively on the existence of Israel as the fundamental cause of conflict in the Middle East. It ignores Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians and supports the right-to-return policy, which would effectively end Israel as a Jewish country.

But such concerns did not prevent the Church of England throwing its weight behind the EAPPI in an important debate last July. The Church's governing body voted by a significant majority to support the nefarious aims of EAPPI. A closer look at the voting figures shows that clergy voted 4 to 1 in favor, while the laity voted 3 to 1. Even the then-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who abstained from the vote, expressed his “respect and gratitude for the immense courage and dedication of the volunteers.”

He added: “There are some people, in their uncritical assumption that the government of Israel can do no wrong, who are clearly going to be very irritated by information being disseminated of the kind that EAPPI does.”

Did he not realize that the "information" disseminated by the EAPPI is little more than Palestinian propaganda?

But what is particularly interesting is the fact that Welby, before he became archbishop, also abstained from the vote – but now wishes he had voted against it. In a recent interview with The Jewish News, Archbishop Welby said: “On reflection, I'd have voted against. I wasn't quite up to speed when I went into that vote. I think the situation in the Holy Land is so complicated that we always have to show we recognize this and I don't think the motion adequately reflected the complexity.” He also told the publication that he should have used the debate to emphasize Israel's right to “live in security and peace.”

It is slightly alarming Welby “wasn't quite up to speed” on such an important issue, but at least he has been brave enough to renounce his earlier position. Indeed, his new position has upset some of his colleagues. Dr John Dinnen, the Anglican synod member who proposed the motion, said he was “sad” that Archbishop Welby “now feels he should have voted against my private member's measure.”

Welby’s predecessor, Rowan Williams, did little to halt political Jew-bashing in the Anglican Church. Can the new archbishop do any better? Can Archbishop Welby succeed in portraying the State of Israel in a better light? It is true that he is not in a position to instruct the synod on how to vote in future debates. But his positive attitude towards Israel and the Jewish people may have a sobering effect on the Palestinianists within the Anglican community.

Furthermore, Archbishop Welby's trip to the Middle East is a good opportunity to speak out on behalf of those Christians who are persecuted by their Muslim neighbors. So far, the Church of England and EAPPI have done little to express solidarity with Christians who are being harassed and driven out by Muslim fanatics in the so-called Palestinian territories, as well as in Iraq and Egypt.

Take the Christian village of Taybeh in Judea and Samaria, for example. The residents of Taybeh live in constant fear of Muslim gangs from the surrounding villages. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslims attacked the village, torching property and desecrating a statue of the Virgin Mary. In May 2012, a massacre was narrowly prevented after Palestinian Authority policemen drove out a gang of Muslim men who were intent on causing trouble.

Of course, the plight of Christians in Muslim areas is rarely reported because it is not newsworthy and it does not fit the prevailing anti-Israel narrative. But Archbishop Welby has a massive worldwide audience who might sit up and take notice if he publicly highlighted the recurring problem of Muslim violence against Christians in the Holy Land.

Archbishop Welby has only been in office for a very short time. But during this period he has criticized the UK government's austerity measures and he has visited the new pope in an effort to bridge the gap between Anglicans and Catholics. Now would be a good time to repair the damage done to Anglican-Jewish relations and condemn Islamic violence. And if he can make the case for Israel and turn the tide of anti-Zionist opinion within his own ranks, so much the better.

Tags: Anglican Church

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Musical Arab-Jewish youth seek the key to coexistence

A Yale University alumnus and veteran of the school's famed a capella groups has brought his talents to Jerusalem, where he launched an Arab-Jewish youth chorus. 

By Chelsea B. Sheasley, Correspondent / May 22, 2013

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Micah Hendler, director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, started a chorus for Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem five months after graduating from Yale University. He leads practice in Jerusalem's YMCA in this photo from February.   Chelsea Sheasley/TCSM

Jerusalem

The Harlem Shake craze has hit Jerusalem and the Arab and Jewish teens in Micah Hendler's Jerusalem Youth Chorus want to make their own video. It’s not Mr. Hendler's preferred music, but the students’ exuberance leaves him little choice.

“All right, if we’re going to make this video we’re going to have to get moving,” he says.
There are plenty of expats living in Jerusalem but Hendler is the only one who started an Arab-Jewish youth chorus five months after graduating college.

Hendler is a former counselor at the Seeds of Peace coexistence camp in Maine, proud alumnus of two a capella groups at Yale – the Duke’s Men and Whiffenpoofs – and a firm believer in the power of music to create communities and empower youth.

Supported by grants from Yale and the Jerusalem Foundation, Hendler moved to Jerusalem after graduating in 2012 to put his ideas into practice – he wrote his senior thesis on the successes and failures of other music-for-peace programs in Israel.

He selected 14 Arab and 14 Jewish students from 80 applicants; together they performed to a packed house at the Jerusalem YMCA Christmas concert two months after their first practice.

He’s trying to avoid two pitfalls of other programs he studied: enabling students to remain negative toward the group as a whole, even as they make friends with representatives of “the other,” or focusing so much on broad dialogue that the students don’t form any close friendships.

Hendler’s three-hour weekly practice includes time for bonding – the Harlem Shake video was preceded by collective giggles – and a 45-minute dialogue run by trained facilitators. The dialogue is strategically placed in the middle of the rehearsal so students don't come late and miss it, as they did in other programs he studied.

Rudinah, an Arab girl from East Jerusalem, says she didn’t know there would be a dialogue portion before she joined the chorus, but that it’s one of her favorite parts. “The Jewish people here are so cool and friendly,” she says.

Likewise Shifa Woodbridge, a Jew who had never met an Arab before joining the chorus, is equally exuberant.

“It's my favorite part,” she exclaimed when asked about the dialogue. “I love talking about it. It's not weird," she says.

Hendler recognizes that some doubt whether programs like his can make a difference or are simply invigorating those already in support of peace, but points to the first free time the students were given at their second rehearsal when Arabs and Jews spontaneously mingled without prompting as evidence that the program is useful.

"People were hanging out across every possible line, of their own free will. There aren't that many places in the city, or country, or world really where that happens."

Imagine The Intolerable

Imagine that your family lives with the dread knowledge that their husband, son and father became the target of a terrorist attack. He was a loving son, husband and father, a marine engineer, a specialist whose field of endeavour brought him to the attention of the United Nations, and he was responding to an invitation by the U.S. government to assist them in an environmental venture, travelling from Israel where he lived, when the attack by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine took place at a stopover in Greece.

The terrorists threw grenades at the Boeing 707, shooting 83 rounds at the jetliner. Leon Shirdan had obligingly exchanged seats with a five-year-old just moments earlier, at the request of the child's parents who wanted their child to be able to sit closer to them on the plane. Leon Shirdan was the the only person killed during that attack. The two attackers, one of whom was named Mahmoud Mohammad Isa Mohammad, had arrived in Athens from Beirut to fulfill their mission to attack the El Al plane. They were arrested by Greek police, a trial held, and they were sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Two years into his prison sentence, Mahmoud Mohammad was released from prison. Other Palestinian terrorists had hijacked another airliner, threatening to kill everyone on board unless the two prisoners in Greece were released. They were, and Mahmoud Mohammad went to Spain and from there later applied to emigrate to Canada, without disclosing details of his background, presenting himself as a legitimate emigrant, along with his wife and two daughters.  Almost thirty years later the Government of Canada finally succeeded in deporting him back to Lebanon, after trying fruitlessly since 1987.

The man who posed as an ordinary person anxious to escape the uncertainty and violence of the Middle East, preferring to live in Canada as a place of refuge where he and his family could live their ordinary lives, informed Canadian authorities that he had left his interest in terrorist activities long behind him, once his past activities had come to the attention of the authorities. Nothing, however, expunges the fact that he murdered an innocent man through the commission of a terrorist act, and was able to live with his family under circumstances that were unreflective of his past.

Another family moved to Canada, to escape the uncertainties of life in the Middle East. The mother, wife and child of the murdered Leon Shirdan chose to leave Israel and to emigrate to Canada. Leaving behind the dread memories of the never-ending conflict and uncertainties that had led to the terrorist-inspired death of their son, husband, father. And then, a year after moving to Canada, they discovered that the man who had murdered the person they mourned was living an hour's drive away in a nearby Ontario town.

For them Mohammad's removal from Canada provided much relief,  after a long and elaborate series of legal actions and desperate appeals hoping to overturn the government's intention to deport him as a criminal, finally succeeded. The Shirdan family now has some level of closure. The decades of living with the haunting realization that the man who had murdered their loved one had chosen to migrate with his family to the very same destination that they themselves had done, has now seen closure, with his removal.

In a sense, a kind of Canadian justice has atoned for the indifference of fate that allowed a cold-blooded murderer to live a normal life with his family as though he had committed no offence against humanity. And although the Shirdan family has reason to feel bitter about the murder that occurred in 1968 and the circumstances that intervened allowing the murderer to escape justice, they may now perhaps take comfort in the fact that Mahmoud Mohammad's long fight to evade deportation finally was eclipsed by justice prevailing.

In a way, this event reflects what occurred after the Second World War, when the horrors of the Holocaust became public and people realized the enormity of the crimes against humanity that took place under the feverishly anti-Semitic auspices of the Third Reich. Jews who had emigrated to Canada after the war discovered on occasion that they could recognize faces that passed them on the street that were familiar to them. The survivors of the death camps saw to their horror the faces of former Nazi guards who had ensured they were unable to escape the dread consequences of being a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe.

For all too many years, successive governments in Canada either took no notice of rumours of the presence of Nazi war criminals living out the rest of their natural lives in peace, far from the scene of their complicity in genocide, or feeble attempts were made eventually and the public by and large tended to deplore the harassment of old people who were once rabid Jew-killers, but who had lived normal lives in Canada, impressing their neighbours with their presence as "nice" people.

Micro-Terrorism

Israel is named and shamed as an 'apartheid state'. The naming and shaming has been embraced by students and academics on university campuses, in trade unions and among all stridently righteous people, including some church groups. This emanated from a brilliant Palestinian public relations theory that if enough people believed it and campaigned with it, a boycott-and-divestment program would follow, harming the Israeli economy, and in any event, the reputation of Israel as a human-rights-respecting country.

Of course realities such as the fact that Jews and Arabs enjoy equal rights under the law in Israel are incidental to the campaign, not of all that much interest in the fervour and enthusiasm of those whose passions are engaged in this human rights imbroglio, slamming Israel and by extension Jews through a not-too-subtle anti-Semitic fall-out, despite the protestations that faulting Israel has nothing to do with racial discrimination.

It is entirely irrelevant that Israel is not a believable candidate for such pejorative nomenclature. Arabs have rights to identical health and welfare programs as Jews. Israeli Arabs can vote, seek public office, serve in government. An Israeli Arab sits on the Supreme Court of Israel. Israeli Arabs, are elected Members of the Knesset.

Arabic is an official language of the country. Hundreds of Arab high schools abound in Israel. For apartheid in action look in Saudi Arabia to find a synagogue, a yeshiva, a church or anything representing an institution reflecting other than Islam.

Holocaust denial has had a three-fold increase in two years, anti-Semitic acts have increased year on year over the last decade in Canada, just when it was generally thought that such assaults were a thing of the past. Keeping pace, as it happens, with the migration of Muslims into the country in waves of emigration from their places of birth.

Keeping pace, in fact, with similar findings throughout Europe. Substantial numbers of Muslims have displaced Jewish comfort in civil acceptance.

The increase for the three most western provinces of anti-Semitic incidents in 2012 was 25%; Quebec outside of Montreal saw a four-fold increase in such incidents. Of the incidents reported, just over half took place in Ontario; the next largest number in Quebec.

The last decade has seen a steadily increasing incidence of anti-Semitism. More than doubling from 2003; an increase of 19% from 2008.

"We are particularly concerned about this year's findings of increased participation in these incidents by perpetrators self-identifying as Muslims who are apparently supportive of Islamist ideologies of hate and violence. But we are encouraged by the many Muslims with whom we work closely, who are prepared to expose anti-Semitism in their community." That's a statement issued by Frank Dimant, CEO of B'nai Brith Canada.

"The Audit", he said, "shows an overall increase in vandalism and violence, but an increase of 10.6% in incidents of harassment. Jews were targeted in their homes and at t heir workplaces, on their way to synagogue, or returning from school." Threats have been "more ugly, explicit and open."

As well, "The League is also warning that youth culture is being infiltrated by the lyrics of hate, extremism from abroad through online propaganda, and cyberbullying directed to a victim's smartphone."

Sounds, overall, like a skilled and productive public relations campaign at slander and fear-mongering, otherwise known as terrorism.

Israeli Arab Arin Shaabi's job as a military prosecutor for the Israel Defense Forces puts her in the difficult position of handling the cases of fellow Arabs, earning her hatred from some. 

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / April 22, 2013

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Arin Shaabi works at a military base on the seam of Israel and the West Bank, crossing just over the threshold each day to prosecute Palestinians from the territory.  Christa Case Bryant

Megiddo, Israel

Arin Shaabi walks a fine line between Arab and Jew every day.

Christa Case Bryant Jerusalem bureau chief
Christa Case Bryant is The Christian Science Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, providing coverage on Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as regional issues.

When she drives to work, she crosses from Israel into the northern West Bank, not far from Jenin. Just over the border, inside her small trailer office on an Israeli army base, a stack of folders awaits her attention – pink for criminals, green for terrorists.

All the files belong to Palestinians, who live beyond the maze of rusty fences, barbed wire, and concrete barriers that separate her from the offenders. Some are just kids, accused of throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. Others are suspected of transferring enemy money into the territory, or making contact with enemy agents. As a military prosecutor, it’s up to Shaabi to review the evidence and shepherd the cases through the military courts.

It's a sensitive task, especially because Shaabi is herself Arab. Very few of Israel's 20 percent minority of Arabs serve in the military. In 2011, Shaabi was one of only 94 Arab Christians in the whole Israel Defense Forces (IDF) (with another 155 Arab Muslim soldiers).

While most Israeli citizens are required to serve in the military, Arabs like Shaabi are exempt. So the fact that she volunteered, and even fought against cultural and bureaucratic resistance to get a job in which she is responsible for prosecuting fellow Palestinians, initially earned her the hatred of Palestinian defense attorneys who work on the base.

“One told me that in the beginning he hated me because I didn’t have to do military service,” says Shaabi, a soft-spoken woman who joined the military out of a sense of responsibility to her country. “But when you work with them and they get to know you, it disappears.”

There have been tough moments in the past two and a half years, such as when she was exposed to the gruesome evidence of a Palestinian attack that killed a sleeping couple and three of their children in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in 2011. Worried about the effect the evidence would have on a fellow prosecutor, a Jewish woman, she forbid her from looking at it.

Shaabi admits it took extra courage to make it here at all, coming from the Arab city of Nazareth, where it’s strange to see any Israeli soldiers in uniform, let alone Israeli Arabs. She says she found strength in her mom’s support, and inspiration in the stories her maternal grandmother – who was born Jewish – told her as a kid.

With two Jewish uncles from her grandmother’s first marriage, Shaabi grew up with a pair of IDF soldiers in the family. And since Judaism is passed through the maternal bloodline, some would even consider her to be Jewish. But since Shaabi's grandmother converted to Christianity when she got remarried to an Arab Christian man in the late 1950s, her mother was raised Christian, and chose to raise Shaabi that way.

“At home we didn’t have any racism or anything,” Shaabi recalls, saying her grandfather was courageous to marry a Jewish woman just a decade after Israel declared independence and some 700,000 Arabs either fled or were forced from their homes. Her grandfather was among the small minority who stayed.

“I grew up with the idea that this is where we live, this is our country. And in the same way that we have rights, we have responsibilities,” she adds. “So I felt that even though it’s not mandatory for me to join [the IDF], it’s my responsibility to do it.”