Turkish Forum

Category: Israel

  • Leeds head call for justice on 10th anniversary of Istanbul killings

    Leeds head call for justice on 10th anniversary of Istanbul killings

    • Elland Road protest marked 10 years since death of fans
    • MP demands action from foreign secretary

    • Press Association
    • guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 April 2010 15.42 BST
    FloralTributes
    Floral tributes were laid by Leeds fans at Elland Road to mark the 10th anniversary of the killing of two supporters in Turkey. Illustration: Dave Higgens/PA

    Hundreds of football fans gathered today to mark the 10th anniversary of the killing of two Leeds United supporters in Turkey and called for “justice” in their case.

    Christopher Loftus, 35, and Kevin Speight, 40, were stabbed to death in Taksim Square on the night before the club’s Uefa Cup semi-final against Galatasaray on 5 April 2000.

    About 300 Leeds United fans gathered outside Elland Road in Leeds today. They laid dozens of bunches of flowers, team shirts, scarves and other tributes around the statute of Billy Bremner and also at the brass plaque a few metres away which commemorates the deaths.

    Chris Loftus’s brother, Andy, stood alongside the Leeds North East MP, Fabian Hamilton, who told the crowd Turkey needed to do more to bring those responsible to justice. Hamilton said he had also written to the foreign secretary, David Miliband, to ask him to put pressure on the Turkish authorities.

    A number of people were arrested following the deaths in 2000 and four men were found guilty of involvement in the murders by the Turkish courts but all still remain free as they pursue an apparently interminable appeal process.

    “There’s a very, very strong feeling, especially amongst the families, that justice has not been done and nor has it seen to be done in Istanbul,” said Hamilton.

    “The people arrested and convicted of these dreadful murders have never actually served any time in jail – they’ve been released on bail pending appeal for the last few years. No trial date has been given for that appeal hearing.

    “This is absolutely appalling and I’ve been putting pressure on the foreign secretary and on the chief constable of West Yorkshire to take some action to pressurise the Turks to actually so something.”

    Asked what influence the UK can bring on Turkey, the Labour MP said: “Turkey has ambitions to join the European Union and I think this could be part of that pressure on the Turks to put their judicial system in order, to see that justice has to be seen to be done especially for the families here who are very angry that nothing’s happened and that the people who are guilty of these crimes have never actually served any time in jail.

    “That’s appalling and that’s the pressure we can put on the Turkish government. They want to join the EU. They’d better get their judicial system in order and they’d better ensure that the families here are satisfied that justice has been done.”

    After Hamilton addressed the crowd, those who gathered, including many children, observed a two-minute silence.

    A one-minute silence was also observed before Leeds United’s 2-1 victory over Yeovil at Huish Park. Both teams wore black armbands in memory of the killed supporters and Leeds fans, in an echo of what happened before the Uefa Cup match against Galatasaray took place on 6 April 2000, turned their backs on the match for the first minute in protest at the lack of justice for the Loftus and Speight families.

    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/apr/05/leeds-kevin-speight-chris-loftus, 5 April 2010

  • Israel Will Strike Iran Before November

    Israel Will Strike Iran Before November

    Former Def. Minister: Israel Will Attack Iran by Nov.

    Friday, 02 Apr 2010 12:36 PM

    By: Ken Timmerman

    Israel will be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities by this November unless the U.S. and its allies enact “crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran,” former deputy defense minister Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh said on Wednesday in Tel Aviv.
    Efraim Sneh.jpg
    The sanctions currently being discussed with Russia, China, and other major powers at the United Nations are likely to be a slightly-enhanced version of the U.N. sanctions already in place, which have had no impact on the Iranian regime.

    And despite unanimous passage of the Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act in January, the Obama administration continues to resist efforts by Congress to impose mandatory sanctions on companies selling refined petroleum products to Iran.

    In an Op-Ed in the Israeli left-wing daily, Haaretz, Sneh argues that Iran will probably have “a nuclear bomb or two” by 2011.

    “An Israeli military campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country’s nuclear project for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable.”

    Sneh believes that the “acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran during Obama’s term would do him a great deal of political damage,” but that the damage to Obama resulting from an Israeli strike on Iran “would be devastating.”

    Nevertheless, he writes, “for practical reasons, in the absence of genuine sanctions, Israel will not be able to wait until the end of next winter, which means it would have to act around the congressional elections in November, thereby sealing Obama’s fate as president.”

    Sneh does not foresee any U.S. military strikes on Iran, an analysis that is shared by most observers in Washington, who see the Obama administration moving toward containment as opposed to confrontation with Iran.

    In a recent report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), military analyst Anthony Cordesman concluded that Israel will have to use low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons if it wants to take out deeply-buried nuclear sites in Iran.

    “Israel is reported to possess a 200 kilogram nuclear warhead containing 6 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium that could be mounted on the sea launched cruise missiles and producing a Yield of 20 kilo tons,” Cordesman writes in the CSIS study he co-authored by Abdullah Toukan.

    Israel would be most likely to launch these missiles from its Dolphin-class submarines, he added.

    While Sneh is no longer in the Israeli government, his revelation of a drop-dead date for an Israeli military strike on Iran must be taken seriously, Israel-watchers in the U.S. tell Newsmax.

    “Ephraim Sneh is a serious guy,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “He was deputy minister of defense and has long been focused on the issue of Iran.”

    Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director for Security Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), said that what struck her most about Sneh’s comments was the shift of emphasis from resolving the Palestinian problem to Iran.

    “For 30 years, he’s been saying that solving the Palestinian problem is Israel’s biggest priority. Now he’s saying, forget about the Palestinians. Iran is the problem.”

    Sneh “is extremely well regarded on the left and the right,” she added. “People respect him enormously.”

    In his Op-Ed, Sneh argues that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to mend its bridges with the United States, and the only way to do so is by enacting an immediate and total ban on any settlement activity, including in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

    “Without international legitimacy, and with its friend mad at it, Israel would find it very difficult to act on its own” against Iran, he argued.

    ========================================

    Efraim Sneh (Hebrew: אפרים סנה‎, born 19 September 1944)[1] is an Israeli politician and physician. He has been a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and served briefly in the current Government as Deputy Defense Minister. He currently heads the Yisrael Hazaka party, which he established in May 2008.

    [edit] Biography

    Born in Tel Aviv in 1944,[2] Sneh is the son of Moshe Sneh, who was one of the heads of the Haganah. His father was elected to the first Knesset as a representative of Mapam, before defecting to Maki, the Israeli Communist Party.

    Sneh served in the Nahal infantry battalion from 1962 to 1964. He studied medicine at Tel Aviv University and specialized in internal medicine. Once he finished his studies he returned to military service as a battalion doctor, then as a brigade doctor for the Paratroopers Brigade. In the Yom Kippur War he commanded a medical unit of the brigade in the Battle of The Chinese Farm and battles west of the Suez canal. Sneh also commanded the medical unit at Operation Entebbe, served as commander of the elite Unit 669 and as commander of the security zone in south Lebanon. His last role in the IDF was as head of the civilian administration of the West Bank.[3]

    In December 1987, with his release from the army he joined the Labor Party. From 1988 to 1994 he served on many delegations, specifically dealing with the Palestinian leadership. In 1992 Sneh was elected to the Knesset, serving as Minister of Health from 1994 to 1996. In 1999 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense, and in 2001 he was appointed Minister of Transportation.[3]

    Sneh stood out in his objection to the withdrawal from southern Lebanon, though he eventually accepted it following Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s decision. Generally, Sneh is considered a “hawk” in the Labor Party.[4] He has repeatedly expressed concern over Iran’s Nuclear Program,[5][6] In 2006, Iran filed a complaint to the UN Security Council over his remarks that Israel must be ready to prevent Iran’s nuclear program “at all costs.”[7]

    In the negotiations leading to the formation of the 31st Government under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there was extensive speculation that Sneh would be appointed Deputy Minister of Defense. Although not initially appointed to a position in the government, Sneh was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense on 30 October 2006. He served under Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who also was the Labor Party leader. The replacement of Peretz by Barak as both party leader and Defense Minister in the summer of 2007 also led to a change in the deputy position; Sneh left office on 18 June 2007 and was replaced by Matan Vilnai.[8]

    On 25 May 2008 Sneh announced that he would be leaving the Labor Party and creating a new party, Yisrael Hazaka. He left the Knesset on 28 May and was replaced by Shakhiv Shana’an.[9]

    He lives in Herzliya, and is married with 2 children.

  • The Zionist lobby at the heart of British politics

    The Zionist lobby at the heart of British politics

    memo commentary stickyCash for influence is not just “grubby”, Lord Mandelson, it’s odious

    Business secretary Peter Mandelson’s belief that the cash for influence scandal is ‘rather grubby’ was a striking understatement. The affair is, in every respect, odious. To safeguard our politics from its poisonous impact it is important to follow the trail right across Whitehall to all the countries visited by our Members of Parliament. It is not enough to single out visits to Gibraltar, the Maldives and Cyprus after previous investigations and reports have clearly drawn attention to the operations of the Zionist lobby at the heart of British politics. At least two of the names in the current scandal have an Israeli connection.

    Stephen Byers is chair of the policy council of the Labour Friends of Israel and Andrew Dismore, now alleged to have broken parliamentary rules 90 times, is one of three vice-chairs of Labour Friends of Israel. According to his website, the Labour MP for Hendon “defended Israel’s position on the Goldstone report, in the debate in Parliament on 12th January”. Israel, you may recall, accused the UN appointed Judge Richard Goldstone and his team of bias after their report accused the Jewish state of committing war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. That didn’t deter Israeli apologist Mr. Dismore, who said that he is “confident that Israel will get to the bottom of the [war crimes allegations] story.” He thinks that the alleged war criminal Tzipi Livni is a“legitimate politician” who wishes to discuss “the peace process”. Perhaps that’s why Livni said she was proud that the Israel Defence Forces had “gone wild” in Gaza last year.

    Byers is a former Labour cabinet minister and is not the only one to make pretentious boasts about the influence he can wield. While attending the 10th Herzilya conference in Israel earlier this year, Tory peer Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones told the Jerusalem Post, “We will actively block the dissemination of extremist written material and speech. We will take down the Web sites that promote it. We will deny organizations that promote extremism political funding. We will monitor the charities. We will ensure that the Charity Commission which regulates the charities does not allow money to be transmitted through channels which ends up funding extremism violence and terrorism abroad.” Was she angling for more support from the Israel lobby in Britain, or merely letting her Israeli friends know that their investment in the British arm of the“hasbara” machine will have been well-spent if the Conservatives win the general election?

    Getting to the bottom of yet another “cash for questions” affair is certainly important but in the given context it is also necessary to investigate the cavalier manner in which the parliamentary system, government machinery and judiciary have all been exploited to intimidate and silence pro-Palestine individuals, charities and organizations.

    Try as they may, the Zionist lobby will find it extremely difficult to dismiss any link to those who stand accused in the latest scandal, especially as it comes so soon after Peter Oborne’s Channel 4 programme on “the pro-Israeli lobby in Britain”. The many questions raised in that documentary must inevitably resurface in light of these new revelations and the people involved.

    It is pointless to pretend that this current episode is inconsequential. Many will recall that in April 1995 the former Conservative minister, Jonathan Aitken, promised to use the “sword of truth” to dispel reports made in the Guardian over his dealings with Saudi arms traders. Four years later, in 1999, he was jailed for perjury after it was revealed that he had lied repeatedly about the matter.

    The Brown government has a penchant for private inquiries into matters of grave national concern. They only conceded to a public inquiry into the war on Iraq after Sir John Chilcot insisted that it should be conducted in public.

    Whether a full, impartial and public inquiry into this latest scandal will be held before the general election is doubtful, but one thing can be said with certainty in the meantime: the culture of sleaze is as endemic today in the parliamentary system as it was before New Labour came to power in 1997. The full effect of this culture is unknown and the jury is still out. But if the truth is to be uncovered, the trail to Israel may be as good a place to begin as Gibraltar, the Maldives and Cyprus.

    , 23 March 2010

  • How Turkey rescued Jews from the Holocaust

    How Turkey rescued Jews from the Holocaust

    Desperate Hours

    The documentary recounts the little known story of how Turkey rescued Jews from the Holocaust WWII.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI2IbouBE-g

    DESPERATE HOURS tells the story of:

    – How Turkey recruited some of the intellectual elite being forced out of German life to revamp Turkish sciences, architecture, music, medicine, legal education, and art;

    – How Turkish diplomats in France and Rhodes, acting on their own without instructions from Ankara, rescued Jews of Turkish origin and even when their citizenship was in doubt;

    – How the Yishuv valiantly and daringly used Turkey as a base for illegal immigration to Palestine and the rescue of as many Jews as possible;

    – How Monsignor Roncalli (who later became Pope John XXIII), then the Apostolic Delegate in Istanbul, worked with delegates of the Yishuv to get information of the fate of Jews and to rescue the few who could be rescued; and

    – How the Brand Mission – the attempt in 1944 to trade one million Jews for 10,000 trucks, and evolved eventually collapsed.

    Due to its neutrality until near the end of World War II and its unique geographical proximity to both Europe and Palestine, Turkey would come to play an important role to Jews in danger.  Through government policy and the actions of individuals, Turkey would be crucial to the Jews in many ways.

    A Haven for a Discarded Elite

    In the years preceding the Holocaust, Germany began dismissing and ultimately persecuting and killing its Jewish professors, architects, musicians, scientists, and physicians. Under the leadership of Turkey’s president, Kemal Attaturk, Turkey actively recruited these men (and women) to serve as agents for modernizing the new Republic.  Three sons of the professors tell their stories of a life of tranquil and productive refuge as those they left behind fell victim to the Nazis.

    Neutrality but not Indifference

    In both occupied and Vichy France, Turkish officials vigorously defended the rights of its Jewish citizens abroad.  Diplomats followed up on individual cases of Turkish Jews being deported to transit camps, extended Turkish citizenship to many Jews who had lost it, and at times mounted daring and dangerous rescue missions on behalf of their beleaguered citizens. Vice Consul Necdet Kent who was assigned to Marseilles and Vice Consul Namik Yolga assigned to Paris, now men in their 80s and 90s, recount their stories, along with Turkish Jews they rescued. The story of the Turkish Consul in Rhodes Selahattin Ulkemen, the only Turk to be awarded the honor of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel for his work is rescuing Jews of Turkish origin, is explored as well.

    Rescue Efforts

    As the closest neutral country to occupied Europe and a vital bridge between Europe and Palestine, Istanbul was the natural place for emissaries of the Jewish Agency to attempt rescue operations.  Teddy Kollek, who later achieved worldwide fame as the long-time mayor of Jerusalem, was one of the officials involved in these operations. DESPERATE HOURS tells the story of the attempts at rescue, those that succeeded and those that did not.

    Jews for Sale

    In Hungary during the last days of the war, Jews were being deported to death camps on a massive scale.  Amidst the deportations, Joel Brand, a Jewish emissary, was sent by Adolph Eichmann to Turkey to contact the Allies with a daring proposition – the exchange of Jews for money and supplies.  The strategic location of Turkey and its role as a bastion of all intelligence networks became vital in the intrigues behind Brand’s mission, a mission  that has remained controversial to this day.

    Monsignor Roncalli (Pope John XXIII) and the Jews of Hungary

    Monsignor Roncalli (who in 1958 became Pope John XXIII) was the Apostolic Delegate in Turkey. He pleaded with the Vatican to become actively engaged in saving Jews, he met with Jewish Agency Representatives in Istanbul to offer assistance and to obtain desperately needed information, and undertook rescue efforts himself by helping to provide Jews with documents to help them escape the Nazi web.  Throughout his long life, he never forgot his experiences in Turkey nor the importance of the Holocaust – memories that that would later shape his actions as Pope when he would lead a dramatic revolution in the relationship between the Church and the Jews.

    At a time when millions were murdered before the eyes of an indifferent world, there were some men, and at times, some governments, who chose to act – not for praise, not for glory, but in the name of simple human decency.  And in doing so they dispel the myths that people were powerless to resist the Nazis.  DESPERATE HOURS tells the stories of those precious few who, in the face of utter darkness, never lost their sight.

    This is a unique chapter of the Holocaust that is little-known, and we think you will find it both engaging and informative.

    About the Producer & Director:

    Victoria BARRETT has been in the entertainment industry for the past 20 years as a producer, director, writer and actor. Her most recent production is Desperate Hours, a little known story of World War II – Turkey and the Holocaust. She is director, producer and co-executive producer. “Desperate Hours” was shot in Super 16mm in five countries: Israel, Turkey, Italy, Austria and the United States.

    Previously living in Turkey for several years, her experiences inspired her to produce, co-write and host the film The Forgotten Holy Land, the history of Christianity in Turkey. She was Executive producer, Producer, Co-writer and Host. This film was shot in Super 16mm in 15 locations through out Turkey in a challenging schedule of five weeks. Locales included remote areas in the east such as Mt. Ararat, the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, Ephesus and Istanbul.

    As an actor, her films include starring roles in “Russian Roulette”, “Three Kinds of Heat”, ” America 2000 and Over the Brooklyn Bridge. She was a guest star on the hit television program Cheers.

    Ms. Barrett has written numerous travel and news articles that include a piece on Istanbul for the New York Times. She has also written various articles on Russia, beginning with her eyewitness account of the coup in 1991 in the then Soviet Union, and the many social and economic reforms that followed.

    Now living in Vienna, Austria, Ms. Barrett may be contacted at: shenandoah@attglobal.net

  • Azerbaijani-Israeli Relations Enter a New Stage

    Azerbaijani-Israeli Relations Enter a New Stage

    Gulnara Inandzh

    Director
    International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus,

    related info

    https://www.turkishnews.com/ru/content/

    mete62@inbox.ru

    The upcoming June 28th 2009 visit to Baku by Israeli President Shimon Peres, a visit arranged during the May 6th meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, opens a new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli relations and reflects among other things Jerusalem’s desire to strengthen relations with former Soviet republics in the aftermath of Israeli operations in Gaza.

    In support of that effort, one marked out in the middle of 2008, the Israeli foreign ministry has established separate departments to deal with the European portion of the CIS, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, regions that had been the responsibility of the ministry’s broader Central European and Eurasian Department.  The new units are provisionally called Eurasia I (dealing with the European portion of the CIS) and Eurasia II (dealing with the South Caucasus and Central Asia).  The head of Eurasia II, which will also deal with Azerbaijan, is Shemi Tsur, the son of a Jewish returnee from the Iranian province of Eastern Azerbaijan (Falkov & Kogan 2009).

    Apparently, Israeli political technologists have been working on the strengthening of official contacts with Azerbaijan intensively.  Jewish groups in the West have been playing a major role in this and have conditioned their support for Azerbaijani interests on Baku’s opening of an embassy in Israel.  As official representatives of the two countries have noted, despite the absence of an Azerbaijani embassy in Israel and of a general treaty between Azerbaijan and Israel, there exist various interagency accords which are working extremely well.  As a result, Israel receives 30 percent of the oil it needs for internal use through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and bilateral trade is constantly expanding.

    The absence of anti-Semitism in Azerbaijan, the good relations with Jews living in the country also help to fill the diplomatic vacuum.  At the same time, the opening of an embassy of a Muslim-majority state in Israel and the visit of the Israeli president to a Muslim country are a moral support and example for Jews of the entire world and the Jewish state itself.

    In this connection, it is worth noting that this is the second official visit of a senior Israeli official to Baku over the last decade.  In 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu, then and now the prime minister of Israel, after completing a visit to China spent the night in Baku.  After that time, no senior Israeli officials visited Azerbaijan for some years.  But beginning in 2006, when Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the Our Home is Israel party became minister for strategic affairs, the number of visits increased.  Lieberman himself visited Baku in the summer of 2007 just after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did.

    These efforts by Israeli and Western companies and organizations in Azerbaijan have been viewed by Iranian ideologues as part of a network directed against Iran.  One cannot deny that the overthrow of the current Tehran government or the forced change of its aggressive policy and the weakening of its position in the region are one of the key issues for Israel and the West and in particular the US.  As a result, the concern of Iran on this score cannot be considered baseless paranoia.

    On the other hand, with the assignment at the end of April 2009 of a new director of the Asian infrastructure of the Bureau for Ties with the Russian-language Jewish Diaspora Natif, Israel specified its policy concerning work with the diaspora in the CIS countries.  In that, Azerbaijan is presented as a major focus of Natif’s activities (Izrus 2009).  It could hardly be otherwise, given the Jewish communities of that country, as well as in Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

    The Jewish lobby and Israel in recent years have attempted to establish contacts with their compatriots living in Iran.  In the meantime, the Southern Azerbaijanis who live in Iran represent another issue for relations between Baku and Tehran.  With the goal of removing the World Congress of Azerbaijanis out from under the influence of Iran, for example, a change in the leadership of the organization has occurred.  The Committee for work with compatriots was reformed into a structure for work with the diaspora, which thus reduced its focus on compatriots in areas adjoining Azerbaijan where Azerbaijanis have lived from time immemorial on their historical lands.

    As was already noted, if the visit of Shimon Peres to Baku bears a moral character for Jews, for Azerbaijan it is one additional opportunity to attract the attention of the world community and the entire Jewish world to Azerbaijan and to define new patterns of cooperation and the inclusion of Azerbaijan in new major trans-regional projects.  But as one might expect, Iran’s reaction has been aggressive, including overt threats to Azerbaijan.  Baku responded diplomatically but made it very clear that it did not intend to retreat from the meeting or from its expanding ties with the Jewish state.

    In spite of its threatening language, it is completely clear that Iran will not violate the borders of Azerbaijan as it did earlier.  And clearly, Azerbaijan was prepared for such an Iranian reaction, but in preparing for it, Baku recognized that neither the US nor Israel could advance an effective policy toward Iran without taking Azerbaijan into account.  Indeed, now economically and politically strong, Azerbaijan is capable of engaging itself in pro-active regional politics, as opposed to a defensive one it had adhered to before.


    References

    Falkov, Mikhail & Kogan, Alexander (2009) “Izrail’ otdel’no vzyalsya za Kavkaz I Tsentral’nuyu Aziyu” [“Israel Moved to Separately Deal with the Caucasus and Central Asia”], Izrus, 19 January, available at http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-01-19/3449.html, accessed 13 June 2009.

    Izrus (2009) “’Nativ’ Izbral Kuratora po Tsentral’noy Azii I Kavkazu”, Izrus, 1 March, available at http://izrus.co.il/diasporaIL/article/2009-03-01/3883.html, accessed 14 June 2009.

    source  :

  • GREEK Churches Slam Israel’s Policy in Jerusalem

    GREEK Churches Slam Israel’s Policy in Jerusalem

    Holy Land Churches Slam Israel’s Policy in Jerusalem

    WAFA – Palestine News Agency
    March 27 2010

    Date : 27/3/2010 Time : 19:44

    JERUSALEM, March 27, 2010 (WAFA)- In a press conference organized in
    Jerusalem this morning by The National Christian Coalition in the Holy
    Land, Representatives of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Latin
    Patriarchate, Armenian Patriarchate, Episcopal Church slammed Israel’s
    policies in Occupied East Jerusalem.

    President of the National Christian Coalition in the Holy Land,
    Dimitri Diliani, assured local Christian popular support of the
    Churches’ position rejecting Israeli unilateral colonial settlement
    building in the Palestinian Territory Occupied in 1967, especially in
    Jerusalem, in addition to the churches condemnation of violations
    committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian People’s
    national, religious and cultural rights.

    `As we approach Easter Holidays,’ Diliani added, `Israeli
    discrimination appears clearly when we compare the treatment of Jews
    celebrating Passover on one hand, and Christians celebrating Easter on
    the other.’

    Diliani said, `if what Israel practices against Christians is
    practiced anywhere in the world against Jews, that place would be
    boycotted by the International community at once.’ He wondered, ‘Are
    the Holy Land Christians less worthy than other human beings around
    the world?’

    Bishop Aris Shirverian of the Armenian Patriarchate expressed his
    church’s dismay at Israeli policies in Jerusalem, especially during
    the holidays where thousands of pilgrims are prohibited from visiting
    the Church of Holy Sepulcher.

    Father Dr. Peter Madrous of Latin Patriarchate assured that one who
    plants injustice will harvest animosity ‘and that is the reason for
    the Israeli paranoia, Israel has planted injustice for years’. Father
    Madrous stated that Palestinian Christians are peaceful people who
    have the right to practice their religion without Israeli armed
    interference.

    Rev. Zahi Nasser of the Episcopal Church criticized Israeli claims to
    Democracy given reality on the ground. He said that Israeli building
    an Apartheid Wall and violating Palestinian people’s rights directly
    contradict its claims to being a Democracy. Rev. Nasser said that
    Jerusalem is suffering just like Jesus suffered at the hands of his
    capturers.

    Father Issa Misleh, Spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,
    said that his church attempted to negotiate with the Israeli security
    forces over the arrangements for the Holy Week, he added that these
    negotiations faced major inflexibility by Israeli officials who
    insisted on imposing their view of what should be taking place on our
    holiday. Father Misleh rejected the Israelis excuse of security
    saying that all throughout history Christians were not prohibited from
    entering the same facilities under the same circumstances until Israel
    decided that it should down play any Christian character of the holy
    city of Jerusalem. He said that Christian and Muslim Palestinians
    suffer from the same Israeli policies.