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Tag: Israel

  • Lee Hsien Loong: Israel And Palestine Must Resume Direct Negotiations Towards “Just And Lasting Two-State Solution”

    Lee Hsien Loong: Israel And Palestine Must Resume Direct Negotiations Towards “Just And Lasting Two-State Solution”

    JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday (April 18) urged Israel and the Palestinian Territories to resume direct negotiations towards a “just and lasting two-state solution”, and expressed gratitude to Israel in helping Singapore build up its defence capabilities.

    Noting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex one, he said: “Progress will require enormous imagination, determination and political leadership on both sides, as well as getting the stars aligned in the right places in the firmament, with the great powers supporting you.”

    Mr Lee, speaking at Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he was conferred an honorary doctorate, is on the second leg of a week-long trip to the Middle East.

    He is visiting both Israel and the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah to signal Singapore’s friendship with both sides and better understand developments in the region, he said.

    He expressed hope that “both sides will take steps to resume direct negotiations and to work towards a just and lasting two-state solution.”

    The Prime Minister is on his first official visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He met Jordan’s Chief Advisor for Religious and Cultural Affairs Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal before crossing the border to Jerusalem on Monday.

    In his speech, Mr Lee noted that Singapore and Israel share a “longstanding friendship” with the earliest Jews – mostly from Iraq – migrating to Singapore in the 19th century.

    Singapore is now home to a small Jewish community, numbering a few hundred, but “has contributed to our society out of proportion to its numbers”, he said, adding that the Republic’s first Chief Minister, David Marshall, was a Baghdadi Jew.

    He also shared an anecdote on how Dr Albert Einstein had visited Singapore in 1922 to urge the Jewish community to donate towards the setting up of Hebrew University. The community raised about £750 (worth about US$300,000 today). A week after his visit to Singapore, Dr Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

    Through the years, more Jewish expatriates including Israelis came to work and live Singapore. There are now 2,500 of them – enough to sustain a successful kosher restaurant, he shared.

    Israel was also the only nation that responded to the Republic’s call for help to set up a military when it became independent in 1965. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) sent advisors who were nicknamed “Mexicans” for operational security, said Mr Lee.

    “By July 1967, guided by the IDF team, the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) commissioned our first batch of officer cadets from the Officer Cadet Course. This was a decisive step in building up a credible and professional defence force for Singapore,” said Mr Lee.

    “Without the IDF, the SAF could not have grown its capabilities, deterred threats, defended our island, and reassured Singaporeans and investors that Singapore was secure and had a future… We will always be grateful that Israel helped us and stood by us at our time of great need.”

    Singapore, he added, learnt two things from Israel at that time — which Mr Lee’s father, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew who was then the Prime Minister — told one “Mexican general”: “How to be strong and how not to use our strength”.

    Over the years, ties between both nations have expanded beyond defence and security, with companies from both sides very active in exploring opportunities in technology research and development.

    In fact, the Singapore-Israel Industrial Research & Development Foundation (SIIRD) has provided US$170 million (S$) in funding for about 150 projects since 1997, said Mr Lee who witnessed on Monday the signing of three agreements between the Hebrew University and the National Research Foundation, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University respectively to manage the Hebrew’s University’s research in Singapore.

    Mr Lee was also optimistic about the future, referring to a recent interview by former Israeli President Shimon Peres who painted a vision of Israel in 2048 – 100 years after its founding – that will be much better for the nation and Middle East. Mr Peres envisioned that borders will become less relevant, while science and technology will force people to become more open-minded to the world.

    “Today, such a Middle East looks a long way off – perhaps more distant even than 2048. But I sincerely hope that one day, Mr Peres’ vision will be realised. Swords will be turned to ploughshares. Israel and your neighbours will live side-by-side, in peace and prosperity,” he said. “And your friends in Singapore and around the world will rejoice with you too.”

    Multiple efforts have been made to broker an agreement on a “two-state solution” in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state created in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

    However, such a solution appears remote because of ongoing Jewish settlement building; a split between the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions; preoccupation within the Palestinian National Authority about who may succeed aging President Mahmoud Abbas; and a wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car rammings of Israelis.

    Efforts led by the United States to broker peace between Israel and Palestine collapsed in April 2014, although France is making another push by convening an international peace summit to work towards a two-state solution.

    Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Maliki Osman recently told parliament that Singapore welcomes the latest French initiative.

    “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is longstanding and resonates with many in Southeast Asia including Singapore and Singaporeans … Singapore’s position on this has been consistent. We support the rights of the Palestinian people to a homeland. We have also voted for several Palestinian-related resolutions at the United Nations National Assembly,” Dr Maliki said during the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Committee of Supply debate two weeks ago.

    Mr Lee will meet Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as other Israeli high-tech industry leaders on Tuesday, and Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority Rami Hamdallah on Wednesday.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Lee Hsien Loong To Visit Palestine As Part Of Middle East Trip

    Lee Hsien Loong To Visit Palestine As Part Of Middle East Trip

    AMMAN, JORDAN – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong begins his official visit to Jordan on Saturday (April 16).

    He will then travel to Israel on Monday, and to the Palestinian Territories on Wednesday.

    This is Mr Lee’s first official visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Friday.

    “The visit will affirm Singapore’s good relations with Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, and underscore Singapore’s commitment to support the capacity building efforts of the Palestinian people,” the statement added.

    While in Jordan, Mr Lee will be hosted to lunch by King Abdullah II. He will meet Prime Minister and Defence Minister Abdullah Ensour, who will also host him to dinner.

    Mr Lee will also meet Chief Advisor for Religious and Cultural Affairs Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal. He will also meet Singapore students studying in Jordan.

    In Israel, Mr Lee will call on President Reuven Rivlin and meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    He will also meet Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog and former President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres.

    In addition, Mr Lee will meet leaders of major Israeli technology companies and visit the Hebrew University, where he will receive an honorary doctorate.

    He will also witness the signing of an agreement between Hebrew University and Singapore’s National Research Foundation to facilitate research collaboration in Singapore.

    In the Palestinian Territories, Mr Lee will meet Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority Rami Hamdallah, who will host him to lunch.

    Mr Lee will also lay a wreath at the mausoleum of the first President of the Palestinian National Authority, Yasser Arafat.

    PM Lee will be accompanied by Mrs Lee, Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli, Minister of State for Communications and Information and Education Janil Puthucheary, and MPs Liang Eng Hwa and Intan Azura Mokhtar.

    During Mr Lee’s absence, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean will be the Acting Prime Minister.

     

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Gaza Ibarat ‘Penjara Terbuka’, Dibelenggu Masalah Kemiskinan Dan Pengangguran

    Gaza Ibarat ‘Penjara Terbuka’, Dibelenggu Masalah Kemiskinan Dan Pengangguran

    SEMENANJUNG GAZA: Tahun lalu, laporan PBB meramalkan bahawa Semenanjung Gaza akan menjadi ‘tidak boleh didiami” pada tahun 2020.

    Ibarat ‘penjara terbuka’, Gaza dibelenggu dengan kemiskinan dan masalah pengangguran.

    Bagi golongan muda di Gaza, akibat kekurangan peluang, satu-satunya penyelesaian adalah dengan meninggalkan tanah air mereka.

    Dua tahun lalu, Mohammed Abu Hassira mengalami kecederaan di kakinya dalam pertempuran dengan Israel.

    Walaupun peperangan berakhir dan kecederaannya semakin pulih, namun, luka dari segi psikologi masih nyata.

    Kesannya- beliau mengambil keputusan untuk meninggalkan tanah air dan memulakan perjalanan yang berliku menuju ke Eropah.

    Mohammed berkata ada rakan-rakannya yang sampai ke Sweden, Norway dan Belgium melalui jalan laut dan darat.

    Tahun lalu, Mohammed memohon untuk mendapatkan visa untuk ke Turki.

    Seperti kebanyakan warga Gaza, permohonannya gagal.

    Untuk diluluskan, ia memerlukan pasport Palestin, bukti pekerjaan dan $500 dalam akaun bank.

    Syarat-syarat itu adalah di luar jangkauan kebanyakan warga Gaza. Namun, Mohammed tidak putus asa dan mencuba satu lagi jalan.

    Beliau terpaksa beratur di sebuah pejabat pelancongan memandangkan tiada kedutaan di Gaza.

    Pejabat seperti itu menjadi pengantara antara mereka yang mahu meninggalkan Gaza dan mereka yang mahu mendapatkan visa untuk ke negara lain.

    Menurut seorang penyelidik, separuh dari penduduk Gaza mahu berhijrah dan tidak hairanlah jumlah ini semakin meningkat.

    Namun, seorang pegawai tinggi Hamas menolak kenyataan itu dan berkata penghijrahan bukan penyelesaian kepada perjuangan rakyat Palestin.

    Ternyata, realitinya berbeza. Bagi kebanyakan warga Gaza, satu-satunya pilihan adalah untuk melarikan diri dari negeri sendiri.

    Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

  • OIC Gesa Haramkan Produk Buatan Israel, Ikrar Sokongan Penuh

    OIC Gesa Haramkan Produk Buatan Israel, Ikrar Sokongan Penuh

    INDONESIA: Sebuah badan Islam global semalam (7 Mac) menggesa agar produk-produk yang datang dari Israel dan wilayah-wilayah yang didudukinya diharamkan dan berikrar akan memberi sokongan penuh kepada “hak-hak warga Palestin yang tidak terpisah”.

    Gesaan itu disuarakan di akhir Sidang Puncak Pertubuhan Muktamar Islam (OIC) yang diadakan di Indonesia, negara yang majoriti penduduknya beragama Islam, yang menghimpunkan para wakil dari 57 buah negara.

    OIC menyarankan agar, “negara-negara anggota dan masyarakat antarabangsa mengharamkan produk-produk yang dihasilkan di dalam atau di wilayah-wilayah ditakluki Israel yang tidak sah daripada pasaran mereka”.

    Meskipun begitu, negara-negara anggota tidak terikat dengan langkah tersebut.

    Penempatan merujuk kepada masyarakat Yahudi yang tinggal dalam kawasan yang diduduki Israel sejak tahun 1967.

    Penempatan sedemikian adalah tidak sah di bawah undang-undang antarabangsa dan juga merupakan hambatan kepada usaha perdamaian, dengan mereka di Tebing Barat dan Timur Baitul Maqdis menduduki tanah yang dilihat sebagai sebahagian daripada negara orang-orang Palestin pada masa akan datang.

    Sebelum ini, isu barangan import dari penempatan Israel menimbulkan ketegangan.

    Perdana Menteri Israel Benjamin Netanyahu menggantung hubungan diplomatik dengan Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) pada bulan November lalu berhubung proses damai Timur Tengah – yang sudah tergendala hampir dua tahun – berkaitan keputusan PBB untuk melabel barangan import sebagai dari wilayah penempatan Israel berbanding ‘Buatan Israel”.

    Penggantungan itu dihentikan pada bulan lalu apabila Encik Netanyahu mengadakan rundingan dengan Ketua Dasar Asing Kesatuan Eropah (EU).

    Di akhir sidang puncak yang berlangsung semalam, OIC turut berikrar memberikan “sokongan penuh kepada usaha-usaha politik, diplomatik dan undang-undang” bagi memastikan rakyat Palestin meraih “hak-hak mereka yang tidak terpisah”.

    Sidang puncak di Jakarta itu dihadiri oleh para pemimpin termasuk Presiden Palestin Mahmud Abbas dan Presiden Sudan Omar al-Bashir, yang diburu oleh Mahkamah Jenayah Antarabangsa atas tuduhan jenayah perang.

    Sidang puncak itu juga diadakan di tengah-tengah keganasan selama lima bulan di wilayah Israel dan Palestin yang mengorbankan 181 rakyat Palestin serta 28 rakyat Israel.

    Rundingan damai Israel-Palestin juga terhenti pada bulan April 2014 dan sejak itu keadaan bertambah buruk sehingga tidak memungkinkan satu dialog yang baru.

    Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

  • Benjamin Netanyahu Distorts History, Claims Mufti Of Jerusalem Instigated Adolf Hitler To Terminate Jews

    Benjamin Netanyahu Distorts History, Claims Mufti Of Jerusalem Instigated Adolf Hitler To Terminate Jews

    REUTERS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provoked controversy on Wednesday, hours before a visit to Germany, by saying the former Muslim elder in Jerusalem convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews.

    In a speech to the Zionist Congress late on Tuesday, Netanyahu referred to a series of attacks by Muslims against Jews in Palestine during the 1920s that he said were instigated by the then Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

    Husseini famously flew to visit Hitler in Berlin in 1941, and Netanyahu said that meeting was instrumental in the Nazi leader’s decision to launch a campaign to annihilate the Jews.

    “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Netanyahu said in the speech. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’

    “‘So what should I do with them?’” Netanyahu said Hitler asked the mufti, who responded: “Burn them.”

    Netanyahu, whose father was an eminent historian, was quickly harangued by opposition politicians and experts on the Holocaust who said he was distorting the historical record.

    Palestinian officials said Netanyahu appeared to be absolving Hitler of the murder of six million Jews in order to lay the blame on Muslims. Twitter was awash with criticism.

    “It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbor so much that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of six million Jews,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s secretary general, said.

    “Mr Netanyahu should stop using this human tragedy to score points for his political end,” said Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis.

    Even Netanyahu’s defense minister, close ally Moshe Yaalon, said the prime minister had got it wrong.

    “It certainly wasn’t (Husseini) who invented the Final Solution,” Yaalon told Israel’s Army Radio. “That was the evil brainchild of Hitler himself.”

    It is not clear what sources Netanyahu was relying on for his comments. A 1947 book “The Mufti of Jerusalem” and a newspaper report at the time said a former Hitler deputy had testified at the Nuremberg war crimes trials that Husseini had plotted with the Nazi leader to rid Europe of its Jews.

    Husseini was sought for war crimes but never appeared at the Nuremberg proceedings and later died in Cairo.

    HISTORICAL RECORD

    But the point several historians made was that Netanyahu was distorting timelines and drawing false conclusions.

    The meeting between Husseini and Hitler in Berlin took place on November 28, 1941. More than two years earlier, in January 1939, Hitler had addressed the Reichstag and talked clearly about his determination to exterminate the Jewish race.

    “To say that the mufti was the first to mention to Hitler the idea to kill or burn the Jews is not correct,” Dina Porat, a professor at Tel Aviv University and the chief historian of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, told Israel Radio.

    “The idea to rid the world of the Jews was a central theme in Hitler’s ideology a long, long time before he met the mufti.”

    Porat and others pointed out that the murder of the Jews began in June 1941. Even if the mufti wanted the Final Solution to be expanded, he wasn’t the one who came up with the idea.

    “For somebody who knows something about history and grew up in the house of historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu, he should know well,” Porat said of the prime minister. “But in my humble opinion, to say that the mufti gave Hitler the idea is wrong.

     

    Source: www.huffingtonpost.com