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Joined: 20 Oct 2010
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 Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:58 am Post subject: |
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Justin didn't respect the boycott, and now look at him!  Waaah!
Justin Bieber Says Besieged By Paparazzi In Israel
Posted Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:41am PDT by Reuters in Stop The Presses!
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Can a teen idol get a break from the paparazzi when he visits holy sites?
Evidently not, as Justin Bieber is finding out on his visit to Israel, where he is scheduled to play a concert in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
The Canadian pop star sent out a series of angry Twitter messages on Tuesday, complaining that aggressive photographers had forced him to spend the rest of his trip holed up in his hotel room.
"You would think paparazzi would have some respect in holy places," wrote 17 year-old Bieber, who is a practicing Christian. "All I wanted was the chance to walk where jesus did here in isreal (sic)."
"They should be ashamed of themselves. Take pictures of me eating but not in a place of prayer, ridiculous ... People wait their whole lives for opportunities like this, why would they want to take that experience away from someone ... Staying in the hotel for the rest of the week u happy?"
According to the London-based Jewish Chronicle, Bieber was scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tour the Dead Sea, Masada and Caesarea.
After his concert at Hayarkon Park in the bustling city, he will likely face another round of paparazzi when he begins an Asian-Pacific swing in Malaysia on April 21. |
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Friend Lee Ghost
Joined: 06 Jun 2011
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HijackedTw1light
Joined: 24 May 2010
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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Some of those peaceful looking protestors held up signs saying "Free Palestine--From the River to the Sea."
It's becoming a popular sign and chant among anti-Israel protestors. But I wonder how many of them know what it means.
Do they really support the destruction of Israel, or are they just ignorant of geography?
Maybe both. |
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Ineverlie&I'malwaysri
Joined: 09 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:24 am Post subject: |
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South African students endorse nationwide boycott against Israel
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| Representatives of South Africa�s oldest and largest student bodies in Johannesburg hosted a press conference on Thursday in which they denounced the upcoming visit by a delegation of Israeli officials and propagandists to South African college campuses. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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EDIT.
Last edited by TheUrbanMyth on Sat Aug 13, 2011 5:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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| In recent, and much more interesting news, the biggest protests against the current Israeli government is now coming from the Israeli people themselves and has nothing to do with the Palestinians. My understanding is that government money goes to ideologically driven minorities like the settlers and ultra orthodox in much higher percentage than the general population, and that rent is astronomical. If anyone has a more sophisticated understanding than that, I'd love to hear about it. Something like 350,000 people protesting in a country of 7 million is a huge deal. If it can dispose of Netanyahu and his supporters than it will be good for the country and the region. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| In recent, and much more interesting news, the biggest protests against the current Israeli government is now coming from the Israeli people themselves and has nothing to do with the Palestinians. My understanding is that government money goes to ideologically driven minorities like the settlers and ultra orthodox in much higher percentage than the general population, and that rent is astronomical. If anyone has a more sophisticated understanding than that, I'd love to hear about it. Something like 350,000 people protesting in a country of 7 million is a huge deal. If it can dispose of Netanyahu and his supporters than it will be good for the country and the region. |
Links? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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Link.
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With over 300,000 protesters in the streets this weekend, the demonstrations seem to have no end in sight. Yet even so, the protesters� grievances remain vague and unfocused. Some call for an end to Israel�s decades-old privatization process and an expansion of the welfare state. Others demand an end to cartels and import taxes - cornerstones of free-market philosophy. The unifying factor among them is anger toward the status quo. And as the protests widen, they could spark a massive social and political shift in Israel.
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The demonstrators, then, are not just �sushi eaters� from Tel Aviv, as one Likud politician called them; they are middle-class Israelis - taxi drivers, doctors, and mothers who are angry about a variety of issues, including working hours, the rising cost of living, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Since the 1970s, Israel has experienced extensive deregulation and privatization, shifting from a welfare state with relatively controlled market prices to a free market focused on encouraging competition.
This shift has ostensibly strengthened Israel�s economy. Most recently, Israel emerged from the global economic crisis relatively unscathed, and, according to the Bank of Israel, boasts 4.8 percent growth and six percent unemployment this year. But economic success has contributed to inequality, creating unprecedented wealth for some yet failing to benefit the middle class. According to Meitav Investment House, a respected financial firm in Israel, the price of groceries has risen 16 percent since 2007 and the cost of fuel has risen 19 percent. Deregulation has allowed cartels and monopolies to stifle competition in many sectors. For example, two large manufacturers control the baby formula market in Israel. When they raised prices earlier this year, the cost for baby formula rose by 15 percent nationwide, outraging consumers. Thanks to artificial pricing set by the government, olive oil is more expensive in Israel than in the United Kingdom, despite the fact that olives are grown in Israel. And many argue that privatization has led the government to neglect social services such as public transportation, education, and health.
Housing prices, however, are the main catalyst of middle-class revolt. The majority of Israel�s land is held by the state, under the control of an administrative authority that Netanyahu himself recently described as a �cartel.� The administration sells the land to highest bidders in a convoluted process that often takes months. This difficulty with building new housing comes at a time when Israel�s population is increasing, foreigners are purchasing more homes in the country, and the government has decreased publicly funded housing.
As a result, according to the Israeli Housing Ministry, an average home in Israel costs a million shekels (roughly $250,000), the equivalent of 132 average salaries put together - before tax. That ratio is one of the worst in the world; the accounting firm BDO reported that in the United States, by comparison, the average home costs about 60 average salaries. Bank of Israel data suggest that housing prices have risen 60 percent since 2007, while employee salaries, according to Meitav Investment House, have risen only six percent.
All in all, middle-class Israelis feel that they are working harder, earning less, and paying more. They blame Israel�s so-called tycoons, who own Israel�s largest corporations and whose faces appear on posters at the demonstrations with the words �We Mean You.� And they blame Netanyahu, who, in previous stints as prime minister and finance minister, has been a major proponent of Israel�s neoliberal economic policies.
But the protest against Netanyahu is not just about contrasting economic visions; it is about the growing gap between Israel�s upwardly mobile middle class and the lethargic political system. Whereas Netanyahu, according to Israel�s Channel 2, does not text message or use a computer in his office, the protesters organized themselves through Facebook. More important, they are feeding off of regional and global activism in calling for equal economic opportunity and dignity. The demonstrators are still debating their exact demands. But it seems an agreement is slowly emerging on the need for a "New Deal" for Israeli society. This may include tax reform and reduction, an opening of markets to achieve competitive prices, greater and improved regulation of the housing market and more government subsidized housing, and more extensive state support for social services.
The protests are focused on economics, but their most significant impact may be in Israel�s political arena. The leaders of Israel�s current government - Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - have been major figures in the country�s politics since the early 1990s, and their careers have focused on security. The protests have shifted Israel�s public discourse away from security to social issues, away from the comfort zone of the old guard. Although there is a leftist tone to the tent demonstrations, the protest leaders have maintained support from across the political spectrum and have attempted to maintain a nonpartisan line. Likud leaders understand the danger. Gideon Sa�ar, Israel�s education minister and one of Likud�s major figures, warned a Likud ministers� forum last week that �in the last 20 years, every time the elections were on economic and social issues, the Likud lost,� only winning �when the issue was security and negotiations.�
Left-wing Israelis are coming to the same realization, discovering that their salvation might come not from demanding an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but by representing the struggling middle class. Already, some in the protest movement have attacked the public funds that Israel devotes to the settlements at the expense, they say, of those living in Israel proper. The right wing realizes that should popular sentiment turn against the settlements for economic reasons, it could set the stage for a dramatic political shift and, ultimately, the resurrection of the Israeli left. That is perhaps why right-wing movements themselves have joined the protests and set up their own tents in Tel Aviv.
Despite the potential of the protests, the demonstrators have yet to establish a unified leadership and clear goals. The young age and strong Tel Aviv affiliation among the protesters may alienate the more conservative middle class in Israel�s periphery. And the leaders that have emerged are inexperienced and thus remain vulnerable to Netanyahu�s political maneuvering.
But despite Netanyahu�s efforts to outflank the demonstrators - at times he attempts to dismiss the protests and at others he seems to embrace them and meet their demands - the movement has continued unabated. Netanyahu thus faces a difficult path ahead. He can surrender to the protest movement and sacrifice many of the policies that he has enacted. Or he can attempt to co-opt the Israeli center with a renewed attempt to negotiate with the Palestinians. He may also try to ride out the protests and hope that all will pass. Yet the continued momentum of the protests indicates that Israelis may take their activism beyond their tents and express their desire for change at the ballot box. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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