Blood Rites

Hi Folks, here is a brewing story: Israel will vote on a bill that would enshrine Israel as a state for Jewish people. In order to be Jewish, one must have been born of a jewish mother. many young men, after they have passed their bar mitzfa, and travel to Israel on right to return, discover that because their mothers converted to Judaism, and not considered "real Jews." This post will examine what happens when a state is enshrined where only one religions has "rights," where only people of one religion is recognized as citizens. Currently, in the "democratic" "Jewish" state of Israel, there are more than a million and a half non Jewish citizens. A bill passed by the cabinet would strip these non Jews of citizenship.

 

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Is Israel an Ethnocracy?

 

Israel will vote to deny equality to non Jewish "citizens"

 

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Palestinian citizens of Israeli say nation bill confirms reality of exclusion

#Occupation

'It's Israel being honest and admitting that this really is a state just for Jews,' one Palestinian citizen of Israel told MEE.

Young Palestinians climb over Israel's controversial barrier which separates the West Bank from Jerusalem (AFP)

JERUSALEM - It's a piece of legislation that's already threatened to tear apart Israel's ruling coalition, provoked concern and condemnation from international observers, and triggered soul-searching agony among the country’s liberal left.

But for Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Nation State Bill – which seeks to enshrine Israel as a Jewish state in its basic law, and which was approved by its cabinet last week – is not a surprise. And rather than being worried about the new bill, many think it simply confirms what has been the case for decades.  

“I don't think the bill will change anything,” Waad Ghantous, a 23-year-old activist from Haifa told Middle East Eye. “Really, it's Israel being honest and admitting that this really is a state just for Jews. Jews from everywhere all around the world are invited to ‘come back’ here, when Palestinians are living in refugee camps, unable to come home.”

For years, activists like Ghantous have been fighting discrimination against Palestinians – injustices they say are enabled by the ideological and political foundation of a state that defines itself on ethnic lines.

Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, lists over 50 “discriminatory” laws which violate the rights of Palestinians in Israel, called 'Arab Israelis' by authorities. They include measures that allow land to be confiscated for state use or that confer special benefits to citizens who perform military or national service, which the vast majority of Arab citizens do not undertake.

Already reality 

“There is no legal or constitutional effect on the reality of the political legal system. There’s no policy or law that they can pass now that they wouldn’t be able to pass yesterday,” Majd Kayyal, also from Haifa, said of the new bill. “The definition of Israel as a Jewish state is enough. This is more of a declaration, a final say. It’s a new level of dealing with the deep contradiction between being a Jewish state and a democratic state, and it exposes the reality of the contradiction, because it’s impossible to be both a Jewish and a democratic regime.

“There is a struggle to push Israel to reveal it's real face,” Kayyal continued. “And the reality is that it’s based on blood lines. It’s based on one question: is your mother Jewish, or not? Do you have Jewish blood, or not?”

Kayyal is one of some 1.7 million Palestinians living in Israel, more than 20 percent of the population. They’re mostly the descendants of those who remained within the borders of the newly independent country after some 700,000 were expelled in the Nakba of 1948.

For most, the existence of a self-defined Jewish state on their land, where they still live as non-Jews, is a historic injustice that has yet to be resolved. “I don't think the bill will change anything,” Ghantous said. “Palestine has been occupied for 66 years. Israel is not new.”

Ghantous’ personal story illustrates one of the many ways that Palestinian Arabs have been displaced and disenfranchised in Israel. She’s from Kufr Birim, a village in the north of Israel that was cleared of its inhabitants in 1951.

Denial of rights

In the years that followed, residents were prevented from returning and the village was destroyed, along with 531 others that disappeared in 1948 and the years that followed.

For the residents of these villages, many of whom were displaced within Israel, their continued exclusion is part of the wider erasure and denial of Palestinian rights. “If they allow us to go back to Birim, it will open the doors to all the other villages going back,” said Ghantous. “It will show that we have the right.”

But Palestinians say the difficulties of living as a non-Jew in Israel manifest themselves in more subtle ways, too. “You can feel it everywhere,” Yousef Abu Baker, 21, a student living in Haifa, told MEE. “I can feel it when I'm at the airport, when I'm at the train station, when I'm at the nightclub even, when they don't let people in because they’re Arab.”

“It’s everything,” Majd Kayyal said. “The main thing is the feeling that you are in the margins, that you are not part of the cultural process, not part of urban space that is developing. You don’t belong to the public space. As Palestinians we have internal private space, you might have your village, your house, your individual time, but public space is not yours.”

The denial of collective rights within the Nation State Bill, Kayyal believes, further articulates the exclusion that already prevents Palestinians from participating in the state. “How do you identify as a human? You have a political community,” he explained. “Israel wants us to eat, to drink, to sleep, to maybe have a house. But they don’t want us to exist in this way as a political community. I don’t want to change the regime. I don’t want to start talking with it, because it’s not mine.”

Contradictions exposed

“Israel has never been a democracy,” Maha Ighbaria, 24, told MEE in an email. “Israel is an ethnic democracy. Some even see this term as self-contradictory. How can you be a democracy when you represent one ethnicity over the rest who, you claim, are also citizens?

“The Jewishness of the Israeli institutions is not new. It has always been the case that we are second-class citizens in job opportunities, research funding, social campaigns, political and media discourse,” Ighbaria added. “We were always second-class citizens of Israel, but now it is official.”

Ighbaria’s sentiment was highlighted by a viral social media campaign last week, which saw young Palestinian citizens of Israel paste official-looking “stamps” bearing the word “second-class citizen” onto their Facebook profiles. Activists hope this will be among the many critical and proactive responses to the bill, particularly among people who might previously have been more apathetic to their status in Israel.

“The Palestinians who felt they belonged to the country, they won't feel like they did yesterday,” Abu Baker said. He believes that Druze Israelis, who have lived in Palestine before the creation of Israel but now tend to cooperate with Israeli authorities, even serving in the army, might be more compelled to question their position in the light of the legislation. “We should take this things and we should make it so it's for us,” Abu Baker continued. “We should work with the Druze population and tell them they must wake up, say, look at this situation, it is not for you.”

'A problem of apartheid'

“Inside Israel, this law will probably trigger the mobilisation of the Israeli left, as they are more concerned about social justice and equality within the Jewish state. It might also alienate so-called ‘moderate Arabs’ in the Knesset who endorse a discourse of equality and co-existence,” Ighbaria suggested. “But Israeli policies, especially with the rise of right-wing leadership, have always pushed towards alienating moderation in favour of extremism. Then they act shocked when something violent happens. I can't think of any action that can turn the tides at the moment.”

Kayyal, too, believes the development of the bill pushes Israel toward a closer examination of its own contradictions, a new stage in a historical process that’s seen it confront resistance in tightening geographical terms. Where in the past Israel's fight for its future as a Jewish state took place beyond its borders – in the surrounding Arab countries, then the West Bank and Gaza, he said, it’s now developing within the state itself, and resistance is from those Palestinians who remained in the country after 1948.

“As Palestinians we can use this as an opportunity,” said Kayyal, considering the impact of the bill itself. “Now we need to stop thinking about two states, about whether we want a Palestinian state on 22 percent of our land. We can stop thinking about this as a problem of borders, but as a universal problem of anti-colonialism and apartheid. We need to ask the ethical question: do we want to live in a racist regime or not?”

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-nationality-bill-confirms-what-palestinians-say-they-already-know-483738353#sthash.JWOeV0Qy.dpuf

The Armies Of The Easily Offended

Lets start out with offensive words in America...


Intent to offend vs straightforward opinion...



Quid huic sacri umquam fore aut quid religiosi fuisse putatis qui nunc tanto scelere se obstrictum esse non sentiat, qui in iudicium veniat ubi ne precari quidem Iovem Optimum Maximum atque ab eo auxilium petere more omnium possit? Do you think anything will ever be sacred to this man or anything was taboo, who now feels he is not barred from such wickedness, who comes to court where he cannot even pray to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and ask him for aid by everyone’s custom? —Cic. Ver. 4.71 MERRY CHRISTMAS! Ho! Ho! Ho! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYO3FrNuREc http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-From-Being-So-Easily-Offended When feeling offended becomes institutionalized, countries go to war.

The antidote to feeling offended is to feel good about one'self. So, get HAPPY!

What Can Be Said...

When opinions differ? When a power struggle turns deadly? Why is there no peace in the Middle East? Bashir al Assad wants to move forward toward democracy, but rhe Ieaq war disrupts reqional security? Not only terrorists engage in beheadings? Barbaric reaction?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

List_of_people_who_were_beheaded Arab Spring in Syria?
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/14/airstrikes/index.html

The Yemen Explained

Yemen is an ancient place, populated by ancient cultures. Today, Yemwn is another field hosting proxie wars. The history of the Yemen is convelouted... Arabia Felix Ancient city, Sanaa

Allah Will Raise An Army Of Non Arabs And Victory Is Soon

Video that inspired the Boston Marathon Bombers Fourty days and fourty nights and they will destroy the Saudi Kingdom and raise their Black Flags in Jerusalem. Al Sham is Lebanon, Syria, Palastine, Jordan and Yemen. "We will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people." Reportedly AQ In Yemen moved their sophisticared bomb development experts to Syria, due to US drones success in Yemen, and Houthis imminent takeover of Yemen government. Folks, you might remember our Ambassador in Libya reporting that he say the Al Q black Flags flying allover government buildings in Benghazi?

Sunni Scholars Accuse Takfiris of Non Islamic Behavior

"Several countries have started expressing their concerns over the security threats posed by the presence of these groups in Syria," Nasrallah said, positing, "Do we not have the right as Lebanese in Syria's border to worry, take measures and make a preemptive move? Why do we not have the right to intervene to fend off the threat of Takfiri crimes?" Nasrallah went on to blame Israel and the US for using Takfiri groups in the Middle East to achieve their own goals in the region. "Of course, Israel has infiltrated these Takfiri groups. The Americans are using the groups and, of course, have used them in Iraq and also elsewhere for a long time," Nasrallah said. He added that Saudi authorities regularly arm and fund the Takfiri groups in order to sow sectarian discord throughout the region. Nasrallah described the al-Qaeda-linked groups, the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as the best examples of the Saudi-backed Takfiri mindset. The Arab League has announced its full support to "all initiatives" that look to fight the Islamic State, also known as Daesh. As initially had been reported, this group was originally supported by the United States and various members of the Arab League. However, the change in stance in the Arab League is questioned by many in the region since Syria has had to deal with the Washington and Saudi-backed Daesh since its inception. Here are some of the so called moderate rebels fighting in Syria to topple Assad... However, the Free Syrian Army has stated they will not join Obama's plan to degrade ISIL, because their only target is Assad. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140912/syria-rebels-non-aggression-pact-near-damascus

Israel's Popular Rabbi Rules Jewish Law Permits the Extermination of Civilians In Gaza

Al-Monitor: What you are essentially saying in your legal ruling is that the killing of civilians isn’t always a war crime. Bahar: That’s right. There can be complications resulting from a justifiable military operation that was proportional in terms of military exigencies. As bad as it sounds, harming civilians is permissible. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/israel-international-law-war-time-legal-opinion-shin-bet.html#ixzz38IoFdf3R

The Right To Return

No doubt about it, Pinpoint Accuracy! The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR How the West Chose War in Gaza Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West By NATHAN THRALLJULY 17, 2014 JERUSALEM — AS Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian “national consensus” government that was formed in early June. That government was created largely because of Hamas’s desperation and isolation. The group’s alliance with Syria and Iran was in shambles. Its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt became a liability after a July 2013 coup replaced an ally, President Mohamed Morsi, with a bitter adversary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas’s coffers dried up as General Sisi closed the tunnels that had brought to Gaza the goods and tax revenues on which it depended. Seeing a region swept by popular protests against leaders who couldn’t provide for their citizens’ basic needs, Hamas opted to give up official control of Gaza rather than risk being overthrown. Despite having won the last elections, in 2006, Hamas decided to transfer formal authority to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. That decision led to a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, on terms set almost entirely by the P.L.O. chairman and Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world. Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel’s interests. It offered Hamas’s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel. Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel’s security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace. Still, despite its opposition to the reconciliation agreement, Israel continued to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf, and to work closely with the new government, especially on security cooperation. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story But the key issues of paying Gaza’s civil servants and opening the border with Egypt were left to fester. The new government’s ostensible supporters, especially the United States and Europe, could have pushed Egypt to ease border restrictions, thereby demonstrating to Gazans that Hamas rule had been the cause of their isolation and impoverishment. But they did not. Instead, after Hamas transferred authority to a government of pro-Western technocrats, life in Gaza became worse. Continue reading the main story RECENT COMMENTS Horow001 2 days ago There is/was a simple solution all along. Hamas needed/needs to change its charter and recognize Israel rather than calling for its... HapinOregon 2 days ago Pray tell or explain why any nation should aid and abet the avowed intentions of its enemy in the destruction of that nation? Kevin Cahill 2 days ago What a fabulous article! Thank you Nathan Thrall and NYT. SEE ALL COMMENTS Qatar had offered to pay Gaza’s 43,000 civil servants, and America and Europe could have helped facilitate that. But Washington warned that American law prohibited any entity delivering payment to even one of those employees — many thousands of whom are not members of Hamas but all of whom are considered by American law to have received material support from a terrorist organization. When a United Nations envoy offered to resolve this crisis by delivering the salaries through the United Nations, so as to exclude all parties from legal liability, the Obama administration did not assist. Instead, it stood by as Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called for the envoy’s expulsion on the grounds that he was “trying to funnel money” to Hamas. Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn’t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn’t reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing. For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza’s border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay. A more generous cease-fire, though politically difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be more durable. The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.

Putin Welcomes Crimea Home

Here is the full speech... ‘In Ukraine the West crossed the red line’ In fact, it was Russia that defended international law and its institutions, while western countries have been diminishing them. The situation in Crimea is just a reflection of this broader process, which has been happening for decades now. “In the practical application of policies, our western partners – the United States first and foremost – prefer to be guided not by international law, but by the right of strength. They believe in their exceptionalism, that they are allowed to decide on the fate of the world, that they are always right,” Putin charged. This disregard to rule of law was evident in Yugoslavia in 1999, when NATO bombed the country without a UN Security Council mandate, the Russian president said. There was Afghanistan, Iraq and the perversion of the UNSC resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing a no-fly zone NATO bombed the country into submission. There were also orchestrated “colored revolutions” in Europe and the Arab World, which cynically used the feelings of people tired with corruption and poverty. The latest Ukrainian events are just the latest of such actions, and Russia’s willingness to seek dialogue and compromise was stonewalled again, Putin said. http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage.php?Dir=wars&FileName=wars_crimean.php

Putin Draws A Red Line And Stands By It

Is there any truth to Putin's concern that fascists, Neo Nazis and others in Ukraine want to kill Russians, Jews and Communists? Ukrainian nationalist party Right Sector has announced it holds the acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accountable for the death of notorious radical militant Aleksandr Muzychko and will avenge it, Ukrainian media reports. “We will take revenge on Arsen Avakov for the death of our brother,” said Rovno coordinator of the Right Sector Roman Koval, as cited by charivne.info news portal. “The shooting of Sashko Bilyi [Muzychko’s nom de guerre] is an assassination ordered by the minister. Muzychko never received any notices concerning criminal offences and was never summoned anywhere.” Earlier, Muzychko, also known as Sashko Bilyi, was proclaimed dead after a police raid against his gang in Rovno, western Ukraine. During the raid, Muzychko opened fire wounding an officer. He continued shooting even despite being injured in the leg, the Interior Ministry said. “When [the police] attempted to detain him, they found out he was wounded. The medics who arrived at the scene proclaimed Muzychko dead,” First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov said. The three bodyguards, who were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and Makarov pistols, were detained by police. http://rt.com/news/muzychko-avakov-revenge-ukraine-109/ The Right Sector representatives say that the Interior Ministry’s version of Muzychko’s death is an “outright lie.” They claim the notorious militant had his hands tied so he could not possibly shoot back at the police. The nationalist party has not specified how exactly they are going to avenge their leader’s death. 'Take him off stage' The special operation in which Muzychko was killed was carried out on orders and under direct control of the head of the Ukrainian intelligence, Valentin Nalivaichenko, a former senior Ukrainian intelligence official told RIA Novosti. “The goal of the operation was not to capture, but to neutralize Muzychko, to take him off stage,” the source said, adding that Muzychko started to discredit the new Ukrainian authorities and to interpret the orders of the Right Sector leadership in his own way. Following the coup in Ukraine, which Muzychko supported, he refused to give up the weapons which he occasionally used to intimidate local officials in Rovno. Several videos of Muzychko have recently gone viral on YouTube, including ones where the radical nationalist leader lashed out at a local prosecutor, threatened local authorities with an AK-47 and made openly anti-Semitic statements. According to the Interior Ministry, charges of hooliganism and obstructing law enforcement agencies had been filed against Muzychko March 8, and on March 12 Muzychko was put on the Ukrainian police’s wanted list. In Russia, Muzychko was also put on international wanted list for allegedly torturing and murdering at least 20 captured Russian soldiers during the first Chechen War in 1994-1995. .............................................. Putin has drawn a RED LINE, and he intends to back it up. .............................................. Did Victor Pinchuk receive favorable decisions from the US State Department when Hillary Clinton was in Charge. Was is a quid pro quo for the millions he donated to the Clinton Foundation? After appointing Ukraine's richest Oligharchs to be (unelected) govenors) in various regions of Ukraine, one must realize that democracy in Ukraine is a pipe dream. All they need now is a $35 billion bailout from Europe!