"CHILD KILLING UNIT" COMMANDER SPILLS TRUTH

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More and more men and women of the Israeli military are finding their way back to humanity by opening up and telling the world just what they were trained to do while serving. Face it, out of all those young men and women sent out to do horrific things for their country, SOME have had to sublimate their humanity to perform. When they return to regular life, their conscience will not let them rest.

Israel arrested 9,000 Palestinians last year, 700 of them children

It takes great bravery to speak out, especially when you come right out in public and show your face as you do this. Mr.Eran Efrati who served in the occupied West Bank as a commander in Israel's army is such a man. He was a commander and member of the IDF “Child Killing Unit”.

In this interview, Mr. Efrati exposes Israel’s long standing policy of killing, torturing, and jailing children. He told the BBC that Palestinian youngsters are routinely ill-treated by Israeli soldiers while in custody, reports the BBC' s Katya Adler from Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In a discreet park in Jerusalem we meet to discuss allegations that soldiers like him often mistreat Palestinian minors, suspected of throwing stones.

Mr Efrati ~ who left the army five months ago ~ says the allegations are true:

''I never arrested anyone younger than nine or 10, but 14, 13, 11 for me, they're still kids. But they're arrested like adults. Every soldier who was in the Occupied Territories can tell you the same story. The first months after I left the army I dreamed about kids all the time. Jewish kids. Arab kids. Screaming.”

"You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he's really shaking... Sometimes you cuff his legs too. Sometimes it cuts off the circulation.

"He doesn't understand a word of what's going on around him. He doesn't know what you're going to do with him. He just knows we are soldiers with guns. That we kill people. Maybe he thinks we're going to kill him.

A lot of the time they're peeing their pants, just sitting there peeing their pants, crying. But usually they're very quiet.

Yehuda Shaul, of Breaking the Silence, said soldiers treated any Palestinian older than 12 or 13 as an adult: This is because by Jewish custom, this is the time of a young male passing into adulthood with a Bar Mirzah, so they consider Palestinian children to be adult as IF they had the ritual performed.

They dragged me from my home by the scruff of the neck. The more I cried the more they choked me. They pulled me along on my stomach. My knees were bleeding. They beat me their guns and kicked me all the way to the jeep. Mohammed Khawaja,

''Maybe the kid is blindfolded for him not to see the base and how we're working... But I believe maybe we put the blindfold because we don't want to see his eyes. You don't want him to look at us ~ you know, beg us to stop, or cry in front of us. It's a lot easier if we don't see his eyes.

''When the kid is sitting there in the base, I didn't do it, but nobody is thinking of him as a kid, you know ~ if there is someone blindfolded and handcuffed, he's probably done something really bad. It's OK to slap him; it's OK to spit on him; it's OK to kick him sometimes. It doesn't really matter.''

Israel says stones can be deadly weapons

Young Palestinians are mostly arrested for throwing stones at Jewish settlers or Israeli soldiers. This, they say, is their only means of venting their frustration at Israel's military occupation of their home, the West Bank.

Every week in the West Bank village of Bilin, Palestinians organize a demonstration against Israel's West Bank barrier.

Israel says it needs the barrier to stop attacks on its citizens. Palestinians call it a land grab. They say it makes their daily life even tougher.

Of course it complicates their lives, separates families, farmers from their crops, animals from their fields, and it also removes ¼ of the land traditionally belonging to Bilin, effectively putting it in Israeli hands.

Israeli soldiers monitor the protest from the other side of the barrier.

Night-time arrests

At a recent protest, I watched a gang of Palestinian boys darting amongst the olive trees, picking up stones and rocks to throw at the soldiers. Some used sling-shots. Many had a scarf or shawl wrapped round their face to hide their identity.

Perhaps it is for the tear gas as well?

The soldiers responded with tear gas and sound grenades. Sometimes they have used rubber-coated bullets. Too often after an incident like this, Israeli soldiers raid a West Bank village. Usually in the middle of the night they come in the darkness. The arrests can be brutal.

After he left the military, Mr Efrati said he dreamed about children screaming

''Their faces were painted when they came for him. It was frightening. All those soldiers for one boy. They put iron weights on his back in the jeep and beat him all the way to jail. He couldn't get up for a week.''

Mohammad Ballasi's 15-year-old son, also called Mohammad, was arrested by Israeli soldiers for stone-throwing.

We met him and his wife just outside an Israeli military base in the West Bank. Palestinian youngsters are tried in military tribunals. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->

The military tribunals regard Palestinians as minors until their 16th birthday, unlike the civil courts in Israel where minors are considered to be minors until their 18th birthday.

Oh my! How did this photo of Israeli settler boys throwing stones at Palestinian children walking to school get in here? I wonder if they get punished or taken to court?

I guess they don't. Here are their fathers and the IDF to make sure those 6 to 11 year old Palestinian children don't throw anything back.

IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: This is quite stunning, because in actuality, the IDF have a policy of allowing and encouraging, the killing of children aged 12. So what we see is Israel has a policy of killing 12 year olds, trying children aged 16 and lower in “Military Tribunals” no less!! Yet, for Israeli “children” Israel decides to use the worldwide legal age of 18 for their own. So, in effect Israel has three policies when it comes to Palestinian children. All of them Illegal.

The first time Mohammad's parents saw him since he was arrested two weeks before was at his trial. He pleaded guilty. ''When you're beaten like that, you would confess against your own mother," said Suad Ballasi, choking back tears.

'He's a child. His friends are playing in the street and he is in handcuffs. I couldn't stop crying in court. My heart feels like it's going to explode.''

The human rights organization Defense for Children International (DCI) has written a report accusing Israel's military of what it describes as the systematic and institutionalized ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by the Israeli authorities.

Gerard Horton is an international lawyer for DCI. He said Mohammad's Ballasi's story is a familiar one.

''We see these stories again and again. Israel is a signatory to the UN convention against torture. It's also a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of the child ~ and under customary international law, it's not permissible to mistreat and torture, particularly children, who are obviously more vulnerable than adults."

He told me that Israel arrested 9,000 Palestinians last year. Seven hundred of those were children.

Mr. Horton says the military tribunals need to process cases quickly. DCI believes the system is designed so that it is in an adult or a child's interest to plead guilty.

Israeli troops frequently use tear gas against protesters at Bilin

Gerard Horton says Palestinians tend to end up in jail longer if they try to fight their case.

Mohammad Khawaja had just turned 13 when he was arrested.

''They dragged me from my home by the scruff of the neck. The more I cried the more they choked me," he said.

"My mum was screaming. They pulled me along on my stomach. My knees were bleeding. They beat me with their guns and kicked me all the way to the jeep. They cuffed my hands and legs, blind-folded me and left me there for 24 hours. I thought I was going to die.

"Later interrogators wanted me to tell on other people. I wouldn't. They beat me with plastic chairs. They told me to sign a paper written in Hebrew. I don't read or speak it. Because I signed it they put me in jail.''

Israel's military denies any suggestion that the abuse of young Palestinians is routine, but the army says it has to guard against Palestinian children involved in what it describes as "acts of terror". (I.E. throwing rocks)

Nightmares

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibowitz is a spokeswoman for Israel's military.

''Even though it's just a stone or just a Molotov cocktail, they're deadly weapons. Doesn't matter who did it ~ they're deadly weapons," she said.

So the next time your neighbour’s child throws a stone you have the right to kill him. Let’s see how well that defense works in anywhere else in the sane world.

"This is the situation we live in, and since we are defending ourselves and we want to punish those terrorists, we have no choice but to find them, to punish them ~ and hope that we won't return to this."

Mohammad Khawaja hasn't slept properly since the soldiers came. He says the nightmares will not go away.

Human rights groups are calling on the international community to investigate what they say are Israel's violations of children's rights.

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MORE ISRAELI ILL-TREATMENT AND TORTURE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN

THE ISRAELI ARMY BEATS AND TORTURES CHILDREN

LIFE FOR TODAY'S PALESTINIAN CHILD

ISRAELI ARMY TARGETS 12 YEAR OLDS

423 CHILDREN HELD BY ISRAEL

26/02009 ISRAELI ARMY TAUGHT TO KILL CIVILIANS

Posted by Noor al Haqiqa at 5:27 PM

Labels: children, IDF, Israel, Palestine, torture, war crimes

Israel Wages HOLY WAR And Damn Proud Of It!

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I wrote a post way back in February about how Zionist Rabid Rabbi’s were taking over the IDF and instilling racist hatred. Teaching soldiers it is alright to kill civilians, women and children along with posting images of the very pamphlets they handed out to the soldiers. No doubt they learnt that lesson well given the 1400 women and children murdered. However, today another report was published on the Zionist Jewish Terrorists and their indoctrination of soldiers on the murdering of Palestinians.

Yes, the Jewish Holy War has begun, time to eradicate Palestinians from their land, no need to pretend any longer, remove those you can remove, kill the rest. Steal the land, God said it’s yours. These fanatics are no better than Al Qaeda and have far more in common with Bin Laden then they realise. For Israel cannot see any innocent Palestinians, just like Bin Laden saw no innocent Americans. Here’s the latest report from the BBC:

Israel's army is changing. Once proudly secular, its combat units are now filling with those who believe Israel's wars are "God's wars".

Military rabbis are becoming more powerful. Trained in warfare as well as religion, new army regulations mean they are now part of a military elite.

This has caused quite some controversy in Israel. Should military motivation come from men of God, or from a belief in the state of Israel and keeping it safe?
The military rabbis rose to prominence during Israel's invasion of Gaza earlier this year. Some of their activities raised troubling questions about political-religious influence in the military.

Gal Einav, a non-religious soldier said there was wall-to-wall religious rhetoric in the base, the barracks and on the battlefield.

As soon as soldiers signed for their rifles, he said, they were given a book of psalms. And, as his company headed in to Gaza, he told me, they were flanked by a civilian rabbi on one side and a military rabbi on the other:
"It felt like a religious war. Like a crusade. It disturbed me. Religion and the army should be completely separate," he said.

'Sons of light'
In Gaza, they were ordered to accompany the fighters. "Our job was to boost the fighting spirit of the soldiers. The eternal Jewish spirit from Bible times to the coming of the Messiah." Before his unit went in to Gaza, Rabbi Kaufman said their commander told him to blow the ram's horn: "Like (biblical) Joshua when he conquered the land of Israel. It makes the war holier." (NOTE=These people are effing insane!)


Rabbis handed out hundreds of religious pamphlets during the Gaza war.When they came to light, they caused huge controversy in Israel. Some leaflets called Israeli soldiers the "sons of light" and Palestinians, the "sons of darkness". Others compared the Palestinians to the Philistines, the bitter biblical enemy of the Jewish people.

Israel's military has distanced itself from the publications, but they carried the army's official stamp.

'Religious duty'
I visited an orthodox Jewish seminary near Hebron in the West Bank. It is one of an increasing number of religious schools that encourage taking the Jewish Bible to the battlefield. All students at the seminary choose to serve in Israel's combat units while statistics suggest less ideologically-driven Israelis are avoiding them. This has made headline news in Israel.

The students' seminary is built in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.

They are illegal under international law and Palestinians claim the territory as part of their future state. But for the religious soldiers the West Bank is part of land, given to the Jews by God.

Gal Einav thinks many soldiers will refuse to close settlements down.

The settlement issue could well tear the army apart, he told me, adding that most of his officers are settlers these days.

"If it comes to a clash between political orders from Israel's government and a contradictory message from the rabbis, settlers and religious right-wing soldiers will follow the rabbis," he said.

According to Reserve Gen Nehemia Dagan, what is happening in the army is far more dangerous than most Israelis realise: "We (soldiers) used to be able to put aside our own ideas in order to do what we had to do. It didn't matter if we were religious or from a kibbutz. But that's not the case anymore.

"The morals of the battlefield cannot come from a religious authority. Once it does, it's Jihad. I know people will not like that word but that's what it is, Holy War. And once it's Holy War there are no limits."

They say it perverts the true teachings of Judaism as well as contradicts Israel's military code. The way they view Palestinians who live here is likely to affect the way they use their power and their weapons. source

Posted by Irish4Palestine at 7:43 PM

Missing Algerian Children Had Their Organs Removed

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07Sep09

Breaking Update as of September 6th,2009

The following excerpt is a translation of Al Marada’s news article published in Arabic on September 6th,2009.

New York City police were able to catch American Jews and arrest gang members who were involved in the abduction of children from Algeria, the group headed by a Jewish American named Levy Izhaq Rosenbaum, who was directly involved in the case of trading organs recently,which raised a storm of reactions in the United States and Israel, at the international police investigations.

Remarks by Prof. Mustafa, President of the Algerian national body to upgrade health and development of research, Khabar newspaper Algerian 6-9-2009, confirming that the arrest of the gang came after investigations showed that Algerian children abducted from cities in Western Algeria and taken to Morocco, were directly linked to Jewish rings which were using the children’s organs to smuggle to Israel and the United States, in order to sell between $20,000 and $100,000 dollars for College.

The children were kidnapped from Algeria and taken to Morocco and then the organs were taken to Israel and the United States through other factions of the Israeli organ trafficking rings.

Mustafa said that the gang was deliberately abducting children from Algeria,and that there are eradication operations in Morocco, before being exported and sold in Israel and the United States, equipped for making these types of surgery’s.

Serious dimensions

Algerian official stressed that the file dismantling international network of organ smuggling; Algerians, Moroccans and Africans were being used. He added that ongoing security coordination with ”interpol” in Morocco found that Morocco alone cannot be equipped to perform this type of special organ trafficking.

The arrests of Jewish led network does not mean that danger has passed, top officials and others have files which assert that there are other Jewish gangs who remains active in several countries .

US authorities arrested 44 people, including Rabbis and mayors in New Jersey last July;they all were a part of the money laundering activities and sale of human organs.

Last month, newspaper Aftonbladet Swedish report accused soldiers kidnapped Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to kill them and steal an organ trading, indicating a possible link between these practices and mafia human organs detected in the United States.

I’m doing this a long time,” says Rosenbaum. He then added: “Let me explain to you one thing. It’s illegal to buy or sell organs. … So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you’re giving a compensation for the time.”

All of the donors “come from Israel,” Rosenbaum is alleged to have said.

The price had gone up to $160,000, he said, because “it’s hard to get people,” noting that Israel had passed laws prohibiting the sale of human organs, the complaint states.

The agents had already paid $10,000 and were told to bring another $70,000 at a meeting scheduled for this week. “I prefer you do it with cash,” the complaint quotes Rosenbaum as saying.

[sources: Al Marada,CNN,Al Khabar]

Al-Jazeera Video: Palestinians accuse Israel of organ theft - 31 Aug 09

"A diplomatic row between Sweden and Israel has emerged after a leading Swedish tabloid printed an article suggesting Israeli soldiers stole body parts from Palestinians after killing them.
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros visited a family at the centre of the organ trafficking controversy.

Jalal Ghanem says his brother Bilal was airlifted by an army helicopter to a hospital in Israel after being shot in a Palestinian village.

When his dead body was returned for burial, an autopsy had been carried out without the family's permission, and the family suspects his organs had been taken.

Palestinians such as late President Yasser Arafat have previously accused Israel of organ harvesting, but no conclusive proof has been provided......"

# posted by Tony : 7:04 AM

If I were the Israeli chief propagandist,

I would plant such stories in Western press, precisely for such objective and to put Western governments on the defensive and to milk them for more support for Israel. As a matter of fact, I would not be surprised if this story is such a plant.

With so much fact on the side of the Palestinians, why go out on a limb with such a story? Let us not allow Israel to throw away the baby with the bath water.

# posted by Tony : 1:13 PM

Click this link and Read the Little Israeli Propagdadist Bombshells

MY TORTUROUS JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM

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September 7, 2009 at 4:01 pm (Associate Post, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, Religion, Status of Jerusalem)

Religious Rights Denied Even During Ramadan

By Khalid Amayreh
Journalist — Occupied Palestine



“The experience was particularly nightmarish, as hundreds of people were being sandwiched between two steel railings, and moving at a snail’s pace.”(IOL Photo)

Normally, the trip from al-Khalil (Hebron) to al-Quds (Jerusalem) shouldn’t take more than 30 to 40 minutes. However, for most Palestinians in the West Bank, and thanks to the chronically harsh Israeli restrictions, the trip becomes a torturous episode of physical and mental suffering. With the start of the Holy month of Ramadan, the Israeli occupation authorities announced that Palestinians over the age of 50 would be allowed to enter Jerusalem but only for Friday’s congregational prayers at al Masjidul Aqsa (the Aqsa Mosque). The Mosque, with its large and beautiful esplanade, is considered the third holiest Islamic place in the world, coming directly after the Sacred Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina, peace and blessings be upon him (PBUH).

According to traditions, the heavenly reward for a single Raka’a (one unit of ritual prayer posturing) at al-Masjidul Aqsa is worth 500 times more than a regular place.

Al-Masjidul Aqsa is also the place to which the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) made his night journey from Makkah and then was immediately afterward taken by the archangel Gabriel to the throne of God in the seventh heaven. The miraculous event is recorded in a special chapter in the Qur’an bearing the name of al-Isra’a, meaning “The Night Journey”

This explains the paramount importance Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular attach to the place. It also explains why hundreds of thousands of believers make sure that they access the Jerusalem sanctuary for prayer and supplication to the Almighty especially during the month of Ramadan, during which good deeds motivated by sincere intentions are rewarded (in the hereafter).

Having just passed the 50-year mark, I decided to make the trip to the “First Qibla and Third Holiest sanctuary,’ armed with a believer’s hope for spiritual serenity and also a journalist’s instinct to see directly how Israel is metamorphosing the city of timeless beauty into “the capital of Israel,” by employing every conceivable means of oppression and ethnic cleansing against the constantly hounded Palestinian citizens of the city.

Shin Beth; Misery

Palestinians from the West Bank are not allowed to access Jerusalem with their own cars unless they have a special permit from the Shin Beth, that is Israel’s notorious domestic security agency. Normally, only “good guys” are granted such privileges, e.g. those viewed as “peaceable” or “collaborators.” This means that over 99% of ordinary Palestinians living in the West Bank (Gazans cannot even dream of reaching Jerusalem these days) must use public transport to reach Jerusalem. This is, of course, in case they pass the usually meticulous “security check.”

I set off my journey soon after dawn, around 4:20 local time. After nearly 30 minutes, we arrived at the dreadful “border crossing” at Bethlehem’s northern edge. There we disembarked, preparing ourselves mentally for the nightmarish experience we were just about to face.

The Bethlehem “border crossing” is a jungle of corrugated roofs, narrow steel corridors, metal railings, revolving gates, remote-controlled turnstiles as well as metal detectors.

The place is also a de facto military fort, crowded with onerous-looking soldiers and Shin Beth functionaries. The Shin Beth, one can safely claim, controls nearly every aspect of Palestinian lives, from receiving a work permit to obtaining a travel permit.

No Palestinian, such as this writer, is allowed to travel outside the West Bank unless okayed by the Shin Beth. Normally, the ban is motivated by non-substantive considerations, like indulging in non-violent opposition to the Israeli occupation. The message here is clear: Palestinians will only receive human treatment (if) they are politically passive.

Soon, we found ourselves thoroughly packed in that long and narrow path which took us to the Shin Beth booths 100-150 meters away where ID cards are checked. The experience was particularly nightmarish, as hundreds of people were being sandwiched between two steel railings, and moving at a snail’s pace. The women walked through a different path and were subjected to considerably lesser scrutiny.

After nearly one hour of squeezing nightmare, we finally joined another long queue for the frustrating security check. I saw some fairly elderly Palestinians, people over sixty years of age being turned back for “security reasons”. I couldn’t understand how these elderly people would pose a threat to Israel’s security. But this is the mantra whose invocation justifies anything as far as Israel is concerned.

Some of the people turned back were visibly saddened at their misfortune. Others standing in the queue would comfort them by assuring them that the Almighty would reward them for making the trial.

I, too, had “my hand at my heart”, worried that I would be turned back for “security reasons”. But this time, I was obviously lucky as the Shin Beth computer must have decided to give me the benefit of the doubt.

Al-Quds is Muslim

I was thoroughly relieved that I would finally be able to enter the Old Town of Jerusalem and join other Muslims for this huge gathering at one of Islam’s holiest places. As I walked in the exit corridor (corridors are ubiquitous in this place!!), I immediately boarded an awaiting bus en route to al-Quds. After 15 minutes, we were outside Bab El-Amud (the Gate of the Pillar), also known as the Damascus Gate, which is one of the main nine entrances into the Old Town.

So we walked through the hustling bustling streets and alleyways of this ancient city where every stone and every corner has the smell of history.

On our way, we saw a number of buildings taken over or expropriated through “legal” tricks by Jewish settler interests. Israel has been making strenuous and nearly rabid efforts to confiscate and Judaize as much of East Jerusalem as possible, employing every conceivable act of deception and manipulation.

The buildings are heavily guarded by armed soldiers and guardsmen who try to create physical as well as mental “security zones” in the vicinity of the buildings, apparently in order to intimidate Palestinians, all for the purpose of Judaizing the city, building by building, corner by corner, even stone by stone.

We arrived at the Haram al-Sharif (the Aqsa Mosque esplanade) early in the morning, probably half an hour after sunrise to find thousands of people roaming the spacious arena or sitting down immersed in contemplation. Most of the worshipers came from across the West Bank, but many came from Arab towns and villages across the Green Line inside Israel.

The Supreme Muslim Council, which cares for the huge compound, seems to do a particularly good job, keeping up the place in the best of conditions. This is particularly apparent during the month of Ramadan when tens of thousands come for the Friday and night (tarawih) prayers.

The council also employs dozens of unarmed guards whose main job is to watch over possible attempts by extremist Jewish groups, and also by evangelical Christian Zionists, to attack and vandalize the place.

Indeed, many Jewish groups, some affiliated with the Israeli government, say openly that their goal is ultimately to destroy al-Masjidul Aqsa and its other twin mosque, the Dome of the Rock, in order to build a Jewish Temple in the area.

Some messianic Jews believe the destruction of Islamic shrines in Jerusalem would speed up the appearance of the Jewish Messiah, or Redeemer, who would subjugate the entire world and bring about “redemption” for Jews.

Such designs are taken seriously by the Muslim authorities. Muslim Waqf (endowment) officials argue convincingly that Israel is trying rather progressively to take over the Haram al-Sharif or see it destroyed as a result of a series of subterranean tunnels opened in recent years.

Adnan al Husseini, head of the Supreme Muslim Council, describes Israeli measures as “parts of a dangerous plan to demolish the Aqsa Mosque.”

“If we are to call things by their name, we must view the Israeli designs and plots against al-Masjidul Aqsa as deliberate and well-planned acts of terror aimed at demolishing the mosques and Judaizing this Islamic edifice”.

Many of the worshipers were simply sitting down on rugs they brought with them, reciting the Qur’an or performing prayers. Others were scouring the place, inspecting the numerous historical sites many of which date hundreds of years back.

All in all, as many as a quarter of a million people made it to the Haram al Sharif, Waqf officials said the number would have doubled had the Israelis allowed younger people to enter the city.

Above our heads an Israeli police helicopter was hovering provocatively as if it wanted to tell us that “we are in control”. This is in addition to a huge balloon fitted with a large camera monitoring the place and the movement of worshipers.

Soon, the time for the Friday Khutba (sermon) started, and Dr. Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, a veteran Muslim scholar, thanked the fasting worshipers, telling them that their very presence constituted an important message to Israel, namely that this place was, is and will always be Islamic.

Sheikh Sabri pointed out that the Islamic faith was growing all over the world, not because of the military or economic might of Muslims, but rather because of Islam’s internal strength, cohesion and consistency.

The Sheikh strongly castigated those who would recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”, saying that doing so amounted to passing a death penalty against the large Palestinian community in Israel.

Sabri also reiterated an earlier fatwa or religious edict, ruling that any Muslim selling land or property to Jewish settler interests was “no longer considered a member of the Muslim Ummah, wouldn’t undergo the final rites upon death, nor would they be buried in a Muslim cemetery”.

After ending the Khutba and performing the brief prayer, most of the worshipers dispersed throughout the Old Town, shopping or just simply making the journey back home.

For my part, I wasn’t particularly too homesick to leave and decided to tarry for a while, unsure if I could make it again.

The next Friday, I shall see.

ROBINSON: East Jerusalem: The indignity and illegality of eviction

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September 8, 2009

by Mary Robinson - The Elders (Middle East) - 2 September 2009

As our visit to the Middle East was ending, one of the most poignant encounters we had was with Maher Hanoun and his family in East Jerusalem. For several nights three generations of Hanouns have been sleeping in the street – the women and children in cars and the men encamped on the pavement. They were evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem on 2 August 2009 following an Israeli court ruling.

We brought the family food and drink for Iftar, a special time for Muslims during the month of Ramadan as it is the evening meal at which their daily fast is broken. The moment was rendered even more moving as we heard of the difficulties that the Hanouns have experienced since their eviction.

The family are refugees who have lived in their home in Sheik Jarrah since 1948. Now they have not only been evicted, but have watched Jewish families being shown the property and encouraged to move into a home that for generations they called their own.

These houses are situated in occupied East Jerusalem. The Palestinian families that lived in these buildings did so legally, and their presence is supported by international law. This is encapsulated in UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 478 which call upon Israel not to transfer members of its civilian population into occupied Arab territories or to change the character and status of Jerusalem.

To its discredit, the Israeli legal system – to which Palestinians have limited and unequal access – has been used by some settler groups to claim ownership of property purportedly belonging to Jews prior to 1948. The decisions taken by the Israeli courts have sustained the claims of settlers and offer Palestinians no recourse to reclaim their rights to lost land or property.

My fellow Elder Jimmy Carter was unambiguous in his statement that the eviction of Palestinians such as the Hanouns from East Jerusalem “is a political issue… It’s an attempt by Israel to take over East Jerusalem, which is part of Palestine”. I wholeheartedly agree, and was encouraged to know that several Israeli human rights groups and advocates also agree.

Such enforced evictions are utterly unacceptable; it is no exaggeration to state that this kind of action could be a serious obstacle to a successful negotiation of a two-state solution. The Hanoun family do not have fair and equal access to the Israeli legal system – nor are they the only ones to have been treated this way. The international community and all those in Israel and Palestine who believe in the importance of the rule of law should support their cause and speak out against this infringement of Palestinians’ fundamental human rights.

No one can stop the Palestinians

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And nothing can stop the Palestinians. (thanks Lucia)

Posted by As'ad at 10:17 AM

LeVINE: Response to Ben Gurion President Rivka Carmi’s LA Times Oped about Neve Gordon

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September 8, 2009

by Mark A LeVine (UC Irvine History Professor) History News Network – 2 September 2009

Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi’s attack on her colleague Neve Gordon’s recent LA Times oped serves to confirm the very arguments made by Gordon about the depths of most Israelis’ blindness towards their country’s actions, and history more broadly.
To begin with, Prof. Carmi’s definition of academic freedom–that it is only related to areas of one’s research and teaching and not “person opinion” is completely at odds with the principles of academic freedom as recognized in the West today, which allow for a much more robust engagement by scholars with contemporary political issues, even when their views radically challenge the dominant views in society. It is indeed frightening that the President of a major research university would be so ignorant of the accepted meaning of such a crucial concept to the health of education in Israel.
Second, Carmi criticizes Gordon’s description of Israel as having an “apartheid” system, which he believes necessitates a boycott, and then moves right to her criticism of the proposed boycott without engaging at all the realities of Israel’s decades long occupation–which Israelis themselves have long labeled apartheid. Indeed, the Hebrew term used to describe the so-called “separation wall”, which critics label an “apartheid wall” is the same word used for apartheid.
Without addressing the realities that led Gordon, with clear displeasure, to call for a boycott of his country, Carmi’s criticism has no context. Instead of an isolating boycott, Carmi would have Gordon “investing in activities that promote coexistence”. But the very reason Gordon has moved to support a boycott is that decades of activities to “promote coexistence” have failed to move Israeli society substantially closer to be willing to make the painful sacrifices necessary to achieve a just and lasting peace with Palestinians. Put simply, it’s much cheaper and less trouble to continue and even deepen the occupation than it would be to end it.
Only a radical change in the political, moral and economic calculus would get most Israelis, even those who ostensibly support peace, to force their government to uproot hundreds of thousands of settlers, allow Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, real economic independence, and address in some measure Israel’s responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Without these steps peace will never be more than an illusion.
President Carmi further claims that by calling for a boycott Gordon has prompted donors to threaten to stop funding the university. My university received similar threats from wealthy Jewish donors when I brought in several Israeli professors, including from Ben Gurion University, to discuss alternative solutions to the conflict. Our Chancellor rightly ignored them, as he should have. One cannot compromise academic freedom for donations, or the soul of the University will be for sale.
Indeed, whenever advocacy organizations threaten to withdraw or otherwise impede funding in order to silence opinions they don’t agree with, the job of a good Administrator is always to explain that free speech is the price of a great university. And besides, no one seriously believes that Gordon’s views represent those of the Administration. Yet all Carmi’s attacks have achieved is to amplify rather than silence them.
Carmi’s final argument is that “Gordon has forfeited his ability to work effectively within the academic setting, with his colleagues in Israel and around the world.” This is manifestly untrue. In the days since the uproar of his Oped began, I have heard from numerous colleagues at Ben Gurion who have expressed solidarity with his right to speak and disgust with Carmi’s response. While Carmi presents a university community united in disgust at his comments, the reality is that his views–and particularly his right to express them–are shared by a large number of colleagues, both at Ben Gurion and at other universities in Israel, where colleagues have started petitions criticizing Carmi’s response.
Carmi concludes her opinion piece by extolling the work of Ben Gurion university, in particular its support for surrounding Bedouin communities and with Palestinian and Arab health professionals more broadly. This is no doubt true, but it entirely misses the point. The Zionist movement and then Israel have been “helping” the Bedouin and Arab communities for a century. But all the free clinics cannot make up for the systematic dispossession of Bedouins from their lands (or non-Bedouin Palestinians from theirs), in a process which mirrors our own treatment of native peoples as well as the treatment of Africans, Amerindians and Australians by white European settlers on their lands.
They too were brought modern medicine to soothe the pain of expropriation, marginalization, and dispossession, which continues to this day. What Carmi doesn’t understand, but Gordon clearly does, is that Palestinians and Bedouin would gladly trade a few clinics and medical treatments for the right to live as free and equal human beings in the Land of Israel/Palestine with Israelis, not as subordinate natives who must accept whatever the government is willing to give them; and more important, what it takes away. In fact, political, social and economic equality would bring a much higher level of much needed services than the token cooperation between occupier and occupied.
Ultimately, Carmi’s views, which so well represent those of the Israeli establishment, are neither “hopeful” nor “pragmatic.” They reflect an unwillingness to deal with the realities of an occupation in which Israeli universities have institutionally been complicit for decades, and which a small but crucial group of Israeli scholars, activists and journalists have done a courageous job in exposing. The sad reality is that as Israel continues building new settlements and destroying more Palestinian homes with each new week, it will be Gordon’s harsh prescription that will, in Carmi’s words, “ultimately guide us, and Israel, to a brighter future.”
(NB: for those who cry double standards, or might ask why I single Israel out here, the answer is I don’t. I would support the boycott of any institutions in the US given our occupation of Iraq that support this, whether it’s programs geared to military or security personnel or think tanks that support them. I would also support boycotting institutions in other countries (eg, China, India) that are part of the machinery of systematic oppression and/or occupation of other peoples.)
LINK: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/116295.html

PREMINGER: The strategy behind Israel’s migrant labour policies

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September 8, 2009

PHOTO: Asaf Friedman "Thai workers in Israel"

by Yonatan Preminger - CounterPunch - 20 August 2009

As an increasing number of people feel the grip of the global financial crisis, Israel’s familiar bugbear has been wheeled out yet again: deport the foreign workers! True to form, the newly appointed Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz has decided that the deportation of 100,000 migrant laborers will improve the economic situation.

We’ve been here before. In 2003, Israel launched its first major campaign to reduce the number of “foreign workers,” as they are known in Hebrew (ovdim zarim). Now the workers are preparing themselves for another round of brutal operations by the infamous immigration police.

In Israel’s labor market, deportations of “foreign workers” are followed by imports of others to take their place. Yet, Israel has an abundant supply of local workers – why does it still prefer the migrant laborers? Because they are not Arabs.

There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand, working mainly in agriculture, nursing and construction. For a country of just under 7.4 million citizens, this is an enormous number. More than half are considered illegal – some have outstayed their allotted time, some are victims of fraud, and some have violated the terms of their employment, often through no fault of their own. With unemployment rising again, it seems logical to employ Israel’s citizens before turning to outside labor, but, as usual, the picture is more complicated.

The truth is, Israel is confused. Since the 1980s, when the country began a process of deregulation with the aim of hitching its markets to the global economy, Israel has been torn between the myth of Jewish solidarity and the Zionist enterprise on the one hand, and the demands of the growing economic elite on the other. Bluntly put, it wants to keep the country open to Jews only but have access to workers willing to do the dirty work for peanuts.

In the past, Israel employed Arabs as cheap labor – both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (who have no Israeli citizenship). Then, in the 1990s, as Israelis opened their eyes to the Oslo Accords, watched their economy grow, and enjoyed the “quiet” that the promise of peace granted them, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories found themselves stuck, cut off from their source of livelihood in Israel by renewed policies of military closures around the Territories. Meanwhile, Palestinian Israelis watched their jobs disappear as factories were moved abroad and as they competed with a million newly arrived Russian olim (Jewish immigrants) for the remaining labor-intensive work.

Changing government priorities, the Intifada and globalization opened the way for migrant laborers. Companies owned by the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor), publicly owned enterprises, were sold off. State support for agriculture diminished as the long-declining ideology of working the land finally collapsed. The new owners of Histadrut companies, building contractors and farmers, sought sources of labor that would enable them to compete in the now unprotected market. Migrant labor fitted the bill.

Farmers and contractors explain their preference for foreign labor by claiming there is no local workforce. “Israelis aren’t willing to do those kind of jobs,” so the mantra goes. And it does, indeed, seem that few Israeli Jews are willing to do hard manual labor anymore. But there are Israelis willing to do those kinds of jobs – Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

Anyone But Palestinians

The “Arab sector,” as it is known here, struggles against insufficient investment and inadequate infrastructure. Before 1948, the Palestinian Arab economy was mostly agrarian. Today, only about 4 per cent of the Palestinian Israeli population lives off agriculture, yet other options for earning a living are scarce. Few Arab towns have any significant industrial parks, and the primary industry that once employed Arabs – textiles – has been moved overseas.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2008 only 40 per cent of Arab men of working age participated in the workforce, compared with 56 per cent for Israel as a whole, and only 19 per cent of Arab women, compared with 56 per cent of Jewish women. Half of Israel’s Arab citizens live below the poverty line. Many would jump at the opportunity to work, though a job in Israel today is not always a way of escaping the poverty cycle.

And, if these workers prove insufficient, there are thousands more on the other side of the “security fence.” Israel has administered the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, flooding the Territories with its products, thereby – deliberately or otherwise – preventing the development of local industry and discouraging entrepreneurship. Residents of the Territories have also provided Israel with builders, cleaners and agricultural laborers for thirty years. The result is an underdeveloped Palestinian economy, entirely dependent on Israel, and a huge workforce eager to work in Israel.

The proof of their willingness to work can be found at Israel’s major intersections, where Palestinians from the West Bank wait each morning in the hope that some contractor will offer them work. Most of them have gone through hell to get around the checkpoints and across the separation wall, a dangerous – occasionally fatal – journey of many hours. Many sleep in makeshift camps such as abandoned building sites just minutes from Tel Aviv’s chic boulevards, and return to the West Bank and their families only on the weekends.

It is difficult to estimate the number of West Bank residents working in Israel. According to the Workers Advice Centre, an NGO active mainly among agricultural and construction workers, in 2005 there were around 20,000 working legally (with a permit), in addition to at least that number working illegally. The difficulties involved in entering Israel enable employers to claim that Palestinians from the West Bank are an unreliable labor force.

Police raids, a common nightmare for illegal Palestinian workers, aim to intimidate the workers and put on a show for Israelis, so fearful of “infiltrators.” The workers are deported and may lose whatever job they were lucky enough to find, but everyone knows that they will be back as soon as they have negotiated their way through the porous “security” system: work in Israel is in great demand.

Clearly, Israel has easy access to willing labor, so why does Israel maintain such a large migrant labor force? The principal reason has little to do with the lack of a local workforce. The migrant workers are simply cheaper and easier to exploit.

Thais and Filipinos

Most migrant laborers in Israel today are Thais, working primarily in agriculture, and Filipinos, working primarily as caregivers. Many arrive with huge debts after paying middlemen between $6,000 and $9,000 in mediation fees (through arrangements that are mostly illegal). However, their wages in Israel amount to less than the legal minimum because some of the long hours they work are not remunerated.

Their employers save money also by not paying any peripheral benefits such as pension fund payments, sick pay, annual leave or maternity leave. Migrant workers rarely receive dismissal compensation, seniority-based wage increases, or overtime pay. In addition, wages are often paid in arrears, obliging the worker to remain with the same employer for fear of losing earnings.

Migrant workers are legally subject to the collective agreements negotiated by the Histadrut, but law enforcement is minimal, and the state’s representatives almost invariably take the employers’ side in any dispute.

The Israeli and Thai governments have been in contact with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in the hope of controlling the black market in mediation fees and permits, but so far without results. In 2006, Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to sign an agreement with the IOM, but in 2007 the IOM signed an agreement with Thailand that will facilitate supervision of recruitment of Thai workers destined for Israel. Also, since June 2008, only workers from countries that have bilateral agreements with Israel have been permitted to enter.

It remains to be seen whether these agreements will reduce the exploitation of migrant labor. Unfortunately for the workers, there are interests vested in the current system: many agencies in Israel as well as in the workers’ countries of origin stand to lose an extremely lucrative business if mechanisms for control are put into place.

However, the issue of Israel’s labor preferences goes beyond economic calculations and concerns the identity of the workers themselves. In any discussion about the use of Palestinian labor, security concerns are invariably voiced: “When my father used to go to work in the fields with Arabs,” says E. from a kibbutz in the north, “he would take his pistol and be looking over his shoulder all the time. With the Thai workers he feels safe.”

Though not everyone feels the threat in quite this way, the government of PM Ariel Sharon decided in 2005 that, by 2008, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories would no longer be working within Israel. Keeping the Palestinian workers out, then, is part of a deliberate policy that borders on demagoguery, playing on the fears of Israeli Jews and strengthening the misleading consensus of “us here, them over there” – misleading, because Israel is “over there” too, with its ever-expanding settlements, and “they” are here in the form of Israel’s largely unseen Palestinian citizens.

But security, as always, tells only part of the story. After all, if workers can get into the country from the West Bank, so can others with more insidious objectives. The preference for migrant labor over Palestinian labor stems from something for which “security” serves as a fig leaf: Israel’s striving to reduce the Arab presence on this piece of land.

The ideology of separate economies for Jews and Arabs goes back to the days of Jewish settlement in Palestine, when it was feared that cheap Arab labor would discourage European Jews from immigrating. After 1948, freedom of movement for Arab citizens was restricted until 1966, when the military administration was finally lifted. After 1967, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories had the advantage of “disappearing” at the end of the workday, but they, too, were a constant reminder of the local population, which Israel was not ready to acknowledge.

Migrant workers, on the other hand, pose no “demographic threat,” particularly if the immigration police keep working. Though many have been here for years, and their children speak Hebrew just like Israeli children, they are deemed a temporary presence. The situation has plumbed new depths of absurdity: farmers consider the migrant Thais to be permanent workers and the local population – Arabs – as seasonal laborers who fill in during temporary labor shortages.

Israel has also succeeded in depoliticising the issue. The hiring of migrant labor is perceived simply as an economic necessity, while questions of identity, the closure of the Occupied Territories, the “security fence” and the “demographic threat” (not to mention workers’ rights) are held to be unrelated.

Thus, despite the economic crisis and associated rising unemployment, it is unlikely that Israel will wean its employers off cheap “foreign workers” in favor of opening more employment opportunities to the Arab sector or Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. The current situation is too convenient: migrant labor has enabled Israel to open its borders to the globalized economy without endangering its Jewish identity, while bolstering the myth that Israel can be a country for Jews alone.

In fact, Israel has finally succeeded in doing what it failed to do during the years it was still reliant on cheap Arab labor: it has taken the Arabs out of the market.

Yonatan Preminger lives in Tel Aviv and is active in the field of workers’ rights. He can be reached at yonatanpreminger@yahoo.co.uk.

LINK: http://www.counterpunch.org/preminger08202009.html

The Free Gaza Movement

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By: Dr. Mahathir Mohamad





1. We all remember the brutal Israeli attacks against Gaza last year. Many of us were outraged by the killings of some 1,300 Gazan Palestinian, men, women, the disabled, the children, the sick and the maimed. Hospitals and schools were destroyed.
2. The condemnation of this brutal assault had forced the Israelis to stop the massive retaliation against alleged Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
3. Many of the rich countries had pledged billions in aid for the rebuilding of Gaza.
4. After that, things became quiet. There was hardly any report in the press on what was happening. I suppose most people assume that the reconstruction of Gaza was proceeding apace.
5. But the reality is far different. The Egyptians limited the medicine and the building materials from entering Gaza from its territory. The sea is blockaded illegally by the Israelis. The people of Gaza have literally been made prisoners by these actions.
6. The Free Gaza Movement led by Huwaida Arraf was set up in order to send needed supplies to beleaguered Gaza. But after five small boats were successful in delivering much needed supplies, the Israeli navy began to intercept them and forcing them to abort their humanitarian aid.
7. One small boat with a number of Palestinians, Arabs, European and American (a U.S. Congresswoman) was rammed by Israeli warships. The people in the boat, all civilians were thrown into the sea. Luckily they survived.
8. Recently another little boat, loaded with food, medicine, stationery for school use and toys, with 25 unarmed civilians including a Nobel Peace Laureate from Ireland and the American women candidate for presidency of the U.S. was fired at by Israeli commandos, who then boarded the boat, giving rough treatment to the people on board.
9. Repeated shouts on the loudhailer that there were only unarmed civilians and the boat carried no arm failed to stop the commandos. The boat was steered by the commandos to an Israeli port and the people on board were thrown into Israeli jails.
10. The people of the Free Gaza Movement have now been released. They are determined to carry on sailing from Cyprus to Gaza to bring relief.
11. Winter is coming and it will be bitterly cold in Gaza. A great number of the Gazans whose houses were destroyed by the Israelis have no shelter and would suffer terribly in the winter.
12. Modern civilization is supposedly very concerned about human rights. It is only right that we care for those heroes and heroines who are standing up to oppressive Governments.
13. But shouldn’t we also be concerned and caring for the 1½ million people of Gaza, who had lost 1,300 fellow inhabitants, whose houses, schools and hospitals have been destroyed, who do not have water or sanitary facilities, who will be without shelter from the coming winter.
14. It is sad that Governments who had pledged aid have so readily allowed the Israelis to blockade Gaza. It is disgusting that Israel can break international laws with impunity.
15. I went to Cyprus to meet these brave members of the Free Gaza Movement. I was shocked at how tiny was the only fishing boat that they still have for future trips to Gaza.
16. I had been sailing in a much bigger yacht and I know how rough was the sea. Yet 25 people dare to sail in this tiny boat, sleeping on the open deck, being seasick, being without proper food, and being made to face Israeli attacks. We really live in an uncivilized world where the fate of one or two people, useful for condemning certain Governments are constantly played up, yet the suffering, the freedom of 1½ million Gazans are ignored. I admire them Gazans whose main concern is for their right to be a free people, free that is from Israeli oppression, supported by the rich people who talk a lot about human rights and freedom.
17. I don’t think I would be able to endure the kind of discomfort and dangers faced by the activists of the Free Gaza Movement. All I can do is to give moral support to them.
18. Malaysians who wish to do so may volunteer to sail with these intrepid people. But if they cannot, then they can contribute towards their need to buy a bigger boat as no one would rent boats to them.
19. The PGPO (Perdana Global Peace Organisation) would like to appeal for donations in aid of the Free Gaza Movement members to purchase a small ship to carry cement and building materials apart from medicine and food etc.
20. All contributions by cheque can be issued to: KLFCW (Gaza Fund). KLFCW stands for the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War. The cheques can be addressed to the KLFCW c/o Perdana Global Peace Organisation, 5th Floor, 88, Jalan Perdana, Taman Tasik Perdana, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cash contributions can be channeled to KLFCW Maybank Account: 5123 3430 6634.


www.freegazamovement.org
http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2009/08/the-free-gaza-movement.html#more
September 7, 2009 Posted by Elias

Israeli Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

"Lost" American Youth Urged to Come to Israel

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth

The Israeli government has launched a television and internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.

The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics”, are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young diaspora Jews by encouraging their move to Israel.

The campaign, which cost $800,000, was created in response to reports that half of all Jews outside Israel marry non-Jews. It is just one of several initiatives by the Israeli state and private organizations to try to increase the size of Israel’s Jewish population.

According to one ad, voiced over by one of the country’s leading news anchors, assimilation is “a strategic national threat”, warning: “More than 50 per cent of diaspora youth assimilate and are lost to us.”

Adam Keller, of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, said this was a reference both to a general fear in Israel that the Jewish people may one day disappear through assimilation and to a more specific concern that, if it is to survive, Israel must recruit more Jews to its “demographic war” against Palestinians.

The issue of assimilation has been thrust into the limelight by a series of surveys over several years carried out by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a think-tank established in Jerusalem in 2002 comprising leading Israeli and diaspora officials.

The institute’s research has shown that Israel is the only country in the world with a significant Jewish population not decreasing in size. The decline elsewhere is ascribed both to low birth rates and to widespread intermarriage.

According to the institute, about half of all Jews in western Europe and the United States assimilate by intermarrying, while the figure for the former Soviet Jewry is reported to reach 80 per cent.

Israel, whose Jewish population of 5.6 million accounts for 41 per cent of worldwide Jewry, has obstructed intermarriage between its Jewish and Arab citizens by refusing to recognize such marriages unless they are performed abroad.

The advertising campaign is directed particularly at Jews in the United States and Canada, whose combined 5.7 million Jews constitute the world’s largest Jewish population. Most belong to the liberal Reform stream of Judaism that, unlike Orthodoxy, does not oppose intermarriage.

One-third of Jews in the diaspora are believed to have relatives in Israel.

According to the campaign’s organizers, more than 200 Israelis rang a hotline to report names of Jews living abroad after the first TV advertisement was run on Wednesday. Callers left details of email addresses and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The 30-second clip featured a series of missing-person posters on street corners, in subways and on telephone boxes showing images of Jewish youths above the word “Lost” in different languages. A voiceover asks anyone who “knows a young Jew living abroad” to call the hotline. “Together, we will strengthen their connection to Israel, so that we don’t lose them.”

The campaign supports a government-backed program, Masa, that subsidizes stays and courses in Israel of up to one year in a bid to persuade Jews to immigrate and become citizens. About 8,000 diaspora Jews attend its program each year.

The government has been trying to develop Masa alongside a rival programß, Birthright Israel, which brings nearly 20,000 diaspora youngsters to Israel each year on sponsored 10-day trips to meet Israeli soldiers and visit sites in Israel and the West Bank promoted as important to the Jewish people.

Although Birthright is regarded as useful in encouraging a positive image of Israel, officials fear it has only a limited effect on attracting its mainly North American participants to move to Israel. Many regard it as an all-paid holiday.

Differences in the approach of the two programmes were underlined in July when a Birthright director, Shlomo Lifshittz, resigned and moved to Masa after telling the Israeli media he had been forbidden from urging Birthright participants to migrate to Israel and shun intermarriage.

In launching the campaign, Masa’s chief executive, Ayelet Shilo-Tamir, warned that assimilation worldwide was putting Jews “on the verge of negative growth”.

Masa officials said young Jews who participate in their projects strengthened their Jewish identity and were more likely to become politically and socially active on behalf of Israel-related issues.

The campaign quickly provoked a storm of debate on Jewish blog sites, especially in the United States, with some terming it “divisive” and an insult to Jewish offspring of intermarriage. A link to Masa’s “Lost” campaign had been dropped from the front page of its website yesterday, possibly in response to the backlash.

The campaign will probably strike a chord in Israel, however, where a poll in 2007 found that 46 per cent of Israeli Jews believed all Jews should live in Israel because it was “the only way Israel and the Jewish people will be strengthened”.

That position has been echoed by Israel’s leaders, though most have been careful not to upset the delicate balance of relations with diaspora communities.

Former prime minister Ariel Sharon was widely regarded as having overstepped those bounds in 2004 during a visit to France when he urged French Jews to come to Israel because France was experiencing “the spread of the wildest anti-Semitism”.

Sharon had been outspoken in wanting one million Jews to immigrate to Israel to counter a “demographic threat” from the rapid growth of the Palestinian populations in both Israel and the occupied territories. Numerical parity between Jews and Palestinians living in the region is expected to be reached within a decade.

That theme has been picked up by his successors, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is growing concern in Israel that immigration rates have steadily declined since a large wave of one million Jews arrived from the former Soviet Union through the 1990s. The absorption figure for last year – at 16,500 – was the lowest since the 1980s. It is also believed that there is a growing trend of better-off Jews leaving Israel to live abroad, though figures are not publicized.

Mr Keller, of Gush Shalom, said few Jews in the United States or Europe, the main target of the campaign, needed to come to Israel for material reasons. “They come from ideological motives, and many of them are right-wing nationalists who can be encouraged to settle in the West Bank.”

The Israeli government and various organisations subsidize the immigration of diaspora Jews to Israel.

Last year the Jewish Agency handed over responsibility for locating new immigrants to Nefesh B’Nefesh, a private organization that promotes a dozen settlements in the West Bank on its website, including hardline communities such as Kedumim, near Nablus, and Efrat, near Bethlehem.

“Last week Israeli TV showed a group of immigrants arriving in Israel to go to Efrat,” said Mr Keller. “They were shown being greeted at the airport by a large clapping crowds of Israelis waving flags in support.”

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.