Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu produced evidence for the Holocaust on the floor of the UN General Assembly yesterday, in an attempt to put down once and for all the Iranian election-stealer's declaration that the whole thing is based on "a lie and a mythical claim." The Post's front page today shows Netanyahu holding the actual minutes from the German government meeting that planned out the "final solution." He also showed the Assembly plans from Auschwitz, and said of Ahmadinejad, "Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"




Obviously, No and No.
very nice maneuver, yet doubtful that it will produce any results.
What a waste of the UN's time.
'Bibi'...Yeah, we know. The Holocaust was real. Thanks for exploiting it yet again to garner support for the creation of a racist, exclusively Jewish state. In case you didn't realize, there is also massive evidence you and all your predecessors are guilty of war crimes against the Palestinians, committing some of the greatest acts of terrorism in history. Apartheid is nothing to be proud of, you jerk. Shame on you.
Perhaps you'd like to join your friends who are picketing synagogues in Brooklyn this weekend.
Oh Tricksta, it's so easy to flatten everything down to the simplicity of "sides". But you are wrong. Sometimes, pointing out things that Israel has done is just that. Being Jewish does not make a person immune from healthy criticism. It's OK to talk about these things. It really is better than yelling instant, bigoted judgements at people. Which *is* what those pickets in Brooklyn are about.
Firstly, I'm not a fundamentalist Christian, I'm an atheist, so no, I'm not interested. You imply that I can't criticize the deplorable human rights violations of the Israeli government without being aligned with bigots, racists, and sexist conservative wackos? Please, spare me your insignificant and ignorant ramblings. You don't know me at all.
@ farleft, what about the fact that the Arab countries surrounding Israel have killed hundreds of thousands of their own, way more than Israel has ever been responsible for? Yes they have a mighty military and have sometimes misused it, but compared to its neighbors, Israel is pretty darn well behaved and respectful of human life.
PTG...I'm happy to criticize Arab governments. Human rights violations are rampant in the middle east. And I'm also happy to criticize Ahmadinejad and his ignorant, idiotic ramblings as well. But to claim that Israel is "well behaved and respectful of human life" is absolutely ridiculous. It's comical that anyone could make this assertion given the way Israeli's have treated Palestinians, including "Arab Israeli's", for the past 60 years. Sorry, but I don't consider apartheid to be a particularly respectful policy towards human life.
You're leaving out the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians the Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, and Lebanese have killed in the last 100 years. But it's easier to place the Israeli's on a higher pedestal, which by the way, is a little too convenient.
This is hilarious. You think Arab violence against the Palestinians in the "last 100 years" (which, by the way, I don't deny existed, though I do invite you to prove it was hundreds of thousands) is in any way comparable to the Israeli acts of expulsion, murder, occupation, targeted assassinations, apartheid, daily acts of terrorism committed against the Palestinians...not to mention that some of the Arab groups you mention (such as the Lebanese Phalanges) were hired and trained by Israel to fight/kill the Palestinians. Get your history straight. It's so transparent that you don't know what you're talking about.
it's useless to discuss any of this with someone like yourself with ZERO knowledge or experience of the near east.
as for my info, it's all on the web, do a simple google search and go to town with the information.
Ha! Guide me to a comprehensive website that discusses this...because every site that I find which supports your claims are created by Zionist organizations. Find me an impartial one, please please please!
What you should be looking at is how Jews were treated by those of the Islamic faith in the past 100 years. This conflict did not start in 1948. Arabs were massacring Jews back in the 1920's and 1930's. They levied taxes called "dhimmitude" against Jews in the 18th & 19th centuries. Palestinians allied with the Nazi party in the 1930's knowing of their hatred towards Jewish people. There was even a plot to poison Tel-Aviv's water supply by a team of Arabs & Germans.
How has Israel treated Arab Israelis in the past 60 years?
Let's See:
Israeli-Arabs receive the highest wages in the Middle East.
Israeli-Arabs can vote in real (not-rigged) elections.
Israeli-Arabs are not required to serve in the military, despite it being mandatory for most Jews.
Israeli-Arabs attend Hebrew University, the best school in the Middle East, some go on scholarships (subsidies from the Jewish nation of Israel)
Homosexual Arabs from Gaza and Judea/Samaria are given asylum by Israel because their Palestinian brethren usually kill them for being gay.
The list goes on and on.
You have a lot of nerve claiming Israeli Arabs are treated with respect and dignity by the Israeli government. This is from Wikipedia regarding Discrimination against Israeli Arabs:
While formally equal according to Israeli law, a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or wrote in The Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the Events of October 2000:
The Arab citizens of Israel live in a reality in which they experience discrimination as Arabs. This inequality has been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, has been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and has also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Although the Jewish majority’s awareness of this discrimination is often quite low, it plays a central role in the sensibilities and attitudes of Arab citizens. This discrimination is widely accepted, both within the Arab sector and outside it, and by official assessments, as a chief cause of agitation.
The Or Commission report also claims that activities by Islamic organizations may be using religious pretenses to further political aims. The commission describes such actions as a factor in 'inflaming' the Muslim population in Israel against the authorities, and cites the al-Sarafand mosque episode, with Muslims' attempts to restore the mosque and Jewish attempts to stop them, as an example of the 'shifting of dynamics' of the relationship between Muslims and the Israeli authorities.
According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government had done "little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens."
The 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices[179] notes that:
"Approximately 93 percent of land in the country was public domain, including that owned by the state and some 12.5 percent owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). All public land by law may only be leased, not sold. The JNF's statutes prohibit the sale or lease of land to non-Jews. In October, civil rights groups petitioned the High Court of Justice claiming that a bid announcement by the Israel Land Administration (ILA) involving JNF land was discriminatory in that it banned Arabs from bidding."
"Israeli-Arab advocacy organizations have challenged the Government's policy of demolishing illegal buildings in the Arab sector, and claimed that the Government was more restrictive in issuing building permits in Arab communities than in Jewish communities, thereby not accommodating natural growth."
"In June, the Supreme Court ruled that omitting Arab towns from specific government social and economic plans is discriminatory. This judgment builds on previous assessments of disadvantages suffered by Arab Israelis."
"Israeli-Arab organizations have challenged as discriminatory the 1996 "Master Plan for the Northern Areas of Israel," which listed as priority goals increasing the Galilee's Jewish population and blocking the territorial contiguity of Arab towns."
"Israeli Arabs were not required to perform mandatory military service and, in practice, only a small percentage of Israeli Arabs served in the military. Those who did not serve in the army had less access than other citizens to social and economic benefits for which military service was a prerequisite or an advantage, such as housing, new-household subsidies, and employment, especially government or security-related industrial employment. The Ivri Committee on National Service has issued official recommendations to the Government that Israel Arabs not be compelled to perform national or "civic" service, but be afforded an opportunity to perform such service".
"According to a 2003 Haifa University study, a tendency existed to impose heavier prison terms to Arab citizens than to Jewish citizens. Human rights advocates claimed that Arab citizens were more likely to be convicted of murder and to have been denied bail."
"The Orr Commission of Inquiry's report [...] stated that the 'Government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory,' that the Government 'did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action to allocate state resources in an equal manner.' As a result, 'serious distress prevailed in the Arab sector in various areas. Evidence of distress included poverty, unemployment, a shortage of land, serious problems in the education system, and substantially defective infrastructure.'"
The 2007 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices[190] notes that:
"According to a 2005 study at Hebrew University, three times more money was invested in education of Jewish children as in Arab children."
Human Rights Watch has charged that cuts in veteran benefits and child allowances based on parents' military service discriminate against Arab children: "The cuts will also affect the children of Jewish ultra-orthodox parents who do not serve in the military, but they are eligible for extra subsidies, including educational supplements, not available to Palestinian Arab children."
According to The Guardian, in 2006 just 5% of civil servants were Arabs, many of them hired to deal with other Arabs, despite the fact that Arab citizens of Israel comprise 20% of the population.
Although the Bedouin infant mortality rate is still the highest in Israel, and one of the highest in the developed world, The Guardian reports that in the 2002 budget, Israel's health ministry allocated Arab communities less than 0.6% of its budget for healthcare facility development.
Property ownership and housing:
The Israel Land Administration, which administers 93% of the land in Israel (including the land owned by the Jewish National Fund), refuses to lease land to non-Jewish foreign nationals, which includes Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who have identity cards but are not citizens of Israel. When ILA land is "bought" in Israel it is actually leased to the "owner" for a period of 49 years.
According to Article 19 of the ILA lease, foreign nationals are excluded from leasing ILA land, and in practice foreigners may just show that they qualify as Jewish under the Law of Return
AND THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG. Please, spare us all with your Pro-Israeli propaganda.
It's from Wikipedia, so it must be true!
I just can't believe any of this.
Question for the Gothamist editors:
I posted a reply twice, and it hasn't been published. There was absolutely NO offensive language or racist comments... is there some kind of screwy double standard going on or something?
A'Jad is wrong. Palestinians were involved in the Holocaust of Jews during WW2:
It's important to note that a Palestinian Muslim named Haj-Amin al-Husseini was a collaborator with Nazi Germany. This individual organized massacres in Hebron, Israel in August 1929, met with Hitler, Eichmann and others to discuss the final solution. He also lived in Berlin during WW2 and later fled to Lebanon where he died in exile as a Nazi War Criminal.
Israel is NOT an apartheid state (written by 2 South Africans who actually lived in apartheid South Africa, Rhoda Kadalie & Julia Bertelsmann)
Racism and discrimination do not form the rationale for Israel's policies and actions. Arab citizens of Israel can vote and serve in the Knesset; black South Africans could not vote until 1994. There are no laws in Israel that discriminate against Arab citizens or separate them from Jews. Unlike the United Kingdom, Greece, and Norway, Israel has no state religion, and it recognizes Arabic as one of its official languages.
Whereas apartheid was established through a series of oppressive laws that governed which park benches we could sit on, where we could go to school, which areas we were allowed to live in, and even whom we could marry, Israel was founded upon a liberal and inclusive Declaration of Independence. South Africa had a job reservation policy for white people; Israel has adopted pro-Arab affirmative action measures in some sectors.
Israeli schools, universities and hospitals make no distinction between Jews and Arabs. An Arab citizen who brings a case before an Israeli court will have that case decided on the basis of merit, not ethnicity. This was never the case for blacks under apartheid. Moreover, Israel respects freedom of speech and human rights. Its newspapers are far more independent, outspoken, and critical of the government than our newspapers in present-day, post-apartheid South Africa, let alone those of old.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East rated as "free" by Freedom House. [10] The apartheid label is more appropriate for many of Israel's neighbors, which have appalling records when it comes to the treatment of minority groups, political dissidents, and women, and which have explicitly discriminatory policies in operation, ranging from the Saudi ban on non-Muslim religions to the suppression of Kurdish activists in Syria, Turkey and Iran. It is telling that Israel has done more for black Muslim refugees from Darfur than has any Arab or Muslim country, granting hundreds citizenship. By contrast, Egypt's government has persecuted and killed Sudanese refugees, with little international censure.
Just because two authors claim Apartheid doesn't exist, doesn't make it true. I'll guarantee these two never traveled to Gaza or the West Bank...and never had to wait for hours at a checkpoint to go to work, or travel on different highways as the Israelis, or be separated from their families due to the erection of a 20' tall concrete apartheid wall. There's a lot of denial in your post. Do me a favor: look up the definition of Apartheid, and then do just a bit of research on Palestinian life under Israeli occupation and you will not be able to deny the fact that Israel is an Apartheid State.
There is infinitely more intelligent and nuanced debate about the Palestinian situation *inside* Israel, *by* Israeli Jews, than there is by American Jews or Americans in general. The hysterical, defensive, polarized nature of the whole Middle East debate in the United States is childish, and frankly, just plain boring. Try reading Haaretz in English for a simple start to see what I mean.
Husayni is certainly an awful figure, but to claim that he had some tangible role in the Holocaust is really a lie. He met Hitler in '41, and yeah, he was an avowed anti-semite, and collaborated in massacres, to claim that this means that Palestinian people were complicit in the Holocaust, or to recast them as perpetrators, is more than a little crazy.
To quote a scholar quoted on wikipedia:
"The claims of Palestinian complicity in the murder of the European Jews were to some extent a defensive strategy, a preemptive response to the Palestinian complaint that if Israel was recompensed for the Holocaust, it was unjust that Palestinian Muslims should pick up the bill for the crimes of European Christians."
What's with all of the citing of Wikipedia?!?! If you were in my class, I would give you an F. I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is not a legit source; you can use it to help locate actual sources, but cite a refereed article from a well-established journal, and I might listen.
To quote a scholar quoted on wikipedia:
To quote a character quoted in Family Circus: Guffaw.
Care to name your "scholar" from Wikipedia? I suspect that you declined to name him because
A) he's not a scholar and
B) criticism of his work by actual scholars & Harvard professors.