Tag: Jew

An Open Letter to the Ministers of Singapore – Why are We Silent on Gaza?

https://www.facebook.com/mastura.noor

Dear Leaders of Singapore,

I was born in Singapore in 1990 – the year of great beginnings and start ups in Singapore.

A country that prides in its diversity where race and religion is concerned. A country that has upheld and strove for racial harmony and multiculturalism in every sense of the word. A country that rose from the ground since it gained complete independence in 1965 to a world class nation that is comparable to super powers. A country where people use to joke about not being able to see on the map but holds one of the highest GDPs in the world.

For the past 24 years I’ve lived in this country, I have felt grateful, blessed & safe. Except, right at this point, as a patriotic citizen of Singapore, I feel dispirited.

As of July 16th 2014, the time I wrote this, 214 Palestinians have died with over 2000 wounded.

These are unarmed civilians, most of whom, targeted by Israel at their own homes, places of worship, schools, hospitals etc.

As a proud citizen of this country, I have always valued how our country remains unaffected by international issues which plaques other countries and affect the relationships of their citizens with each other, such as islamophobia in USA & Europe & ethnic cleansing in Africa, Burma & Bosnia. Of course there are hints of racism in our usually racially harmonious society but since the 1964 racial riots, we have made tremendous progress in strengthening trust between our ethnic groups. It is our National Pledge. Our laws charge those who dare incite hate speech or make disparaging remarks against any race or religion under the Sedition Act. My best friends since Secondary 1 is a Chinese Buddhist and an Indian Christian. This is normal for most Singaporean youths. We cant imagine it otherwise.

Our values to and for humanity has been instilled in us since primary school across the nation. Since young, we were taught to stand up for what is right, for justice, for equality especially against bullies and…to say no to drugs. We were also pushed to strive for the best, to be number 1 in everything we do, to achieve as many A’s as we can, as many gold medals as we can. To be top in academics, sports, arts – you name it. Why not, when our country top the ranks in every possible index you can think of – best airport, highest gdp, most busiest port, best city to live in Asia, safest city, cleanest city, least corrupted, best education.. etc and even one of the top few countries with the best military.

The people and leaders of our country are looked up upon and respected everywhere in the world. So please tell us dear Ministers, how can we be so great in almost every aspect a country should be but keep silent where a huge humanitarian crisis is ongoing? In the times where other countries have faced natural disasters and needed aid, Singapore has sent their civil defence, medics, monetary aid and made passionate pledges out loud and clear for the world to hear. That’s the Singapore we know. Why the silence now? Do we keep quiet out of fear? From who? Does the fear and insecurity of weakening bilateral relations win over innocent lives and blood spilled in vain? If there were Singaporeans in Palestine stuck in the crossfire will our leaders step up to bring them home? Does it have to go that far, for our own to be hurt for us to speak up against injustice? As your countrymen, we cannot facilitate a peaceful protest or campaign because your laws don’t allow us to and we respect that because we convince ourselves that our leaders will be the voice of our people. Except there is no voice. Just silence. Where are the strong statements that should come from our cabinet ministers the same way they stand up when Singapore was oppressed?

There are comparable similarities between us and Gaza but the HUGE difference is this. We became free from the horror of our lands. We became free of the Military occupation. Our people no longer had to fear deaths when they walk the streets. Our leaders were free to decide the path we will take for our future, for the people of Singapore.

It has been 8 days of intense firings and bombings which has murdered so many innocent women and children – the youngest being a 9 month old baby.

The city goes dark even at night- except when the missiles strike- as the technicians in charge of vital infrastructures such as water and electricity are afraid to move to repair damages caused by the bombs. This obviously has consequences on hospitals which heavily depend on electricity especially right now.

Unlike Israel, which holds its position as the world’s best military and most advance in defence technology with iron domes over their famed iron walls – Gaza is a tiny, over populated third world STRIP with every entrance and exit blocked with nowhere to run for cover.

Israel has occupied Palestine for the longest time, rejected the United Nation’s partition plans, erased over 400 Palestinian villages and counting & forced the people of Palestine to live as second class citizens in their own country under military rule.

Authored by Noor Mastura

READ MORE ON HER BLOG POSTING HERE

READ ON SINGAPOREANS’ TAKE ON GAZA/PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT HERE

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July 18, 2014
MFA: Kidnapping, Killing of Palestinian Teen is Deeply Reprehensible

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement on Thursday (July 3) on the kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian teenager, apparently in revenge for the murder of three Israeli youths earlier this week.

The statement said: “The kidnapping and killing of the Palestinian teenager on July 2, 2014, is deeply reprehensible. Singapore strongly condemns it and hopes that those responsible will be apprehended. Our sympathies go out to the family of the victim.

“We also urge the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to do everything possible to reduce tensions arising from the tragic deaths of both Israeli and Palestinian teenagers and protect the lives of innocent civilians.”

Eyewitnesses said 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khder was seen being forced into a car by three Israelis in occupied east Jerusalem. Police confirmed a body had been found in a forest in Givat Shaul in west Jerusalem, although they did not link the two incidents.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/killing-of-palestinian/1232432.html

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July 3, 2014
PERGAS Condemns Humanitarian Violence on Palestinians

Singapore Islamic Scholars & Religious Teachers Association (PERGAS)

Pergas would like to reiterate that it firmly condemns all kinds of injustice and violence against human regardless of religion and race. This includes the most recent violence on Palestinians as a result of the abduction of 3 Israeli teenagers. Targeting innocent civilians is against humanitarian values.

Pergas calls upon Muslim and other communities to condemn and resist these humanitarian violence. Pergas also encourages Singapore Muslim community to perform qunut nazilah or make dua for those who are being oppressed in all parts of the world such as Muslims in Gaza and Rohingyas in Myanmar.

Please also refer to the link below for Pergas’ previous statement regarding the citizens of Gaza which was issued on 20 November 2012:

http://v1.pergas.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/PERGAS-media-statement_Gaza-.pdf

MEDIA STATEMENT

20 November 2012

PERGAS CATEGORICALLY CONDEMNS THE VIOLENT ACTIONS OF THE

ZIONIST ISRAELI REGIME ON THE CITIZENS OF GAZA, PALESTINE

The Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Association of Singapore (Pergas) categorically condemns the Zionist Israeli military operation on the citizens of Gaza, Palestine.

2 The operation clearly contradicts the ethics of international relations which give rights to all citizens of the world to live in peace and harmony, despite the differences in ethnicity and religion.

3 The barbaric Zionist military operation is incompatible with humanitarian values that emphasize the dignity of every man by giving his due rights, in accordance with the words of Allah which mean:

“We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special
favours, above a great part of our creation.” Surah Al-Israa’: 70

4 As a civilized nation, Israel must respect the rights of the Palestinians to sovereignty and freedom to govern their country in peace. Excuses of ‘building safe zones’ or ‘the right to self-defence’ is never justifiable in killing innocent human lives.

5 Pergas hereby reiterates the concept of peace in Islam that is built through justice and fairness, and that it can never be achieved through war or acts of terror.

6 Thus, Pergas calls on the local Muslim community to perform hajat prayers and qunut nazilah either individually or in masses, as one of our efforts to help theoppressed, and pray they are given the strength and calmness in facing this tremendous test.

7 May the sufferings of the Palestinians be eased and replaced with harmony and security, which are the rights of every man on the surface of Allah’s world. Amin.

THE ISLAMIC SCHOLARS AND RELIGIOUS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF SINGAPORE

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July 2, 2014
Denmark bans religious slaughter, affecting Jews and Muslims

A Danish government’s move to ban ritual slaughter has angered both Muslim and Jewish faith communities, seeing the ban as a direct attack on their religious practices.

“We and the Muslim organizations are talking about this,” local Jewish leader Finn Schwartz told The Jerusalem Post.

Schwartz added that his community is in discussions with Danish authorities and is in contact with the Agriculture and Food Minister Dan Jørgensen.

The controversy erupted last Thursday when Jørgensen announced that starting from next Monday, Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter will be illegal in Denmark.

“Animal rights come before religion,” the minister was quoted as saying by Danish station TV2.

The move was widely criticized by religious leaders, dubbing it as an attack on the freedom of the religious minorities.

“When you have religious minorities in a society you should also respect the religious minority even if you really don’t like some of the things [they] are doing,” Schwartz said.

“If you want to change fundamental rules that concern the religious minorities then you should have an open discussion,” he said.

Similar debates surrounding halal and kosher slaughter erupted last summer when previous Agriculture minister Karen Hækkerup stated her opposition to all slaughter without pre-stunning.

Hækkerup was responding to the demand of a Muslim organization, that it be allowed to butcher animals without any stunning either prior to or following the cutting.

Replying to critics who accused him of violating his citizens’ religious rights, the minister said that “when [Jews and Muslims] are upset about the ban, even though they have not taken advantage of the exemptions available, it can only be because in the future they would like to carry out slaughter without stunning.”

Criticism

Jewish organizations harshly censured Denmark over the impending ban on Thursday.

“This attack on basic Jewish religious practice in Denmark puts into question the continuance of community life in the country and follows strongly on the heels of persistent attacks on Jewish circumcision,” European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said.

Kantor said that he hoped the ban was not an attempt to “placate or mollify animal rights activists in light of the international criticism” Denmark received after zookeepers shot and killed a giraffe in Copenhagen.

European Commissioner for Health Tonio Borg has also condemned the ban, saying that it “contradicts European law.”

The Conference of European Rabbis intends to raise the issue of “continuous attacks against religious minorities in Europe,” during a meeting with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on Monday, CER head Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt told the Post.

The Danish ban constituted a “further erosion of religious liberties and freedoms in Europe,” Goldschmidt said.

According to the Islamic and Jewish ritual, the animal is slaughtered by a sharp blade.

The concept of halal, — meaning permissible in Arabic — has traditionally been applied to food.

Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.

Muslim scholars agree that Shari`ah provides a divine law of mercy that should be applied on all Allah’s creations, including animals.

Islam also provides details about avoiding any unnecessary pain.

Denmark is home to a Muslim minority of 200,000, making three percent of the country’s 5.4 million population.

The Scandinavian country has a Jewish minority of about 6,000.

Source: Onislam.net

February 16, 2014
‘Greater Israel’: Zionist Expansion Plans in the Middle East

The Infamous Oded Yinon Plan

Global Research Editor’s Note

The following document pertaining to the formation of “Greater Israel” constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government, the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment.

According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” According to Rabbi Fischmann, “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

When viewed in the current context, the war on Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing war on Syria, not to mention the process of regime change in Egypt, must be understood in relation to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East. The latter consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of an Israeli expansionist project.

“Greater Israel” consists in an area extending from the Nile Valley to the Euphrates.

The Zionist project supports the Jewish settlement movement. More broadly it involves a policy of excluding Palestinians from Palestine leading to the eventual annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel.

Greater Israel would create a number of proxy States. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. (See map).

According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in a 2011 Global Research article, The Yinon Plan was a continuation of Britain’s colonial design in the Middle East:

“[The Yinon plan] is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.

Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.

The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region.

Greater Israel” requires the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states.

“The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation… This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.” (Yinon Plan, see below)

Viewed in this context, the war on Syria is part of the process of Israeli territorial expansion. Israeli intelligence working hand in glove with the US, Turkey and NATO is directly supportive of the Al Qaeda terrorist mercenaries inside Syria.

The Zionist Project also requires the destabilization of Egypt, the creation of factional divisions within Egypt as instrumented by the “Arab Spring” leading to the formation of a sectarian based State dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 3, 2013

Source: http://bit.ly/1c4iWob

February 14, 2014