It’s not that the Palestinians have been subjected to any cut in aid - quite the contrary: As the United Nations under-secretary general for political affairs reported on the recent anniversary of Hamas' election victory, international aid to the Palestinians increased in 2006 by nearly 10 percent, amounting to a staggering $1.2 billion. Indeed, Palestinians are today the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.
Source
So why are they hungry?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Half of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza malnourished
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 22 February 2007
Around 46 per cent of Gaza and West Bank households are "food insecure" or in danger of becoming so, according to a UN report on the impact of conflict and the global boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.
The unpublished draft report, the first of its kind since the boycott was imposed when the Hamas government took office last March, says bluntly that the problem "is primarily a function of restricted economic access to food resulting from ongoing political conditions".
The report, jointly produced by the UN's World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, paints a bleak picture of the impact on food consumption and expenditure throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. It says that the situation is "more grim" in Gaza where four out of five families have reduced their spending - including on food - in the first quarter of last year alone.
The report acknowledges that "traditionally strong ties" among Palestinian families tend to reduce the possibility of "acute household hunger". But it warns that against a background of decreasing food security since the beginning of the Intifada since 2000 and the loss of PA salaries because of the boycott there are now "growing concerns about the sustainability of Palestinians' resilience".
The report is the latest of a series detailing deepening Palestinian poverty as a result of both closures blocking exports from Gaza and the international and Israeli boycott of the PA. Its timing is especially sensitive, coming to light after both Israel and the US indicated that they will maintain the boycott after the planned Fatah Hamas coalition cabinet takes office unless it clearly commits itself to recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and adherence to previous agreements with Israel.
The UN report says 34 per cent of households - with income below $1.68 per day and/or showing decreasing food expenditures - are "food insecure" . The WFP officially defines "food security" as "the ability of a household to produce and/or access at all times the minimum food needed for a healthy and active life". It goes on to say that 12 per cent of households are "vulnerable" to food insecurity.
The report acknowledges that the findings are broadly similar to those - albeit estimated on a different basis - at the peak of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in 2003 but points out that the number of Palestinians suffering, including children, are much higher because of rapid population growth
While recognising that "significant per capita humanitarian aid" is helping to contain the problem, the report points out that some action taken by families to continue to feed themselves - including the sale of land, jewellery and other assets" - will have an "irreversible impact on livelihoods". It also points out that limitations to PA budget support, the private sector and job programmes because of the boycott are likely to exacerbate Palestinians' dependency on humanitarian assistance and postpone sustainable improvement."
Pointing out that Palestinian families have been caught between rises in food prices - partly because of interrupted supplies through closures - and rapidly falling incomes, it details changes to diet by many to ensure enough to eat. These include reductions in consumption of fruits, sweets, olive oil, and - normally a staple in Gaza - fish.
The report also indicates that for other families - including "new poor" suffering from loss of PA incomes - there has been a "decrease in the quality of and/or quantity of food consumed."
The UN report comes against a background in which a 2004 survey of Palestinian households showed a "slow but steady" growth in actual malnutrition - as measured by reduced growth, vitamin deficiencies, anaemia and other indicators - among a minority of the population. The 2004 survey found "stunting" rates of abnormal height-to-body ratio at just under 10 per cent.
Source
Published: 22 February 2007
Around 46 per cent of Gaza and West Bank households are "food insecure" or in danger of becoming so, according to a UN report on the impact of conflict and the global boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.
The unpublished draft report, the first of its kind since the boycott was imposed when the Hamas government took office last March, says bluntly that the problem "is primarily a function of restricted economic access to food resulting from ongoing political conditions".
The report, jointly produced by the UN's World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, paints a bleak picture of the impact on food consumption and expenditure throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. It says that the situation is "more grim" in Gaza where four out of five families have reduced their spending - including on food - in the first quarter of last year alone.
The report acknowledges that "traditionally strong ties" among Palestinian families tend to reduce the possibility of "acute household hunger". But it warns that against a background of decreasing food security since the beginning of the Intifada since 2000 and the loss of PA salaries because of the boycott there are now "growing concerns about the sustainability of Palestinians' resilience".
The report is the latest of a series detailing deepening Palestinian poverty as a result of both closures blocking exports from Gaza and the international and Israeli boycott of the PA. Its timing is especially sensitive, coming to light after both Israel and the US indicated that they will maintain the boycott after the planned Fatah Hamas coalition cabinet takes office unless it clearly commits itself to recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and adherence to previous agreements with Israel.
The UN report says 34 per cent of households - with income below $1.68 per day and/or showing decreasing food expenditures - are "food insecure" . The WFP officially defines "food security" as "the ability of a household to produce and/or access at all times the minimum food needed for a healthy and active life". It goes on to say that 12 per cent of households are "vulnerable" to food insecurity.
The report acknowledges that the findings are broadly similar to those - albeit estimated on a different basis - at the peak of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in 2003 but points out that the number of Palestinians suffering, including children, are much higher because of rapid population growth
While recognising that "significant per capita humanitarian aid" is helping to contain the problem, the report points out that some action taken by families to continue to feed themselves - including the sale of land, jewellery and other assets" - will have an "irreversible impact on livelihoods". It also points out that limitations to PA budget support, the private sector and job programmes because of the boycott are likely to exacerbate Palestinians' dependency on humanitarian assistance and postpone sustainable improvement."
Pointing out that Palestinian families have been caught between rises in food prices - partly because of interrupted supplies through closures - and rapidly falling incomes, it details changes to diet by many to ensure enough to eat. These include reductions in consumption of fruits, sweets, olive oil, and - normally a staple in Gaza - fish.
The report also indicates that for other families - including "new poor" suffering from loss of PA incomes - there has been a "decrease in the quality of and/or quantity of food consumed."
The UN report comes against a background in which a 2004 survey of Palestinian households showed a "slow but steady" growth in actual malnutrition - as measured by reduced growth, vitamin deficiencies, anaemia and other indicators - among a minority of the population. The 2004 survey found "stunting" rates of abnormal height-to-body ratio at just under 10 per cent.
Source
Lawrence of Arabia was a Zionist
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Ed-ward Lawrence - better known as "Lawrence of Arabia" - and renowned as a champion of Arab independence, actually had "a sort of contempt for the Arabs" and was an advocate of Jewish statehood from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, according to acclaimed British historian Sir Martin Gilbert.
Lawrence believed that only with a sovereign Jewish entity in the area would the Arabs "ever make anything of themselves," according to Gilbert.
T.E. Lawrence, immortalized on film by Peter O'Toole, fought with Arab irregulars against the Ottoman Empire in World War I, wore Arabian clothes and adopted many Arab customs. He is widely perceived, Gilbert told The Jerusalem Post this week, as "the great Arabist, right? The man who supported the Arabs, and who pushed for Arab nationhood in the 1920s. He's always pictured wearing Arab robes."
The "astonishing" truth, however, Gilbert went on, is that Lawrence was "a serious Zionist. He believed that the only hope for the Arabs of Palestine and the rest of the region was Jewish statehood - that if the Jews had a state here, they would provide the modernity, the 'leaven,' as he put it, with which to enable the Arabs to move into the 20th century."
Gilbert, who said he had written about this issue in his forthcoming book, Churchill and the Jews, went so far as to say that Lawrence "had a sort of contempt for the Arabs, actually."
"He felt that only with a Jewish presence and state would the Arabs ever make anything of themselves. And, by a Jewish state, he meant a Jewish state from the Mediterranean shore to the River Jordan," said Gilbert, adding his own comment that this "will never come to pass."
Gilbert, in Israel for the International Book Fair, described his discovery of Lawrence's Zionist orientation as the most surprising archival revelation he had come across from an Israeli perspective.
But he stressed that archival sources consistently showed major discrepancies between what is really going on in world affairs and the inaccurate way in which events and personalities are perceived at the time.
"As a historian, I'm very cautious about anyone's claiming to know what any government is doing at the present time," he said. "I study archives as soon as they are open - normally 30 years after an event; sometimes a bit less. What you see when you do this is that the people you imagined had been strong were weak; the people you thought weak were strong; and things you thought couldn't possibly be taking place were taking place."
(The full interview with Sir Martin Gilbert appears in Friday's UpFront magazine.)
Source
Lawrence believed that only with a sovereign Jewish entity in the area would the Arabs "ever make anything of themselves," according to Gilbert.
T.E. Lawrence, immortalized on film by Peter O'Toole, fought with Arab irregulars against the Ottoman Empire in World War I, wore Arabian clothes and adopted many Arab customs. He is widely perceived, Gilbert told The Jerusalem Post this week, as "the great Arabist, right? The man who supported the Arabs, and who pushed for Arab nationhood in the 1920s. He's always pictured wearing Arab robes."
The "astonishing" truth, however, Gilbert went on, is that Lawrence was "a serious Zionist. He believed that the only hope for the Arabs of Palestine and the rest of the region was Jewish statehood - that if the Jews had a state here, they would provide the modernity, the 'leaven,' as he put it, with which to enable the Arabs to move into the 20th century."
Gilbert, who said he had written about this issue in his forthcoming book, Churchill and the Jews, went so far as to say that Lawrence "had a sort of contempt for the Arabs, actually."
"He felt that only with a Jewish presence and state would the Arabs ever make anything of themselves. And, by a Jewish state, he meant a Jewish state from the Mediterranean shore to the River Jordan," said Gilbert, adding his own comment that this "will never come to pass."
Gilbert, in Israel for the International Book Fair, described his discovery of Lawrence's Zionist orientation as the most surprising archival revelation he had come across from an Israeli perspective.
But he stressed that archival sources consistently showed major discrepancies between what is really going on in world affairs and the inaccurate way in which events and personalities are perceived at the time.
"As a historian, I'm very cautious about anyone's claiming to know what any government is doing at the present time," he said. "I study archives as soon as they are open - normally 30 years after an event; sometimes a bit less. What you see when you do this is that the people you imagined had been strong were weak; the people you thought weak were strong; and things you thought couldn't possibly be taking place were taking place."
(The full interview with Sir Martin Gilbert appears in Friday's UpFront magazine.)
Source
Official antisemitism erupts in Venezuela
Armed police raided the Jewish elementary and high school at the Jewish Cultural Centre in Caracas on 29 November 2004 implementing a court order that alleged that materials of a criminal nature, such as electronic equipment, arms and explosive devices were concealed in the building.
The swoop started at 6.30 am, when school buses and parents had already started to bringing children to the school, but, after rooting through the building for three hours, the police left having found zilch. The court order, it has since been revealed, had been issued three days earlier but the police waited until Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, arrived in Teheran for a state visit to Iran.
That was two years ago, but things have only got worse in the intervening period. Indeed, since election of the left-wing populist Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has witnessed a proliferation of virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda, frequently entwined with nakedly anti-Jewish slogans.
The Jewish population in Venezuela numbers only around 25,000 out of a total population of close to twenty-seven million. So, why does the official media of a government that claims to be socialist, devote its energy to poisonous attacks on a very small Jewish community?
One possible explanation given is the fact, that one of Chavez’s important early advisers and political mentors was a – now deceased – Argentine Holocaust denier called Norberto Ceresole, a friend of the French fascist Robert Faurisson and the French ex-Communist Roger Garaudy who converted to Islam and also took up Holocaust denial. Ceresole strongly believed that Latin America must forge alliances with Arab nations to fight the United States and what he called “the Jewish financial mafia.â€
The tendencies towards distortion of the Holocaust might, further, be explained partly against the background of the increasingly close relationship between oil-rich Venezuela and Iran and other Muslim countries. As such, this kind of nonsense has been incorporated into the Chavez government’s anti-imperialist rhetoric with Israel is viewed as a key factor in US politics and, thus, an enemy of the ‘anti-imperialist revolution’.
Antisemitic ranting is not confined to government circles but is spread throughout the mass media. For example, in the Diario VEA newspaper, as recently as 20 September, the hardcore antisemite Basem Tajeldine raved: “The Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was directed to eliminate the social basis of Judaism that believed in assimilation with the Europeans, the low class majority of Jews … The ideological affinity and the great ties of collaboration that existed between German Zionism and Nazism is undeniable … Sionazis is the most appropriate term to catalogue (sic) the organisation of the political capitalist Jewish elite of Israel that is responsible for the present Holocaust of the Arab peopleâ€.
Similarly in El Diario de Caracas earlier this year, Tarek Muci Nasir claims that “The only resource they [the Jews – Editor] have left to stay united, is to cause wars and self- genocide,†Nasir goes on to urge that his readers “pay attention to the behaviour of the Israelite-Zionist associations, unions and federations that conspire in Venezuela to seize our finances, industries, commerce, construction, even infiltrating public positions and politics†and warns that “Possibly it will again be necessary to expel them from the country, like other nations have done before… this is the reason why the Jews are always in a continuous stateless exodus and thus in the year 1948 they invaded Palestine.â€
Commenting on the September visit to Caracas by Iranian’s fanatic president Ahmadinejad, Freddy Pressner, head of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela, expressed “outrageâ€, citing the Iranian leader’s open denial of the Holocaust and his statements about erasing Israel from the face of planet. Chavez’s bloc with Iran is making Venezuelan Jews worry about their own security for the first time.
Sammy Eppel, a Caracas-based columnist, addressed the deepening antisemitism in Venezuela in his presentation at a recent conference, in Budapest, of the Tel Aviv University-based Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism. In his lecture, he revealed that he had found no fewer than 195 examples of antisemitic content in the official and pro-government media in a 65-day period ending on 31 August 2006.
Among slides shown by Eppel was one depicting the front page of a government publication called Docencia (Teaching) which denounced the “Jewish killers†perpetrating the war in the Lebanon and which conflates the Star of David with the Nazi swastika, Eppel pointed out that, until a few years ago, “there were hardly any antisemitic articles†in the Venezuelan media and that “the government has adopted an antisemitic policy.â€
At meetings between Jewish community leaders and top-level government officials, including Chavez himself, the government, according to Pressner, has bleated that its hands are tied, saying, “We’ll do what we can, but we can’t deny people freedom of speech.â€
The antisemitism evident even in the political cartoons published in government-owned newspapers is now finding explosive expression at street level. For example, antisemitic slogans, bearing the “signature†of the Venezuelan Communist Party and its youth organisation, have even been sprayed on the walls of the Jewish Cultural Centre in Caracas in broad daylight. The perpetrators were filmed on CCTV but when a complaint was lodged with the police and interior ministry nothing happened.
It is clear beyond any question that under Chavez’s leadership, Venezuela is experiencing a disturbing rise in antisemitism, fostered in large part by Chavez’s own rhetoric and that of governmental institutions. The relentless and baseless attacks on the Jewish community are now putting it at great risk.
Karl Pfeifer
A number of images from Sammy Eppel's presentation are available online, here. It is well worth a look. Just click on the images for the slide-show to progress.
Source
The swoop started at 6.30 am, when school buses and parents had already started to bringing children to the school, but, after rooting through the building for three hours, the police left having found zilch. The court order, it has since been revealed, had been issued three days earlier but the police waited until Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, arrived in Teheran for a state visit to Iran.
That was two years ago, but things have only got worse in the intervening period. Indeed, since election of the left-wing populist Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has witnessed a proliferation of virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda, frequently entwined with nakedly anti-Jewish slogans.
The Jewish population in Venezuela numbers only around 25,000 out of a total population of close to twenty-seven million. So, why does the official media of a government that claims to be socialist, devote its energy to poisonous attacks on a very small Jewish community?
One possible explanation given is the fact, that one of Chavez’s important early advisers and political mentors was a – now deceased – Argentine Holocaust denier called Norberto Ceresole, a friend of the French fascist Robert Faurisson and the French ex-Communist Roger Garaudy who converted to Islam and also took up Holocaust denial. Ceresole strongly believed that Latin America must forge alliances with Arab nations to fight the United States and what he called “the Jewish financial mafia.â€
The tendencies towards distortion of the Holocaust might, further, be explained partly against the background of the increasingly close relationship between oil-rich Venezuela and Iran and other Muslim countries. As such, this kind of nonsense has been incorporated into the Chavez government’s anti-imperialist rhetoric with Israel is viewed as a key factor in US politics and, thus, an enemy of the ‘anti-imperialist revolution’.
Antisemitic ranting is not confined to government circles but is spread throughout the mass media. For example, in the Diario VEA newspaper, as recently as 20 September, the hardcore antisemite Basem Tajeldine raved: “The Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was directed to eliminate the social basis of Judaism that believed in assimilation with the Europeans, the low class majority of Jews … The ideological affinity and the great ties of collaboration that existed between German Zionism and Nazism is undeniable … Sionazis is the most appropriate term to catalogue (sic) the organisation of the political capitalist Jewish elite of Israel that is responsible for the present Holocaust of the Arab peopleâ€.
Similarly in El Diario de Caracas earlier this year, Tarek Muci Nasir claims that “The only resource they [the Jews – Editor] have left to stay united, is to cause wars and self- genocide,†Nasir goes on to urge that his readers “pay attention to the behaviour of the Israelite-Zionist associations, unions and federations that conspire in Venezuela to seize our finances, industries, commerce, construction, even infiltrating public positions and politics†and warns that “Possibly it will again be necessary to expel them from the country, like other nations have done before… this is the reason why the Jews are always in a continuous stateless exodus and thus in the year 1948 they invaded Palestine.â€
Commenting on the September visit to Caracas by Iranian’s fanatic president Ahmadinejad, Freddy Pressner, head of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela, expressed “outrageâ€, citing the Iranian leader’s open denial of the Holocaust and his statements about erasing Israel from the face of planet. Chavez’s bloc with Iran is making Venezuelan Jews worry about their own security for the first time.
Sammy Eppel, a Caracas-based columnist, addressed the deepening antisemitism in Venezuela in his presentation at a recent conference, in Budapest, of the Tel Aviv University-based Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism. In his lecture, he revealed that he had found no fewer than 195 examples of antisemitic content in the official and pro-government media in a 65-day period ending on 31 August 2006.
Among slides shown by Eppel was one depicting the front page of a government publication called Docencia (Teaching) which denounced the “Jewish killers†perpetrating the war in the Lebanon and which conflates the Star of David with the Nazi swastika, Eppel pointed out that, until a few years ago, “there were hardly any antisemitic articles†in the Venezuelan media and that “the government has adopted an antisemitic policy.â€
At meetings between Jewish community leaders and top-level government officials, including Chavez himself, the government, according to Pressner, has bleated that its hands are tied, saying, “We’ll do what we can, but we can’t deny people freedom of speech.â€
The antisemitism evident even in the political cartoons published in government-owned newspapers is now finding explosive expression at street level. For example, antisemitic slogans, bearing the “signature†of the Venezuelan Communist Party and its youth organisation, have even been sprayed on the walls of the Jewish Cultural Centre in Caracas in broad daylight. The perpetrators were filmed on CCTV but when a complaint was lodged with the police and interior ministry nothing happened.
It is clear beyond any question that under Chavez’s leadership, Venezuela is experiencing a disturbing rise in antisemitism, fostered in large part by Chavez’s own rhetoric and that of governmental institutions. The relentless and baseless attacks on the Jewish community are now putting it at great risk.
Karl Pfeifer
A number of images from Sammy Eppel's presentation are available online, here. It is well worth a look. Just click on the images for the slide-show to progress.
Source
Why America Closed Its Doors to Anne Frank
by Dr. Rafael Medoff
A new chapter in the teenager's tragic saga.
Anne Frank's family tried to escape the Nazis by immigrating to America - but they were turned away.
This extraordinary new chapter in the teenager's tragic saga emerges from seventy-eight newly-discovered documents from the correspondence of Anne's father, Otto Frank. They detail his efforts, in 1941, to gain permission to bring his family to the United States.
The new correspondence presents an opportunity - and an obligation - to tell the rest of the story.
At the time of the correspondence, the Franks were living in exile in Holland, having fled their native Germany after Hitler's rise to power. By 1939, with anti-Semitism spreading throughout Europe, the Franks began thinking about how to get to America. Otto had already lived in the US from 1909 to 1911, working as an intern at Macy's Department Store, in New York City.
But by 1939, it was a different America. After World War I, in response to the public's intense anti-foreigner sentiment, Congress had enacted restrictive immigration quotas. The quota system was structured to reduce "undesirable" immigrants, especially Italians and Jews. The original version of the immigration bill had been introduced in Congress with a report by the chief of the United States Consular Service, Wilbur Carr, characterizing Jewish immigrants as "filthy, un-American, and often dangerous in their habits... lacking any conception of patriotism or national spirit."
The new annual quota for Germany and Austria allowed a maximum of 27,370 immigrants - far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of German and Austrian Jews searching for haven from Hitler.
Remarkably, even those meager quota allotments were almost always under-filled. American consular officials abroad were directed by Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to "postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas" to refugees. They created a bureaucratic maze - "paper walls," to borrow the phrase of David S. Wyman - to keep refugees far from America's shores.
And so, during the period of the Nazi genocide, from late 1941 until early 1945, only ten percent of the quotas from Axis-controlled European countries would actually be used. Almost 190,000 quota places remained unused - representing almost 190,000 lives that could have been saved, even under the restrictive quotas.
Anne's mother, Edith, wrote to a friend in 1939: "I believe that all Germany's Jews are looking around the world, but can find nowhere to go."
In May 1940, the Germans conquered and occupied the Netherlands. Emigration was forbidden and the Franks' hopes of going to America appeared to be dashed.
But they didn't give up. In 1941, Otto began writing to his American friends and relatives, and to US officials, in the hope of securing permission to immigrate. But at the same time the Franks were seeking shelter in America, State Department officials were seeking new ways to shut the nation's doors even tighter. In the summer of 1941, Breckinridge Long implemented new procedures to further reduce the number of immigrants.
Long had the full backing of President Roosevelt. When refugee advocate James G. McDonald appealed to FDR against Long's policies, the president dismissed his pleas as "sob stuff."
As a result of the new restrictions, less than half of the German-Austrian quota places were used in 1941.
Otto and Edith Frank, and their daughters Margot and Anne, were turned away by the United States that year. Not because the quotas were full. Not because this successful middle-class couple and their two young daughters would have been a burden to American society. But simply because so many Americans considered Jewish refugees undesirable, and because too many politicians feared losing votes if more Jews were admitted.
Today, Anne Frank has become the best-known victim of the Holocaust to people all over the world, especially as the subject is taught to schoolchildren. Anne's diary of the two years that her family hid in an attic to elude the Germans is the centerpiece of classroom instruction about the Nazi genocide. The betrayal of the Franks, and their final months in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, provide the grim climax to a story that represents the fate of millions of Jewish victims.
"I believe that all Germany's Jews are looking around the world, but can find nowhere to go."
But now a new chapter must be added to the Anne Frank saga. The new correspondence presents an opportunity - and an obligation - to tell the rest of the story. Every sixth-grade student in America needs to know that Anne's death was not inevitable. The Franks were turned away from America by callous bureaucrats and politicians, even though there was room in the immigration quotas.
We need to teach our children why America cast aside its proud tradition of welcoming "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and closed its doors. Only then can we hope that such moral failures are not repeated by the next generation.
1 Adar 5767 / 19 February 07
Source
A new chapter in the teenager's tragic saga.
Anne Frank's family tried to escape the Nazis by immigrating to America - but they were turned away.
This extraordinary new chapter in the teenager's tragic saga emerges from seventy-eight newly-discovered documents from the correspondence of Anne's father, Otto Frank. They detail his efforts, in 1941, to gain permission to bring his family to the United States.
The new correspondence presents an opportunity - and an obligation - to tell the rest of the story.
At the time of the correspondence, the Franks were living in exile in Holland, having fled their native Germany after Hitler's rise to power. By 1939, with anti-Semitism spreading throughout Europe, the Franks began thinking about how to get to America. Otto had already lived in the US from 1909 to 1911, working as an intern at Macy's Department Store, in New York City.
But by 1939, it was a different America. After World War I, in response to the public's intense anti-foreigner sentiment, Congress had enacted restrictive immigration quotas. The quota system was structured to reduce "undesirable" immigrants, especially Italians and Jews. The original version of the immigration bill had been introduced in Congress with a report by the chief of the United States Consular Service, Wilbur Carr, characterizing Jewish immigrants as "filthy, un-American, and often dangerous in their habits... lacking any conception of patriotism or national spirit."
The new annual quota for Germany and Austria allowed a maximum of 27,370 immigrants - far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of German and Austrian Jews searching for haven from Hitler.
Remarkably, even those meager quota allotments were almost always under-filled. American consular officials abroad were directed by Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to "postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas" to refugees. They created a bureaucratic maze - "paper walls," to borrow the phrase of David S. Wyman - to keep refugees far from America's shores.
And so, during the period of the Nazi genocide, from late 1941 until early 1945, only ten percent of the quotas from Axis-controlled European countries would actually be used. Almost 190,000 quota places remained unused - representing almost 190,000 lives that could have been saved, even under the restrictive quotas.
Anne's mother, Edith, wrote to a friend in 1939: "I believe that all Germany's Jews are looking around the world, but can find nowhere to go."
In May 1940, the Germans conquered and occupied the Netherlands. Emigration was forbidden and the Franks' hopes of going to America appeared to be dashed.
But they didn't give up. In 1941, Otto began writing to his American friends and relatives, and to US officials, in the hope of securing permission to immigrate. But at the same time the Franks were seeking shelter in America, State Department officials were seeking new ways to shut the nation's doors even tighter. In the summer of 1941, Breckinridge Long implemented new procedures to further reduce the number of immigrants.
Long had the full backing of President Roosevelt. When refugee advocate James G. McDonald appealed to FDR against Long's policies, the president dismissed his pleas as "sob stuff."
As a result of the new restrictions, less than half of the German-Austrian quota places were used in 1941.
Otto and Edith Frank, and their daughters Margot and Anne, were turned away by the United States that year. Not because the quotas were full. Not because this successful middle-class couple and their two young daughters would have been a burden to American society. But simply because so many Americans considered Jewish refugees undesirable, and because too many politicians feared losing votes if more Jews were admitted.
Today, Anne Frank has become the best-known victim of the Holocaust to people all over the world, especially as the subject is taught to schoolchildren. Anne's diary of the two years that her family hid in an attic to elude the Germans is the centerpiece of classroom instruction about the Nazi genocide. The betrayal of the Franks, and their final months in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, provide the grim climax to a story that represents the fate of millions of Jewish victims.
"I believe that all Germany's Jews are looking around the world, but can find nowhere to go."
But now a new chapter must be added to the Anne Frank saga. The new correspondence presents an opportunity - and an obligation - to tell the rest of the story. Every sixth-grade student in America needs to know that Anne's death was not inevitable. The Franks were turned away from America by callous bureaucrats and politicians, even though there was room in the immigration quotas.
We need to teach our children why America cast aside its proud tradition of welcoming "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and closed its doors. Only then can we hope that such moral failures are not repeated by the next generation.
1 Adar 5767 / 19 February 07
Source
Pak minister a victim of Islamist “serial killer”
(AFP)
22 February 2007
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani investigators are probing whether a “serial killer” cleric who assassinated a female minister this week — having previously confessed to four other murders — had links to Islamist groups.
Zilla Huma UsmanIn a case that shocked even this unstable Islamic republic, extremist Mohammad Sarwar shot Punjab province social welfare minister Zilla Huma Usman in the head at a public meeting in central Gujranwala city on Tuesday.
Police have said that Sarwar objected to the involvement of women in politics and disapproved of the clothes worn by Usman, a supporter of the moderate and pro-US President Pervez Musharraf.
“I killed her out of conviction that she was leading an un-Islamic life and spreading an evil influence on other women,” he told interrogators, according to a police source.
Police say that in 2003 Sarwar had escaped justice despite publicly admitting that he had killed four prostitutes and injured another four as they waited by roadsides for clients.
“He is a serial killer,” said Saud Aziz, the police chief of Gujranwala at the time of the earlier shootings.
Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat hit out at the Pakistani justice system, saying “fanatic” Sarwar was still on the streets mainly due to “defective police investigation and poor quality of the prosecution.”
“We are investigating and there is a possibility that he may have support from some religious group,” he said, without elaborating or naming the organisation.
Pakistan has dozens of Islamic militant outfits, most of which have been banned by Musharraf.
The prostitute murders — three in conservative Gujranwala and one in the eastern city of Lahore between September 2002 and January 2003 -- puzzled police and caused a public outcry.
Former police inspector Mohammad Naveed finally arrested Sarwar in early 2003 on the basis of information from local religious leaders and witness reports that a cleric was spotted near the scene of the killings.
He said Sarwar’s usual method of attack was to fire two or three bullets just above the crotch of his victims. One woman who survived was paralysed.
“In no time after his arrest (in 2003) he confessed to the murders and provided all the details,” Naveed said. “He was produced before the media and he made a confessional statement.”
Yet the case collapsed during the trial. Police said the victims’ families took compensation money raised by religious leaders instead of testifying because of the shame of their daughters’ “immoral” profession.
A rickshaw driver who used to drive the prostitutes around initially told police he saw Sarwar shooting one of the women, “but backed down, apparently under pressure from local clergy in Gujranwala who supported Sarwar.”
Eventually Sarwar — a father of nine who had been educated at a madrassa or Islamic seminary in Gujranwala and later taught local children the Koran — withdrew his confession.
His lawyer, Liaqat Sindhu, said he “knew that Sarwar was guilty of the killings” but that he was acquitted because there was no firm evidence and the case was mishandled.
Psychiatric tests on Sarwar in 2003 showed that he was “not deranged”, said Saud Aziz, who is now police chief of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
“He said he killed the girls after he got divine revelations,” he said.
Four years later, the murder of Zilla Huma Usman shows how extremism has corrupted Pakistani society, said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
“There is no writ of the government, which results in barbaric tragedies like this,” said Haider, a former law minister under Benazir Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister.
“Our prosecution and our administration is shamelessly incompetent, corrupt and religiously biased.”
Source
22 February 2007
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani investigators are probing whether a “serial killer” cleric who assassinated a female minister this week — having previously confessed to four other murders — had links to Islamist groups.
Zilla Huma UsmanIn a case that shocked even this unstable Islamic republic, extremist Mohammad Sarwar shot Punjab province social welfare minister Zilla Huma Usman in the head at a public meeting in central Gujranwala city on Tuesday.
Police have said that Sarwar objected to the involvement of women in politics and disapproved of the clothes worn by Usman, a supporter of the moderate and pro-US President Pervez Musharraf.
“I killed her out of conviction that she was leading an un-Islamic life and spreading an evil influence on other women,” he told interrogators, according to a police source.
Police say that in 2003 Sarwar had escaped justice despite publicly admitting that he had killed four prostitutes and injured another four as they waited by roadsides for clients.
“He is a serial killer,” said Saud Aziz, the police chief of Gujranwala at the time of the earlier shootings.
Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat hit out at the Pakistani justice system, saying “fanatic” Sarwar was still on the streets mainly due to “defective police investigation and poor quality of the prosecution.”
“We are investigating and there is a possibility that he may have support from some religious group,” he said, without elaborating or naming the organisation.
Pakistan has dozens of Islamic militant outfits, most of which have been banned by Musharraf.
The prostitute murders — three in conservative Gujranwala and one in the eastern city of Lahore between September 2002 and January 2003 -- puzzled police and caused a public outcry.
Former police inspector Mohammad Naveed finally arrested Sarwar in early 2003 on the basis of information from local religious leaders and witness reports that a cleric was spotted near the scene of the killings.
He said Sarwar’s usual method of attack was to fire two or three bullets just above the crotch of his victims. One woman who survived was paralysed.
“In no time after his arrest (in 2003) he confessed to the murders and provided all the details,” Naveed said. “He was produced before the media and he made a confessional statement.”
Yet the case collapsed during the trial. Police said the victims’ families took compensation money raised by religious leaders instead of testifying because of the shame of their daughters’ “immoral” profession.
A rickshaw driver who used to drive the prostitutes around initially told police he saw Sarwar shooting one of the women, “but backed down, apparently under pressure from local clergy in Gujranwala who supported Sarwar.”
Eventually Sarwar — a father of nine who had been educated at a madrassa or Islamic seminary in Gujranwala and later taught local children the Koran — withdrew his confession.
His lawyer, Liaqat Sindhu, said he “knew that Sarwar was guilty of the killings” but that he was acquitted because there was no firm evidence and the case was mishandled.
Psychiatric tests on Sarwar in 2003 showed that he was “not deranged”, said Saud Aziz, who is now police chief of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
“He said he killed the girls after he got divine revelations,” he said.
Four years later, the murder of Zilla Huma Usman shows how extremism has corrupted Pakistani society, said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
“There is no writ of the government, which results in barbaric tragedies like this,” said Haider, a former law minister under Benazir Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister.
“Our prosecution and our administration is shamelessly incompetent, corrupt and religiously biased.”
Source
BBC started making sense...
I got this on BBC World News Middle East RSS feed:
Sombody is soooo fired...
Source
BREAKING NEWS TEMPLATE
BBC breaking news graphic
===== 1234567 is ONLY TEMPLATE === ===== 1234567 is ONLY TEMPLATE ===
+++++++++ TEMPLATE ONLY ++++++++++ +++++++++ TEMPLATE ONLY ++++++++++
[[[[[[[[[ PLEASE CLONE ]]]]]]]]]]]] @@@@@@@@@ PLEASE CLONE @@@@@@@@@@@@
............. echo ................. ............... echo ...............
Have you already: 1) cloned this 2) opened clone in story browser? If not please don't save; start again.
Sombody is soooo fired...
Source
Egyptian blogger sentenced to four years in prison
An Egyptian blogger charged with insulting Islam was convicted Thursday and sentenced to four years in prison by an Egyptian court.
Abdel Kareem Nabil received three years in prison for insulting Islam and one year for insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, an Islamic institution, had pleaded innocent to all charges.
Source
Abdel Kareem Nabil received three years in prison for insulting Islam and one year for insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, an Islamic institution, had pleaded innocent to all charges.
Source
Child rapist has a right to eat halal
Muslim jail-diet ruling may open floodgates
* Hedley Thomas
* February 12, 2007
A CHILD sex offender fed vegetables, nuts and "fatty and salty" tinned meat because prison authorities would not provide him with fresh halal meat prepared in accordance with Muslim religious laws has won a discrimination case against the Queensland Government.
In a ruling the Government fears could trigger an avalanche of claims from other prisoners denied special dietary requests, the Supreme Court found Sharif Mahommed, who was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in 2000, had been discriminated against.
He will be allowed to keep $2000 in compensation and will not need to contribute to a legal bill of tens of thousands of dollars, which will be funded from the public purse unless the Queensland Government attempts to take the matter to the High Court.
Mahommed, now out of prison, said he had suffered stress and lost weight behind bars because he ate more vegetables and nuts to make up for the denial of fresh halal meat. He blamed prison authorities for their "lack of knowledge in understanding my religious beliefs, poor training skills, coupled with a no-care and negative attitude to inmates in general".
The Supreme Court defined halal meat as "meat which has been blessed and slaughtered by Muslim slaughtermen and prepared, cooked and stored in accordance with religious law".
The finding on Friday by judge Ann Lyons in the Supreme Court is an embarrassing defeat for Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence. Ms Spence, who has predicted the opening of floodgates "to other prisoners requesting all manner of special diets", had instructed Crown Solicitor Conrad Lohe and barrister Christopher Murdoch in a bid to quash an Anti-Discrimination Tribunal judgment by barrister Jean Dalton SC.
Ms Spence said yesterday she found Justice Lyons's decision surprising.
"I have asked Queensland Corrective Services to review the judgment to consider grounds for appeal," she said.
"At the moment, Queensland Corrective Services provides diets requested on the basis of cultural or religious needs where possible."
Ms Dalton, who heard the original case, found that Mahommed "received substantially more than his fair share of unacceptable meals because he was put on a vegetarian diet when he was not vegetarian (and) at the time fresh halal meat was difficult to source and extremely expensive, so he was provided with canned meat instead".
The vegetarian diet consisted of salad and a protein replacement at lunch, with hot lunches such as vegetable patties or vegetarian sausages three times a week. At night the vegetarian dinners include lasagnas, curries, pizzas and kebabs.
"They'd send me down a salad with chicken in it, they would send me down a pie, they'd send me down a salad with luncheon meat in it," Mahommed said.
While rice and noodles were provided to Asian prisoners and special diets - gluten-free, low-fat and low-cholesterol - were granted to inmates with health concerns, no allowance was made for Mahommed's religious preference for halal meat.
Ms Dalton ruled: "There was evidence that nutmeat was served with regularity. He actively disliked some of it, such as the nutmeat and the sausages. He was served more salad and tinned meat than was provided on the general menu and found this unacceptable. It is not a matter of being fussy, or expecting restaurant quality food; no doubt he had to endure his fair share of poor meals, just like every other prisoner."
A Corrective Services spokesman said yesterday: "Where possible, fresh halal meat is served in our prisons."
Source
* Hedley Thomas
* February 12, 2007
A CHILD sex offender fed vegetables, nuts and "fatty and salty" tinned meat because prison authorities would not provide him with fresh halal meat prepared in accordance with Muslim religious laws has won a discrimination case against the Queensland Government.
In a ruling the Government fears could trigger an avalanche of claims from other prisoners denied special dietary requests, the Supreme Court found Sharif Mahommed, who was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in 2000, had been discriminated against.
He will be allowed to keep $2000 in compensation and will not need to contribute to a legal bill of tens of thousands of dollars, which will be funded from the public purse unless the Queensland Government attempts to take the matter to the High Court.
Mahommed, now out of prison, said he had suffered stress and lost weight behind bars because he ate more vegetables and nuts to make up for the denial of fresh halal meat. He blamed prison authorities for their "lack of knowledge in understanding my religious beliefs, poor training skills, coupled with a no-care and negative attitude to inmates in general".
The Supreme Court defined halal meat as "meat which has been blessed and slaughtered by Muslim slaughtermen and prepared, cooked and stored in accordance with religious law".
The finding on Friday by judge Ann Lyons in the Supreme Court is an embarrassing defeat for Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence. Ms Spence, who has predicted the opening of floodgates "to other prisoners requesting all manner of special diets", had instructed Crown Solicitor Conrad Lohe and barrister Christopher Murdoch in a bid to quash an Anti-Discrimination Tribunal judgment by barrister Jean Dalton SC.
Ms Spence said yesterday she found Justice Lyons's decision surprising.
"I have asked Queensland Corrective Services to review the judgment to consider grounds for appeal," she said.
"At the moment, Queensland Corrective Services provides diets requested on the basis of cultural or religious needs where possible."
Ms Dalton, who heard the original case, found that Mahommed "received substantially more than his fair share of unacceptable meals because he was put on a vegetarian diet when he was not vegetarian (and) at the time fresh halal meat was difficult to source and extremely expensive, so he was provided with canned meat instead".
The vegetarian diet consisted of salad and a protein replacement at lunch, with hot lunches such as vegetable patties or vegetarian sausages three times a week. At night the vegetarian dinners include lasagnas, curries, pizzas and kebabs.
"They'd send me down a salad with chicken in it, they would send me down a pie, they'd send me down a salad with luncheon meat in it," Mahommed said.
While rice and noodles were provided to Asian prisoners and special diets - gluten-free, low-fat and low-cholesterol - were granted to inmates with health concerns, no allowance was made for Mahommed's religious preference for halal meat.
Ms Dalton ruled: "There was evidence that nutmeat was served with regularity. He actively disliked some of it, such as the nutmeat and the sausages. He was served more salad and tinned meat than was provided on the general menu and found this unacceptable. It is not a matter of being fussy, or expecting restaurant quality food; no doubt he had to endure his fair share of poor meals, just like every other prisoner."
A Corrective Services spokesman said yesterday: "Where possible, fresh halal meat is served in our prisons."
Source
Father killed family for being too western
A father killed his wife and four daughters in their sleep because he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle, an inquest heard yesterday.
Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages.
On Hallowe'en last year he sprayed petrol throughout their terraced home in Accrington, Lancs, and set it alight.
Caneze Riaz, 39, woke and tried to protect her three-year-old child, Hannah, who was sleeping with her, but was overcome by fumes. Her other daughters, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 13, and Alisha, 10, died elsewhere in the house.
Riaz, who had spent the evening drinking, set himself on fire and died two days later.
Relatives broke the news to the couple's son, Adam, 17, as he lay terminally ill with cancer at the Christie Hospital, Manchester. He died six weeks later.
Michael Singleton, the coroner, recorded verdicts that Riaz killed himself and that his victims were unlawfully killed.
Riaz, who had spent all but the last 17 years of his life in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan, met his Anglo-Pakistani wife when her father sent her to the sub-continent to find a husband.
After an arranged marriage, she developed a career as a community leader in Accrington while he, handicapped by a lack of English, took on a series of low-paid jobs.
After Mrs Riaz's father died she "suddenly felt less beholden to Mohammed", a friend said. "She started to develop her own circle of friends and allowed the girls to express themselves in a more western way."
She began to work with women who felt suppressed by Asian culture and many saw her as a role model for young Asian women.
Source
Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages.
On Hallowe'en last year he sprayed petrol throughout their terraced home in Accrington, Lancs, and set it alight.
Caneze Riaz, 39, woke and tried to protect her three-year-old child, Hannah, who was sleeping with her, but was overcome by fumes. Her other daughters, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 13, and Alisha, 10, died elsewhere in the house.
Riaz, who had spent the evening drinking, set himself on fire and died two days later.
Relatives broke the news to the couple's son, Adam, 17, as he lay terminally ill with cancer at the Christie Hospital, Manchester. He died six weeks later.
Michael Singleton, the coroner, recorded verdicts that Riaz killed himself and that his victims were unlawfully killed.
Riaz, who had spent all but the last 17 years of his life in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan, met his Anglo-Pakistani wife when her father sent her to the sub-continent to find a husband.
After an arranged marriage, she developed a career as a community leader in Accrington while he, handicapped by a lack of English, took on a series of low-paid jobs.
After Mrs Riaz's father died she "suddenly felt less beholden to Mohammed", a friend said. "She started to develop her own circle of friends and allowed the girls to express themselves in a more western way."
She began to work with women who felt suppressed by Asian culture and many saw her as a role model for young Asian women.
Source
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