"British detectives will...train the Palestinian police and Preventive Security forces in how to question suspects without torturing them."
For the last four days, J Street has been holding an international conference in DC, from whence they seek to "drive CHANGE" and "secure PEACE." U.S. National Security Advisor and activist General, James L. Jones, was apparently dispatched by the Obama administration to give the keynote speech at Tuesday's Plenary Session: "Why Two States? Why Now?"
Hang in there, we'll get to the torture in a minute.
Nothing in J Street "Media Coverage" about the Jones speech as yet, but I imagine that whatever he said was typical of the entire proceedings, along the lines of the statement issued yesterday by the J Street U Student Board. The pivotal point goes like this:
To us being pro-Israel is intertwined with being pro-Palestine, and recognizing this is a vital step in the pursuit of a lasting peace.
In the serendipitous meantime, Naomi Ragen sends along a relevant commentary by Tom Gross, which just happens to untangle some of that intertwining. I thought I would post it since it's not likely to get mentioned on J-Street. Admirers of the poorpalestinians seldom, if ever, admit the barbaric brutalism of those they fetishize. The more light that is cast on the true nature of poorpalestinian Arab "society," the greater the revelation becomes that J-Street's flimsy notion of "peace" with such an enemy is at best ridiculously adolescent, and at worst, quite dangerous... no matter how many generals Obama trots out to say otherwise.
So here's Tom Gross; the emphases in bold are his own... but the incessantly repeated link is mine.
The Mail on Sunday (which is the Sunday sister paper of Britain’s Daily Mail) reports that:
The British government is sending police and intelligence officers to the West Bank to try to stop a wave of brutal torture by Palestinian security forces funded by UK taxpayers. Their mission is to set up and train a new “internal affairs” department with sweeping powers to investigate abuse and bring torturers to justice.
On Saturday a senior official from the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank and its security agencies, admitted that torture, beatings and extra-judicial killings have been rife for the past two years, with hundreds of torture allegations and at least four murders in custody, the most recent in August.British detectives will also train the Palestinian police and Preventive Security forces in how to question suspects without torturing them. Britain spends £20 million a year funding the forces responsible for the abuse.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Nasser al-Shaer, a former academic from Manchester University who was deputy prime minister in the short-lived Hamas Palestinian Authority government elected in 2006, said many of those released from detention in recent months were telling the same story – of torture, including beatings, being suspended from the ceiling, and electric shocks.Now none of this is new. In spite of what the paper says, it has been continuing not just for the past two years, but since Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and took over most of the West Bank in 1993.
What is new is that a major newspaper (The Mail On Sunday is one of Britain’s highest circulation respected newspapers) is reporting on it....
[Read it all at the NRO media blog.]
Now in keeping with my earlier point about the nature of poorpalestinian Arab society, let me remind you that just a couple of years ago, it was poorpalestinian Arabs who STOLE ARAFAT'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE MEDAL ... and Sufa's shoes.
"They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal," said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. "Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat's documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits."
Abdel Rahman said the attackers also raided the second floor of the house and stole the personal belongings of his widow, Suha, and daughter, Zahwa. "They stole all the widow's clothes and shoes," he added. "They also took Arafat's pictures with his daughter."
Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that dozens of Palestinians participated in the raid, which took place late Friday.
"Most of the looters were just ordinary citizens," they said. "They stole almost everything, including furniture, tiles, water pipes, closets and beds."
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