Tuesday, August 14, 2012

From the "don't confuse the truth with facts" department

Ashkelon was created in sin by expelling Arabs, can be shown to be false. 

 PMWhas a section on our web site of testimonies by Arab refugees and others in the PA media that corroborate Israel's claims that Arab leaders played a central role in the exodus of the Arabs.

PATV interviewed a Palestinian "refugee" who complains that it was the Arab leader who told his parents to leave the Ashkelon region

.
The fifth item on this web page with including the video is the about the exodus from Ashkelon:
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1102

An viewer from Gaza called Palestinian Authority TV and quoted his father, saying that they left because in1948 the Arab District Officer ordered all Arabs to leave their homes for Gaza or be labeled "traitors". In response, Ibrahim Sarsur, now Arab Member of Israeli Parliament Knesset, then Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, cursed those Arab leaders who ordered the Arabs to leave. In doing so Sarsur likewise acknowleded Israel's historical record.

Viewer: "Mr. Ibrahim [Sarsur]: I address you as a Muslim. My father and grandfather told me that during the 'Catastrophe' [in 1948], our District Officer issued an order that whoever stays in Palestine and in Majdel [near Ashkelon - southern Israel] is a traitor, he is a traitor."
Ibrahim Sarsur, now MP, then Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel: "The one who gave the order forbidding them to stay there bears guilt for this, in this life and the Afterlife throughout history until Resurrection Day."


against the lies about apartheid in Ashqelon, respond that it's a lie but in fact the draft constitution of the "palestinian state" already stipulates apartheid against Jews as Prof Shmuel Trigano explains:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.co.il/2010/10/mahmoud-abbas-salim-fayyad-plo-plan.html

2012/8/14 Mitchell Bard <mitchellbard@gmail.com >
Just arrived in sacto. Hope to learn more.

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 13, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Omri Ceren <omri@mererhetoric.com> wrote:

The view from the other side pasted below. The organization is called "NoRightsNoSisters". If the content on their webpage is any guide - https://norightsnosisters.wordpress.com/ - they were created for the exclusive purpose of the Sacramento push. Another mysteriously well-funded single-issue organization that somehow managed to appear with politics and public affairs arms ready to go...

* It is the discrimination against Palestinian Muslims and Christians that falls short of the criteria from an adopted Sacramento City Council resolution
* “Ashkelon was ethnically cleansed of virtually all its Palestinian population by the Israeli army in 1948-50,” explained long-time Sacramento resident Gary Meyer.

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/72216/Allowing_Ashkelon_to_become_Sister_City_Violates_Sacramentos_Deepest_Humanitarian_Values


Opinion: Allowing Ashkelon to become Sister City Violates Sacramento's 'Deepest Humanitarian Values’




by Martha Roberts , published on August 13, 2012 at 2:20 PM




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“Allowing Ashkelon to become a sister city with Sacramento violates our community’s deepest humanitarian and egalitarian values,” said Adeeb Alzanoon, a member of the Sacramento Chapter of the Palestinian American Congress. “It makes us complicit with the racism that is systemically practiced in Ashkelon.”

Alzanoon, a refugee himself, explained that U.S. citizens of Palestinian descent with Israel government-issued IDs are prohibited by Israel from visiting Ashkelon except in rare circumstances. In addition, virtually everyone of Palestinian heritage faces extensive interrogation, including strip searching and denial of entry, if they try to visit anywhere in Israel, where nearly all have family ties.

Alzanoon’s family is from the al Majdal Asqalan area, which is today Ashkelon. They were forced out by the Israeli military in 1948 and became refugees in Gaza, where many of them live today. Gaza is under an Israeli military blockade that, according to the United Nations, has created mass unemployment and extreme poverty in Gaza and is a flagrant violation of international law.

It is the discrimination against Palestinian Muslims and Christians that falls short of the criteria from an adopted Sacramento City Council resolution that an Israeli sister city should “be inclusive of the citizens of Sacramento; including the diverse cultural and religious communities in the area,” explained David Mandel of Sacramento’s Jewish Voice for Peace. U.S. born Mandel, who also holds Israeli citizenship, continued, "We would expect our fellow Sacramentans to stand up for us if a proposed sister city somewhere in the world wouldn't allow Jews to visit. How can we not do the same for our Palestinian neighbors?"

“Ashkelon was ethnically cleansed of virtually all its Palestinian population by the Israeli army in 1948-50,” explained long-time Sacramento resident Gary Meyer. “They have not been allowed their right to return and today Ashkelon maintains a racist immigration policy that excludes Palestinian Muslims and Christians. In a city respected for its diversity, this is truly offensive. We want a sister city that all Sacramentans can visit and that isn’t Ashkelon.”

“Ashkelon is not appropriate,” said long time Sacramentan Pete Horn. “More and more Jews, like me, are seeing that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is not right. Ashkelon is a lobbying project of the Jewish Community Relations Council to support the current inhumane policies of the Israeli government. The JCRC does not speak for me. I want to see an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and a real democracy in which all citizens are treated equally, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.”

“It is interesting that the Sacramento Bee’s editorial on 8-13-12 states that the ‘sister city vote is not forum for Mideast politics’ and then immediately contradicts that by stating that ‘Sacramento should link with Israel’,” notes Meyer. “I also find it troubling that Christians United for Israel, a ultra-fundamentalist group, denounced by main-stream Jews and Christians, is supporting Ashkelon as a sister city.”

“Human rights and International law are routinely violated in Ashkelon,” notes Sacramento talk-show host Jeanie Keltner. “Palestinian political prisoners are tortured in the prison in Ashkelon and they cannot be visited by their families in violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

“If Ashkelon is approved, it sends a chilling message to all Arab-Americans, that we are not welcome, that we are second-class citizens,” explains Alzanoon. “As members of a minority community, we must speak out, not just for ourselves but for other minorities, if we can be excluded, so can they.”

Deferring a decision about accepting Ashkelon as a sister city would not be unprecedented. Montgomery County, Maryland recently tabled a proposal to have Beit Shemesh, Israel become a sister city because of community concerns about discrimination and segregation practices there.

Hundreds have signed on-line and hard-copy petitions to the City Council opposing Ashkelon. Among them is retired US Army Colonel and a former US diplomat, Ann Wright, who says: “I believe that until Israel ends its apartheid policies, the separation walls, illegal settlements, and the blockade of Gaza, no American city should become a sister city of any city in Israel. I have visited Israel, the West Bank and Gaza many times in the past 5 years and have seen with my own eyes the inhumane treatment that the Israel dishes out to the Palestinians.”

For more information, visit http://www.NoRightsNoSisters.wordpress.com or contact NoRightsNoSisters@gmail.com
Disclosure: Martha Roberts is a member of NoRightsNoSisters.


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