One man. Two visits. Two very different voices.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has just been to the Gaza Strip.

He visited a Gaza City neighborhood that was damaged during IDF Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli response to 8 years of Arab attacks in which more than 10,000 missiles were fired from Gaza on Israeli civilian communities. Ban Ki-moon assured the Arab aggressors on behalf of the UN: "we stand with you."

He referred to Israel's decision to permit the entry of limited quantities of building supplies as "a drop in a bucket of water" and vowed that he would demand that the Israeli authorities do more. "This is a positive, welcome step and I believe that we need far more ... I have repeatedly made it clear to Israeli leaders that their policy of closures is not sustainable and is wrong ... It causes unacceptable suffering," Ban said.
 
“The world has condemned Israel’s settlement plans in east Jerusalem,” Ban went on to say at a news conference, continuing: “Let us be clear. All settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory and must be stopped.”
 
Following his visit to Gaza and his profuse comments on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza and of Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), Ban Ki-moon met with the parents of Gilad Schalit, a Jew who was kidnapped from Israel while still a teenager and has been held ever since – coming up to 4 years now – without prospects of freedom and without access to his parents, legal representation (not that he is accused of anything other than being a Jew), visits by the Red Cross (not that they have ever demanded to visit him) or such basic human rights as access to daylight.
 
"Gilad is being held by Hamas with disregard for basic human rights - a situation which is intolerable and unacceptable to any person in the free world," Ban Ki-moon told Gilad’s parents.

That’s it. Nothing else. No question of “demands” being made on his Hamas captors. No question of how pressure is to be ramped up against Hamas in the UN.

Here is a video that shows how Schalit's Hamas captors - the government of Gaza - mock his parents and trample both Gilad's and his parents' basic human rights, parading an actor portraying their captive and threatening dire consequences if their human trafficking demands are not met:



The UN chief was keen to “condemn” Israel for building apartments in an area of Jerusalem that has never belonged to any sovereign nation other than Israel, but chose not to condemn Hamas for Gilad Schalit’s continued incarceration.

The UN chief branded Israel’s plans to build apartments as “illegal” – a word he carefully avoided using with regard to Gilad Schalit’s continued incarceration.

Israel may have allowed the entry of some construction materials into Gaza and Ban Ki-moon may regard this as “a drop in a bucket of water” – but Israel is still waiting for him to demand a corresponding symbolic “drop in a bucket of water” from the Hamas regime with regard to such niceties as the release of Schalit, the cessation of rocket fire (27 rockets so far this year, one civilian fatality in Israel last week while the UN chieftain was actually in Gaza), the cessation of anti-Semitic indoctrination on Hamas TV and in schools.

Ban Ki-moon anguished over the “wrong” and “unacceptable suffering” of the Palestinian Arabs subjected to road blocks and border closures, but did not mention the need for Israeli civilians to spend their entire lives within walking distance of bomb shelters for fear of repeated and continuing missile attacks from Gaza, nor did he talk about the “unacceptable suffering” of Schalit’s parents for the crime of being Jewish.

Israel is still waiting for Ban Mi-moon to publicly state “we stand with you” in the face of continued Palestinian Arab rocket attacks, racist incitement, rioting in public places, physical attacks on civilians and military personnel. In fact, Israel still waits for any sign from the UN chieftain that he stands with Israel on any score whatsoever or that he understands any aspect of the Jewish state’s predicament.

Ban Ki-moon stands firmly with the Palestinian Arabs, whatever they do.

And Ban Ki-moon stands very much apart from Israeli victims of continued Palestinian Arab aggression.

Ban Ki-moon does indeed represent the “United Nations” – nations united in their animosity towards the Jewish state of Israel.


Relevant links from this site:
In English:
UNHCR vs UNRWA
Brazening it out
Rocket diplomacy with UN backing
Strange priorities


In Swedish:
Ockupation och bosättning - vem gör vad
Rysk roulett

Hamas and Aftonbladet: a marriage made in hell

Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet writes an inflammatory anti-Semitic article that even its own editors admit is so lacking in factual basis it cannot be printed in the news pages. It is relegated to the “Culture” section.

Which says a whole lot about the Swedish perception of culture in a climate of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism nurtured by large swathes of the media. The Church of Sweden and its various satellite organisations play at least as significant a role in this incitement as the media do.

Meantime, Hamas in Gaza refuse to educate children on the subject of the Holocaust as part of the curriculum.

Schoolbooks – indeed the entire educational establishment just like virtually all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip and West Bank – are financed by the West. Sweden is the world’s biggest per capita donor to Palestinian Arab welfare. Swedish taxpayers’ money is being used in order to shield Palestinian Arabs from an aspect of world history that is taught in every other part of the world. Hamas refers to the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were slaughtered as part of a widespread racist ideology, as “a lie invented by the Zionists”. It is this same Hamas that Sweden and the rest of the West continue to subsidise. UNRWA, which is charged with ensuring that UN funds are properly used in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, said simply that “the Holocaust was not currently on its curriculum” in the Hamas-controlled territory.

It is this same Hamas that more than three years ago kidnapped a young Jew from Israel, Gilad Schalit, and has since held him without access to the Red Cross, the UN, legal representation, medical attention, or visits from or indeed correspondence with his family. Schalit is being used as a pawn in the medieval pastime of human trafficking. It is a practice that is illegal in the civilized world but is deemed a legitimate Palestinian government tactic. It must be legitimate because the world at large continues to turn a blind eye – it has never once been on the EU, UN or US agenda over the past three years.

Sweden and the rest of the western world accordingly continue to pump billions into the Palestinian economy, while the Palestinians continue to enshrine barbaric practices into governmental policy.

Not everyone in the West is blind, however. Italy is not afraid of condemning Aftonbladet’s anti-Semitism, calling its article “lying and hurtful” and an act “of blatant anti-Semitism”. Israeli officials have repeatedly maintained that they do not either want or expect the Swedish government to interfere with freedom of expression or freedom of the press, but insist that the Swedish government needs to make its response to the anti-Semitic claims clear. Responding is not the same as curbing freedom of speech. The absence of a response, on the other hand, could be and often is seen as tacit support. Hamas certainly seem to see it that way.

The Italian Foreign Minister had no difficulty in formulating a response. FM Franco Frattini went so far as to say: “There are limits to freedom of the press that stem from respect for the truth and the duty of every journalist to prove his claims.” Italy seems, unfortunately, to be the sole voice in the wilderness.

Because that wilderness echoes to the sound of official Sweden’s silence.

The bewildering thing about Sweden’s silence is that it is not consistent. According to website WWRN (WorldWide Religious News), Sweden’s Prime Minister did actually express regret over the nature of the offence caused.

‘Prime Minister Fredirk (sic) Reinfeldt said after Tuesday's talks … “I regret if people have taken offense or feel offended”.’

There’s one problem, however. I’ve been a bit economical with the truth, because the above quote, while totally accurate in what I’ve included, is interesting for what I’ve omitted; a few key phrases. The full quote as taken from the WWRN website actually reads:

‘Prime Minister Fredirk Reinfeldt said after Tuesday's talks with Swedish Muslim organizations, “I regret if people have taken offense or feel offended” by the cartoon in a local newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda.’

The reference is to the offence felt by Muslims a couple of years ago over insults perceived by Muslims and Islam worldwide in the wake of cartoons published depicting the prophet Mohammed in an unfavourable light.

The Swedish Prime Minister and his government just couldn’t square it with Sweden’s much-vaunted freedom of the press and freedom of expression to voice equal regret over insults perceived by Jews and Israelis worldwide in the wake of unsubstantiated and blatantly anti-Semitic allegations published in Aftonbladet.

Neither PM Reinfeldt nor anyone in his government is anti-Semitic. They are pillars of democratic decency.

But the juxtaposition between words on the one hand and silence on the other nurtures anti-Semitism.

And it is this that is so problematic with official Sweden’s silence today.

INN, Haaretz, WWRN, JPost, Al Ahram, Emanuele Ottolenghi, DN (Swedish), Sydsvenskan (Swedish), Swedish Parliament (Swedish), IlyaMeyer, IlyaMeyer2, IlyaMeyer3,

Stop the Hamas slave trade

Hamas spokesman Ahmed Youssef says that if Israel releases Palestinians from Israeli jails, Hamas might reciprocate by releasing a video tape of kidnapped and illegally incarcerated Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit ('Hamas may release Schalit video tape if Israel frees women, children', Jerusalem Post, Monday 27 August).

Hopefully Israel will respond to the Hamas invite in kind, by agreeing to release video tapes of Palestinians held in Israeli jails – where they have full access to the International Red Cross and to legal representation. By contrast, Schalit still hasn’t been seen by a single living soul besides his terror organization captors, in violation of a whole raft of international conventions and legislation.

Hamas needs to be dragged out of its barbaric Middle Ages mindset into the 21st century and persuaded, by applying financial thumbscrews, that modern society does not condone abduction, human trafficking or the use of human beings for the purposes of barter – otherwise known in English as the slave trade. The international community’s most elementary tenets are being flouted by the terror organization at the same time as we continue to financially underwrite the society that spawns and nurtures this barbarity.