 |
| Human rights organizations and the United Nations criticize Israel's ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes as violating international law, and contend that Israeli governments actually use demolitions to collectively punish Palestinians and to seize property for the expansion of Israeli settlements. Last year, 1,100 Palestinians — more than half of them children — were displaced, an 80 percent increase from the previous year. And demolitions this year continue at a high rate. |
RE: Life &Culture: When the Arab Jews Fled
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443294904578048451218760728.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Dear Editor,
Israeli officials might think that they are turning the tables by hyping up the hardships faced by several hundred thousand exiled Arab Jews in response to the attention that the plight of displaced Palestinians has been getting, but there are no tables to turn... There is only a huge and escalating tragedy for countless innocent and increasingly vulnerable people whose lives and communities have been destroyed by cruel bigotry and injustice and war.
Palestine's Hanan Ashrawi is wise to point out that Palestinians "have nothing to do with the plight of the Jews or other minorities who left the Arab world." Furthermore Dr. Ashrawi did not invent the proposal that Arab Jews should also have a "right of return" to the countries they left, she simply reiterates what has been the truth all along.
Please don't give Islamists through out the Middle East a green light to mimic Israel's bad habit of impoverishing and evicting people deemed to be the "wrong" religion. What is bad now can easily become much much worse.
Every refugee's right to return, no matter who and no matter where, is a universal inalienable basic human right clearly affirmed multiple times by international law. A fully secular two state solution to actually end the Israel-Palestine conflict really is in everyone's best interest- for freedom, for justice, for progress, and for a just and lasting peace with positive ramifications for the entire region.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker& poet
NOTES
When a rose is not a rose is not a rose is not a rose.....
CNN video: Israel's concrete wall upsets Christians
ATFP's Hussein Ibish: Where Settler Terrorism Comes From
Israel's Jewish extremists used chain saws to cut down over 120 olive trees on private Palestinian land in Nablus on Tuesday
Songs and Pictures from Palestine: Najat El-Taji El-Khairy ... the wall
William Hague intervenes over West Bank barrier: Foreign secretary shares concern with Archbishop of Westminster in private letter about Israeli-built wall
''The Life of a Palestinian''
Muslims who would restrict speech to "protect Islam" have no greater allies than Jews who would do so to "protect Israel."
King Abdullah II of Jordan: The reason behind Tehran’s nuclear programme is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Palestine's Abbas: "Despite our feelings of disappointment and loss of hope, we continue to sincerely extend our hands to the Israeli people to make peace." [Full text: Abbas address to UN General Assembly]
The Rule of Law "The real rule of law is substantive and encompasses many human-rights requirements. It reflects the idea of equality in a substantive way: not just that no one is above the law, but that everyone is equal before and under the law, and is entitled to its equal protection and equal benefit..." Louise Arbour, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights & president of the International Crisis Group.
************
The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ ) Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries
"Where, after all, do universal human rights
begin?
In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot
be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the
individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college
he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the
places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal
opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights
have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without
concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in
vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor
Roosevelt
The Golden
Rule... Do
unto others as you
would have them do unto you
No comments:
Post a Comment