International Citizens Action Network
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LATEST BLOGS - In Apartheid Week - Two More Israeli Products to Boycott
Israeli Invention Saves London's Water
Friends,
It seems quite natural that this week I should be focusing on IAW, Israel Apartheid Week, with the number of activities going on in the campuses around the world. By definition, “Apartheid” is defined as “the segregation of living spaces, concentrating one race in the cities and forcing people of other races into rural areas or the urban fringes. In addition to separating whites from nonwhites, apartheid also separated different races, and fraternization between Africans of different tribes, Asians, and Europeans was frowned upon. Whites and nonwhites held different jobs, lived in different regions, and were subject to different levels of pay, transportation, education, and health care.”
Anyone that knows Israel today in a true and objective way can, in no way, define Israeli society in these terms. A look at the first two photos below represents life in general, not to mention a view of our hospitals today which has no segregation either in the staffing of the hospital or the treatment of patients, (also from Gaza, Judea and Samaria!!). However, the statement by Abbas in picture three has all the trappings of genuine apartheid. My thanks to Elderofziyon.blogspot.com for these photos, more can be seen at http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/p/eoz-posters-for-apartheid-week.html
Another photo blog well worth seeing on this subject can be viewed at http://realjerusalemstreets.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/israeli-apartheid/
ACTION In conjunction with IAW, there is also a call for March 30th to be designated as a day to isolate and punish Israel through a proposed "day of action" that will promote the BOYCOTT of Israeli goods. Many pro-Israel organizations are calling for March 30 to be turned instead, into a day of special support for Israel by going out to buy Israeli products wherever you live.
Please forward this note to your friends and community members and ask them to join the movement to counter the "boycott Israel day" on March 30, and help make this movement a success.
BDS action
The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, commonly known as BDS, sees its members following like sheep in making claims about Israel that have no basis in fact or reality. An alterative BDS campaign defines these initials as BLACKMAIL, DELIGITIMIZATION AND SLANDER. You can use this effectively in any letters you write to your newspapers or local and national representatives.
Success in the Bedouin community
Another success story that flouts the gathering tsunami of opinions about Apartheid Israeli is that of the first Bedouin woman to earn a Ph.D. as she navigates between her own culture and the Arab and Israeli culture as she blazes new pathways in higher education. The full story can be read at http://tinyurl.com/6a6nsmd
Gaza Crossing Point
In light of attacks on the Gaza Strip’s Karni Crossing, this crossing will be closed in the following months and the southern Kerem Shalom Crossing will be expanded, enabling a growth in imports and exports to the strip. No doubt there will be cries of the liberals shouting about Israelis again creating a “humanitarian” crisis.
The area around the Karni crossing is one of the most difficult to secure. Hamas and other terrorist organizations carry out diverse terrorist activities in the area and it has become difficult not only to secure the crossing but also to enable the local Israeli civilian population to live peacefully
Despite the change, preparations have ensured that import and export rates of the Gaza Strip will not be effected. In fact, the Kerem Shalom Crossing will be expanding and branching out. Thus, for example, during the second half of 2011, approximately 450 larger import and export trucks will pass through the crossing every day. This is 344% percent increase from the number of trucks entering and leaving over the same period of time last year.
Stuart Palmer
Director
Blog www.haifadiarist.blogspot.com
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Friday, March 11, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Am not a fan of Sarah Palin but Rabbi Shmuley makes some valid points on her use of term "blood libel"
By SHMULEY BOTEACH The term "blood libel"—which Sarah Palin invoked this week to describe the suggestions by journalists and politicians that conservative figures like herself are responsible for last weekend's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.—is fraught with perilous meaning in Jewish history.
The term connotes the earliest accusations that Jews killed Jesus and enthusiastically embraced responsibility for his murder, telling Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and our children" (Matthew 27:25). Thus was born the legend of Jewish bloodlust and of Hebrew ritual use of Christian blood for sacramental purposes. The term was later used more specifically to describe accusations against Jews—primarily in Europe—of sacrificing kidnapped Christian children to use their blood in the baking of Passover matzos.
Sarah Palin responds to allegations that violent political rhetoric played a role in the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, saying "irresponsible" news pundits were creating a "blood libel" that risked further violence. Courtesy NewsCore.
.The Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth is generally credited with having popularized the blood libel in his "Life of the Martyr William from Norwich," written in 1173 about a young boy who was found stabbed to death. Thomas quoted a servant woman who said she witnessed Jews lacerating the boy's head with thorns, crucifying him, and piercing his side. While William was canonized, the Jews of Norwich fared less well. On Feb. 6, 1190, they were all found slaughtered in their homes, save those who escaped to the local tower and committed mass suicide.
Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.
The abominable element of the blood libel is not that it was used to accuse Jews, but that it was used to accuse innocent Jews—their innocence, rather than their Jewishness, being the operative point. Had the Jews been guilty of any of these heinous acts, the charge would not have been a libel.
Despite the strong associations of the term, Sarah Palin has every right to use it.
.Jews did not kill Jesus. As the Roman historian Tacitus makes clear, he was murdered by Pontius Pilate, whose reign of terror in ancient Judea was so excessive, even by Roman standards, that (according to the Roman-Jewish chronicler Josephus) Rome recalled him in the year 36 due to his sadistic practices. King Herod Agrippa I, writing to the Emperor Caligula, noted Pilate's "acts of violence, plunderings . . . and continual murder of persons untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending, endless, and unbelievable cruelties, gratuitous and most grievous inhumanity."
Murder is humanity's most severe sin, and it is trivialized when an innocent party is accused of the crime—especially when that party is a collective too numerous to be defended individually. If Jews have learned anything in their long history, it is that a false indictment of murder against any group threatens every group. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Indeed, the belief that the concept of blood libel applies only to Jews is itself a form of reverse discrimination that should be dismissed.
Judaism rejects the idea of collective responsibility for murder, as the Hebrew Bible condemns accusations of collective guilt against Jew and non-Jew alike. "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him" (Ezekiel 18).
How unfortunate that some have chosen to compound a national tragedy by politicizing the murder of six innocent lives and the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.
To be sure, America should embrace civil political discourse for its own sake, and no political faction should engage in demonizing rhetoric. But promoting this high principle by simultaneously violating it and engaging in a blood libel against innocent parties is both irresponsible and immoral.
Rabbi Boteach is the author of "Honoring the Child Spirit: Inspiration and Learning from Our Children" (Vanguard, 2011). He will shortly publish a book on the Jewishness of Jesus and his murder at Roman hands.
Copyright
The term connotes the earliest accusations that Jews killed Jesus and enthusiastically embraced responsibility for his murder, telling Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and our children" (Matthew 27:25). Thus was born the legend of Jewish bloodlust and of Hebrew ritual use of Christian blood for sacramental purposes. The term was later used more specifically to describe accusations against Jews—primarily in Europe—of sacrificing kidnapped Christian children to use their blood in the baking of Passover matzos.
Sarah Palin responds to allegations that violent political rhetoric played a role in the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, saying "irresponsible" news pundits were creating a "blood libel" that risked further violence. Courtesy NewsCore.
.The Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth is generally credited with having popularized the blood libel in his "Life of the Martyr William from Norwich," written in 1173 about a young boy who was found stabbed to death. Thomas quoted a servant woman who said she witnessed Jews lacerating the boy's head with thorns, crucifying him, and piercing his side. While William was canonized, the Jews of Norwich fared less well. On Feb. 6, 1190, they were all found slaughtered in their homes, save those who escaped to the local tower and committed mass suicide.
Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.
The abominable element of the blood libel is not that it was used to accuse Jews, but that it was used to accuse innocent Jews—their innocence, rather than their Jewishness, being the operative point. Had the Jews been guilty of any of these heinous acts, the charge would not have been a libel.
Despite the strong associations of the term, Sarah Palin has every right to use it.
.Jews did not kill Jesus. As the Roman historian Tacitus makes clear, he was murdered by Pontius Pilate, whose reign of terror in ancient Judea was so excessive, even by Roman standards, that (according to the Roman-Jewish chronicler Josephus) Rome recalled him in the year 36 due to his sadistic practices. King Herod Agrippa I, writing to the Emperor Caligula, noted Pilate's "acts of violence, plunderings . . . and continual murder of persons untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending, endless, and unbelievable cruelties, gratuitous and most grievous inhumanity."
Murder is humanity's most severe sin, and it is trivialized when an innocent party is accused of the crime—especially when that party is a collective too numerous to be defended individually. If Jews have learned anything in their long history, it is that a false indictment of murder against any group threatens every group. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Indeed, the belief that the concept of blood libel applies only to Jews is itself a form of reverse discrimination that should be dismissed.
Judaism rejects the idea of collective responsibility for murder, as the Hebrew Bible condemns accusations of collective guilt against Jew and non-Jew alike. "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him" (Ezekiel 18).
How unfortunate that some have chosen to compound a national tragedy by politicizing the murder of six innocent lives and the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.
To be sure, America should embrace civil political discourse for its own sake, and no political faction should engage in demonizing rhetoric. But promoting this high principle by simultaneously violating it and engaging in a blood libel against innocent parties is both irresponsible and immoral.
Rabbi Boteach is the author of "Honoring the Child Spirit: Inspiration and Learning from Our Children" (Vanguard, 2011). He will shortly publish a book on the Jewishness of Jesus and his murder at Roman hands.
Copyright
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