Can't you just feel the love ?
Posted on 08/26/2007 3:14:19 PM PDT by Nachum
BETHLEHEM Mayor Victor Batarseh yesterday attacked Israel and angered members of Australia's Jewish community within hours of arriving in Sydney - just as Australian immigration officials in the Middle East warned would occur if he was granted a visa.
Dr Batarseh told The Australian Israel's construction of a security wall was about grabbing Palestinian land, not stopping suicide bombers. "If you want peace, you build bridges of love and understanding between people, you don't build walls of hatred," he said.
Dr Batarseh is the leader of a five-person delegation from Bethlehem that arrived in Australia on Saturday to sign a sister-city agreement with Marrickville, in inner-western Sydney.
The Australian revealed earlier this month that Australian immigration officials in the Middle East had warned that the delegation had the potential to "adversely affect" the local Jewish community because of the council's links to the Hamas terrorist group and because Dr Batarseh was likely to criticise Israel.
Dr Batarseh laid the blame for Bethlehem's 65 per cent unemployment rate at the feet of the Israelis and the 8m concrete wall they have built around the town.
He said the wall had "caused a lot of stress on the health of the people, on the education of the people or the psychology of the people".
"Living in this big prison has caused a lot of hassle to all the citizens," he said. He said the wall defined a new border for Israel that made it virtually impossible to set up a Palestinian state, because Israeli settlements had been built between Palestinian cities.
But NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said more than 90 per cent of the barrier was "fence and not wall, and exists for one reason only: to stop suicide bombers coming into Israel and killing innocent civilians".
"Since it has been constructed, the barrier has stopped about 99 per cent of the suicide bombers who have attempted to come into Israel," he said.
Dr Batarseh said he believed most Palestinians wanted a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Israel and were prepared to accept a two-state compromise, provided it was legal and just.
He said the swing towards Hamas was more a sign of disillusionment with the lack of progress than a sign of support for political Islam.
Dr Batarseh denied he had been a member of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is banned as a terrorist group in the US.
He said he had never been with any political group but had been labelled as aligned with the PFLP because he had socialist political beliefs that were similar.
“Bethlehem Mayor angers Jews”
No news here, move along.
Can't you just feel the love ?
This guy must be hanging out with Dennis Kucinich. Hamas doesn't build bridges of understanding, they build bombs to kill jews.
The unemployment rate is because Bethlehem lives off tourism/pilgrims; and nobody wants to go where they are liable to be killed by a suicide bomber out to get Americans and Christians.
We saw what Islam thinks about Jesus when Islamic militants took over Bethlehem’s church and used the floor as a urinal and the altar as a breakfast table...
Who cares what some terrorist puppet thinks?
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a Marxist-Leninist, secular, nationalist Palestinian political and military organization , founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (the largest being Fatah). It has generally taken a hard line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It opposed the Oslo Accords and was for a long time opposed to the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in 1999 came to an agreement with the PLO leadership regarding negotiations with Israel. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union[1], Canada [2], and Israel.
A real “man of peace” eh.
Leaders like him are going to move forward the “peace process” that the United States government pushes with the Europeans.
Under this Olmert’s government is propping up Fatah while Hamas plans its next moves against Israel and eventually Fatah to assume full control in the West Bank too.
Fatah guys like him may just want to be out of town anyway since Hamas might kill them for not hating Jews enough and being good Muslims.
And this missiles just keep on coming.
Try this story:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/897546.html
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