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Ed Webb

American citizens are detained in Hebron for wearing hijab on a 'Jewish street' - 1 views

mondoweiss.net/...-hijab-on-a-jewish-street.html

Israel Palestine israelpalestine occupation citizenship hijab Palestinians nationalism racism

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 07 Jul 12
     
    A description of what borders, identities, citizenships etc can look and feel like at the micro-level in the Israel-Palestine context.
Ed Webb

Censure for reporter over Gaza tweet sparks BBC rethink over social media - TV & Radio ... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...over-social-media-8790246.html

BBC twitter Israel Palestine Gaza israelpalestine media

shared by Ed Webb on 30 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 30 Aug 13
     
    If you report on Israel/Palestine and are not getting attacked by people on both "sides," you are almost certainly not doing your job as a journalist.
Ed Webb

Border Patrol, Israel's Elbit Put Reservation Under Surveillance - 0 views

theintercept.com/...trol-israel-elbit-surveillance

surveillance US USA Mexico Israel Palestine israelpalestine border borders policing

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • The vehicle is parked where U.S. Customs and Border Protection will soon construct a 160-foot surveillance tower capable of continuously monitoring every person and vehicle within a radius of up to 7.5 miles. The tower will be outfitted with high-definition cameras with night vision, thermal sensors, and ground-sweeping radar, all of which will feed real-time data to Border Patrol agents at a central operating station in Ajo, Arizona. The system will store an archive with the ability to rewind and track individuals’ movements across time — an ability known as “wide-area persistent surveillance.” CBP plans 10 of these towers across the Tohono O’odham reservation, which spans an area roughly the size of Connecticut. Two will be located near residential areas, including Rivas’s neighborhood, which is home to about 50 people. To build them, CBP has entered a $26 million contract with the U.S. division of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company.
  • U.S. borderlands have become laboratories for new systems of enforcement and control
  • these same systems often end up targeting other marginalized populations as well as political dissidents
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  • the spread of persistent surveillance technologies is particularly worrisome because they remove any limit on how much information police can gather on a person’s movements. “The border is the natural place for the government to start using them, since there is much more public support to deploy these sorts of intrusive technologies there,”
  • the company’s ultimate goal is to build a “layer” of electronic surveillance equipment across the entire perimeter of the U.S. “Over time, we’ll expand not only to the northern border, but to the ports and harbors across the country,”
  • In addition to fixed and mobile surveillance towers, other technology that CBP has acquired and deployed includes blimps outfitted with high-powered ground and air radar, sensors buried underground, and facial recognition software at ports of entry. CBP’s drone fleet has been described as the largest of any U.S. agency outside the Department of Defense
  • Nellie Jo David, a Tohono O’odham tribal member who is writing her dissertation on border security issues at the University of Arizona, says many younger people who have been forced by economic circumstances to work in nearby cities are returning home less and less, because they want to avoid the constant surveillance and harassment. “It’s especially taken a toll on our younger generations.”
  • Between 2013 and 2016, for example, roughly 40 percent of Border Patrol seizures at immigration enforcement checkpoints involved 1 ounce or less of marijuana confiscated from U.S. citizens.
  • In the U.S., leading companies with border security contracts include long-established contractors such as Lockheed Martin in addition to recent upstarts such as Anduril Industries, founded by tech mogul Palmer Luckey to feed the growing market for artificial intelligence and surveillance sensors — primarily in the borderlands. Elbit Systems has frequently touted a major advantage over these competitors: the fact that its products are “field-proven” on Palestinians
  • Verlon Jose, then-tribal vice chair, said that many nation members calculated that the towers would help dissuade the federal government from building a border wall across their lands. The Tohono O’odham are “only as sovereign as the federal government allows us to be,”
  • Leading Democrats have argued for the development of an ever-more sophisticated border surveillance state as an alternative to Trump’s border wall. “The positive, shall we say, almost technological wall that can be built is what we should be doing,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in January. But for those crossing the border, the development of this surveillance apparatus has already taken a heavy toll. In January, a study published by researchers from the University of Arizona and Earlham College found that border surveillance towers have prompted migrants to cross along more rugged and circuitous pathways, leading to greater numbers of deaths from dehydration, exhaustion, and exposure.
  • “Walls are not only a question of blocking people from moving, but they are also serving as borders or frontiers between where you enter the surveillance state,” she said. “The idea is that at the very moment you step near the border, Elbit will catch you. Something similar happens in Palestine.”
  • CBP is by far the largest law enforcement entity in the U.S., with 61,400 employees and a 2018 budget of $16.3 billion — more than the militaries of Iran, Mexico, Israel, and Pakistan. The Border Patrol has jurisdiction 100 miles inland from U.S. borders, making roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population theoretically subject to its operations, including the entirety of the Tohono O’odham reservation
  • Border militarism has been spreading worldwide owing to neoliberal economic policies, wars, and the onset of the climate crisis, all of which have contributed to the uprooting of increasingly large numbers of people, notes Reece Jones
  • the agency uses its sprawling surveillance apparatus for purposes other than border enforcement
  • documents obtained via public records requests suggest that CBP drone flights included surveillance of Dakota Access pipeline protests
  • CBP’s repurposing of the surveillance tower and drones to surveil dissidents hints at other possible abuses. “It’s a reminder that technologies that are sold for one purpose, such as protecting the border or stopping terrorists — or whatever the original justification may happen to be — so often get repurposed for other reasons, such as targeting protesters.”
  • The impacts of the U.S. border on Tohono O’odham people date to the mid-19th century. The tribal nation’s traditional land extended 175 miles into Mexico before being severed by the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, a U.S. acquisition of land from the Mexican government. As many as 2,500 of the tribe’s more than 30,000 members still live on the Mexican side. Tohono O’odham people used to travel between the United States and Mexico fairly easily on roads without checkpoints to visit family, perform ceremonies, or obtain health care. But that was before the Border Patrol arrived en masse in the mid-2000s, turning the reservation into something akin to a military occupation zone. Residents say agents have administered beatings, used pepper spray, pulled people out of vehicles, shot two Tohono O’odham men under suspicious circumstances, and entered people’s homes without warrants. “It is apartheid here,” Ofelia Rivas says. “We have to carry our papers everywhere. And everyone here has experienced the Border Patrol’s abuse in some way.”
  • Tohono O’odham people have developed common cause with other communities struggling against colonization and border walls. David is among numerous activists from the U.S. and Mexican borderlands who joined a delegation to the West Bank in 2017, convened by Stop the Wall, to build relationships and learn about the impacts of Elbit’s surveillance systems. “I don’t feel safe with them taking over my community, especially if you look at what’s going on in Palestine — they’re bringing the same thing right over here to this land,” she says. “The U.S. government is going to be able to surveil basically anybody on the nation.”
Ed Webb

The Psychology of the Intractable Israel-Palestine Conflict - New Lines Magazine - 0 views

newlinesmag.com/...able-israel-palestine-conflict

Israel Gaza analysis opinion Palestine israelpalestine conflict psychology trauma identity identities

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Oct 23 - No Cached
  • reinforcing the entrenched identities, hardened by trauma, which have contributed to the intractability of this conflict. Many researchers have been pointing out for years that societies are becoming more polarized, meaning that more people are reaching a point of complete identification with a single group, leading to demonization and, in extreme cases, dehumanization of those outside their group, and a corresponding inability to communicate with those outside of their community. Polarization essentially describes a situation where a middle ground, vital for dialogue, has been lost.
  • Emotions drive behavior, and extreme psychological states drive extreme behavior, including violence. The question becomes what to do with these insights, when violent responses to violence produce ever stronger emotional states stemming from fear and rage. The long history of this particular conflict ensures that there are now generations of traumatic memories to reinforce large-group identities based on shared feelings of vulnerability and victimization, creating an intractable cycle.
  • most of us gain our sense of belonging through a variety of groups we interact with on a daily or weekly basis — our families, friends, colleagues, sports teams or groups based around other hobbies and interests. But in addition to these groups that we experience in person through shared activities, we all have larger-group affiliations, which can vary in strength from one person to another. These can include our country of birth or residence, a political party, a wider religious group that includes people from other countries and cultures, an ethnicity, a language group or an identity based on shared passions, such as being a music or sports fan. There are many parts to a typical identity, but sometimes, if rarely, one comes to dominate above all others, leading to specific psychological states and associated behaviors, including violence.
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  • Whitehouse and Swann describe the fully fused state, when commitment to one group dominates over all others, as a “form of alignment with groups that entails a visceral feeling of oneness with the group. This feeling is associated with unusually porous, highly permeable borders between the personal and social self.” In other words, an insult, a compliment or an injury to the group or another member of the group is perceived as an insult, a compliment or an injury to the self, as most people can recognize when someone from outside the family insults a family member.
  • In Jordan, no one I interviewed ever put their nationality in the top three, but rather chose family, tribe or region, religion or “Arabness.” (There was one exception, and it turned out he was working for the security services.)
  • they have come to feel that no one is coming to their rescue, a feeling reinforced by the example of Syria: Not only did the world not act to prevent Syrian deaths, but the world — including Arabs — also ignored President Bashar al-Assad’s brutality against his own Palestinian population.
  • once an individual is fully fused to an identity, all positive and negative experiences serve to reinforce that single identity, with ever more rigid policing of the boundaries of “us” and “them,” and ever-shrinking spaces for communicating with the “other.”
  • “The Holocaust for Israelis and the Nakba for Palestinians condense into two words a multitude of horrific experiences suffered by millions of people,” he wrote, describing a trauma not only for those who experienced them directly but also for their descendants; both are just within living memory. “When members of the victimized group are unable to bear the humiliation, reverse their helplessness, or mourn their losses, they pass on to their children powerful, emotionally charged images of their injured selves.”
  • Israel’s occupation causes daily, ongoing fear and humiliation among the Palestinian population, as well as challenges to everyday existence that dampen the energy to act. But, as Fromm writes, “Young people may succumb to apathy temporarily but a return to rage is always a possibility, in part as a vitalizing alternative to helplessness or despair.” That is, the violence we have witnessed from Palestinians is a natural response to Israel’s occupations when framed in terms of psychology; as an Israeli colleague of mine put it back in 2019, “There is no chance for peace without first ending the occupation.”
  • Extreme states of belonging to a single group have enabled the most extreme violence seen throughout history and around the world, from suicide bombings to kamikaze attacks during times of war.
  • For these people, Hamas’ actions symbolized a reassertion of dignity and pride in an Arab identity against an unjust oppressor. This single massacre, which included whole families shot in their beds, has prompted more demonstrations of support for the Palestinian cause than any other occasion in the past few decades. In Jordan, pro-Palestinian protesters only dispersed from the Israeli border after the Jordanian army used tear gas.
  • “apocalyptic mindset,”
  • classic asymmetric warfare, laid out in an al Qaeda manual taken up by the Islamic State, “The Management of Savagery,” which advocates baiting the enemy’s military into wars they cannot afford and depleting them — as was achieved by 9/11 at a financial cost of mere hundreds of thousands of dollars, compared to the trillions spent on the subsequent 20-year “war on terror.”
  • In times of low stress, even a hardened identity does not fear the other and can exhibit curiosity, or at least a lack of animosity, toward an out-group. But this retreat isn’t available to groups whose security is at risk. Fully fused large-group identities, with psychological boundaries hardened by both inherited trauma and daily fear, have another damaging implication for the prospects of peace. This is the perceived threat of reaching across the divide, including gestures of reconciliation. It is felt as betrayal to build bridges with the other and is experienced as a psychological wound.
  • We are now seeing mass hardening of psychological barriers in the region and globally, with many unable to see faults on their side or, conversely, laudable elements on the other. And it is not just rhetoric
  • there is a shrinking space for empathy and dialogue
  • Conflict resolution in such a situation seems meaningless: Neither side wants nor can even conceive of a relationship with the other, so what is the possible basis for negotiation, let alone peaceful coexistence?
  • all around the world people have told me a version of “No one has suffered as we have suffered.” Victimhood limits our ability to see others also as victims, to everyone’s detriment, for violence is then justifiable, and this is what fuels ongoing wars. It is unclear who can address the intergenerational wounds of the past, but without that work, nothing can improve.
Carl Kjellman

Mideast climate change and its strategic implications « Right Sided American ... - 0 views

waltjr.wordpress.com/...and-its-strategic-implications

water climate conflict middle east

shared by Carl Kjellman on 09 Sep 09 - Cached
  • One of the less discussed considerations of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been access to fresh water. Two of the three primary fresh-water aquifers in Israel and Palestine lie under the West Bank: the Eastern Basin and the Northeastern Basin. Israel also shares a coastal aquifer with the Gaza Strip. Israel cannot relinquish control over those aquifers without severely compromising its national security.
  • Among the many maladies plaguing Iraq, the absence of fresh water has assumed new importance given that some of the country’s other issues are in the process of being addressed. Iraq’s two main sources of fresh water, the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, are drying up
  • Iraq remains at the mercy of Turkey and Syria for its fresh water resources. Part of Iraq’s problem is that there is no international law that obligates Turkey or Syria to share their water
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  • Overall, perhaps it is a lack of historical data to make comparisons about the climate over the ages – necessary to gauge what is happening to the global environment today – that makes current projections inevitably dependent on largely unproven models, both scientific and non-scientific.
  • These events also showed the acute need for horizontal integration within states to enable efficient and rapid coordination between government and non-government bodies to mobilize resources in support of humanitarian and disaster relief, and for rebuilding affected areas in the aftermath.
Ed Webb

BBC News - US 'disappointed' as settlement building ban ends - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-11422065

MEPP Israel israelpalestine US USA diplomacy Palestine settlements

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Analysis Jeremy Bowen BBC Middle East editor It was only last week in New York that President Obama told delegates at the UN General Assembly an independent state of Palestine could be joining them a year from now. Even then, his words didn't sound like a blueprint for the future laid down by the most powerful man in the world. They were more like a plea to both Israelis and Palestinians to keep talking. The crisis over Jewish settlements has been waiting to happen ever since Mr Obama inaugurated this latest round of peace talks in Washington three weeks ago. Mr Netanyahu leads a coalition government dominated by parties supporting the Jewish settler movement. It's the most dynamic political force in Israel, determined that the freeze will not continue. A major reason why the settlements were started after Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967 was to make it politically impossible for Israel to give up what it claimed as Jewish land to the Palestinians. More than 40 years on that strategy is working in the way the founders of the settlement movement intended.
Ed Webb

Palestinian schools in Jerusalem strike over Israel-imposed books | Israel-Palestine co... - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...ike-over-israeli-imposed-books

Jerusalem Palestine Israel israelpalestine education textbooks politics protest strike

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Sep 22 - No Cached
  • Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem are observing a general strike in protest at attempts by Israel’s Jerusalem municipality to censor and edit Palestinian textbooks, as well as introduce an Israeli curriculum in classrooms.
  • “What is worrying the parents is that they are being cornered between distorted Palestinian curriculums and Israeli curriculums,”
  • “There is an Israelisation of Palestinian education going on,”
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  • “Now, they are adding their own content like ‘Yossi is Mohammad’s neighbour’, about settlements, about co-existence,” said al-Shamali. “They have played with textbooks for Arabic, religion, history and any national references”.
  • In July, Israeli authorities revoked the permanent licenses of six Palestinian schools in Jerusalem, claiming that their textbooks incited against the Israeli state and army. They were given permission to operate for a year if the curriculum was edited. The eastern half of Jerusalem was militarily occupied by Israel in 1967 and illegally annexed. Some 350,000 Palestinians currently live in occupied East Jerusalem, with 220,000 Israeli living in illegal settlements among them.
  • The annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognised by any country in the world, apart from the United States, as it violates international law that outlines that an occupying power does not have sovereignty in the territory it occupies.
  • In 2009, the Jerusalem municipality adopted a master plan intended “to guide and outline the city’s development in the next decades”. The vision, as stated in the plan, is to create a Jewish demographic majority, with Israeli Jews making up 70 percent of the city, and Palestinians only making up 30 percent. This was later amended to a 60:40 ratio.
Ed Webb

Israeli peace activist: Hamas leader Jabari killed amid talks on long-term truce - Isra... - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...ng-term-truce.premium-1.478085

assassination war Israel Palestine israelpalestine

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip
  • Baskin told Haaretz on Thursday that senior officials in Israel knew about his contacts with Hamas and Egyptian intelligence aimed at formulating the permanent truce, but nevertheless approved the assassination
  • "This blood could have been spared. Those who made the decision must be judged by the voters, but to my regret they will get more votes because of this,”
Ed Webb

Berlin to Abstain on Vote to Recognize Palestinian State - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...alestinian-state-a-870002.html

Germany Israel UN Palestine diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • "There has been a complicated shift in the region, and Germany is desperately trying to stick with its traditional policy, which is solidarity with Israel," he says. Germany plays an important mediating role in the peace process, and the abstention may be an attempt to maintain that neutrality, he says. But it is also a reflection of the country's varied political interests on the issue, which include support of Israel as a key part of Germany's post-World War II rehabilitation, using this relationship as a means of strengthening ties with Israel's main ally, the US, and economic interests in the Middle East, he says. "That tends to produce this kind of balancing act," he says. "But either way, it will be criticized on both sides."
  • Director of the ECFR's Middle East and North Africa Program Daniel Levy, says an abstention -- which is a slight move away from its unwavering support of Israel -- was actually the "most forward-leaning vote" possible for Germany, given both the domestic situation and Berlin's international position. Polls show that Germans are becoming increasingly frustrated with their country's staunch support of Israel.
  • Ed Webb on 30 Nov 12
     
    This is quite a radical shift, in fact. Germany has been, along with the Netherlands, Israel's most consistent and strongest supporter in Europe.
Ed Webb

Adviser says Trump won't rip up Iran deal, signals he may not move embassy | The Times ... - 1 views

www.timesofisrael.com/ignals-he-may-not-move-embassy

US USA Israel Palestine israelpalestine MEPP Iran nukes foreignpolicy

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said the new US leader will “review” the Iran nuclear agreement, but will stop short of ripping up the landmark international pact.
  • signaled that Trump might not move the US Embassy to Jerusalem immediately and indicated he would make negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal a priority right off the bat.
  • “He will take the agreement, review it, send it to Congress, demand from the Iranians to restore a few issues or change a few issues, and there will be a discussion,” Phares added. “It could be a tense discussion but the agreement as is right now — $750 billion to the Iranian regime without receiving much in return and increasing intervention in four countries — that is not going to be accepted by the Trump administration.”
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 11 Nov 16
       
      Note that it is a multilateral deal, so five other powers would also have to agree, as well as Iran itself.
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  • appeared to represent a break with some comments made by other Trump advisers and the president-elect himself, and highlighted persisting confusion over what the contours of a Trump administration’s foreign policy may look like
  • Phares also told the BBC that while Trump was committed to moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as other presidential candidates have vowed, he would not do so unilaterally. “Many presidents of the United States have committed to do that, and he said as well that he will do that, but he will do it under consensus,”
  • Toner said if Trump pulls out of the agreement, it could fall apart and lead to Iran restarting work toward a bomb
  • State Department spokesman Mark Toner warned that nothing was stopping Trump from tearing up the agreement, rebuffing comments from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the pact was enshrined by the United Nations Security Council and could therefore not be canceled by one party
  • Phares did not elaborate on what consensus would be sought for such a move, which would break with decades of precedent and put Washington at odds with nearly all United Nations member states.
  • Earlier Thursday, Trump Israel adviser Jason Dov Greenblatt told Israel’s Army Radio that the president-elect would make good on his promise. “I think if he said it, he’s going to do it,” Greenblatt said. “He is different for Israel than any recent president there has been, and I think he’s a man who keeps his word.
  • Phares also indicated efforts for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would be a top agenda item for Trump, casting doubt on a claim by Greenblatt that Trump would not necessarily prioritize trying to push the Israelis and Palestinians into peace negotiations.
  • “He will make it a priority if the Israelis and Palestinians want to make it a priority,” Greenblatt said. “He’s not going to force peace upon them, it will have to come from them.”
  • The gap in signals coming out of Trump’s camp is consistent with frustration some have pointed to in trying to demystify what Trump’s foreign policy will be.
  • Tzachi Hanegbi, a minister-without-portfolio who is a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Thursday that the Iran nuclear deal and construction over the Green Line — the two most contentious topics between the Obama administration and Netanyahu — will no longer be a source of tension between Israel and the United States under a Trump presidency.
Ed Webb

Jordan's worst nightmare could be yet to come if US embassy moves to Jerusalem | Middle... - 1 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...assy-lose-it-forever-549298505

Jordan Israel Palestine MEPP Jerusalem diplomacy Trump politics

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Trump’s repeated vows to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has disproportionately upset the Jordanian government which, at the moment, has no shortage of crises.
  • Key to understanding Jordan’s anxiety is the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty - sometimes called the Wadi Araba Treaty because of where it was signed – signed in October 1994 which stated that Israel would respect the special role that Jordan had historically played in Jerusalem’s holy places and, further, would give priority to the kingdom’s role during final status negotiations.
  • Israel also agreed at the time to refrain from changing – either geographically or demographically - the status of the holy city before reaching at a final agreement to which Jordan was a party.
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  • When Jordan annexed the West Bank in April 1950, Jerusalem became an integral part of the country whose constitution prohibits relinquishing or ceding any part of its territories.And even after Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, Jordan maintained the right to oversee the city’s holy Islamic and Christian places. To this very day, the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf (Endowments) continues to provide custodianship and services at Al-Aqsa Mosque and other religious places in Jerusalem.
  • Jerusalem’s legal and political status constitutes an important strategic file as far as the Jordanian regime is concerned. If the US changes the city’s status, from a Jordanian perspective, that would mean that the very mediator and guarantor of the Wadi Araba agreement is taking unilateral measures to change the status of a disputed territory over which negotiations have not yet been finalised
  • Jordan is the most anxious party in the region as a result of Trump’s pledges with regard to move the US embassy, a measure which would imply US acknowledgment that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel
  • recognition like this of Jerusalem as the Israel capital would breach the 1994 peace agreement, destroy all peace efforts and fatally end the final status negotiations in which the city is one of the most prominent and most crucial issues
  • the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000 erupted and raged on for several years because of the holy city. The uprising saw the collapse of the Oslo agreement with the termination of the geographical designation of the West Bank territories into A, B and C as well as the unilateral decision to withdraw Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip without negotiations
  • Jordan is keen to avoid more chaos in the region, but especially because a large proportion of Jordanian citizens have Palestinian roots and are linked, through family and tribal ties, to Palestinians living in the West Bank
  • moving the embassy would breach the Jordanian-Israeli agreement that was signed thanks to US mediation and sponsorship. It would render final status negotiations into absurdity because the most important issue – Jerusalem - would have been settled as a fait accompli by the Israelis and the Americans
Ed Webb

Israel rebuffs Turkish demand for raid apology - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...israel.turkey.no.apology

Turkey Israel gaza flotilla diplomacy Palestine

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Turkey would "cut off relations" with Israel unless "they either apologize or accept an international commission and its report." "(The) Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off," Davutoglu told Hurriyet early Sunday in an interview on his plane returning from Kyrgyzstan,
  • Foreign Ministry later claimed the minister had been misquoted, saying he actually said that without an apology or inquiry, "it will not be possible for our relationship to improve."
  • the foreign ministers of Spain, France and Italy will visit Gaza this month
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  • Zapatero made the comment at a news conference in Madrid with visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said the Zapatero aide. But the French Foreign Ministry said the visit had not been confirmed. Italy did not immediately respond to CNN requests for confirmation.
  • Turkey had not yet reached the point of cutting off relations with Israel but made it clear that even a full apology would not itself repair damaged relations. The point of an apology would be to lead to compensation for those who died and to the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, government
Ed Webb

Israelis praying at Petra shrine sparks outrage in Jordan - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...e-jewish-tourists-praying.html

Jordan Israel religion heritage archaeology film

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • The Jordanian government on Aug. 1 closed a shrine dedicated to the prophet Aaron near the ancient Nabataean city of Petra. The move followed a burst of public outrage sparked by videos and photos circulating on the internet showing a group of Jewish tourists praying at the site. 
  • Suleiman Farajat, commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA), had said in an Aug. 2 statement that the photos shared online date to 2013, but that the videos of Jewish men praying were more recent. Farajat remarked that the PDTRA had closed the site after learning that some 300 Israeli tourists had been planning to visit the shrine. At least five Israelis were able to enter the tomb, having been permitted access by guards. Farajat stressed that the authority will not allow non-Islamic religious ceremonies at the site. He asserted in his statement that the tomb has nothing to do with Judaism historically or archaeologically.
  • an Israeli tour guide for one visit had denied that any of the tourists had prayed and said the trip had been coordinated with Jordanian authorities
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  • These events have come to light in the wake of a public build-up of suspicion and hostility toward Israel over the nebulous, US-sponsored peace plan dubbed the “deal of the century,” which most Jordanians view as a threat to their country. Jordanians have also been critical of the agreement signed in 2016 for Israel to provide Jordan with natural gas over a 10-year period. Lawmakers, led by the Islamist bloc Al-Islah, have been pressuring the government to cancel the deal.
  • “The small Muslim shrine on top of the high peak at Jabal an-Nabi Harun was constructed in 1330 by the Mamluk Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad.” She added, “There is a tomb inside the shrine, but there is no evidence whatsoever that it actually belongs to Aaron. Such shrines to prophets and virtuous men were built at many places by the Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans to enforce the Muslim identity of the state and to vent political discontent by the local populations.
  • in July the Royal Film Commission in Jordan had approved the shooting in Petra of “Jaber,” a controversial, fictional film whose storyline has Jews settling in the city after the Exodus from Egypt. Jordanians railed that the “Zionist script” fabricates an Israeli claim to the ancient city. Under public pressure, a number of Jordanian actors withdrew from the project, and on Aug. 3, the director, the Jordanian-born US national Mohydeen Izzat Quandour, announced the cancellation of the shooting.
  • Daoud Kuttab (who also writes for Al-Monitor) wrote, “The reality is that the current leaders in Tel Aviv and Washington have done little to calm jittery Jordanians and Palestinians, who are concerned about the growth of [a] messianic Jewish ideology that tries to connect biblical history with modern day politics.
  • “Religious sites should be respected, and freedom of worship and visit should not be interfered in, but the problem that faces political leaders and government officials is how to deal with the genuine worry that what appears to be a crazy notion by a few zealous individuals could one day become a political reality.” 
  • the deep-seated unease felt by a majority of Jordanians about Israeli intentions toward the kingdom in light of increasing tensions between Jordan and Israel over the Haram al-Sharif and the demise of the two-state solution
Ed Webb

Israel-US spat erupts ahead of Trump visit to region - 1 views

www.apnews.com/7211e6c3084e60868b3e6385c2e814

Israel Palestine israelpalestine Jerusalem territory US USA politics diplomacy Trump

shared by Ed Webb on 15 May 17 - No Cached
  • A diplomatic spat on Monday erupted between U.S. and Israeli officials, just days before a planned visit by President Donald Trump, after an American representative questioned Israel’s claim to one of the holiest sites in Judaism.
  • The Western Wall is revered as the holiest site where Jews can pray, and according to Channel 2 TV, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked to join Trump. The report said the Americans rebuffed the request, with one official telling the Israelis the site is “not your territory.” It said the comment prompted shouting from the Israeli preparatory team.
  • An official in Netanyahu’s office said the U.S. comment was “received with astonishment” and that Israel had asked the White House for an explanation.
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  • Israeli officials appear to be growing increasingly nervous over Trump’s visit
  • Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a senior member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, voiced concern Monday that “there has been a kind of change in the spirit” of Trump’s statements since he was elected. Bennett said he was not sure why Trump has changed his rhetoric. Bennett said he welcomed Trump’s arrival next week, but said Israel also has to stick to its positions. He said Israel must oppose attempts to establish a Palestinian state and insist on Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem “forever.”
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