Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumFounder of Breaking the Silence: Israeli settlers poisoning Palestinian water
This is the Palestinian cause. This is BDS. Centuries old, hateful blood libel that is only used to incite against Jews. Sane, rational people do not automatically believe every story against Jews, but antisemites do........ all.the.freaking.time.
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/787/798.html?hp=1&cat=404&loc=1
Video: https://twitter.com/IMTIzionism/status/743029621646610432
Video, filmed in a little less than two years ago, the voice of one of the founders of "Breaking the Silence", Yehuda Shaul , group leaders in the West Bank, near the village of Sussia. He tells his audience that the residents of a Palestinian village in the Hebron Hills just recently returned to their homes after the settlers poisoned their drinking water system a few years ago, and the Palestinians were forced to leave their homes.
Folks who wonder why BtS isn't accepted in mainstream Israeli society now know why.
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still_one
(92,131 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)http://israelbehindthenews.com/poisoned-wells-allegation-of-human-rights-groups/14363/
http://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-escalates-water-apartheid-as-illegal-settlers-contaminate-palestinian-water/209921/
Palestinian water supplies face further threats from pollution by Israeli waste, both dumped from nearby illegal settlements and shipped from inside Israel.
A June 2013 Israeli state report found that a third of sewage treatment facilities in settlements were either insufficient or inoperative.
The previous year, it reported, 2.2 mcm of waste had flowed from settlements directly into nearby waterways and cesspits.
As many settlements stand on hills, much of this untreated sewage then becomes the problem of neighboring Palestinian communities whose farmlands and groundwater it pollutes.
“The settlement wastewater goes to the aquifers and pollutes the groundwater,” Dr. Tamimi said.
The city of Salfit and nearby town of Kafr al-Deek have been repeatedly drenched with sewage from the settlements of Ariel and Yakir, most recently on Wednesday, affecting their agriculture and tourism, as well as local water supplies.
“Josephine,” a volunteer for the Ramallah-based International Solidarity Movement, noted that settlement pollution does not stop with sewage. “Many factories let out polluted water and waste into the water sources that Palestinians use,” she told MintPress.
In February, after Palestinian customs police discovered a truck transporting asbestos from Israel to a landfill in Tulkarem, the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority warned against attempts to smuggle Israeli waste into the West Bank.
shira
(30,109 posts)DetlefK
(16,423 posts)All these accusations, all these examples, over all those years. It could be a racist meme, of course.
But we aren't talking about normal people here, normal israeli citizens. Those settlers are religious fanatics who don't mind whether they have to kill to restore Israel or whether they die.
Those people burn down palestinian groves.
Those people steal land.
Those people lynch Palestinians.
I read an interview about 1-2 years ago where such a settler, a mother, was asked whether she's not afraid about her children playing in this dangerous environment, between razor-wire and stuff. She said that she wasn't afraid for her children, because if they were to die they would have died for God's cause.
These are religious fanatics and I have yet to see an act of malice that is beyond the pale for a religious fanatic.
King_David
(14,851 posts)http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-cleric-pounds-penis-ads/
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)EDIT:
Imagine writing a history-book in the year 2050. Looking back, how did peace come to Israel?
Please draw me a possible route of incidents from Israel's current policies and current situation of occupation and settlements to a peaceful outcome.
King_David
(14,851 posts)I know after you appeared to endorse one , now you want to change the topic and have me write an essay on Israeli / Jewish and Palestinian/ Muslim peace and understanding?
Really?
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)But obviously the topic is not "conspiracy-theories about Israel" but "conspiracy-theories against Jews". My apologies for going off-topic.
shira
(30,109 posts)If you could fall so easily for Catron's propaganda, what makes you believe those other reports?
shira
(30,109 posts)And not 1 video or picture.
I'm with you on religious fanatics, but all these accusations with no proof goes to show something's very wrong here.
The false accusations should make you wonder why they're being made in the first place. If things are so bad, there should be enough evidence so that lies are unnecessary.
Israeli
(4,148 posts)Do you really believe that ?
There are plenty videos and pictures ......see :
http://rhr.org.il/eng/?s=olive+trees&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=Go
http://www.btselem.org/search/google_cse_adv/olive%20trees
http://972mag.com/?s=olive+trees
What makes you think that those that assassinated a Prime Minister and burnt a family alive in their beds would hesitate to harm olive trees ????
shira
(30,109 posts)....of destroying an olive tree. Apparently it's happened so many times over the years, to thousands of trees, that there should be evidence of settlers caught in the act of doing it.
Show me.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)The settlers themselves are open about what they see as their duty to stop Palestinians from harvesting olives. Here's two videos....
&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DqYtvb8OW_cg&has_verified=1
And an article from a few years ago where settlers admit to the destruction. I wonder if Shira thinks they're liars or something. Like you pointed out, the extremists have no qualms in carrying out even worse violence than damaging and destroying trees, so I'm not sure why anyone would try to portray them as innocent victims of a smear campaign.
Settlers at Eli declined to be interviewed, but other settlers in the area have justified driving Palestinians from their land by saying they threaten security. Eli and nearby Yitzhar have been attacked over the past three years, and families have been murdered in other nearby settlements.
But as Yitzhar's spokesman, Yossi Peli, readily admits, the settlers' intent goes beyond security. "The trees grow back and ultimately we hope to harvest them in the place of the unwanted inhabitants of the area," he said.
Men from Yitzhar, a settlement with a history of violence against Palestinians, have terrorised olive pickers with guns and clubs and destroyed hundreds of trees. In one incident, they beat a 70-year-old man, stripped him and forced him to walk back to his village naked.
The destruction of trees has drawn fire from Mr Sharon and the Yesha council, which represents settlers. But the latter qualified its criticism by saying that, while wrecking trees is wrong, it is acceptable for settlers to loot the olive crop - because Jews are entitled to harvest the produce of non-Jews in what the council defines as the "Land of Israel".
One Israeli Labor MP, Ephraim Sneh, visited the scene and blamed the Government for the incidents. "Who did this? The residents of Hilltop 725," he said. "That is a settlement outpost the Government of Israel undertook to remove, but didn't; now the army is forced to guard it. We're talking about a group who live at the state's expense, with the state's protection, and do things no Jew can accept."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/14/1068674380631.html
Apparently even Sharon and the Yesha council were wrong according to Shira...
Anyway, this 'show a pic of it happening or it didn't happen!' tactic runs both ways. From now on, if that poster doesn't provide video evidence of any claim they make, we can all discard it just like they have with the fact that everyone knows, which is that extremist settlers do target olive harvests...
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed Jun 29, 2016, 12:05 PM - Edit history (1)
And I don't doubt for a moment they've done destructive, evil things. I just don't believe every single accusation like you do. I have reason to doubt some of the claims (including libels like poisoning the wells, aphrodisiac gum...). Only Jew haters believe antisemites who make constant false accusations against Jews.
It's basically impossible for settlers to destroy hundreds or thousands of olive trees without getting caught in the act. If you know the 1st thing about olive trees, they're kinda difficult to destroy. Simply pruning the branches takes a helluva long time. Uprooting or destroying the trunks is a GINORMOUS task. So yeah, if the claim is settlers destroy 10 trees - okay - but 450 or 1000? No fucking way.
What's also dubious is that so many claims against these settlers are made on Saturdays (the Jewish Sabbath). While it's not impossible, it's HIGHLY unlikely these religious fanatics would go to town "working" on the Sabbath.
Now here's the catch:
PALESTINIANS have been caught on camera destroying their own olive trees but SETTLERS have not. And there's a reason Palestinians would do so....
http://israelstreet.org/the-great-olive-tree-hoax/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/16/did-palestinians-destroy-their-own-olive-trees-and-then-blame-israel-settlers-say-they-have-the-video-to-prove-it/
http://www.rosenblit.com/big_lie.htm
Finally, let's remember it's the ridiculously antisemitic ISM (FreeGaza, Alison Weir, Greta Berlin, Gilad Atzmon) that is almost always involved in these accusations. The very same racist ISM that you've supported for years. In a post above this one, I pointed out an article by the ISM's Joe Catron who calls for Hezbollah bombing Tel Aviv. While you may take every word for granted from these Jew haters, I can assure you that decent people do not, and are repulsed by that kind of hate.
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In response to your response below:
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If the accusations were that 10 or 20 trees were destroyed at one time, that's believable. It's impossible for 450-1000 trees to be destroyed in a short period of time without any witnesses to that destruction.
Actually - you do support the ISM - or at least you did:
Violet_Crumble (35,316 posts)
47. I'm quite happy to support the ISM....
Whoever those 'same people' are, they've got zero to do with my support of an organisation that reflects my stance on the conflict. And Guilt By Six Degrees of Association isn't a game I'm particularly fond of...
You wrote that they reflect your stance on the conflict. Creepers like Joe Catron, FreeGaza assholes like Greta Berlin, Alison Weir, Mary Thompson Hughes, Paul Larudee.
You regret writing that?
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)From their homepage: 'In memory of my martyred friends and mentors, Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane. HaShem Yinkom Dameihem (May God Avenge Their Bloods)'
Charming....
Here's the thing. The damage and destruction of olive trees has been a long-term issue, so much so that Ariel Sharon spoke out against it a long time ago and put the blame where it belongs, on extremist settlers.
I watched that video and all I could make out was that a settler was filming unidentifiable people doing something to a tree. I've got no idea who they are, and no-one in their right mind who wasn't the sort of person to defend extremist settlers would just take their word for it.
Even if it was what the settler said it was, how does that make it that you doubt most, if not all incidents of settlers damaging and destroying trees? Is that also yr attitude towards rape accusations? After all, a small percentage of reported rapes in the US turn out to be false accusations and some misogynists use that to argue that most rape accusations are false.
Also, lots of human rights groups have reported on incidents. I don't know where you get the idea that it all comes from one group. Probably the same place you get the idea that I support the ISM. I don't hate them with a frothing, bubbling, intense and manic hatred, but neither do I support them. I don't really support anything. I used to support Amnesty International, but I hit a financial bump and had to stop my donations, so that's as close to supporting a group as I get...
btw, knock off the nonsense about me taking the word of Jew haters for granted. That's fucking nasty bullshit. If yr going to get straight into inventing things like that, I'll doubly return the favour. So, from this point on, keep things civil and let me tell you what I think and what I agree or disagree with, not the other way round. That way things will be breezy, okay?
Carry on....
Israeli
(4,148 posts).....yet some do 
" Like you pointed out, the extremists have no qualms in carrying out even worse violence than damaging and destroying trees, so I'm not sure why anyone would try to portray them as innocent victims of a smear campaign. "
I'm sure ...someone who believes in a Greater Israel ....someone who calls The Wild West Bank by its religious terminology of Judea and Samaria would .
Igel
(35,300 posts)1. There probably have been isolated incidents of well contamination. Is this policy? No. But it's easy to generalize and say "Israelis are doing this" and have that understood to mean "As a rule, Israelis are doing this" or "Israelis habitually do this in general." It's a fallacy of overgeneralization.
2. The report usually cited also includes examples of settlements where the sewage isn't treated and flows back down onto Israeli-cultivated lands. Many of these are illegal. They're not policy, they're not removed. They're a problem for all sides, and the government is, by and large, hamstrung.
3. The same report that's considered authoritative when it suits activists also found that the vast majority of well and groundwater pollution from untreated sewage results not from Israeli settlements but Palestinian villages without treatment plants or with broken treatment plants. This parallels the problems in Gaza, in which most of the problem is locally produced but only the part of the problem that can be attributed to Israelis really matters. We focus on a small part of the issue because they're outsiders and enemies instead of fixing most of the problem by owning up to their own responsibility. It's self-serving but ultimately just hurts the locals more than it hurts the enemy.
A lot of politics is the same. Brexit, for example. A lot of US politics. Nasty, that sort of principled non-self-reflexion.
shira
(30,109 posts)Ben-Gurion U. leadership says IDF-critiquing NGO beyond the pale of ‘national consensus’
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-university-halts-prize-to-breaking-the-silence/
Israeli
(4,148 posts)All this demonstrates that even those Israelis who are educated, who advocate for civil liberties and highlight the importance of free speech, who are against settlements and against the occupation, who support a two-state solution, who believe in human rights, and who may even identify as “left” — even they can be part of the problem, part of the “consensus,” part of the status quo that preserves and perpetuates injustices, and civil and human rights violations.
In today’s climate, when you are forced to choose between what is just and right and your own survival and comfort, choosing the latter will only exacerbate the problem. By declaring that opposing the occupation is “outside the Israeli consensus,” Carmi is helping cement the idea that occupation is itself the Israeli consensus.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Source: Haaretz, Jun 28, 2016
In recent years the Israeli government has waged a methodical campaign to undermine any criticism of its policies, focused mainly against human rights and anti-occupation organizations. The mud-slinging against various individuals and organizations, which has judicial and public outgrowths, has become a given for large swaths of Israeli society.
The decision of the president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Prof. Rivka Carmi, to cancel an award to Breaking the Silence in the wake of a vicious incitement campaign against the organization encourages this unacceptable way of thinking. Instead of reinforcing civil society, Carmi joined with the forces that seek to suppress it while adopting the language of delegitimizing organizations that criticize government policy, in particular with regard to the occupation.
The Berelson Prize has been awarded by the university’s Middle East Studies Department for 25 years. The public recognition and modest monetary prize of 20,000 shekels (around $5,000) that it entails are awarded to individuals and nonprofit organizations that faculty members judge to have contributed to the advancement of understanding between Jews and Arabs. About a month ago the department chose to give the prize to Breaking the Silence. “We believe that advancing Jewish-Arab relations requires confronting the public with the truth of the occupation – which may not be pleasant to hear, but constitutes a fundamental condition for reconciliation between the two peoples,” explained department chairman Prof. Haggai Ram.
Carmi ignored the fact that the prize recipients have always been chosen by the department. They include the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem, the poet Siham Daoud and organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, Sikkuy – the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality and the Galilee Arab-Jewish School. The department’s arguments for choosing Breaking the Silence were rejected out of hand.
Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.727487
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It's possible that it's only hearsay, and if the water was indeed poisoned it's not certain that settlers did it. Palestinians aren't allowed to have normal plumbing and Israel restricts their water allocation to below WHO minimum standards, so there are many other possible causes. If BTS made an official claim that the water was poisoned, it would most probably be true, as BTS has always been right before, which is one of the main reasons why people believe them.
It's however a bit scary is that you use a fascist organization like Im Tirtzu as a source.
Im Tirtzu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The group has been described as belonging to the ultra-right, ultranationalist and ultra-Zionist, but describes itself as centrist. The group's stated goal is to strengthen and promote "Zionist values" throughout Israel, especially on college campuses. Im Tirtzu is mostly known for its campaign against the New Israel Fund and against alleged bias in university curriculum.
In 2010, Im Tirtzu filed a libel suit against five Facebook users on the grounds that they created a group calling Im Tirtzu "fascist" and comparing it to the Nazi regime. A court in Jerusalem determined that the use of the term "Fascist" was not libelous, but that the comparison to the Nazi regime was not protected speech. Both Im Tirtzu and the defendants appealed to the high court. In the appeal, the high court overturned the previous ruling and decided that the libel suit should have not been heard in court, since the main discussion is ideological, not legal.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im_Tirtzu
Israeli
(4,148 posts).....while Rabbi Dov Lior gets a free pass
A Racist, Messianic Rabbi Is the Ruler of Israel
Rabbi of Kiryat Arba municipality, Dov Lior, returned from questioning on charges of incitement after publishing his approval of a book discussing when it is acceptable to kill non-Jews under Halacha, to his well-paid position and teaching at Nir hesder yeshiva. Without dramatic change in these matters, Israel will make all of its laws illegal.
Sefi Rachlevsky Jul 01, 2011
Source : http://www.haaretz.com/a-racist-messianic-rabbi-is-the-ruler-of-israel-1.370554
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/a-racist-messianic-rabbi-is-the-ruler-of-israel-1.370554
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed Jun 29, 2016, 09:57 AM - Edit history (3)
Just curious due to your deflection to some Israeli over there who is just as bad or worse....
=========
I wonder why it's so difficult for supporters of BtS to admit to any wrondoing - any nasty lies that its leaders have deliberately publicized. Is it really so difficult to admit that what Shaul and Gvaryahu did was wrong & then acknowledge that BtS critics have good reason to doubt the veracity of their reports?
All this denial - this Halo Effect as if BtS can do no wrong - is like religious fanaticism. It's just as difficult or more difficult to admit BtS really fucked up as it is to admit the Church, Priests, Rabbis are capable of doing wrong...
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed Jun 29, 2016, 07:14 AM - Edit history (2)
It's not just the founder of BtS with his centuries old antisemitic Jew hating libels...
A red line has been crossed. In fact, a number of red lines have been crossed. Watch here as Avner Gvaryahu of Breaking the Silence brazenly and callously lies to foreign tourists during a guided tour of Hebron offered by his organisation.
This description, which Breaking the Silence guides tell on a weekly basis in Hebron, is based on one of Breaking the Silence's numerous anonymous testimonies. This story is dated as coming from the "Ramallah and al-Bireh area" in 2002. In other words: This is all based on an anonymous 13-year old testimony, from a place that isn't even remotely close to Hebron!
Even more disturbingly, the description that Gvaryahu gives doesn't even match the testimony that was given to the organisation. For example, the claim that the head of the house had his eyes covered and the family was locked up in a room doesn't appear anywhere in the original testimony.
Let it be clear: This is the latest in a long line of ugly attempts to smear the soldiers of the IDF in order to impress naive foreign tourists. We will not stand by idly any longer and watch these repeated attempts to besmirch our soldiers!
Credit is due to Amit Deri for this important documentation. It's vital that everyone concerned for the future of Israel and who truly cares about building a better future knows that the lies being spread by Gvaryahu only give rise to destruction, cynicism and bad faith, both within Israeli society and internationally. It is essential to expose these lies for what they are. Only the truth will do.
The only reason to lie like this is due to hatred. If something else, let me know. Why lie like this?
You also assume everything else BtS claims is true. A lot of what they claim cannot be investigated due to anonymous eyewitness accounts, not naming the guilty parties, etc. That doesn't mean everything from them is a lie, but it does mean that they cannot be trusted at face value.
Now that you're defending an antisemitic libel from the founder of BtS, what do you make of Mondoweiss defending Mahmoud Abbas' recent "poisoned wells" blood libel? Still loving Mondoweiss now? It's a cesspool of hate....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=130330
The decent thing for any anti-racist to do is to condemn racism, not defend it as you always do. If you can't condemn Jew hating blood libelers and their defenders, you're not an anti-racist & you have no business pretending to be.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)If the accusations are made without being connected to the accused being Jewish and would've been leveled under other other circumstances where no Jews were involved, it's probably not one of those "centuries old antisemitic Jew hating libels".
To be fair, the anti-Semitic intent has not been disproven, but I would say that it's extremely unlikely that this has anything to do with anti-Semitism. Regardless, BTS has made no allegations about settlers poisoning wells, which has been pointed out by VC in this thread.
I think you've chosen poorly when you trust Im Tirtzu over BTS.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)A spokesman for Breaking the Silence told Reuters the group had not provided any such information.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134130223
I don't think whatever garbled bullshit an extreme right-wing fascist group is spewing trumps what an Israeli human rights group who do incredibly great work says...
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