Sim-O

…So why won’t it recognise a product that is made in Palestine?

Fisehatak to JSF

Labels: Palestine, USA

Am I the only one that thinks the important thing about the row about the police pay rise isn’t the fact that if it isn’t back dated, it turns out, in real terms, not to be 2.5% but 1.9%.
Or that the police are talking about talking about striking.
Not that they aren’t important, but looking at the bigger picture, why has no-one (and I could be wrong as I don’t have time to trawl through every news service and blog) mentioned the fact that the Home Secretary completely ignored the ruling of the arbitration service. Showing a complete disregard for it, undermining it and in the process showing that the govt. cannot be trusted.
The next time a public service cannot agree with the govt. on a pay deal, they might as well not bother with UCAS and go straight to industrial action.

Labels: Government, The Police

by Nadim Rouhana:

The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel’s deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should “take [my] bundles and get lost.” Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state.

I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship–one of 1.4 million. I am also a social psychologist trained and working in the United States. In late November, on behalf of Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research, I polled Palestinian citizens of Israel regarding their reactions to the Annapolis conference and their views about our future, and how they would be affected by Middle East peace negotiations.

During Israel’s establishment, three-quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes or fled in fear. They remain refugees to this day, scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab world and beyond. We Palestinian citizens of Israel are among the minority who managed to remain on our land. Like many Mexican-Americans, we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us. We have been struggling ever since against a system that subjects us to separate and unequal treatment because we are Palestinian Arabs–Christian, Muslim and Druze–not Jewish. More than twenty Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews.

The Palestinian Authority is under intense pressure to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is not a matter of semantics. If Israel’s demand is granted, the inequality that we face as Palestinians–roughly 20 percent of Israel’s population–will become permanent.

The United States, despite being settled by Christian Europeans fleeing religious persecution, has struggled for decades to make clear that it is not a “Christian nation.” It is in a similar vein that Israel’s indigenous Palestinian population rejects the efforts of Israel and the United States to seal our fate as a permanent underclass in our own homeland.

We are referred to by leading Israeli politicians as a “demographic problem.” In response, many in Israel, including the deputy prime minister, are proposing land swaps: Palestinian land in the occupied territories with Israeli settlers on it would fall under Israel’s sovereignty, while land in Israel with Palestinian citizens would fall under Palestinian authority.

This may seem like an even trade. But there is one problem: no one asked us what we think of this solution. Imagine the hue and cry were a prominent American politician to propose redrawing the map of the United States so as to exclude as many Mexican-Americans as possible, for the explicit purpose of preserving white political power. Such a demagogue would rightly be denounced as a bigot. Yet this sort of hyper-segregation and ethnic supremacy is precisely what Israeli and American officials are considering for many Palestinian citizens of Israel — and hoping to coerce Palestinan leaders into accepting.

Looking across the Green Line, we realize that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no mandate to negotiate a deal that will affect our future. We did not elect him. Why would we give up the rights we have battled to secure in our homeland to live inside an embryonic Palestine that we fear will be more like a bantustan than a sovereign state? Even if we put aside our attachment to our homeland, Israel has crushed the West Bank economy–to say nothing of Gaza’s–and imprisoned its people behind a barrier. There is little allure to life in such grim circumstances, especially since there is the real prospect of further Israeli sanctions, which could make a bad situation worse.

In the poll I just conducted, nearly three-quarters of Israel’s Palestinian citizens rejected the idea of the Palestinian Authority making territorial concessions that involve them, and 65.6 percent maintained that the PA also lacked the mandate to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Nearly 80 percent declared that it lacks the mandate to relinquish the right of Palestinian refugees–affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 and reaffirmed many times–to return to their homes and properties inside Israel.

Palestinians inside Israel have developed a history and identity after nearly sixty years of hard work and struggle. We are not simply pawns to be shuffled to the other side of the board. We expect no more and no less than the right to equality in the land of our ancestors. Israeli Jews have now built a nation, and have the right to live here in peace. But Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic, nor can it find the security it seeks by continuing to deny our rights, nor those of Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nor those of Palestinian refugees. It is time for us to share this land in a true democracy, one that honors and respects the rights of both peoples as equals.

Nadim Rouhana is Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Analysis at George Mason University and heads the Haifa-based Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research.

Labels: Israel, Palestine

The Independent:

The political furore over Donald Trump’s plans to build a £500m golf course on the north-east coast of Scotland deepened yesterday after the councillor who cast the deciding vote to reject the scheme was sacked by his colleagues. Aberdeenshire councillors voted by 26 to 10 to remove Martin Ford from his role as chairman of the infrastructure services committee.
…
Environmentalists and many local residents have campaigned against the proposals for the Menie Estate near Balmedie, saying they will ruin an environmentally fragile area of the Scottish coastline, including one of the most spectacular dune systems in the region.

The removal of such a key figure in the council’s original decision to reject the planning application will add to the growing speculation about the handling of the project by public bodies and elected officials.

Last night, Mr Ford reacted angrily to his dismissal, saying it sent out the “wrong message” about the integrity of the planning system. Mr Ford’s deciding vote last month came at the end of a heated debate lasting two-and-a-half hours when the infrastructure committee rejected the application for the Trump International Golf Links after councillors were tied 7-7.

But the final decision over the billionaire US businessman’s golf dream now rests with the Scottish government after it took the unusual step earlier this month of “calling in” the planning decision. It argued that it should decide whether the course goes ahead because the investment is of national significance.
…
Joanna Strathdee, the leader of the Scottish Nationalist group on Aberdeenshire Council, defended the authority’s decision to sack Mr Ford. She said: “Aberdeenshire Council needs to restore the confidence of the business and wider community in the planning process and show the world that north-east Scotland really is open for business and serious about inward investment. As chair of one of the most important and powerful committees in the council charged with the economic development of the north-east, it was clear that Councillor Ford’s position was untenable.”

Surley, refusing the application of this golf complex just shows how much integrity this planning process has, precisly because of the amount of money involved, which the Scottish Govt. is trying control.

Labels: Capitalism, Environment

The Times:

Two other former interpreters are also dismayed at being denied access to the Government’s assistance package because their contracts were “terminated for absence”.
I.K. Salman, who has featured in an earlier blog, left his job and fled Iraq with his wife and two children after an armed gang turned up outside his house in Basra in March 2005.
“They [the British forces] must know very well that attending work after receiving the threat was going to be like a death sentence to me,” said the 43-year-old.
“When I informed one of the British officers about my resignation over the phone immediately after receiving the threat he never told me that I need to send them a written letter and he just accepted my resignation over the phone and said to me that he feels sorry to hear this.”
Mr Salman, who currently lives in Damascus, continued: “It’s not only my case it’s also the case with all the other interpreters who were threatened.
“I think the British Government was only trying, by making us fill these forms, to show the public and the media that they are going to help those people who served them in Iraq … but then they put this sophisticated criteria just so none of us or maybe only a handful of interpreters will be eligible for this scheme.”

Labels: Iraq

‘Red tape and murder’

David Miliband is the Minister responsible for Government policy towards its Iraqi ex-employees, including those in fear of their lives. In a recent webchat on the Number 10 website, Mr Miliband was asked the following question by Justin McKeating: ‘I would like to ask the Foreign Secretary why the assistance being offered to locally employed staff in Iraq, who are being threatened with reprisals – including torture and death – from local militias, is being rationed according to length of service. Isn’t it perfectly possible for an Iraqi employee who has only been employed for five months to face the same dangers as a colleague who has been employed for twelve months or longer?’

To which he replied ‘ The scheme is open to all existing staff whatever their length of service. For previous staff who no longer work for us, there is a 12 month criteria. I think this gets the balance right. The fortitude of civilian staff alongside military forces has been amazing on the part both of British staff and locally employed staff. The new scheme tries to recognise this.’

Just how good a job of recognising it is noted in The Times today.

There are a great many methods which our Government, acting in our name, is using to keep out Iraqi ex-employees at risk of being murdered for having trusted this country.

Officials have rejected 125 out of 200 applications for help so far, and one of the grounds that they are citing is absenteeism. One of the skivers, an ex-interpreter named Safa, says that he served UK Forces for two and a half years and was unable to come to work when militiamen began observing the British bases, targeting those working for the Army. Of course applications cannot be accepted simply at face value: but Safa has no right of appeal. His case could quite easily be verified by ringing round the Army officers with whom he says he served, and checking his story. There is no indication that the Government has done this, and now his case is in the bin.

I can tell you about another of the bureaucratic obstacles being put in the way of at-risk former Employees. I’ve been forwarded a copy of the standard reply sent to all ex-employees asking for help. I’ll reproduce it in full later. It says, among other things, that ex-Employees applying for asylum may have to wait until 2009. This is disgraceful: people are being hunted in Basra now.

And the other bureaucratic obstacles are the ones we warned about when David Miliband made the October 9th Statement: ex-employees must prove that they worked 12 months continuously after the 1st January 2005, excluding those who were identified as murder targets during the course of the Sadrist uprising in 2004 or who worked for the duration of a Battalion’s six-month tour and became known as ‘collaborators’ in that time.

This comes down to one simple principle: the Iraqis whom our Government should help first are those who are at risk of being murdered for having worked for the British. It is still not too late for the Government to implement this principle. It is administratively possible. It is morally imperative.

And from the Government’s viewpoint, it is now politically advisable: a continued policy of literally niggling people to death, putting bureaucratic obstacles in the way of men and women in fear of their lives for having worked for British troops, will attract nothing but contempt, from the press and the public.

Once more, then: write to your MP. His or her address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London. SW1A 0AA. You can look your MP up here.

Make the points above, courteously: an insulted MP will do nothing for threatened Iraqis. Ask your MP if he or she will sign Early Day Motion 401, which raises these concerns, and if he or she will write to David Miliband asking for an explanation. You can also give them my email address (danhardie.blog@gmail.com) and tell them that I am in touch with a number of Iraqis in Basra and Damascus, and will be happy to come to Westminster to give them a concise briefing, as I already have for a number of MPs.

Only pressure got this Government to announce a partial, grudging change of policy. Only pressure will stop this Government from finding bureaucratic excuses to abandon its moral obligations and leave its former Employees to the death squads.

Labels: Iraq

The Independent:

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, faces an extraordinary rebellion among fellow ministers over her refusal to pay the police pay deal in full, a senior Labour MP has disclosed.

Angry rank and file officers meet in London today to debate overturning the ban that stops the police from being able to strike.

Tensions are running high over Ms Smith’s decision to delay implementing their 2.5 per cent pay rise, in effect cutting it to 1.9 per cent

All I’m going to say is 66%.

Labels: Government, The Police

Hamas was elected by the Palestinians remember…

Ynet:

According to Hamas senior official, movement’s political chief agrees to hand back control of security agencies and PA administrative institutions in Gaza to Fatah, as part of efforts to revive dialogue between factions

Labels: Palestine

Micro Direct:

Ok, we all know that prices go up for the end customer when demand exceeds supply, simple rule of business. But don’t fucking patronise me with a fake apology about ‘having’ to put your prices up, when you’re price hasn’t moved.

Labels: Capitalism

You are cordially invited to a public anti-Christmas carol service in Parliament Square at 6:30pm on Thursday the 20th of December 2007.

Candles and song sheets will be made available, with donations going to Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.

Click here for more information.

Labels: Demostrations