Palestine

by Saladin Mon Jan 17, 2011 08:48

Know the facts before visiting the Holy Land
Examiner Letters, Monday, January 17, 2011

SOME prominent Irish tour operators have recommenced promoting tours to the Holy Land.

However, these operators should consider that there are an increasing number of historical sites under dispute, and under false and illegitimate claims by Israel.

Such visits carry the risk of creating historical distortions in the minds of visitors.

Further, in keeping with Israeli patterns of tourism, visitors are unlikely to have the opportunity to meet and encounter Palestinians, and understand their legitimate claims to a just share in the travel and tourism sector in the Holy Land.

The Irish tour operators are giving Israel an important vote of confidence by promoting Israeli tourism and generally improving Israelis image around the world.

It should be known that Israeli tourism has been an instrument of propaganda against the Palestinians, presenting them in a very unfavourable and untruthful light, as a dangerous and violent people, void of history and culture. Encouraging tourists to Israel becomes an endorsement of Israeli racist propaganda assisting Israel in keeping the tourism industry of Palestine invisible to visitors from around the world.

While there are more than 6,000 Israeli tour guides, there are only 300 Palestinian tour guides with a mere 42 Palestinian guides who are permitted to work beyond the West Bank in Israel.

The vast majority of Palestinian professionals in the tourism industry have been denied entry to Jerusalem since 1993.

The Israeli military, the I.D.F., will not let them past the checkpoints to reach Jerusalem. This is the same IDF that carried out the mass murder of some 1,500 defenceless citizens of Gaza, 640 of which were children, and continues to lay siege to that open air prison, carrying out daily aerial attacks and other acts of wanton destruction which confines these unfortunate Palestinians to a stone age existence.

These facts should be in the public domain and particularly in the knowledge of potential visitors to the Holy Land.

Daniel Teegan
Union Hall
Cork

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, January 17, 2011

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/know-the-f...jvRis

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Jan 15, 2011 16:22

I spent a couple of years (as a whiteman) in apartheid SA. It did not have the viciousness of Zionist racism so far as I experienced it(and I travelled it fairly thoroughly, and got picked up for being critical and immediately labelled commie even though I was marketing for a multi-national). It was more paternalistic and less rancid. I'd say the American Southern States system was closer to the lynch-mob hate in current Israel. I found Australians more rabid about their miniscule Aboriginal populations(bit like Paddy and the Travellers).

Someone should write to the irish Times about their increase in Israeli tourism ads(see today's) since the shit hit the PR fan after the passports/piracy/Cast Lead overkill. I seem to be barred(not that I've stopped). Madam&Co is being kept sweet.

A letter from inside the bantustan, or from one of the official spokesgroups would have a better(maybe)chance of penetration of the Zionist hasbara curtain(iron curtain origianally referred to the fire curtain in theatres seperating stage from auditorium after a series of disasters in the 19th century. It was later applied to propaganda curtains on both sides in WW1 that ensured the gridlocked idiocy of slaughter continued because of the ignorance fostered by mutual 'morale' maintainence propaganda. Churchill and others then applied it to the shroud of Pravda(truth)that decended on Stalinist Russia. In South Africa, despite considerable censorship it was amateur compared to Tel Aviv's sophisticated blanket).

Madam likes her 'liberal' mask. I do believe she does believe she is actually both progressive and democratic, since she got elected on that ticket once and briefly upon a time. She does not pronounce her liberalism with its 'neo' prefix. As in BAe-bi face Tony's Neo-Labour.

by Aoife - Act for Palestine Thu Jan 13, 2011 00:23

It's heartening to see you're over in the West Bank in solidarity with the Palestinians.