German Jewish Voice organization plans to send an aid ship to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in July.
By DPA, HAARETZ
An organization of German Jews that wants to send an aid ship to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza says that its intentions are no betrayal of the Jewish people.
In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa in Berlin, Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer, a leader of the German Jewish Voice organization said instead that they wanted to help preserve the state of Israel by showing that its current policies were wrong.
Israeli forces approaching Gaza flotilla
Israel Navy forces approach one of six ships of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010.
Photo by: Reuters
“We want Israel to behave in a way that it can be recognized as a democratic state. Now it is recognized as a criminal state. That is not what we want,” she said.
On May 31 nine people were killed when Israeli naval forces boarded ships in a flotilla carrying aid and activists – some of whom Israel says were armed – bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The event caused international outrage, and has prompted Iran to say it will send its own fleet, threatening more confrontation in the Mediterranean.
“Some see what we are doing as a betrayal. But the question is, what do they really know about the whole thing. Some people don’t want to be educated,” Katzenstein-Leiterer said.
Jewish Voice plans to fill at least one vessel with educational materials donated by German schoolchildren for Gazan kids, and sail it from a Mediterranean port in mid-July.
“We don’t want any confrontation with the Israeli navy. We have informed the (Israeli) ambassador in Berlin, and if they find it necessary to stop and check us, we will let them do that.”
“And when they don’t find any material that could be a security risk, we want them to let us go into Gaza. We won’t unload our cargo in any Israeli or Egyptian port,” she says.
Katzenstein-Leiterer grew up in the former East Germany, to where her committed Communist parents returned after fleeing Hitler’s regime in World War II.
Her organization is part of the European Jews for a Just Peace movement, a ten-country peace-activist network.
Jewish Voice in Germany says that it has gathered the funds for its aid ship project from personal donations, loans, and a donation from the Left Party, a small political grouping with strong support in the former East.
“Normal people here don’t understand very much what is going on in Israel and Palestine,” Katzenstein-Leiterer says.
“The German press doesn’t show what is going on. People think all Gazans are terrorists, like West Germans used to think that all East Germans were informers for the Stasi (secret police).
Katzenstein-Leiterer says that her group’s stance has caused them to be ostracized by the mainstream German-Jewish community, which numbers a little over 100,000.
“Most of the Jews in Germany are immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and they are not on our side. The other members of the community are not on our side either. They say that everything that Israel does is OK, and they close their eyes to what is going on.”
A senior activist in the Jewish Voice movement, Rolf Verleger, was reportedly expelled from his position in the Central Council of Jews in Germany because he initiated a petition saying the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon was “not in our name.”
However, Katzenstein-Leiterer says that there are now a small group of German Jews who, despite the weight that Germany’s history places on the Jewish community, want to speak out against a Israeli blockade policy – brought in after Hamas took control of the sliver of territory in 2007 – that they see as wrong.
“The whole blockade, the whole siege of Gaza is illegal. It is against international law and human rights,” she says.
“We want to deliver musical instruments and school material. The children and deprived of every kind of school material; clothes, shoes, candies. We don’t see that that is any kind of safety risk.”
On Thursday the Israeli cabinet was expected to make a decision on scrapping the so-called “positive” list of items that they allow into Gaza in favor of a more relaxed “negative” list of prohibited items that could be of use to militants.
“We just see that a Jewish state is occupying Palestine, laying a siege, and depriving children of the things that they need. We as Jews are saying, ‘not in our name.’ We want to show that there are Jews in the world that are on the side of these deprived people,” she says.
Narvey here is something useful for you do do in a spare moment.
This is the perfect way to use up leftover cooked rice and grilled vegetables, and so flavorful you may be inspired to make extra just for this purpose!
The smoky-sweet flavor of lightly-charred zucchini, onion, bell pepper, and portobellos combined with Italian seasonings, olive oil, and rice is a marriage that is truly made in heaven.
INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon fresh basil, minced, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon fresh marjoram, minced, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
1 large onion, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1 red bell pepper, halved
2 large Portobello mushroom caps
2 small zucchini, halved lengthwise
4 cups leftover cooked long-grain rice
1. Light the fire in your grill and get it down to medium-high heat.
2. Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper. Place vegetables on a baking sheet and drizzle dressing over them, turning to coat evenly. Reserve any dressing remaining of baking sheet.
3. Grill vegetables (you may use a grill basket, or grill them directly on the grill rack) around 5 minutes, until slightly charred but still firm. Transfer vegetables to a platter to cool.
4. Chop vegetables into 1/2-inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Add rice and remaining dressing and toss to combine.
Serves 4.
Supercilious? I say honest. Taking responsibility? For what, the Government of Israel has not done a singe thing that I agree with for a long time.
Sometimes doing nothing is more productive, less harmful than than doing something but the wrong thing like you do.
From Yamit we get yet another superscillious attempt to justify his use of metaphor to excuse his taking responsibility to do anything but mouth off.
The use of literary metaphor is a well known and accepted form of expression. Seems you have either forgotten or never learned it’s use and application. “Past naive” in describing you in retrospect was too timid a description.
Hey tough guy Yamit, you really strike fear I am sure, in the heart of Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer and her ugly Jewish band.
Are you volunteering to lead a group to Germany to kick the groins and tracheas of these misbegotten Jews?
Maybe brave one, you are thinking of doing that all by yourself so you can take all the credit. Tell me. Have you booked passage to Germany yet?
It seems like you are caught up in your own bravado to make yourself feel good.
Rather then prattle on like some school yard bully Yamit, why not offer some reasonable and feasible suggestions on what you think can be done by Jews to deal with the likes of Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer’s group and other such groups like 2010 U.S. Assembly of Jews Confronting Racism & Israel Apartheid established in Detroit, Michigan?
if a Jew can live in Germany than he is capable of everything else, too. I’m not angry about those German Jews. I have pitty with them — worlds separate them and us, their only hope is indeed the Mashi’ah.
Truth? The world is interested in truths? You are past naivety! What you write places you in the same category as those you criticize.
A good kick to the groin and a blow to the trachea works fine and has always had the desired effect.
It is a maddening phenomenon repeated time and again.
Jews who have the least attachment to and knowledge of Israel and their Jewishness, save having been born Jewish, join other non-Jewish, but equally ignorant anti-Israel Jew haters who spread their message of Israel-Jew hatred, supported by hatred, but no truth.
The maddening thing is that an anti-Israel West, marked as worst in Europe accept those lies for truth, not because they are stupid, but they want to believe it.
The sad thing is that Jews and Israel that know the truth have been at a loss to overcome this phenomenon.
We Jews and Israel almost helplessly bear witness to how Israel is being set upon by the Jew hating wolves of the world and appeased and tolerated by a West that thinks with Israel disabled or gone altogether, that will somehow cure the world’s wolf problem. No disrespect to wolves intended by using them as a methaphor for what is stinking rotten evil in this world.
I say Jews and Israel are almost helpless advisedly.
There is yet time to find a way to fight back and fight back is what it is going to take.
That fight must be in the form of unapologetic tough Israeli positions and policies, including telling the Western sycophants of the Muslim world to shove it and of course military action that is necessary to protect and advance Israel’s interests.
Further there must be much greater Jewish world unity to do whatever it takes to force the world to open their eyes to the truths that until now have been just too excrutiatingly painful for them to accept and deal with and to act on those truths.
This is a pseudo-Jewish flotilla – these people do not identify with the aspirations nor the history of beit Yisrael -They do not see themselves as participants in the Jewish narrative: we should not call them Jews – they are not Jews –
The best one can say of them is that they are descended from Jews,and that’s how we should refer to them:”Scum of Jewish descent”…
Truth, Compassion–and the Vindication of Humanity
http://www.jewishideas.org/angel-shabbat/truth-compassion-and-vindication-humanity-thou
By Rabbi Marc D. Angel
“And the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: this is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded…”
A Midrash tells that when the Almighty was about to create Adam, a debate broke out among the angels. Some advised Him not to create human beings, others urged him to create humanity. Hesed (compassion) said: let human beings be created because they will do acts of kindness. Emet (truth) said: let them not be created because they will be filled with lies. Tsedek (righteousness) said: create them because they will do acts of justice. Shalom (peace) said: don’t create them because they will be filled with strife.
And then Adam was created. .
US Congressmen express ire toward Turkey
“Turkey is responsible for the deaths” in Gaza flotilla incident
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER
06/17/2010 01:55
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=178687
Hating Hate is Not Hate Speech: PayPal Reverses Decision to Cut off Atlas Shrugs, Freedom Defense Initiative, and Stop Islamization of America Sites
PayPal reverses jihad against Muslim-watch sites
Company had cut off Atlas Shrugs for ‘hate speech’
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=166869
Bloomberg Explodes Over “No Mosque at Ground Zero” Remark at Jewish Heritage Dinner
—–
Confronted over Mosque at Ground Zero, Mayor Explodes
By Shelomo Alfassa
http://www.alfassa.com/mayor.html
While attending the June 15, 2010 annual invitation-only Jewish Heritage Dinner at Gracie Mansion, the New York City mayor’s symbolic home, this writer had an astonishing and unforeseen run-in with Mayor Michael Bloomberg regarding the proposed controversial mosque at Ground Zero.
(June 15, 2010) New York’s Jewish establishment gathered for a pleasant kosher barbecue held on the lush back lawn of the mayor’s graceful 19th century mansion on New York’s Upper East Side.
When the dinner and program ended, I walked over to the west side of the stage, along with a dozen or so others which were hoping to get a photo of the mayor. As the mayor came off the stage, both uniformed and plainclothes policemen demanded that everyone step back.
A short elderly woman with white cottony hair rushed the security line and begged the mayor for a photo. Surrendering to her calls for a photo and much to the chagrin of his security detail, the mayor stopped. He gathered a small group and said “just one picture.” -“Ok everyone, look into the camera, look into the camera,” the mayor said with a rushed smile.
At that moment, I clicked my iPhone camera shutter and simultaneously exclaimed in a serious but gentle voice, “MR. MAYOR, NO MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO!”
The mayor’s face immediately became somber. He quickly disregarded his elderly constituent and in a serious tone, while staring me directly in the eye, leaned forward, pointed to my face and said matter-of-factly, “If we don’t let them build a mosque, we won’t be able to build a temple!”
Some in the crowd gasped. I quickly responded, “But we don’t need a temple-that’s not the issue, a mosque is a symbol of jihad victory.”
While still standing in the crowd and amongst his staffers, which attempted to shuffle him away, the mayor suddenly lurched forward, walked right up to me and with a perturbed voice and stern eyes, said what sounded like “we need to allow it.”
“But mayor, this is my field of study, and I am telling you, they are building it as a symbol of victory over us.” At that time the mayor’s staff shuffled him away but not before the mayor looked back at me, obviously annoyed that I raised the subject with him in public. His staffer also asked me to “just drop it” as the mayor was whisked away.
I was in emergency management for 15 years. For several years I was a deputy commander of a federal emergency response team which existed to respond to terrorist attacks. I was also one of the rescue workers at Ground Zero.
Today, I am an historian and my field of study includes life in Islamic Spain. What the mayor does not understand, is that a practice associated with conquering Islamic armies was the construction of a mosque at the location where their triumphant battle was won.
There is a New York based Islamic organization seeking to build a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attack-an attack which was carried out by 19 Muslim hijackers who considered their mission holy war. A Muslim house of prayer, cemented in the ashes of catastrophe at the foot of New York’s lost Twin Towers, would be a symbolic victory flag for Muslims who seek the destruction of America.
Now the “poor” children in Gaza schools will be able to put all the hate for Israel that they learn to music, how wonderful.
In normal circumstances this would be a very humanitarian act but when it comes to Gaza it means that now these children have the chance of putting all the hate against Israel they learn at school to music.
Ted, my comment got lost again.
This is bullshit! Gazans aren’t deprived of anything and the flotilla organizers know it. It has been widely reported that Israel allows in tons of aid every day and we have seen the pictures of Gaza with store shelves full of items and outdoor fruits and vegetable stands filled to capacity.
The only purpose of the “free Gaza” movement is to allow hamas to acquire weapons by breaking the blockade.
As a writer said, leftist Jews are going to be the cause of a second holocaust.
Jews, Israelis in particular, will be ostrasized for what ever action the Israeli navy does to any ship trying to break the blockade. That being the case, when the time comes, pick the largest ship, take control, remove all aboard and the sink the ship. If this doesn’t work. On the next one, blow off the rudder and props and allow it to drift. Fuck all of the hippocrits in the UN, the EU and the Obama government.
http://bit.ly/cRgu6T
World Cup News?
Seems now that we have German flotilla, Iranian flotilla (arrives Saturday) and in July, another Turkish flotilla…
solution: mine the whole area and warn all ships to stay away. As for Israel and the West, read this
http://bit.ly/cRgu6T
I can’t help myself. I would stop the ship round up all the Jews by selection, Jews to the left gentiles to the right.
I would tattoo the word Jew Yhud in Arabic on each of the Jews foreheads and Jew lover on the gentiles.
I would take them to the Gaza Israel Border and push them into Gaza.
I would then hold a national lottery as to how long they will stay alive in Gaza. All proceeds after winners will go to the Jewish victims of those same cretins those German Jewish(sic) Arab lovers, want to help..
Well, Helen Thomas is one ugly decrepit iron maiden!
I’m not a PC wussy Liberal like You!
What I would do does not allow me to say it on a public forum/ Use your imaginations. Hint: May include iron maidens.
This is the only time I will ever feel like responding to someone with the most recent quote from Helen Thomas.