Palestinians barred from Dead Sea beaches

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

No one cares.

ignorant racist do not care about any thing.

So you mean you don't care about anything? Thats good to know.

PWNED!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Apartheid?

Hmmm....

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Apartheid?

Hmmm....

Oh no, it's not apartheid, because the beaches are not segregated. They're simply off-limits to Palestinians. Since Palestinians are not permitted there at all, there is no segregation.

[mawilson 2,133]

Oh no, it's not apartheid, because the beaches are not segregated. They're simply off-limits to Palestinians. Since Palestinians are not permitted there at all, there is no segregation.

Lots of places in Israel are off-limits to Palestinians. What makes the Dead Sea special?

[zqt3344 21]

No one cares.

ignorant racist do not care about any thing.

the race card has just been played ...

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Oh no, it's not apartheid, because the beaches are not segregated. They're simply off-limits to Palestinians. Since Palestinians are not permitted there at all, there is no segregation.

Lots of places in Israel are off-limits to Palestinians. What makes the Dead Sea special?

Only this isn't in Israel. It's in the West Bank (see map.)

[zqt3344 21]

Truly a mess there, all because back in the mid 40s, some very stupid decisions were made to draw up boundaries for two countries, has anyone looked at that map of Palestine and Israel, whomever drew it up must have been on drugs or smoking some good Ghanja stuff! For it was doomed to fail and committed to having two nations fight each other non-stop. Madness I say!

Palestinians barred from Dead Sea beaches to 'appease Israeli settlers'

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Saturday, 14 June 2008

ALAMY

The southern section of the Dead Sea's west coast is in Israel; the northern in the occupied West Bank. But civil rights groups say the Palestinians are being barred even from their own beaches to the north.

Palestinians are being regularly and illegally barred from reaching Dead Sea beaches in the occupied West Bank, according to a Supreme Court petition filed by Israel's leading civil rights organisation.

The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) in Israel is challenging what it says is the frequently imposed ban by the military on Palestinians seeking to swim or relax at beaches in the northern Dead Sea. The salt-saturated sea is the only open water accessible to Palestinians from the otherwise landlocked West Bank.

The petition says that the Israeli military is using the Beit Ha'arava checkpoint on Route 90 – the only open access route in the occupied West Bank for travel to the Dead Sea – to turn back Palestinians, mainly but not exclusively on weekends and Jewish holidays.

Acri says that the ban is to appease Israeli settlers operating concessions along the Dead Sea's northern shore. They fear losing Jewish customers if there are large numbers of Arabs using the beaches in territory seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967.

A Palestinian bus driver, Mohammed Ahmed Nuaga'a, described how he was turned back by the military with a party of children, aged between six and 12, on a school trip from the Hebron district to the Dead Sea last month. The outing had been officially co-ordinated with the Palestinian Authority education ministry and included 10 teachers and 15 parents. He returned a few hours later in the hope that the soldiers would relent but they did not do so. "I tried to explain to them that these are young pupils who came from very far to fulfil a big dream – to see the sea," he said.

"But the soldiers were aggressive, and started shouting at us that Palestinian passage is forbidden, whether children or adults. The pupils begged the soldiers to let them go for even 10 minutes just to see the sea and return, but nothing happened."

In the petition a senior Acri lawyer, Limor Yehuda, says: "We are dealing here with travel bans and entry prohibitions to public places in occupied territory which are tainted with discrimination and characteristic of colonial regimes. We have here prohibitions preventing the protected population of the occupied territory from using its own resources, while the very same resources are put at the disposal and enjoyment of the citizens of the occupying power."

The ban came to light after the testimony of two Israeli army reservists who said that at the beginning of their tour of duty in May they were told that the purpose of the checkpoint was to "prevent Palestinians coming from the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea beaches".

One of the reservists, Doron Karbel, testified that as a "side note", the Jordan Valley Brigade Commander, Colonel Yigal Slovik, had said the reason for the checkpoint was that "when Jews and Palestinian vacationers were sitting on the beaches side by side it hurt the business of the surrounding yishuvim [Jewish communities].

Mr Karbel added: "In a conversation I later had with the Brigade Commander, he told me that he could come up with or find a security justification if he needed to."

From Ein Gedi southwards, the beaches on the Dead Sea's western side are in sovereign Israeli territory. But the popular beaches of the northern Dead Sea are Israeli-run and visitors could easily – but erroneously – imagine they are also in Israel rather than in occupied territory. In April this year, the British Advertising Standards Authority required the Israel Ministry of Tourism to alter the wording of an advertisement suggesting that Qumran, close to the northern shore, and the site of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was in Israel.

In the Acri petition, Ms Yehuda says: "The illegality of the actions and orders of the army cries out to the heavens. This is a clear case of misusing security considerations as camouflage for achieving other goals which are unrelated to security matters and unacceptable."

Israel has also been criticised for segregating roads used by Israeli motorists in the West Bank for stated reasons of security. Israeli officials reject claims that this is racial discrimination, partly because Arabs with Israeli citizenship are permitted to use the roads. They also frequent the Dead Sea beaches.

The Israeli military declined to comment in detail while judicial proceedings are under way, but said in a statement that "the network of security crossings in the West Bank was erected in response to the extreme terrorist threat and violence during the second intifada." Since the violence had "ebbed" crossings were "under review".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi...ers-846948.html

[mawilson 2,133]

Oh no, it's not apartheid, because the beaches are not segregated. They're simply off-limits to Palestinians. Since Palestinians are not permitted there at all, there is no segregation.

Lots of places in Israel are off-limits to Palestinians. What makes the Dead Sea special?

Only this isn't in Israel. It's in the West Bank (see map.)

Well... therein lies the rub.

Maybe your map is wrong

[zqt3344 21]

[rclouse 0]

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Truly a mess there, all because back in the mid 40s, some very stupid decisions were made to draw up boundaries for two countries, has anyone looked at that map of Palestine and Israel, whomever drew it up must have been on drugs or smoking some good Ghanja stuff! For it was doomed to fail and committed to having two nations fight each other non-stop. Madness I say!

That's not the map of the original partition plan, it's a current map.

This was the partition mandated by the U.N.:

Oh no, it's not apartheid, because the beaches are not segregated. They're simply off-limits to Palestinians. Since Palestinians are not permitted there at all, there is no segregation.

Lots of places in Israel are off-limits to Palestinians. What makes the Dead Sea special?

Only this isn't in Israel. It's in the West Bank (see map.)

Well... therein lies the rub.

Maybe your map is wrong

It's the current map, and you know it.

[Risto 0]

This was the partition mandated by the U.N.:

and it was rejected by the arabs who started the 1948 war not only to prevent the creation of the Jewish state but also to prevent the creation of the Palestinian state.

Well they succeeded in half

[almaty 19]

it is the valid map these days..and that is all the counts...

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

...and it was rejected by the arabs who started the 1948 war not only to prevent the creation of the Jewish state but also to prevent the creation of the Palestinian state.

Well they succeeded in half

"The Arabs" weren't alone in rejecting the partition (although they had the most understandable reason to reject it -- why should they agree to give up their own land ?) Menachem Begin, for instance (at that time leader of the Zionist terrorist Irgun group) rejected the partition plan, too, saying: “The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature of institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel, all of it. And forever“.

In the end, the Zionist leadership decided to publicly accept the partition, but continue their efforts to take the rest of the land by force. This was already the plan, as Ben-Gurion admitted in 1938: “After we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”

In fact, Zionist armies had begun to seize territory beyond the proposed Jewish state even before the official inception of the UN Mandate in May 1948. Between November 1947 and May 1948, Zionist armies went on the offensive throughout Palestine, attacking Arab villages and towns, driving out some 300,000 non-Jews, and seizing land -- all well beyond the area set aside by the UN partition. Neither did the Zionists recognize the International Zone of Jerusalem.

Anyway, the "current map" is indeed the one I indicated as "current." And the Israeli government continues to do everything it can to actively prevent the creation of a Palestinian state -- through its continuing illegal settlement expansion, continuing appropriation of Palestinian land, continuing closures and hardships that are intended to make life as difficult as possible for the Palestinian people and to destroy their economy, and through its continuing refusals to sit down and seriously negotiate the core issues of this conflict.

As long as one side is given a free reign to impose its will by force on the other side, without impunity for its flagrant and repeated disregard for international law and justice, no peace will ever come to this land.

[SaadBell 0]

Truly a mess there, all because back in the mid 40s, some very stupid decisions were made to draw up boundaries for two countries, has anyone looked at that map of Palestine and Israel, whomever drew it up must have been on drugs or smoking some good Ghanja stuff! For it was doomed to fail and committed to having two nations fight each other non-stop. Madness I say!

It is madness and disgusting, always fighting for land, is it worth bloodshed? It isn’t even real good land, the whole thing just makes me sick. Like children fighting over toys, the winner gets all the goodies, the loser gets nothing. Even if you went in and spilt it up evenly someone would not be happy. It is about two different cultures coming together for the good of all people, and until that happens, you will see this disgusting waste of life’s continue. Learn from Gandhi, there are ways other than violence and it works.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.

Mahatma Gandhi

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.

Mahatma Gandhi