Writing The Wrongs: Positive article about "settler and peace activist" in official PA daily

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Positive article about "settler and peace activist" in official PA daily

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8653

Official PA daily:

"He was the Rabbi of the Tekoa settlement... worked vigorously towards a peaceful solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... founder of the peace movement, 'Land of Peace,' whose members are both settlers and Palestinians."

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Rabbi Menachem Froman of the Israeli town of Tekoa in the West Bank passed away a week ago. The Palestinian Authority daily newspaper seldom prints positive articles about Israelis and almost never portrays those they call "settlers" in a positive light. However, the PA daily recently published a very positive article on its front page about Rabbi Menachem Froman and his efforts to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The article was originally published by Agence France-Presse.

In 2010, the official PA daily reported on a solidarity visit by Rabbi Froman to mosques in the West Bank.

Palestinian Media Watch documents instances in which the PA portrays Israel in a positive light.

The following is the article from the official PA daily:

Headline: "Settler and peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman has passed away"

"Yesterday, well-known Israeli Rabbi Menachem Froman, who maintained friendships with Palestinian officials, passed away at the age of 68 after a long battle with the [cancer] disease - as reported by the Israeli media.

Menachem Froman was born in 1945 in Mandatory Palestine. He was the Rabbi of the Tekoa settlement located in the southern part of the occupied West Bank and worked vigorously towards a peaceful solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to Rabbi Froman, the Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders are the most appropriate people to find a solution which will lead to peace, since this conflict has a religious nature.

Based on this view, he maintained ties with PLO leaders, specifically with historical leader Yasser Arafat, and also met with leaders of the Hamas movement.

Froman is the founder of the peace movement, Land of Peace, whose members are both settlers and Palestinians. He criticized the violations committed by the most extreme settlers against Palestinian targets, and visited a few vandalized mosques to express solidarity.

Rabbi Froman used to stress that he is willing to live in a Palestinian state in the event that Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be evacuated.

Froman, who fell ill with a type of cancer, hoped to 'be capable of contributing to peace until his final breath.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 5, 2013]

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Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

Ted Belman

The US and EU are putting up $2.3 Billion to redevelop Gaza.

Before advancing any money, why don’t they insist

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

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Iranian reformist daily:Hamas hiding forces in nurseries and hospitals

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

The following is the story in today's Al-Ayyam:

Headline: "Iran closes a reformist newspaper, for publishing a report criticizing Hamas"

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009]
Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]
3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]
6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]
543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]
28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]
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It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,
Arthur James Balfour
[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

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As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

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