This was brought to my attention by reading OyVaGoy (Chas Newkey-Burden) about a week ago. Whose side are you on?
This week the United Nations voted to remove a reference to sexual orientation from its resolution against extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
So the United Nations is now effectively saying it is acceptable to execute men or women because of their sexuality. This is more than a symbolic development, given that 76 countries around the world criminalize homosexuality and five consider it an executable offence.
Among those that voted for the removal were: China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
Among those that voted against were: Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, all of Europe including the United Kingdom, United States and…Israel.
So it appears that the UN is bowing to pressure from the Islamic world to align with its own homophobia.
And one of the countries, as Chas points out, and the only one in the region who will have no truck with this stance is democratic, free Israel which has gay rights even though many of its religious citizens are uncomfortable with overt gay public demonstrations of their sexuality.
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Recently, the Methodists in the UK passed a resolution to promote the boycotting of goods from what it considers illegal settlements on the West Bank/Judea Samaria.
It did so because, as I have previously reported:
The decision is a response to a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organisations, both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches. A majority of governments recognise the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegitimate under international law.
In my article I cited the systematic persecution of Christians among Israel’s neighbours whilst Israel’s Christian population is growing.
Now the Hudson New York has an article by Khaled Abu Toameh entitled Muslim Genocide of Christians Throughout Middle East.
Genocide is a strong word. Let’s see what he has to say:
It is obvious by now that the Christians in the Middle East are an “endangered species.”
Christians in Arab countries are no longer being persecuted; they are now being slaughtered and driven out of their homes and lands.
So what is the world doing about it? What is the evidence?
Those who for many years turned a blind eye to complaints about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East now owe the victims an apology. Now it is clear to all that these complaints were not “Jewish propaganda.”
The war of genocide against Christians in the Middle East can no longer be treated as an “internal affair” of Iraq or Egypt or the Palestinians. What the West needs to understand is that radical Islam has declared jihad not only against Jews, but also against Christians.
This, surely, is a vital point. So many commentators are fixated on the Israel/Palestine issue as being the fountainhead of all Islamic fundamentalism. If only the Israelis would give the Palestinians everything they want, the argument goes, the Islamists would desist from their terror attacks. In other words, it’s the Jews’ fault.
In Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories, Christians are being targeted almost on a daily basis by Muslim fundamentalists and secular dictators.
What! In the Palestinian territories? Does he mean Hamas? Does he mean Fatah? But, according to the Methodists, it’s the Jews, stupid.
Dozens of Arab Christians in Iraq have been killed in recent months in what seems to be well-planned campaign to drive them out of the country. Many Christian families have already begun fleeing Iraq out of fear for their lives.
Indeed, and this has been reported, but it’s almost a sub-text with a shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, ‘what do you expect, fundamentalist elements are to blame in a volatile situation.’ Of course, the West does not want to have to face the fact that it has been Frankenstein to a new Iraqi monster, replacing Saddam with Al Qaeda at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
In Egypt, the plight of the Coptic Christian minority appears to be worsening. Just this week, the Egyptian security forces killed a Coptic Christian man and wounded scores of others who were protesting against the government’s intention to demolish a Christian-owned structure.
Hardly a day passes without reports of violence against members of the Coptic Christian community in various parts of Egypt. Most of the attacks are carried out by Muslim fundamentalists.
Had this been, Israel the calls for boycott and sanction in the UN would be deafening, but the world does nothing. As Toameh says, they see it as an ‘internal’ affair whereas if an Israeli sneezes on a Palestinian, it’s reported round the world in minutes and 150 UN bodies are convened to condemn the murderous Israelis using germ warfare.
Some of the Egyptian fury against its ancient Coptic community is fuelled by unfounded, paranoid and extremist rumours. It’s as if certain elements want to believe them as an excuse for their actions. A similar pattern can be found in Israel with unfounded and, frankly ludicrous, accusations of Israeli actions against the Al Aqsa fuelling riots and civil unrest. Even today I read on the Elder of Ziyon about the ‘Latest nefarious Zionist plot to “storm” the Temple Mount’.
Back to Toameh:
According to the Barnabas Fund, an advocacy and charitable organization based in the United Kingdom, “Fears for the safety of Egyptian Christians are growing after a series of false allegations, violent threats and mass demonstrations against Christians in Egypt.”
Muslim anger was ignited by unfounded accusations that Egyptian Christians were aligned with Israel and stockpiling weapons in preparation for war against Muslims.
As Toameh, himself a Palestinian, points out, this pattern is also prevalent in the Territories which the world wants as future Palestine.
Last week, the Western-funded Palestinian Authority in the West Bank arrested a Christian journalist who reported about differences between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and senior Fatah operative Mohammed Dahlan. The journalist, George Qanawati, manager of Radio Bethlehem 2000, was freed five days later.
In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the tiny Christian community is also living in fear following a spate of attacks by radical Islamic groups.
What would a future Palestine look like? No Jews, no Christians? And who is it in the Middle East that is constantly criticised for being an ‘Apartheid state’, of oppressing minorities and restricting access to religious sites? Why, Israel, of course. Except in Israel’s cases these are always lies or distortions. What excuses to Egypt and other Middle East countries have for Christian persecution?
All this is echoed in an article written on Cif Watch “.. then the Sunday People”:
There is an Arab saying, “First the Saturday people and then the Sunday people,” which is often heard chanted at anti-Israel rallies organised by the PLO/PA. This is commonly held to refer to the deliberate eradication by Islamic regimes, everywhere they take root, first of Jewish and then of Christian kufar who refuse to convert to Islam.
Bataween, editor of “Point of No Return”, a blog mainly dedicated to creating awareness about the plight of Jews in Arab countries, informs us that Jews have almost been wiped out in Muslim countries (see also here). The “Saturday people” have been almost completely eradicated. Consequently – there now being very few Jews in Muslim countries – it would seem that Egyptian Muslim agressors [sic] are earnestly engaged in a murderous enactment of the second part of the saying.
I highly recommend your read this article in full.
How shameful is it when the UN is so fixated on Israel, mainly because of the influence of a built-in Muslim majority in many of its bodies, and does nothing about Christians.
How cowardly and shameful is it that the numerous churches around the world appear to sit on their hands when it comes to Christian persecution, unless it perceives Jews as the persecutors.
The media, having long ago agreed to everything in the Goldstone report, has no interest in the accidental revelations which refute its conclusions.
Camera.org recently published news that none other than Hamas itself has revealed an important statistic, previously denied or simply lied about, which shows that Goldstone was a gullible sap who was fed lies from dubious sources and reached conclusions which were foregone before he even started his one-sided investigation.
Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad’s admission that Hamas and affiliated militias lost 600-700 fighters in the Israeli “Cast Lead” military operation undermines the central accusation of the Goldstone Report that the Israeli operation was “premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed … [at] the civilian population.” The public, however, is unlikely to know this, because Hamad’s remarks have been largely ignored by major news organizations, like the New York Times and the BBC.
Hamad’s comments were made in an interview published in the London Arabic daily Al Hayat on Nov. 1, 2010 and reported by Agence France Presse, the Jerusalem Post and others. In the interview, he stated that
On the first day of the war, Israel targeted police stations and 250 martyrs who were part of Hamas and the various factions fell.” He added that, “about 200 to 300 were killed from the Qassam Brigades, as well as 150 security personnel.”
Hamad’s figures closely match the Israeli estimate of 709 combatant fatalities and indicate that combatants comprised around half of the Palestinian fatalities in the time period of Dec. 27, 2008 through Jan. 18, 2009, far more than the 17 percent claimed by Palestinian groups. The increased ratio of combatants to non-combatants is inconsistent with Goldstone’s most serious charge that Israeli forces systematically targeted civilians.
The importance of the last sentence cannot be underestimated. The accusation of deliberately targeting civilians was the direct opposite of the truth, as Col Richard Kemp told the UN Human Rights Council last year http://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2009/10/19/colonel-richard-kemp-and-the-truth-about-operation-cast-lead
In the rush to judgement, or directly to condemnation, the picture of Israel as a bloodthirsty, murderous regime, which its enemies are so keen to promote, was given validation by Goldstone.
Considering the conditions in Gaza – the use of public buildings, the network of residential homes used and the firing from or near UN buildings – the ratio of combatants to civilians killed is low and completely disproves the demonising conclusion of Goldstone.
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If you thought Israel’s medical mission to Haiti after the earthquake was just PR then think again.
There has been a continuous presence there since January this year and now, as the JP reports, in response to the cholera epidemic, Israel is sending a medical unit.
Israel has joined other countries in efforts to help disaster-stricken Haiti with its cholera epidemic and will open a new intensive care unit in the north of the island, reported Israel Radio on Thursday.
The Foreign Ministry’s humanitarian aid unit has gathered the necessary equipment for the project and will begin transferring it to Haiti in the coming weeks.
UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said Haiti needs at least a hundred doctors and a thousand nurses to deal with the epidemic. More than 1,000 people have died in Haiti since the outbreak of Cholera five weeks ago.
A year after the earthquake there is little sign of rebuilding. No-one is blockading Haiti and there are no smuggling tunnels to the Dominican Republic. The situation is truly disgraceful and an indictment of the priorities of the UN.
As usual, when it comes to international aid efforts, Israel punches above its weight.
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