Soccer Dad

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• Lebanon's Hezbolla #Flotilla? If They Really Want To Help Palestinians--Start With Palestinian Persecution In Lebanon!
• What if it's both "sticks and stone" and "names"?
• Hrw takes a break
• Sense has "largely eluded" the international community

Lebanon's Hezbolla #Flotilla? If They Really Want To Help Palestinians--Start With Palestinian Persecution In Lebanon! Posted: 25 Jun 2010 04:45 AM PDT "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon do not enjoy several basic human rights, for example, they do not have the right to work in as many as 20 professions. Palestinian refugees are not formally citizens of another state, so they are not able to claim the same rights as other foreigners living and working in Lebanon." UNRWA   ----- [S]tate policies and practices in Lebanon discriminate, effectively on grounds of racial and national origin, against Palestinian refugees who reside in Lebanon and that, consequently, Lebanon is failing to comply with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child with respect to Palestinian children. Particular concerns highlighted include limitations on the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to education, the right to be registered and the right to a name, and the right to social security. Amnesty International Salman Masalha writes: Now that the Lebanese have boosted their national pride by registering the world's biggest dish of hummus in the Guinness Book of Records, they are bidding for the record in hypocrisy, soon to be seen on television screens everywhere. For it is not humanitarian motives or concern for the Palestinians that are making all these hypocrites restless. All they want is spectacle, footage and headlines. Because as we have already said, the Israeli-Palestinian arena is the most photogenic arena in the world. If they had any genuine humanitarian concern, the Lebanese would stage protests against the harsh blockade that has been imposed on the Palestinian refugee camps in their country for decades. You have to read Amnesty International's reports on the situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon to comprehend the humanitarian disaster there. This hypocrisy was best described by a European volunteer in those camps, who told the organizers of the new flotilla: "You love the Palestinians in Gaza and hate your own Palestinians." Just how poorly does Lebanon treat its Palestinians? The Palestinians in Lebanon were previously prohibited from engaging in 70 professions, but today they are 'only' prohibited from 20, but they are still forbidden to work outside their refugee camps: http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGMDE180102007 The Lebanese government does not issue the Palestinian refugees with Lebanese passports or travel documents. They have no health insurance or access to the most basic services http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGMDE180102007 The Lebanese Army has stationed checkpoints at the entrance to the Palestinian refugee camps that check every vehicle and person. Approximately three years ago, the Lebanese Army destroyed the 'Nahar Al Barad' Palestinian refugee camp, adjacent to Tripoli, while using artillery fire during battles in the Islamist faction 'Fatah Al Islam'. Scores of uninvolved citizens were killed during the battles, and all 27,000 inhabitants of the camp escaped. http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2010011944826.pdf  http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGMDE180102007 The Lebanese government prohibits bringing building materials and restoring structures in the Palestinian refugee camps in its domain. So how to explain the sudden interest in the welfare of Palestinian Arabs by the Hezbollah Flotilla out of Lebanon. One thing is clear, it has nothing to do with bringing aid to Gazans. The sloppiness and lack of organization of the flotilla proves that. But these days, you don't have to do your homework when it comes to bashing Israel: it's the PR--and not the facts--that matters. by Daled Amos

What if it's both "sticks and stone" and "names"? Posted: 25 Jun 2010 04:24 AM PDT via memeorandum Arab youths threw stones at a Jewish dance group during a street festival in Hannover, injuring one dancer and forcing the group to cancel its performance, German police and dance officials said Thursday. The teenagers also used a megaphone to shout anti-Semitic slurs during the attack Saturday, Hannover police spokesman Thorsten Schiewe said. At Solomonia, Dexter van Zile has it exactly right: By portraying Israel, the target of genocidal hostility from its neighbors, as a genocidal apartheid nation inhabited by extremists and governed by monsters, so-called peace activists in the West helped render Jews, wherever they may be, as legitimate targets for acts such as this.

Hrw takes a break Posted: 25 Jun 2010 04:20 AM PDT ... from criticizing Israel. Human Rights Watch has demanded that Hamas end its "cruel and inhuman treatment" of Shalit as Israel marked the fourth anniversary of the soldier's captivity at the hands of the Islamist movement. Good for them. I anxiously await the International Committee of the Red Cross following suit and demanding to meet with Gilad Shalit.

Sense has "largely eluded" the international community Posted: 25 Jun 2010 04:05 AM PDT In typical newspaper-ese, Janine Zacharia reports in the Washington Post: Israel has sought to isolate Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and has urged allies to do the same. But how to deal with Hamas as a political reality has largely eluded the international community since the Islamist group chose to participate in Palestinian elections, and won, in 2006. A year later, Hamas fought a bloody battle with rival Fatah and seized exclusive control of Gaza. Since then, Hamas leaders have expressed some openness to a two-state solution while maintaining the group's charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel. "[H]ow to deal with Hamas ... largely eluded?" Why not, "But the will to isolate, undermine and destroy Hamas has been absent from the international community?" Barry Rubin points out that the administration's latest plan for funding Gaza and, thus, Hamas is counterproductive if the "international community" wants peace: This is truly amazing. There is no mention of even the Quartet conditions: nothing said about Hamas abandoning terrorism or accepting Israel's existence or returning to recognition of the Palestinian Authority's rule as the legitimate government. The statement is unconditional, absolutely unconditional. Only the "humanitarian" consideration counts, as if the U.S. government is a community organizer organizing a food stamp program. And how does Zacharia write that leaders of Hamas have "expressed some openness to a state solution" with a straight face? After Israel loosened its blockade, Mahmoud al-Zahar was quoted: Senior Hamas official Mahmoud a-Zahar called for West Bank residents to fire rockets into Israel, Israel Radio reported Sunday. "There is no escaping from these rockets in the West Bank," Zahar said to the east Jerusalem newspaper al-Quds. "Why should they only be in the Gaza Strip?" What Hamas leaders say when they suggest in certain scripted moments that they might, if conditions are absolutely right and the planets are in alignment, accept a ceasefire Jewish state for ten years. But what they say in their unguarded moments is much more telling. One would assume that a newspaper reporter would know what statements are significant and which are merely BS designed to mislead a gullible public. Crossposted on Yourish.

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